Trí Đức English - IELTS Reading Practice: Ambergris TRÍ ĐỨC ENGLISH - IELTS READING PRACTICE Chuyên đề: Ambergris - What is it and where does it come from? (Reading Passage 1 - Questions 1–13) Reading Passage 1 Questions 1–13 Ambergris: What is it and where does it come from? [A] Ambergris remains a mystical matter for perfumers. Almost every civilization on the earth has been fascinated by the power of ambergris. In about 2000 BC, the Chinese already knew ambergris and named it as lung sien hiang, meaning "perfume of the dragon drool". Back then, the Chinese used it in pharmacy against the respiratory diseases and saved many lives. They were also the first to use it as herbs in the kitchen for culinary purposes. The Arabs knew ambergris as anbar, believing that it is produced from springs under seas. During the Middle Ages, Europeans invented a remedy based on ambergris for headaches, colds, epilepsy, and other illnesses. [B] In the 1851 whaling novel Moby-Dick , Herman Melville claimed that ambergris was "largely used in perfumery". But nobody ever knew where it really came from. People from all walks of life tried different searching methods, but still remained unsure of the originality. At various times, ambergris has been found in some strange and surprising places. In September 1908, the Hartford Courant reported a lucky find by a fisherman who discovered that one of his lobster traps contained a one-pound piece of ambergris. A year later, a news agency described the moment that the crew of the Hockomock, on its return to Boston, opened up one of several swordfish taken on the Georges Bank and discovered a large piece of ambergris inside it. It was noted that the piece was estimated to be worth $20,000 at that time. [C] People have been searching out pieces of ambergris on sandy beaches for countless ages. Its name, meaning "grey amber" distinguishes it from golden amber, another priceless treasure. Both types of amber are highly sought-after and are comparable in price to gold—ambergris sells for roughly $20 per gram compared to gold at $30 per gram. Amber floats in saltwater, and the origins of both types of amber were mysterious to people in the past, but it turns out that amber and ambergris have little in common. Amber is resin of trees which has become fossilized over time. It was familiar to Europeans even long before the discovery of America, and was highly sought-after for jewelry. In jewelry, amber is treated as a gem, although it is actually a wholly organic material—the resin of extinct species of trees, usually pines. [D] From early written records, it seems that ambergris was thought to come from various sources including the droppings of sea birds (possibly because the beaks of squid were sometimes found), or from the large hives of bees living near the sea. Marco Polo was the first Western chronicler who correctly attributed ambergris to the correct source—the vomit of sperm whales. ...