IELTS Reading: Mạng Xã Hội Thay Đổi Diễn Ngôn Chính Trị – Đề Thi Mẫu Có Đáp Án

Mở bài

Chủ đề về mạng xã hội và ảnh hưởng của nó đến các cuộc thảo luận chính trị đã trở thành một trong những chủ đề phổ biến nhất trong đề thi IELTS Reading những năm gần đây. Với sự phát triển vũ bão của các nền tảng như Facebook, Twitter và TikTok, cách thức con người trao đổi, tiếp nhận và hình thành quan điểm chính trị đã có những biến đổi căn bản. Chủ đề này thường xuyên xuất hiện trong các đề thi IELTS chính thức với nhiều góc độ khác nhau, từ tác động xã hội đến những thách thức về thông tin sai lệch.

Trong bài viết này, bạn sẽ được trải nghiệm một đề thi IELTS Reading hoàn chỉnh với ba passages có độ khó tăng dần từ Easy (Band 5.0-6.5) đến Medium (Band 6.0-7.5) và Hard (Band 7.0-9.0). Đề thi bao gồm 40 câu hỏi đa dạng các dạng bài giống như thi thật, kèm theo đáp án chi tiết và giải thích cụ thể. Bạn cũng sẽ được trang bị một kho từ vựng chuyên ngành phong phú và các kỹ thuật làm bài hiệu quả.

Đề thi này phù hợp cho học viên từ band 5.0 trở lên, giúp bạn làm quen với format chuẩn IELTS và rèn luyện khả năng đọc hiểu học thuật một cách bài bản nhất.

1. Hướng Dẫn Làm Bài IELTS Reading

Tổng Quan Về IELTS Reading Test

IELTS Reading Test kéo dài 60 phút với 3 passages và tổng cộng 40 câu hỏi. Mỗi câu trả lời đúng được tính 1 điểm, không có điểm âm cho câu sai. Độ khó của các passages tăng dần, trong đó:

Phân bổ thời gian khuyến nghị:

• Passage 1: 15-17 phút (độ khó thấp nhất)
• Passage 2: 18-20 phút (độ khó trung bình)
• Passage 3: 23-25 phút (độ khó cao nhất)

Lưu ý quan trọng: Bạn cần tự quản lý thời gian vì không có thời gian riêng để chuyển đáp án. Hãy viết đáp án trực tiếp lên answer sheet trong khi làm bài.

Các Dạng Câu Hỏi Trong Đề Này

Đề thi mẫu này bao gồm 7 dạng câu hỏi phổ biến nhất trong IELTS Reading:

1. Multiple Choice – Trắc nghiệm nhiều lựa chọn
2. True/False/Not Given – Xác định thông tin đúng/sai/không có
3. Matching Information – Nối thông tin với đoạn văn
4. Sentence Completion – Hoàn thành câu
5. Matching Headings – Nối tiêu đề với đoạn văn
6. Summary Completion – Hoàn thành đoạn tóm tắt
7. Short-answer Questions – Câu hỏi trả lời ngắn

2. IELTS Reading Practice Test

PASSAGE 1 – The Social Media Revolution in Politics

Độ khó: Easy (Band 5.0-6.5)

Thời gian đề xuất: 15-17 phút

Over the past two decades, social media platforms have fundamentally transformed how politicians communicate with voters and how citizens engage in political discourse. What began as simple networking sites have evolved into powerful tools that shape public opinion, mobilize voters, and even influence election outcomes. This transformation represents one of the most significant changes in democratic participation since the invention of television.

The early days of political social media use were relatively simple. In 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign pioneered the use of social networking sites to connect with young voters, raise funds, and organize grassroots movements. His campaign’s innovative approach demonstrated that politicians could bypass traditional media gatekeepers like newspapers and television networks to speak directly to voters. This direct communication channel proved revolutionary, allowing candidates to control their message without journalistic interpretation or editing.

Today, nearly every politician maintains an active presence on multiple social media platforms. Twitter, now rebranded as X, has become particularly influential, with politicians using it to make policy announcements, respond to critics, and shape news cycles. Facebook remains crucial for reaching older demographics and organizing local political events. Meanwhile, newer platforms like TikTok and Instagram have emerged as essential tools for connecting with younger voters through short, engaging video content. The immediacy of these platforms means that political messages can reach millions of people within minutes, creating an unprecedented level of real-time engagement.

However, this transformation has not been without challenges. The speed and reach of social media have introduced new problems into political communication. Misinformation and disinformation can spread just as quickly as legitimate news, often reaching more people because false or sensational content tends to generate more engagement metrics like shares and comments. Research has shown that false news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than true stories, creating an environment where lies can travel faster than truth.

The phenomenon of echo chambers represents another significant concern. Social media algorithms are designed to show users content similar to what they have previously engaged with, creating filter bubbles where people primarily encounter information that confirms their existing beliefs. This algorithmic curation can reinforce political polarization, as users become less exposed to diverse viewpoints and more entrenched in their positions. Studies have found that people who get their news primarily from social media have more extreme political views than those who consume news from a variety of sources.

Political advertising on social media has also raised ethical questions. Unlike traditional television advertisements, which are regulated and subject to transparency requirements, social media political ads can be microtargeted to specific demographics with remarkable precision. Campaigns can show different messages to different groups of voters, making it difficult for the public or journalists to scrutinize what politicians are promising to whom. This targeted messaging capability was central to several controversial political campaigns, including the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum.

Despite these challenges, social media has undeniably democratized political communication in meaningful ways. Ordinary citizens now have platforms to voice their opinions, organize protests, and hold politicians accountable. Hashtag movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have demonstrated how social media can amplify marginalized voices and create pressure for policy change. Political newcomers without connections to traditional power structures can build followings and launch successful campaigns based on the strength of their social media presence alone.

The Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 provided dramatic evidence of social media’s power to facilitate political mobilization. Protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries used Facebook and Twitter to coordinate demonstrations, share information about government crackdowns, and attract international attention to their causes. While the long-term outcomes of these movements varied, they proved that social media could enable collective action on a scale previously impossible without formal organizational structures.

Looking forward, the relationship between social media and politics will continue to evolve. Platforms are under increasing pressure to combat misinformation, regulate political advertising, and address concerns about algorithmic bias. Some countries have implemented regulations requiring social media companies to remove false content or provide more transparency about political ads. Meanwhile, politicians are constantly adapting their strategies to take advantage of new features and emerging platforms, ensuring that the digital transformation of political discourse remains an ongoing process rather than a completed revolution.

Questions 1-5: Multiple Choice

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.

1. According to the passage, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign was significant because it:
   A) Was the first to use television advertising
   B) Allowed direct communication without media filtering
   C) Focused exclusively on young voters
   D) Spent more money than previous campaigns

2. What does the passage suggest about false news on social media?
   A) It is less common than true news
   B) It receives more engagement than true stories
   C) It only affects older users
   D) It is primarily spread by politicians

3. The term “echo chambers” in the passage refers to:
   A) Spaces where people encounter diverse opinions
   B) Environments where similar views are reinforced
   C) Physical locations for political meetings
   D) Sound recording equipment used in campaigns

4. Political advertising on social media differs from television ads because it:
   A) Costs more money to produce
   B) Reaches fewer people overall
   C) Can be precisely targeted to specific groups
   D) Is more heavily regulated

5. The Arab Spring example illustrates social media’s ability to:
   A) Replace traditional governments
   B) Guarantee successful political outcomes
   C) Enable large-scale coordination and action
   D) Prevent government responses to protests

Questions 6-9: True/False/Not Given

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? Write:

• TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
• FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
• NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

6. Twitter is the most popular social media platform among all age groups for political content.

7. Social media algorithms intentionally promote false information over accurate news.

8. The 2016 US presidential election involved controversial use of targeted social media advertising.

9. All Arab Spring movements resulted in successful democratic transitions.

Questions 10-13: Sentence Completion

Complete the sentences below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

10. Social media platforms allow politicians to avoid __ who traditionally controlled access to voters.

11. Research shows that false stories receive 70% more __ than true stories on social media.

12. People who primarily get news from social media tend to hold more __ compared to those using diverse sources.

13. Movements like #BlackLivesMatter demonstrate how social media can amplify __ and create pressure for change.

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PASSAGE 2 – The Psychology of Political Engagement Online

Độ khó: Medium (Band 6.0-7.5)

Thời gian đề xuất: 18-20 phút

The emergence of social media as a dominant force in political communication has prompted researchers to investigate the psychological mechanisms underlying how people engage with political content online. These platforms have created new dynamics that differ significantly from traditional forms of political participation, with profound implications for democratic societies. Understanding these psychological factors is crucial for comprehending both the opportunities and risks that social media presents to civic engagement.

A. The Role of Emotional Contagion

One of the most significant findings in recent research concerns emotional contagion—the phenomenon whereby emotions spread from person to person through social networks. Political content that evokes strong emotions, particularly anger and fear, tends to generate substantially more engagement than neutral or positive content. A landmark study conducted by researchers at New York University analyzed millions of tweets and found that each moral-emotional word in a message increased its virality by approximately 20%. This creates perverse incentives for political actors, who discover that inflammatory rhetoric and divisive messaging attract more attention than nuanced policy discussions.

The architecture of social media platforms amplifies this effect through feedback loops. When users post emotionally charged content that receives likes, shares, and comments, they experience psychological rewards in the form of dopamine releases—the same neurochemical associated with addictive behaviors. This reward mechanism encourages users to continue producing similar content, gradually escalating the emotional intensity of political discourse. Research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has demonstrated that social media notifications activate the same brain regions involved in reward processing as do gambling and substance abuse.

B. Identity and Tribal Affiliation

Social media has intensified the role of group identity in political behavior. The platforms enable users to signal their political affiliations continuously through the content they share, the pages they follow, and the comments they post. This constant identity performance transforms political beliefs from occasional considerations into central components of self-concept. Social psychologists note that when political identity becomes deeply intertwined with personal identity, individuals become more resistant to contradictory information and more motivated to defend their political tribe against perceived threats.

The phenomenon of in-group favoritism and out-group hostility becomes particularly pronounced in online environments. Social media makes it easy to identify who belongs to which political tribe through profile information, shared content, and expressed opinions. Research has shown that people experience neural responses associated with disgust when viewing social media content from political opponents, suggesting that political disagreements online trigger visceral, automatic reactions rather than deliberative reasoning. This tribalistic response contributes to the increasingly adversarial nature of online political discourse.

C. The Illusion of Knowledge and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Social media creates what researchers call an “illusion of explanatory depth“—users feel they understand complex political issues more thoroughly than they actually do because they are constantly exposed to simplified narratives and partisan talking points. A study published in the journal Psychological Science found that people who spend more time on social media overestimate their understanding of policy issues compared to those who engage with in-depth journalism or academic sources.

This phenomenon relates to the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias whereby individuals with limited knowledge in a domain systematically overestimate their competence. Social media environments, which reward confident assertions over epistemic humility, create conditions where the Dunning-Kruger effect flourishes. Users who have read a few viral posts about climate change, healthcare policy, or international relations may feel qualified to dismiss expert consensus, contributing to the broader erosion of epistemic authority in public discourse.

D. Confirmation Bias and Motivated Reasoning

The human tendency toward confirmation bias—seeking and interpreting information in ways that confirm preexisting beliefs—operates with particular force on social media. Platform algorithms that prioritize engagement metrics inadvertently amplify confirmation bias by showing users content aligned with their existing viewpoints. However, the problem extends beyond algorithmic curation; users actively engage in selective exposure, choosing to follow accounts and join groups that reinforce their political perspectives while avoiding or blocking sources of disagreement.

Motivated reasoning—the subconscious tendency to process information in ways that serve desired conclusions—becomes especially problematic in social media contexts. When confronted with fact-checks or contradictory evidence, users often engage in elaborate rationalization rather than revising their beliefs. Research by political scientists has documented that fact-checking can paradoxically strengthen misperceptions among some users through what is known as the backfire effect, whereby corrections actually reinforce the original false belief by drawing additional attention to it.

E. The Collective Action Problem

Despite concerns about polarization and misinformation, social media has demonstrated remarkable capacity to facilitate collective action by solving traditional coordination problems. Historically, organizing protests, boycotts, or political movements required substantial resources and formal organizational structures. Social media dramatically reduces these transaction costs, enabling individuals to coordinate actions without centralized leadership or significant financial investment.

The logic of connective action, as theorized by communication scholars Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, suggests that social media enables a new form of political organization based on personalized engagement rather than collective identity forged through formal membership. Individuals can participate in political movements by sharing content, using hashtags, or attending events without necessarily joining organizations or adopting rigid ideological frameworks. This fluidity creates both opportunities for broader participation and challenges related to movement coherence and strategic coordination.

F. Implications for Democratic Discourse

The psychological dynamics of political engagement on social media present a paradox for democratic societies. These platforms have democratized access to political communication, enabling previously marginalized voices to participate in public discourse and organizing grassroots movements with unprecedented efficiency. Simultaneously, the same features that enable this democratization—algorithmic curation, engagement-driven content distribution, and frictionless sharing—create conditions that can undermine deliberative democracy by promoting emotional reactivity over rational deliberation and tribal loyalty over cross-partisan dialogue.

Addressing these challenges requires interventions at multiple levels, from individual media literacy efforts to platform design changes and regulatory frameworks. Researchers emphasize that technological determinism—the belief that technology alone shapes social outcomes—is misguided. Rather, the relationship between social media and political psychology represents a complex interaction between platform affordances, human psychology, commercial incentives, and broader socio-political contexts. Understanding this complexity is essential for developing solutions that preserve the democratic benefits of social media while mitigating its corrosive effects on political discourse.

Questions 14-19: Matching Headings

Choose the correct heading for sections A-F from the list of headings below.

List of Headings:
i. The challenge of organizing protests online
ii. How emotions spread through political networks
iii. The role of algorithms in content distribution
iv. Why people overestimate their political knowledge
v. Group membership and political tribalism
vi. Balancing democratic benefits and communication problems
vii. How users interpret contradictory information
viii. The impact of neurochemical responses
ix. Traditional media versus new media

14. Section A
15. Section B
16. Section C
17. Section D
18. Section E
19. Section F

Questions 20-23: Yes/No/Not Given

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer? Write:

• YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
• NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
• NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

20. Social media platforms intentionally design features to promote inflammatory political content.

21. Brain scan research supports the connection between social media notifications and reward-seeking behavior.

22. The Dunning-Kruger effect is unique to social media environments.

23. Fact-checking always reduces the spread of political misinformation.

Questions 24-26: Summary Completion

Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Social media has changed how people organize political action by reducing the (24) __ traditionally required for coordination. The theory of (25) __ suggests that modern movements allow personalized participation without requiring formal membership. However, this flexibility creates challenges for maintaining (26) __ within movements.

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PASSAGE 3 – The Epistemological Crisis in Digital Political Discourse

Độ khó: Hard (Band 7.0-9.0)

Thời gian đề xuất: 23-25 phút

The advent of social media platforms as primary vectors for political communication has precipitated what numerous scholars characterize as an epistemological crisis—a fundamental breakdown in society’s mechanisms for establishing what constitutes reliable knowledge and authoritative truth. This crisis transcends mere concerns about misinformation or partisan bias, striking at the foundational question of how democratic societies can maintain a shared epistemic framework necessary for collective decision-making when citizens increasingly inhabit fragmented information ecosystems with incompatible understandings of reality.

The Collapse of Epistemic Gatekeeping

Traditional media ecosystems, despite their well-documented flaws including ideological bias and corporate influence, maintained certain epistemic norms that provided guardrails for public discourse. Journalistic standards such as verification, fact-checking, editorial oversight, and source attribution created quality control mechanisms that, while imperfect, established baseline criteria for information entering the public sphere. The institutional authority of established news organizations, whatever their limitations, provided citizens with heuristics—mental shortcuts—for assessing information credibility. If a story appeared in reputable publications, readers could assume it had undergone some vetting process.

Social media platforms have effectively dismantled these gatekeeping structures without constructing adequate replacements. The algorithmic curation that determines what content users encounter privileges engagement metrics—clicks, shares, comments, watch time—rather than epistemic quality or factual accuracy. This creates what the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen terms “value capture,” whereby the genuine values that should govern information ecosystems (truth, accuracy, comprehensiveness) are replaced by easily measurable proxies (engagement, virality) that correlate poorly with epistemic quality and may actually favor its opposite.

The consequences manifest in phenomena like coordinated inauthentic behavior, wherein state actors and political operatives deploy networks of fake accounts to artificially amplify messages, creating false impressions of grassroots support or widespread belief in particular narratives. Research by the Oxford Internet Institute has documented systematic information operations in over 80 countries, demonstrating that manipulation of online political discourse represents not an aberration but a central feature of contemporary digital politics. The Russian Internet Research Agency’s interference in the 2016 US election exemplified how relatively modest investments in social media manipulation could achieve disproportionate impact on political discourse and potentially electoral outcomes.

Epistemic Fragmentation and Parallel Realities

Perhaps more troubling than deliberate disinformation is the organic process whereby social media facilitates the development of incompatible epistemic communities—groups of citizens who not only hold different political values but operate from fundamentally different factual premises about the world. The selective exposure and algorithmic filtering inherent in social media platforms enable users to construct information diets that systematically exclude perspectives and evidence challenging their existing worldviews. Research employing network analysis has demonstrated increasing ideological segregation in online information networks, with cross-partisan information exchange declining substantially over the past decade.

This segregation extends beyond political opinions to encompass basic empirical claims about observable reality. Studies of social media discourse surrounding contentious issues—climate change, vaccine safety, election integrity—reveal that different communities develop not merely different interpretations of shared facts but entirely different sets of putative facts, with each community maintaining internal coherence through cross-referential networks of sources that vouch for each other’s credibility while dismissing external sources as biased or compromised. This creates what the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci describes as “modular information environments,” wherein each political tribe possesses its own news sources, its own experts, and its own evidentiary standards that validate its worldview while immunizing adherents against contrary evidence.

The philosophical implications are profound. Democratic deliberation presupposes the possibility of rational persuasion—that citizens can change each other’s minds through evidence and argument. This possibility rests on shared epistemic foundations: agreement about what counts as evidence, who qualifies as a credible expert, and what standards govern valid inference from data to conclusion. When these foundations fracture, political disagreement ceases to be a matter of competing values applied to shared facts and becomes instead an incommensurable conflict between groups operating in parallel epistemic realities. Under such conditions, political compromise becomes conceptually problematic, as the very premises for negotiation—a shared understanding of the issues at stake—have dissolved.

The Attention Economy and Cognitive Capitalism

Understanding the epistemological crisis requires examining the economic substrate of social media platforms. These companies operate within what scholars term the “attention economy,” wherein user attention constitutes the scarce resource that platforms harvest and sell to advertisers. This business model creates structural incentives for platform design choices that maximize engagement and screen time, irrespective of consequences for information quality or civic discourse. The result is what Shoshana Zuboff characterizes as “surveillance capitalism“—an economic system that commodifies human attention and behavior, optimizing for addictive engagement rather than informed citizenship.

The mechanics of algorithmic amplification exemplify these problematic incentives. Platform algorithms learn to identify content that generates engagement, which research consistently shows correlates strongly with emotional arousal, particularly negative emotions such as anger, fear, and outrage. A leaked internal report from Facebook revealed that the platform’s algorithms inherently favor “divisive content,” with company researchers noting that “our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness.” When presented with this finding, company leadership declined to modify algorithms in ways that would reduce divisiveness, citing concerns about decreased user engagement and therefore advertising revenue.

This creates a race to the bottom in information quality, wherein content producers—whether journalists, activists, or foreign influence operations—must adapt their output to satisfy algorithmic preferences or face irrelevance in the attention marketplace. Measured, nuanced political commentary struggles to compete with sensationalized conspiracy theories, not because of superior argumentative merit but because epistemic quality and engagement potential have become inversely correlated within platform architectures optimized for the latter at the expense of the former.

Potential Remedies and Their Limitations

Proposed solutions to social media’s epistemological pathologies range from individual-level media literacy initiatives to platform-level design changes to governmental regulation. Each approach faces significant obstacles. Media literacy education, while valuable, struggles to scale sufficiently and confronts the challenge that cognitive biases and motivated reasoning affect even well-educated individuals—indeed, research suggests that political sophistication sometimes correlates with greater susceptibility to partisan misinformation, as knowledgeable partisans possess more resources to rationalize congenial falsehoods.

Platform-level reforms face commercial impediments, as proposals that would improve epistemic quality—reducing emotional content amplification, increasing content moderation, prioritizing authoritative sources—often conflict with engagement maximization and therefore platform profitability. Facebook’s News Feed algorithm changes in 2018, intended to prioritize “meaningful social interactions,” inadvertently increased the visibility of polarizing content and hyperpartisan sources because such content generates more comments and shares. This illustrates the difficulty of aligning commercial incentives with epistemic values within the attention economy’s structure.

Regulatory approaches confront constitutional limitations (especially regarding free speech protections in countries like the United States), technical complexities of moderating content at massive scale, and risks of government overreach if authorities gain extensive powers to determine what information citizens may access online. The European Union’s Digital Services Act represents the most comprehensive regulatory framework to date, mandating transparency in algorithmic systems and imposing content moderation obligations on platforms, but its effectiveness remains uncertain, and such approaches may prove difficult to implement in political contexts less supportive of speech regulation.

Conclusion: Democracy in the Post-Truth Era

The epistemological challenges that social media poses to political discourse resist simple solutions precisely because they emerge from the interaction of human psychology, technological architecture, economic incentives, and political polarization—a configuration that no single intervention can adequately address. The Enlightenment assumption that free circulation of information would naturally lead to truth’s triumph over falsehood has proven naïve in an environment where information abundance paradoxically enables epistemic closure and where technological mediation of communication allows systematic exploitation of cognitive vulnerabilities.

Whether democratic societies can develop institutional innovations capable of preserving both freedom of expression and the epistemic preconditions for effective self-governance represents perhaps the central political question of the twenty-first century. The answer will determine not merely the quality of political discourse but the viability of democratic governance itself in an age where shared reality can no longer be taken for granted.

Questions 27-31: Multiple Choice

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.

27. According to the passage, traditional media’s main epistemic advantage was that it:
    A) Was completely unbiased and objective
    B) Provided quality control mechanisms for information
    C) Prevented all false information from spreading
    D) Was controlled by government authorities

28. The concept of “value capture” refers to:
    A) The replacement of epistemic quality with engagement metrics
    B) The financial value of user data to advertisers
    C) The capture of news organizations by political interests
    D) Government censorship of online content

29. What does the passage suggest about Facebook’s 2018 News Feed changes?
    A) They successfully reduced political polarization
    B) They were blocked by government regulators
    C) They inadvertently increased polarizing content
    D) They eliminated fake news from the platform

30. The passage indicates that media literacy education is limited because:
    A) It is too expensive to implement widely
    B) Cognitive biases affect even educated individuals
    C) Young people refuse to participate in such programs
    D) It conflicts with free speech principles

31. The “Enlightenment assumption” mentioned in the final section refers to the belief that:
    A) Technology would eventually solve political problems
    B) Free information flow would naturally favor truth
    C) Democracy would spread globally without resistance
    D) Social media would replace traditional institutions

Questions 32-36: Matching Features

Match each researcher or organization (32-36) with their correct contribution (A-H).

Researchers/Organizations:
32. C. Thi Nguyen
33. Oxford Internet Institute
34. Zeynep Tufekci
35. Shoshana Zuboff
36. European Union

Contributions:
A) Documented information operations in over 80 countries
B) Created the first social media platform
C) Developed the concept of “surveillance capitalism”
D) Introduced the term “value capture”
E) Described “modular information environments”
F) Conducted brain research on political behavior
G) Implemented the Digital Services Act
H) Founded the Internet Research Agency

Questions 37-40: Short-answer Questions

Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

37. What type of emotions do algorithms favor according to research on engagement?

38. What term describes organized networks of fake accounts used to manipulate online discourse?

39. What phrase describes the economic system where user attention is commodified and sold?

40. What does the passage identify as requiring protection for democracy to function in the digital age?

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3. Answer Keys – Đáp Án

PASSAGE 1: Questions 1-13

1. B
2. B
3. B
4. C
5. C
6. NOT GIVEN
7. FALSE
8. TRUE
9. FALSE
10. traditional/media gatekeepers
11. retweets
12. extreme political views / extreme views
13. marginalized voices

PASSAGE 2: Questions 14-26

14. ii
15. v
16. iv
17. vii
18. i
19. vi
20. NOT GIVEN
21. YES
22. NO
23. NO
24. transaction costs
25. connective action
26. movement coherence

PASSAGE 3: Questions 27-40

27. B
28. A
29. C
30. B
31. B
32. D
33. A
34. E
35. C
36. G
37. negative emotions / anger / fear (bất kỳ một trong các đáp án)
38. coordinated inauthentic behavior
39. attention economy
40. epistemic preconditions / shared reality (cả hai đều được chấp nhận)

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4. Giải Thích Đáp Án Chi Tiết

Passage 1 – Giải Thích

Câu 1: B

• Dạng câu hỏi: Multiple Choice
• Từ khóa: Barack Obama, 2008 campaign, significant
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn 2, dòng 2-5
• Giải thích: Bài đọc nói rõ “His campaign’s innovative approach demonstrated that politicians could bypass traditional media gatekeepers… to speak directly to voters. This direct communication channel proved revolutionary”. Đây là paraphrase của đáp án B – “allowed direct communication without media filtering”. Các đáp án khác không được nhắc đến hoặc không chính xác.

Câu 2: B

• Dạng câu hỏi: Multiple Choice
• Từ khóa: false news, social media
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn 4, dòng 3-5
• Giải thích: Câu “false news stories are 70% more likely to be retweeted than true stories” và “false or sensational content tends to generate more engagement metrics” cho thấy tin giả nhận được nhiều tương tác hơn. Đây chính xác là đáp án B.

Câu 3: B

• Dạng câu hỏi: Multiple Choice
• Từ khóa: echo chambers
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn 5, dòng 1-4
• Giải thích: Bài viết giải thích echo chambers là “where people primarily encounter information that confirms their existing beliefs”, có nghĩa là môi trường nơi quan điểm tương tự được củng cố, chính xác là đáp án B.

Câu 6: NOT GIVEN

• Dạng câu hỏi: True/False/Not Given
• Giải thích: Bài viết chỉ nói Twitter “has become particularly influential” và Facebook “remains crucial for reaching older demographics”, nhưng không so sánh mức độ phổ biến của Twitter với các nền tảng khác ở tất cả nhóm tuổi.

Câu 7: FALSE

• Dạng câu hỏi: True/False/Not Given
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn 5
• Giải thích: Bài viết nói thuật toán được thiết kế để hiển thị nội dung tương tự với những gì người dùng đã tương tác, không phải “intentionally promote false information”. Câu này mâu thuẫn với thông tin trong bài.

Câu 8: TRUE

• Dạng câu hỏi: True/False/Not Given
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn 6, dòng cuối
• Giải thích: Bài viết nói rõ “This targeted messaging capability was central to several controversial political campaigns, including the 2016 US presidential election”, khớp hoàn toàn với câu phát biểu.

Câu 10: traditional/media gatekeepers

• Dạng câu hỏi: Sentence Completion
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn 2, dòng 3
• Giải thích: Câu gốc: “politicians could bypass traditional media gatekeepers like newspapers and television networks”. Đây là từ xuất hiện nguyên văn trong bài.

Câu 12: extreme political views / extreme views

• Dạng câu hỏi: Sentence Completion
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn 5, dòng cuối
• Giải thích: “Studies have found that people who get their news primarily from social media have more extreme political views” – đây là thông tin trực tiếp từ bài đọc.

Mạng xã hội thay đổi cách truyền thông chính trị hiện đại trong IELTS Reading

Passage 2 – Giải Thích

Câu 14: ii

• Dạng câu hỏi: Matching Headings
• Giải thích: Section A thảo luận về “emotional contagion”—cách cảm xúc lan truyền qua mạng xã hội và cách nội dung chính trị gợi cảm xúc mạnh tạo ra nhiều tương tác hơn. Heading “How emotions spread through political networks” phù hợp nhất.

Câu 15: v

• Dạng câu hỏi: Matching Headings
• Giải thích: Section B tập trung vào “group identity”, “tribal affiliation”, “in-group favoritism” và “out-group hostility”. Heading “Group membership and political tribalism” tóm tắt chính xác nội dung này.

Câu 16: iv

• Dạng câu hỏi: Matching Headings
• Giải thích: Section C nói về “illusion of explanatory depth” và “Dunning-Kruger effect”—các hiện tượng khiến người dùng đánh giá quá cao sự hiểu biết của họ. Heading “Why people overestimate their political knowledge” là đáp án chính xác.

Câu 17: vii

• Dạng câu hỏi: Matching Headings
• Giải thích: Section D thảo luận “confirmation bias”, “motivated reasoning” và “backfire effect”—cách người dùng xử lý thông tin mâu thuẫn với niềm tin của họ. Heading “How users interpret contradictory information” phù hợp.

Câu 21: YES

• Dạng câu hỏi: Yes/No/Not Given
• Vị trí trong bài: Section A, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: Bài viết nói rõ “Research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has demonstrated that social media notifications activate the same brain regions involved in reward processing”. Điều này hỗ trợ mối liên hệ giữa thông báo mạng xã hội và hành vi tìm kiếm phần thưởng.

Câu 22: NO

• Dạng câu hỏi: Yes/No/Not Given
• Vị trí trong bài: Section C, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: Bài viết chỉ nói rằng môi trường mạng xã hội tạo điều kiện cho Dunning-Kruger effect phát triển mạnh (“create conditions where the Dunning-Kruger effect flourishes”), không nói rằng hiệu ứng này chỉ duy nhất ở mạng xã hội. Đây là một hiệu ứng tâm lý tổng quát.

Câu 23: NO

• Dạng câu hỏi: Yes/No/Not Given
• Vị trí trong bài: Section D, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: Bài viết nói “fact-checking can paradoxically strengthen misperceptions among some users through what is known as the backfire effect”, cho thấy việc kiểm tra sự thật không phải lúc nào cũng giảm thông tin sai lệch, mà đôi khi còn củng cố nó.

Câu 24: transaction costs

• Dạng câu hỏi: Summary Completion
• Vị trí trong bài: Section E, đoạn 1
• Giải thích: Câu gốc: “Social media dramatically reduces these transaction costs, enabling individuals to coordinate actions without centralized leadership”.

Câu 25: connective action

• Dạng câu hỏi: Summary Completion
• Vị trí trong bài: Section E, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: “The logic of connective action, as theorized by communication scholars Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, suggests that social media enables a new form of political organization”.

Passage 3 – Giải Thích

Câu 27: B

• Dạng câu hỏi: Multiple Choice
• Từ khóa: traditional media, epistemic advantage
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “The Collapse of Epistemic Gatekeeping”, đoạn 1
• Giải thích: Bài viết nói rằng phương tiện truyền thông truyền thống “maintained certain epistemic norms that provided guardrails” và “created quality control mechanisms that… established baseline criteria for information”. Đây chính xác là đáp án B. Đáp án A sai vì bài viết thừa nhận “well-documented flaws including ideological bias”.

Câu 28: A

• Dạng câu hỏi: Multiple Choice
• Từ khóa: value capture
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “The Collapse of Epistemic Gatekeeping”, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: Khái niệm được giải thích là “the genuine values that should govern information ecosystems (truth, accuracy, comprehensiveness) are replaced by easily measurable proxies (engagement, virality)”. Đây là đáp án A.

Câu 29: C

• Dạng câu hỏi: Multiple Choice
• Từ khóa: Facebook, 2018, News Feed changes
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “Potential Remedies and Their Limitations”, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: “Facebook’s News Feed algorithm changes in 2018… inadvertently increased the visibility of polarizing content and hyperpartisan sources”. Từ “inadvertently” cho thấy đây là hậu quả ngoài ý muốn, khớp với đáp án C.

Câu 30: B

• Dạng câu hỏi: Multiple Choice
• Từ khóa: media literacy education, limited
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “Potential Remedies and Their Limitations”, đoạn 1
• Giải thích: “Media literacy education… confronts the challenge that cognitive biases and motivated reasoning affect even well-educated individuals”. Đây chính xác là đáp án B.

Câu 32: D

• Dạng câu hỏi: Matching Features
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “The Collapse of Epistemic Gatekeeping”, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: Bài viết nói “This creates what the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen terms ‘value capture'”. Nguyen được ghi nhận là người đưa ra thuật ngữ này.

Câu 33: A

• Dạng câu hỏi: Matching Features
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “The Collapse of Epistemic Gatekeeping”, đoạn 3
• Giải thích: “Research by the Oxford Internet Institute has documented systematic information operations in over 80 countries”. Đây là công trình nghiên cứu của tổ chức này.

Câu 34: E

• Dạng câu hỏi: Matching Features
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “Epistemic Fragmentation and Parallel Realities”, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: “This creates what the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci describes as ‘modular information environments'”. Tufekci là người mô tả khái niệm này.

Câu 37: negative emotions / anger / fear

• Dạng câu hỏi: Short-answer Questions
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “The Attention Economy and Cognitive Capitalism”, đoạn 2
• Giải thích: “Platform algorithms learn to identify content that generates engagement, which research consistently shows correlates strongly with emotional arousal, particularly negative emotions such as anger, fear, and outrage”. Bất kỳ một trong các đáp án đều được chấp nhận.

Câu 38: coordinated inauthentic behavior

• Dạng câu hỏi: Short-answer Questions
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “The Collapse of Epistemic Gatekeeping”, đoạn 3
• Giải thích: “The consequences manifest in phenomena like coordinated inauthentic behavior, wherein state actors and political operatives deploy networks of fake accounts”. Đây là thuật ngữ chính xác trong bài.

Câu 39: attention economy

• Dạng câu hỏi: Short-answer Questions
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “The Attention Economy and Cognitive Capitalism”, đoạn 1
• Giải thích: “These companies operate within what scholars term the ‘attention economy,’ wherein user attention constitutes the scarce resource that platforms harvest and sell to advertisers”.

Câu 40: epistemic preconditions / shared reality

• Dạng câu hỏi: Short-answer Questions
• Vị trí trong bài: Đoạn “Conclusion: Democracy in the Post-Truth Era”
• Giải thích: Câu cuối cùng nói về “preserving both freedom of expression and the epistemic preconditions for effective self-governance” và đề cập đến “shared reality can no longer be taken for granted”. Cả hai cụm từ đều có thể là đáp án chính xác.

Tâm lý học về tương tác chính trị trên mạng xã hội trong bài thi IELTS

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5. Từ Vựng Quan Trọng Theo Passage

Passage 1 – Essential Vocabulary

Từ vựng	Loại từ	Phiên âm	Nghĩa tiếng Việt	Ví dụ từ bài	Collocation
discourse	n	/ˈdɪskɔːrs/	diễn ngôn, cuộc thảo luận	political discourse	public discourse, democratic discourse
grassroots	adj	/ˈɡrɑːsruːts/	cơ sở, quần chúng	grassroots movements	grassroots campaign, grassroots level
misinformation	n	/ˌmɪsɪnfəˈmeɪʃn/	thông tin sai lệch	spread misinformation	combat misinformation, viral misinformation
echo chamber	n	/ˈekəʊ ˈtʃeɪmbə(r)/	buồng vang (môi trường chỉ nghe ý kiến đồng thuận)	phenomenon of echo chambers	online echo chamber, political echo chamber
polarization	n	/ˌpəʊləraɪˈzeɪʃn/	sự phân cực	political polarization	social polarization, increasing polarization
microtarget	v	/ˈmaɪkrəʊˌtɑːɡɪt/	nhắm mục tiêu vi mô	ads can be microtargeted	microtargeted advertising, microtargeted messages
accountability	n	/əˌkaʊntəˈbɪləti/	trách nhiệm giải trình	hold politicians accountable	ensure accountability, demand accountability
mobilization	n	/ˌməʊbəlaɪˈzeɪʃn/	sự huy động, vận động	political mobilization	mass mobilization, voter mobilization
amplify	v	/ˈæmplɪfaɪ/	khuếch đại, phóng to	amplify marginalized voices	amplify the message, amplify concerns
transparency	n	/trænsˈpærənsi/	tính minh bạch	transparency requirements	lack transparency, ensure transparency
algorithmic	adj	/ˌælɡəˈrɪðmɪk/	thuộc về thuật toán	algorithmic curation	algorithmic bias, algorithmic filtering
disinformation	n	/ˌdɪsɪnfəˈmeɪʃn/	thông tin giả mạo (cố ý)	spread disinformation	combat disinformation, disinformation campaign

Passage 2 – Essential Vocabulary

Từ vựng	Loại từ	Phiên âm	Nghĩa tiếng Việt	Ví dụ từ bài	Collocation
contagion	n	/kənˈteɪdʒən/	sự lây lan	emotional contagion	social contagion, viral contagion
inflammatory	adj	/ɪnˈflæmətri/	kích động, gây hấn	inflammatory rhetoric	inflammatory language, inflammatory content
virality	n	/vaɪˈræləti/	tính lan truyền mạnh	increased virality	achieve virality, content virality
dopamine	n	/ˈdəʊpəmiːn/	dopamine (chất hóa học não)	dopamine releases	dopamine hit, dopamine reward
tribal	adj	/ˈtraɪbl/	thuộc bộ lạc, phe nhóm	tribal affiliation	tribal mentality, tribal politics
cognitive bias	n	/ˈkɒɡnətɪv ˈbaɪəs/	thiên kiến nhận thức	Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias	overcome cognitive bias, common cognitive bias
epistemic	adj	/ˌepɪˈstiːmɪk/	thuộc nhận thức luận	epistemic humility	epistemic authority, epistemic crisis
confirmation bias	n	/ˌkɒnfəˈmeɪʃn ˈbaɪəs/	thiên kiến xác nhận	tendency toward confirmation bias	exhibit confirmation bias, overcome confirmation bias
backfire effect	n	/ˈbækfaɪə(r) ɪˈfekt/	hiệu ứng phản tác dụng	corrections trigger the backfire effect	experience backfire effect, avoid backfire effect
collective action	n	/kəˈlektɪv ˈækʃn/	hành động tập thể	facilitate collective action	organize collective action, collective action problem
connective	adj	/kəˈnektɪv/	kết nối	logic of connective action	connective tissue, connective power
deliberative	adj	/dɪˈlɪbərətɪv/	có tính thảo luận, cân nhắc	deliberative democracy	deliberative process, deliberative discussion
paradox	n	/ˈpærədɒks/	nghịch lý	present a paradox	apparent paradox, central paradox
media literacy	n	/ˈmiːdiə ˈlɪtərəsi/	hiểu biết về phương tiện truyền thông	individual media literacy efforts	improve media literacy, media literacy education
cross-partisan	adj	/krɒs ˈpɑːtɪzn/	liên đảng phái	cross-partisan dialogue	cross-partisan cooperation, cross-partisan agreement

Passage 3 – Essential Vocabulary

Từ vựng	Loại từ	Phiên âm	Nghĩa tiếng Việt	Ví dụ từ bài	Collocation
epistemological	adj	/ɪˌpɪstɪməˈlɒdʒɪkl/	thuộc nhận thức luận	epistemological crisis	epistemological problem, epistemological framework
precipitate	v	/prɪˈsɪpɪteɪt/	gây ra, thúc đẩy (điều tiêu cực)	precipitated a crisis	precipitate change, precipitate conflict
gatekeeping	n	/ˈɡeɪtkiːpɪŋ/	kiểm soát thông tin	collapse of gatekeeping	media gatekeeping, editorial gatekeeping
heuristic	n	/hjʊˈrɪstɪk/	phương pháp rút gọn (quy tắc ngón tay cái)	provided heuristics	mental heuristic, cognitive heuristic
inauthentic	adj	/ˌɪnɔːˈθentɪk/	không chân thực, giả mạo	coordinated inauthentic behavior	inauthentic content, inauthentic accounts
disproportionate	adj	/ˌdɪsprəˈpɔːʃənət/	không cân xứng, quá mức	disproportionate impact	disproportionate influence, disproportionate effect
incompatible	adj	/ˌɪnkəmˈpætəbl/	không tương thích	incompatible epistemic communities	incompatible beliefs, incompatible worldviews
incommensurable	adj	/ˌɪnkəˈmenʃərəbl/	không thể so sánh được	incommensurable conflict	incommensurable values, incommensurable perspectives
substrate	n	/ˈsʌbstreɪt/	nền tảng, cơ sở	economic substrate	cultural substrate, social substrate
commodify	v	/kəˈmɒdɪfaɪ/	biến thành hàng hóa	commodifies human attention	commodify data, commodify information
surveillance capitalism	n	/səˈveɪləns ˈkæpɪtəlɪzm/	chủ nghĩa tư bản giám sát	characterized as surveillance capitalism	practices of surveillance capitalism, rise of surveillance capitalism
divisive	adj	/dɪˈvaɪsɪv/	gây chia rẽ	divisive content	divisive rhetoric, divisive politics
pathology	n	/pəˈθɒlədʒi/	bệnh lý, vấn đề	epistemological pathologies	social pathology, digital pathology
constitutional	adj	/ˌkɒnstɪˈtjuːʃənl/	thuộc hiến pháp	constitutional limitations	constitutional right, constitutional framework
Enlightenment	n	/ɪnˈlaɪtnmənt/	thời kỳ Khai sáng	Enlightenment assumption	Enlightenment values, Enlightenment ideals
epistemic closure	n	/ɪˈpɪstemɪk ˈkləʊʒə(r)/	đóng kín nhận thức	enables epistemic closure	experience epistemic closure, problem of epistemic closure
viability	n	/ˌvaɪəˈbɪləti/	tính khả thi, khả năng tồn tại	viability of democratic governance	economic viability, long-term viability

Chiến lược làm bài IELTS Reading về chủ đề mạng xã hội chính trị

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Kết bài

Chủ đề về mạng xã hội và tác động của nó đến diễn ngôn chính trị là một trong những chủ đề thời sự và quan trọng nhất trong các kỳ thi IELTS Reading hiện nay. Qua đề thi mẫu này, bạn đã được trải nghiệm một bài thi hoàn chỉnh với ba passages có độ khó tăng dần, phản ánh chính xác cấu trúc và yêu cầu của kỳ thi thực tế.

Passage 1 đã cung cấp nền tảng về sự thay đổi cơ bản trong giao tiếp chính trị thông qua mạng xã hội, phù hợp với band 5.0-6.5. Passage 2 đi sâu vào các cơ chế tâm lý đằng sau tương tác chính trị trực tuyến, thách thức những học viên hướng tới band 6.0-7.5. Passage 3 khám phá cuộc khủng hoảng nhận thức luận trong thời đại số, đòi hỏi khả năng đọc hiểu học thuật cao dành cho band 7.0-9.0.

Đáp án chi tiết kèm theo giải thích cụ thể về vị trí thông tin và kỹ thuật paraphrase sẽ giúp bạn hiểu rõ cách tiếp cận từng dạng câu hỏi. Bộ từ vựng chuyên ngành phong phú với hơn 40 từ và cụm từ quan trọng sẽ là công cụ hữu ích cho việc mở rộng vốn từ học thuật của bạn.

Hãy thực hành đề thi này trong điều kiện thi thật—60 phút liên tục không gián đoạn—để đánh giá chính xác trình độ hiện tại và xác định những điểm cần cải thiện. Tương tự như Impact of digital technology on global communications, chủ đề về công nghệ và truyền thông đang ngày càng phổ biến trong IELTS Reading. Đối với những ai quan tâm đến The role of artificial intelligence in healthcare, việc làm quen với các chủ đề công nghệ hiện đại sẽ vô cùng hữu ích cho kỳ thi của bạn.

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