The Power of Nothing Reading IELTS Answers: Detailed Explanations, Tips & Sample Solutions

The IELTS Reading section evaluates a candidate’s ability to comprehend and interpret detailed texts. It consists of three long passages, each increasing in complexity, and must be completed within 60 minutes. Candidates are expected to manage their time efficiently, ideally spending no more than 20 minutes on each passage. The topics range from academic subjects to general interest content, requiring a strong grasp of vocabulary, sentence structure, and question types.

One of the commonly featured passages in the IELTS exam is titled “The Power of Nothing.” This reading passage explores the concept of the placebo effect and how it plays a significant role in both conventional and alternative forms of medicine. It discusses the psychological and physiological factors that influence patient outcomes, as well as how belief and perception contribute to the healing process.

The passage includes 13 questions spread across various formats, such as matching information to paragraphs and completing sentences with words from the text. In this article, you will find sample answers to help you understand the types of questions asked and how to locate the correct information in the passage. Practicing with passages like “The Power of Nothing” can strengthen your reading strategy and boost your confidence for the IELTS Reading test.

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IELTS Reading Answers for "The Power of Nothing" Passage

The passage below, "The Power of Nothing," is a very common Reading passage in the IELTS exam. Read the passage to answer questions 1—13, which are given below. 

The Power of Nothing

Geoff Watts, New Scientist (May 26th, 2001)

1. Want to devise a new form of alternative medicine? No problem. Here is the recipe. Be warm, sympathetic, reassuring and enthusiastic. Your treatment should involve physical contact, and each session with your patients should last at least half an hour. Encourage your patients to take an active part in their treatment and understand how their disorders relate to the rest of their lives. Tell them that their own bodies possess the true power to heal. Make them pay you out of their own pockets. Describe your treatment in familiar words, but embroidered with a hint of mysticism: energy fields, energy flows, energy blocks, meridians, forces, auras, rhythms and the like. Refer to the knowledge of an earlier age: wisdom carelessly swept aside by the rise and rise of blind, mechanistic  science. Oh, come off it, you are saying. Something invented off the top of your head could not possibly work, could it?
2. Well yes, it could – and often well enough to earn you a living. A good living if you are sufficiently convincing, or better still, really believe in your therapy. Many illnesses get better on their own, so if you are lucky and administer your treatment at just the right time you will get the credit. But that’s only part of it. Some of the improvement really would be down to you. Your healing power would be the outcome of a paradoxical force that conventional medicine recognizes but remains oddly ambivalent about: the placebo effect.
3. Placebos are treatments that have no direct effect on the body, yet still work because the patient has faith in their power to heal. Most often the term refers to a dummy pill, but it applies just as much to any device or procedure, from a sticking plaster to a crystal to an operation. The existence of the placebo effect implies that even quackery may confer real benefits, which is why any mention of placebo is a touchy subject for many practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine, who are likely to regard it as tantamount to a charge of charlatanism. In fact, the placebo effect is a powerful part of all medical care, orthodox or otherwise, though its role is often neglected or misunderstood.
4. One of the great strengths of CAM may be its practitioners’ skill in deploying the placebo effect to accomplish real healing. “Complementary practitioners are miles better at producing non-specific effects and good therapeutic relationships,” says Edzard Ernst, professor of CAM at Exeter University. The question is whether CAM could be integrated into conventional medicines, as some would like, without losing much of this power.
5. At one level, it should come as no surprise that our state of mind can influence our physiology: anger opens the superficial blood vessels of the face; sadness pumps the tear glands. But exactly how placebos work their medical magic is still largely unknown. Most of the scant research done so far has focused on the control of pain because it’s one of the commonest complaints and lends itself to experimental study. Here, attention has turned to the endorphins, morphine-like neurochemicals known to help control pain.
6. But exactly how placebos work their medical magic is still largely unknown. Most of the scant research to date has focused on the control of pain because it’s one of the commonest complaints and lends itself to experimental study. Here, attention has turned to the endorphins, natural counterparts of morphine that are known to help control pain. “Any of the neurochemicals involved in transmitting pain impulses or modulating them might also be involved in generating the placebo response,” says Don Price, an oral surgeon at the University of Florida who studies the placebo effect in dental pain.
7. “But endorphins are still out in front.” That case has been strengthened by the recent work of Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin, who showed that the placebo effect can be abolished by a drug, naloxone, which blocks the effects of endorphins. Benedetti induced pain in human volunteers by inflating a blood-pressure cuff on the forearm. He did this several times a day for several days, using morphine each time to control the pain. On the final day, without saying anything, he replaced the morphine with a saline solution. This still relieved the subjects’ pain: a placebo effect. But when he added naloxone to the saline the pain relief disappeared. Here was direct proof that placebo analgesia is mediated, at least in part, by these natural opiates.
8. Still, no one knows how belief triggers endorphin release, or why most people can’t achieve placebo pain relief simply by willing it. Though scientists don’t know exactly how placebos work, they have accumulated a fair bit of knowledge about how to trigger the effect. A London rheumatologist found, for example, that red dummy capsules made more effective painkillers than blue, green or yellow ones. Research on American students revealed that blue pills make better sedatives than pink, a colour more suitable for stimulants. Even branding can make a difference: if Aspro or Tylenol is what you like to take for a headache, their chemically identical generic equivalents may be less effective.
9. It matters, too, how the treatment is delivered. Decades ago, when the major tranquilliser chlorpromazine was being introduced, a doctor in Kansas categorised his colleagues according to whether they were keen on it, openly skeptical of its benefits, or took a “let’s try and see” attitude. His conclusion: the more enthusiastic the doctor, the better the drug performed. And this year Ernst surveyed published studies that compared doctors’ bedside manners. The studies turned up one consistent finding: “Physicians who adopt a warm, friendly and reassuring manner,” he reported, “are more effective than those whose consultations are formal and do not offer reassurance.”
10. Warm, friendly and reassuring are precisely CAM’s strong suits, of course. Many of the ingredients of that opening recipe – the physical contact, the generous swathes of time, the strong hints of supernormal healing power – are just the kind of thing likely to impress patients. It’s hardly surprising, then, that complementary practitioners are generally best at mobilising the placebo effect, says Arthur Kleinman, professor of social anthropology at Harvard University.

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The Power Of Nothing IELTS Reading Answers 

Questions 1-8

The above reading passage has paragraphs A- J

Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A- J in the boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet. 

NB You may use any letter more than once. 

1. The use of color and branding to enhance the placebo effect.

2. The importance of warmth and friendliness in medical consultations.

3. The description of complementary medicine’s strengths in mobilizing the placebo effect.

4. The explanation of how belief and endorphins are linked in placebo responses.

5. The suggestion that alternative medicine might lose its power if integrated with conventional medicine.

6. The claim that the placebo effect works in both alternative and conventional medicine.

7. The lack of a complete understanding of how placebos trigger physiological responses.

8. The observation that many illnesses improve without medical intervention.

Questions 9-13

Complete the sentences below. 

Write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the text for each answer.

9. Many illnesses improve naturally, and alternative practitioners often take the __________ for recovery.

10. Complementary practitioners excel at creating effective __________ relationships with their patients.

11. Research into placebos has mainly focused on the control of __________.

12. Natural pain control from placebos has been linked to __________ in the body.

13. The drug __________ can block the effects of endorphins and abolish placebo analgesia.

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IELTS Reading Answers for "The Power of Nothing"

1.

• Answer: H
• Answer Location: Paragraph H
• Explanation: This paragraph discusses how pill colours (like red or blue) and branding (e.g., Tylenol vs. generic) influence the effectiveness of placebo treatments.

2.

• Answer: I
• Answer Location: Paragraph I
• Explanation: It describes how a doctor's warm and friendly manner positively impacts patient outcomes, linking bedside manner to treatment effectiveness.

3.

• Answer: J
• Answer Location: Paragraph J
• Explanation: It outlines how complementary practitioners are especially effective at triggering placebo responses through patient interaction and time investment.

4.

• Answer: G
• Answer Location: Paragraph G
• Explanation: This paragraph details how belief leads to endorphin release and mentions naloxone blocking this effect, showing the biological link.

5.

• Answer: D
• Answer Location: Paragraph D
• Explanation: The text raises the concern that integrating CAM with conventional medicine may weaken its ability to harness placebo effects.

6.

• Answer: C
• Answer Location: Paragraph C
• Explanation: It clearly states that the placebo effect benefits both conventional and alternative medicine, though it's often misunderstood.

7.

• Answer: E
• Answer Location: Paragraph E
• Explanation: The paragraph emphasizes that the precise mechanism of how placebos work is still unknown, despite visible effects.

8.

• Answer: B
• Answer Location: Paragraph B
• Explanation: It notes that many illnesses improve on their own, which can make treatments appear effective even when they aren’t the actual cause.

9.

• Answer: credit
• Answer Location: Paragraph B
• Explanation: The text says that if a treatment is given at the right time, practitioners might get the "credit" even if the illness improved naturally.

10.

• Answer: therapeutic
• Answer Location: Paragraph D
• Explanation: The paragraph highlights how complementary practitioners are better at building effective "therapeutic relationships."

11.

• Answer: pain
• Answer Location: Paragraph E
• Explanation: Research on placebos has mainly focused on pain because it’s a common and measurable symptom.

12.

• Answer: endorphins
• Answer Location: Paragraph F
• Explanation: Endorphins are described as natural substances in the body linked to pain relief through the placebo effect.

13.

• Answer: naloxone
• Answer Location: Paragraph G
• Explanation: Naloxone is mentioned as the drug that blocks endorphins and eliminates placebo-induced pain relief.

Read more about: Tips For Reading in IELTS Exam | IELTS Academic Reading | IELTS Reading Tips And Tricks | IELTS General Reading Test |

Conclusion

"The Power of Nothing" is a popular IELTS Reading passage that explores the placebo effect, the role of belief in healing, and the impact of therapeutic relationships in both conventional and alternative medicine. 

Practicing with this IELTS passage helps you master key IELTS Reading question types such as matching information, sentence completion, and multiple-choice questions, all of which require careful analysis and attention to detail. 

If you want to improve your IELTS Reading skills or need expert support in tackling challenging passages like "The Power of Nothing," connect with upGrad experts for better guidance.