IELTS Reading: Why fairy tales are really scary tales 🧚‍♀️👻

I had a special request from Isabella on Instagram today 👋🇧🇷. She asked me to look at a really difficult text (yes, this one's 9/10!). It's an Academic Passage 3 and it follows the Reading Type 2 structure (discursive) which goes like this - Title: asks a question (Why? The answer is not what everyone thinks). 1. Old theory: Everyone thinks fairy tales have endured because the STORIES give us WARNINGS about life e.g. Little Red Riding Hood. 2. New theory: Everyone is wrong. There's another reason. 3. Test to prove the old theory is wrong: Is the STORY important? 'NO'. Is the WARNING important? Answer: 'NO'. 4. Results of the test: The reason why fairy tales have endured is just that people enjoy scary stories. 5. Althernative theory (instantly proved wrong): The stories remain relevant because they're about women as victims. 6. Conclusion: Everyone likes scary stories because they build up our resistance to negative emotions, so the first theory is probably right. You can find similar 'discursive' structures here: What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island? Is there anybody out there? The search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Autumn Leaves Canadian writer Jay Ingram investigates the mystery of why leaves turn red in the fall. My updated guide to Time Management in the Reading Test gives you 8 techniques to help you improve your Reading Speed for the #ielts test.