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Read the passage and choose the best answer for each question.
In 2019, a team of scientists won a prestigious prize for proving that wombats produce cube-shaped droppings. The audience gave them a standing ovation. The prize was an Ig Nobel, an award given every year at Harvard University for scientific research that, in the organisers' words, "first makes people laugh, and then makes them think."
Since 1991, the ceremony has honoured hundreds of genuine, peer-reviewed studies. The questions they investigate are wonderfully strange. Why do woodpeckers not get headaches? Why does buttered toast usually land butter-side down? Is a cat a solid or a liquid? Real Nobel Prize winners hand out the awards on stage, treating the research with the same respect as any serious science.
The ceremony has its own strange traditions. Winners once received a prize worth ten trillion Zimbabwean dollars. It was a real banknote, though almost worthless in everyday currency because of the country's past inflation. Acceptance speeches are limited to sixty seconds. If a winner talks too long, a young girl nicknamed "Miss Sweetie Poo" walks onto the stage. She repeats, "Please stop, I'm bored," until they leave. Behind the jokes is a serious goal: showing the public that science can be funny, curious, and completely worth paying attention to.
This B1 English reading introduces the Ig Nobel Prize, a real Harvard University award for genuine scientific research that is both funny and thought-provoking. It's a fun way to build vocabulary around science, humour, and ceremony while practising serious reading skills.
Look out for the writer's use of specific, surprising details (a wombat's droppings, a ten-trillion-dollar banknote, a bored child on stage) to support a bigger idea about science and public engagement. Using details as evidence for a main idea is exactly what B1 and IELTS reading questions test.
Keep practising with related reading and grammar units at your level.
Bu B1 İngilizce okuma parçası, önce insanları güldüren sonra düşündüren gerçek bilimsel araştırmalara verilen Harvard ödülü Ig Nobel'i tanıtır — küp şeklindeki vombat dışkısından tostun neden tereyağlı tarafı aşağı düştüğüne kadar. Bilim ve mizah kelimelerini öğrenir, B1 seviyesinde tarama ve çıkarım becerilerinizi geliştirirsiniz; her sorunun cevabı ve açıklaması vardır.
“Ig Nobel Ödülleri: Sizi Güldüren Bilim – B1 İngilizce Okuma (Sorularıyla ve Cevaplı)” için tüm B1 okuma soruları, her biri doğru cevabı ve kısa bir açıklamayla birlikte. Yukarıdaki metni okuyun, etkileşimli alıştırmaları deneyin, ardından cevaplarınızı burada kontrol edin.
1. What did the scientists in the passage's opening example win a prize for?
Cevap: Proving that wombats produce cube-shaped droppings
Correct. The text opens with exactly this example. The other options are inventions from later in the passage's list of past winning topics, not the opening example.
2. What is the Ig Nobel Prize's stated goal, according to the text?
Cevap: To make people laugh first, and then make them think
Correct. This is a direct quote from the organisers in paragraph 1. The prize does not replace or compete with the real Nobel Prize — real Nobel winners present it.
3. Since what year has the Ig Nobel ceremony been honouring unusual research?
Cevap: 1991
Correct. The text states "Since 1991, the ceremony has honoured hundreds of genuine, peer-reviewed studies." 2019 is only the year of the opening wombat example, not the ceremony's founding.
4. Who hands out the Ig Nobel awards on stage?
Cevap: Real Nobel Prize winners
Correct. The text states "Real Nobel Prize winners hand out the awards on stage." No comedians, students, or officials are mentioned.
5. Why was the ten-trillion-dollar prize almost worthless, according to the text?
Cevap: Zimbabwe's currency had suffered serious inflation in its past
Correct. The text says it was "a real banknote, though almost worthless in everyday currency because of the country's past inflation." It was real, not fake, so that distractor is directly contradicted.
6. What happens if an Ig Nobel winner's acceptance speech goes on too long?
Cevap: A young girl nicknamed "Miss Sweetie Poo" repeats a phrase until they stop
Correct. The text names this exact tradition and quotes her repeated line, "Please stop, I'm bored." No microphone shutoff or security removal is mentioned.
7. What is the writer's overall point about the purpose of the Ig Nobel Prize?
Cevap: Behind its jokes, it seriously aims to show the public that science can be funny and worth attention
Correct. The final sentence states this directly: "Behind the jokes is a serious goal: showing the public that science can be funny, curious, and completely worth paying attention to." The studies are explicitly called "genuine, peer-reviewed," so the last two distractors are contradicted by the text.
1. Which option does not belong?
Cevap: dolphins
The passage names woodpeckers (headaches), toast (falling butter-side down), and wombats (cube-shaped droppings) as real Ig Nobel research topics. Dolphins are never mentioned.
2. Which option does not belong?
Cevap: made-up
The text stresses that the studies are "genuine, peer-reviewed" and treated with real scientific respect, even though they are also funny. "Made-up" is the opposite of how the passage describes them.
3. Which option does not belong?
Cevap:
The passage describes the sixty-second limit, real Nobel winners presenting, and "Miss Sweetie Poo" stopping long speeches — but never mentions a dinner afterwards.
4. Which option does not belong?
Cevap: cry
The prize's stated purpose is exactly to make people "laugh, and then... think," and the final paragraph calls the research "curious" (close to wonder). Crying is never part of that stated goal.
5. Which option does not belong?
Cevap: one hundred
1991 (founding year), sixty seconds (speech limit), and ten trillion (the Zimbabwean banknote's face value) all appear in the text. "One hundred" is never mentioned.
6. Which option does not belong?
Cevap: flying saucers
Cube-shaped droppings (wombats), headaches (woodpeckers), and butter-side down (toast) are all real Ig Nobel research topics named in the text. Flying saucers are never mentioned.