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IELTS Academic Reading Sample 143 - Why Pagodas Don’t Fall Down

Mời các bạn thử sức bản thân thông qua việc giải những bài tập trong IELTS Academic Reading Sample 143 - Why Pagodas Don’t Fall Down sau đây. Tài liệu phục vụ cho các bạn đang chuẩn bị cho kỳ thi sắp tới. | You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 143 below WHY PAGODAS DON T FALL DOWN In a land swept by typhoons and shaken by earthquakes how has Japan s tallest and seemingly flimsiest old buildings - 500 or so wooden pagodas-remained standing for centuries Records show that only two have collapsed during the past 1400 years. Those that have disappeared were destroyed by fire as a result of lightning or civil war. The disastrous Hanshin earthquake in 1995 killed 6 400 people toppled elevated highways flattened office blocks and devastated the port area of Kobe. Yet it left the magnificent five- storey pagoda at the Toji temple in nearby Kyoto unscathed though it level led a number of buildings in the neighbourhood. Japanese scholars have been mystified for ages about why these tall slender buildings are so stable. It was only thirty years ago that the building industry felt confident enough to erect office blocks of steel and reinforced concrete that had more than a dozen floors. With its special shock absorbers to dampen the effect of sudden sideways movements from an earthquake the thirty-six- storey Kasumigaseki building in central Tokyo-Japan s first skyscraper was considered a masterpiece of modern engineering when it was built in 1968. Yet in 826 with only pegs and wedges to keep his wooden structure upright the master builder Kobodaishi had no hesitation in sending his majestic Toji pagoda soaring fifty-five meters into the sky-nearly half as high as the Kasumigaseki skyscraper built some eleven centuries later. Clearly Japanese carpenters of the day knew a few tricks about allowing a building to sway and settle itself rather than fight nature s forces. But what sort of tricks The multi-storey pagoda came to Japan from China in the sixth century. As in China they were first introduced with Buddhism and were attached to important temples. The Chinese built their pagodas in brick or stone with inner staircases and .