Exam Prep — IELTS & TCF Canada

Below is our full list of IELTS reading questions with answers. Note: The red links are our most popular and recommended reading questions rated by our students and you can practice them free anytime you like. IELTS Reading Practice Test Guide The remainder of this guide will teach you everything about the IELTS reading test for both the general training and academic reading test. You'll learn about how the reading score is calculated, learn how to answer each reading question type successfully, improve your reading with IELTS text material, and master our 3 strategies for your IELTS reading practice success. Table Of Contents IELTS Reading Test Information The IELTS Reading Test consists of 3 sections and a total of 40 questions. In general, you will answer 12-14 questions for each section and are given exactly 60 minutes to complete your reading exam. Each section contains 1-3 passages depending on which test you're taking. If you know the test you're taking, you can skip the next couple sections. If you don't, it's important to learn about each test and how to prepare for them. Which IELTS Reading Test Is Right For Me? The IELTS reading test has two versions: IELTS General Reading and IELTS Academic Reading. You'll take General Reading if you're looking to migrate or enroll into high school. You'll take Academic Reading if you're looking for higher education. The biggest difference between general reading and academic reading is the difficulty in the IELTS reading passages. As the name implies, the academic test uses IELTS reading material from academic resources, while the general test uses material from everyday life. Both tests contain 3 sections, 40 questions, and 11 question types. You can read about each section in detail for both tests in the table below. Now that you're familiar with the IELTS reading test structure and both IELTS general reading and IELTS academic reading, it's time to learn if you're better off taking the paper-based test or the computer-based test. IELTS Paper-based Test(PBT) VS IELTS Computer-based Test(CBT) In the PBT, you will be given a Question Booklet and an Answer Sheet. The Question Booklet is where you will see all the questions you need to answer. The Answer Sheet is where you will write your final answers for grading. You can check out the official IELTS answer sheet pdf here Note: Unlike in the IELTS listening test, you will not be given extra time to transfer your answers from the booklet to the answer sheet, so make sure you add each IELTS reading test question into the answer sheet as you answer them. In the CBT, you will answer questions on the computer. Your passages will be on the left-hand side and your questions will be on the right-hand side. You will also be able to highlight text and use control functions to copy and paste answers. For more information about the PBT and the CBT, check out The IELTS Computer Based Test Guide. You can practice either version anytime you like with our free IELTS reading practice test. You can find links to all our IELTS reading material at the top of the page. General IELTS Reading Test In the general test, the IELTS reading passages are taken from books, magazines, newspapers, notices, advertisements, company handbooks and guidelines found from material you would encounter on a daily-basis in an English-speaking environment. Just like in the academic reading test, there are 3 sections, however in an IELTS general reading test, each section is a bit different from one another. IELTS General Reading Introduction Video - Section 1: Contains two or three short texts or several shorter texts This section is called Social Survival and it contains texts relevant to basic linguistic survival in English with tasks mainly about retrieving and providing general factual information, for example, notices, advertisements and timetables. - Section 2: Comprises two texts This section is called Workplace Survival and focuses on the workplace context, for example, job descriptions, contracts and staff development and training materials. - Section 3: Is one long text This section is called General Reading and involves reading more extended prose with a more complex structure. The focus is on descriptive and instructive instead of argumentative texts. I hope you're not feeling too overwhelmed. The reading test is not as difficult as it seems. As long as you follow our IELTS reading tips and utilize our free IELTS reading practice questions, you'll be ready to handle any reading passage and achieve your target IELTS reading score. By the way, the academic reading test is scored slightly different from the general reading test. Next, we'll go over the reading band score and how they are calculated. Academic IELTS Reading Test In the academic test, the IELTS reading passages are taken from books, journals, magazines, and newspapers from academic sources that would be appropriate for university students. Each passage is long, maybe 6 - 10 paragraphs, may be written in a variety of styles like narrative or descriptive, and covers a wide range of academic topics such as anthropology, history, science, biology, art, education, linguistics,..etc. The passages will sometimes include technical terms or even visual material such as charts and graphs. You can practice these topics and more with our IELTS reading practice test questions. IELTS Academic Reading Introduction Video So which academic topics appear the most in the official IELTS Academic Reading Test? Well in 2018 & 2019, the most common academic reading topics were history and social sciences, which includes culture, education, linguistics, and sociology. Interestingly, the history topics were mostly about animals/plants of New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and Canada. The next most popular IELTS reading topics were psychology, natural science, art, anthropology, business, and biology. The chart below shows different subjects tested in academic IELTS reading tests in 2018 and 2019. Because of these trends, we made sure our IELTS reading practice tests covered these topics. We have also added reading samples from less used topics, just in case. It's important you prepare for all situations, because you never know what IELTS reading topic you will get. How your IELTS Reading Score is Calculated Each IELTS reading question is worth 1 point, so you can get a "raw" score of up to 40 points. Then, your raw score will be converted into your band score. The tables below can give you a general idea about how raw IELTS reading scores are converted to band scores for each test. However, keep in mind that each version of the IELTS reading test is slightly different and the score required to achieve a certain band changes depending on how everyone who took that test did on that particular day. Therefore, the number of correct answers needed to get a band score will differ slightly from test to test, but in general you should be aiming to get around 30 out of 40 if you want to get a band 7 score. Another thing we want to remind you is that the hardest questions and the easiest questions count equally towards your final reading score, so make sure you're not losing out on easier points by getting stuck on harder questions. Next we'll cover some IELTS reading tips and strategies on how to answer each reading test question. IELTS Reading Tips - How to Answer the 11 Reading Question Types There are 11 different question types on the reading test and all of them require a different strategy. Therefore, it is important you practice each question type to learn the best way to tackle it for a high IELTS reading score. In the following sections, you'll look at an IELTS reading sample with answer for each reading question type and learn tips on how to answer them successfully. Question Type 2 – Matching Headings This question type tests your ability to understand the main idea of each paragraph. You will be given between 5 and 7 headings and you have to match each paragraph in the reading text to one heading. A heading is a short sentence that summarise the information in a paragraph. There are always more headings than paragraphs. Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Matching Headings Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Reading Passage 6 Section A The conviction that historical relics provide infallible testimony about the past is rooted in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when science was regarded as objective and value free. As one writer observes: 'Although it is now evident that artefacts are as easily altered as chronicles, public faith in their veracity endures: a tangible relic seems ipso facto real/ Such conviction was, until recently, reflected in museum displays. Museums used to look - and some still do - much like storage rooms of objects packed together in showcases: good for scholars who wanted to study the subtle differences in design, but not for the ordinary visitor, to whom it all looked alike. Similarly, the information accompanying the objects often made little sense to the lay visitor. The content and format of explanations dated back to a time when the museum was the exclusive domain of the scientific researcher. Section B Recently, however, attitudes towards history and the way it should be presented have altered. The key word in heritage display is now 'experience', the more exciting the better and, if possible, involving all the senses. Good examples of this approach in the UK are the Jorvik Centre in York; the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford; and the Imperial War Museum in London. In the US the trend emerged much earlier: Williamsburg has been a prototype for many heritage developments in other parts of the world. No one can predict where the process will end. On so-called heritage sites the re-enactment of historical events is increasingly popular, and computers will soon provide virtual reality experiences, which will present visitors with a vivid image of the period of their choice, in which they themselves can act as if part of the historical environment. Such developments have been criticised as an intolerable vulgarisation, but the success of many historical theme parks and similar locations suggests that the majority of the public does not share this opinion. Section C In a related development, the sharp distinction between museum and heritage sites on the one hand, and theme parks on the other, is gradually evaporating. They already borrow ideas and concepts from one another. For example, museums have adopted story lines for exhibitions, sites have accepted 'theming' as a relevant tool, and theme parks are moving towards more authenticity and research-based presentations. In zoos, animals are no longer kept in cages, but in great spaces, either in the open air or in enormous greenhouses, such as the jungle and desert environments in Burgers' Zoo in Holland. This particular trend is regarded as one of the major developments in the presentation of natural history in the twentieth century. Section D Theme parks are undergoing other changes,too, as they try to present more serious social and cultural issues, and move away from fantasy. This development is a response to market forces and, although museums and heritage sites have a special, rather distinct role to fulfil, they are also operating in a very competitive environment, where visitors make choices on how and where to spend their free time. Heritage and museum experts do not have to invent stories and recreate historical environments to attract their visitors: their assets are already in place. However, exhibits must be both based on artifacts and facts as we know them, and attractively presented. Those who are professionally engaged in the art of interpreting history are thus in a difficult position, as they must steer a narrow course between the demands of 'evidence' and 'attractiveness' especially given the increasing need in the heritage industry for income-generating activities. Section E It could be claimed that in order to make everything in heritage more 'real', historical accuracy must be increasingly altered. For example, Pithecanthropus erectus is depicted in an Indonesian museum with Malay facial features, because this corresponds to public perceptions. Similarly, in the Museum of Natural History in Washington, Neanderthal man is shown making a dominant gesture to his wife. Such presentations tell us more about contemporary perceptions of the world than about our ancestors. There is one compensation, however, for the professionals who make these interpretations: if they did not provide the interpretation, visitors would do it for themselves, based on their own ideas, misconceptions and prejudices. And no matter how exciting the result it would contain a lot more bias than the presentations provided by experts. Section F Human bias is inevitable, but another source of bias in the representation of history has to do with the transitory nature of the materials themselves. The simple fact is that not everything from history survives the historical process. Castles, palaces and cathedrals have a longer lifespan than the dwellings of ordinary people. The same applies to the furnishings and other contents of the premises. In a town like Leyden in Holland, which in the seventeenth century was occupied by approximately the same number of inhabitants as today, people lived within the walled town, an area more than five times smaller than modern Leyden. In most of the houses several families lived together in circumstances beyond our imagination. Yet in museums, fine period rooms give only an image of the lifestyle of the upper class of that era. No wonder that people who stroll around exhibitions are filled with nostalgia; the evidence in museums indicates that life was so much better in the past. This notion is induced by the bias in its representation in museums and heritage centres. Question Type 3 – Matching Features In this test type, you are required to match a list of options to a set of statements. The options are a group of features from the IELTS text, and are identified by letters. For example, you might match different research findings to a list of researchers, or characteristics to age groups, events to historical periods, etc. Note that it is possible that some options will not be used, and that others may be used more than once. The instructions will inform you if options may be used more than once. Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Matching Features Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Questions 7 – 10 Look at the following items (Questions 7-10) and the list of groups below. Match each item with the group which first invented or used them. Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 7-10 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once. - black powder - rocket-propelled arrows for fighting - rockets as war weapons - the rocket First invented or used by A the Chinese B the Indians C the British D the Arabs E the Americans Answer sheet Reading Passage The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of 'black powder'. Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. They base their belief on studies of Chinese writings or on the notebooks of early Europeans who settled in or made long visits to China to study its history and civilisation. It is probable that, some time in the tenth century, black powder was first compounded from its basic ingredients of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. But this does not mean that it was immediately used to propel rockets. By the thirteenth century, powder- propelled fire arrows had become rather common. The Chinese relied on this type of technological development to produce incendiary projectiles of many sorts, explosive grenades and possibly cannons to repel their enemies. One such weapon was the 'basket of fire' or, as directly translated from Chinese, the 'arrows like flying leopards'. The 0.7 metre-long arrows, each with a long tube of gunpowder attached near the point of each arrow, could be fired from a long, octagonal-shaped basket at the same time and had a range of 400 paces. Another weapon was the 'arrow as a flying sabre', which could be fired from crossbows. The rocket, placed in a similar position to other rocket-propelled arrows, was designed to increase the range. A small iron weight was attached to the 1.5m bamboo shaft, just below the feathers, to increase the arrow's stability by moving the centre of gravity to a position below the rocket. At a similar time, the Arabs had developed the 'egg which moves and burns'. This 'egg' was apparently full of gunpowder and stabilised by a 1.5m tail. It was fired using two rockets attached to either side of this tail. It was not until the eighteenth century that Europe became seriously interested in the possibilities of using the rocket itself as a weapon of war and not just to propel other weapons. Prior to this, rockets were used only in pyrotechnic displays. The incentive for the more aggressive use of rockets came not from within the European continent but from far-away India, whose leaders had built up a corps of rocketeers and used rockets successfully against the British in the late eighteenth century. The Indian rockets used against the British were described by a British Captain serving in India as 'an iron envelope about 200 millimetres long and 40 millimetres in diameter with sharp points at the top and a 3m-long bamboo guiding stick'. In the early nineteenth century the British began to experiment with incendiary barrage rockets. The British rocket differed from the Indian version in that it was completely encased in a stout, iron cylinder, terminating in a conical head, measuring one metre in diameter and having a stick almost five metres long and constructed in such a way that it could be firmly attached to the body of the rocket. The Americans developed a rocket, complete with its own launcher, to use against the Mexicans in the mid-nineteenth century. A long cylindrical tube was propped up by two sticks and fastened to the top of the launcher, thereby allowing the rockets to be inserted and lit from the other end. However, the results were sometimes not that impressive as the behaviour of the rockets in flight was less than predictable. Question Type 5 – Identifying Writer's Views/claims In this question type, you will be given a number of statements and asked: Do the following statements agree with the views/claims of the writer? You are required to write YES, NO or NOT GIVEN in the boxes on their answer sheet. NO means that the views or claims of the writer explicitly disagree with the statement. NOT GIVEN means that the view or claim is neither confirmed nor contradicted. Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Identifying Writer's Views/Claims Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Questions 4 – 7 Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in the reading passage? In boxes 4-7 on your answer sheet write YES if the statement reflects 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 - Thirty per cent of deaths in the United States are caused by smoking-relateddiseases. - If one partner in a marriage smokes, the other is likely to take up smoking - Teenagers whose parents smoke are at risk of getting lung cancer at some time during their lives. - Opponents of smoking financed the UCSF study. Answer sheet Reading Passage Discovered in the early 1800s and named 'nicotianine', the oily essence now called nicotine is the main active ingredient of tobacco. Nicotine, however, is only a small component of cigarette smoke, which contains more than 4,700 chemical compounds, including 43 cancer-causing substances. In recent times, scientific research has been providing evidence that years of cigarette smoking vastly increases the risk of developing fatal medical conditions. In addition to being responsible for more than 85 per cent of lung cancers, smoking is associated with cancers of, amongst others, the mouth, stomach and kidneys, and is thought to cause about 14 per cent of leukemia and cervical cancers. In 1990, smoking caused more than 84,000 deaths, mainly resulting from such problems as pneumonia, bronchitis and influenza. Smoking, it is believed, is responsible for 30 per cent of all deaths from cancer and clearly represents the most important preventable cause of cancer in countries like the United States today. Passive smoking, the breathing in of the side-stream smoke from the burning of tobacco between puffs or of the smoke exhaled by a smoker, also causes a serious health risk. A report published in 1992 by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emphasized the health dangers, especially from side-stream smoke. This type of smoke contains more smaller particles and is therefore more likely to be deposited deep in the lungs. On the basis of this report, the EPA has classified environmental tobacco smoke in the highest risk category for causing cancer. As an illustration of the health risks, in the case of a married couple where one partner is a smoker and one a non-smoker, the latter is believed to have a 30 per cent higher risk of death from heart disease because of passive smoking. The risk of lung cancer also increases over the years of exposure and the figure jumps to 80 per cent if the spouse has been smoking four packs a day for 20 years. It has been calculated that 17 per cent of cases of lung cancer can be attributed to high levels of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke during childhood and adolescence. A more recent study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) has shown that second-hand cigarette smoke does more harm to non-smokers than to smokers. Leaving aside the philosophical question of whether anyone should have to breathe someone else's cigarette smoke, the report suggests that the smoke experienced by many people in their daily lives is enough to produce substantial adverse effects on a person's heart and lungs. The report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA), was based on the researchers' own earlier research but also includes a review of studies over the past few years. The American Medical Association represents about half of all US doctors and is a strong opponent of smoking. The study suggests that people who smoke cigarettes are continually damaging their cardiovascular system, which adapts in order to compensate for the effects of smoking. It further states that people who do not smoke do not have the benefit of their system adapting to the smoke inhalation. Consequently, the effects of passive smoking are far greater on non-smokers than on smokers. This report emphasizes that cancer is not caused by a single element in cigarette smoke; harmful effects to health are caused by many components. Carbon monoxide, for example, competes with oxygen in red blood cells and interferes with the blood's ability to deliver life-giving oxygen to the heart. Nicotine and other toxins in cigarette smoke activate small blood cells called platelets, which increases the likelihood of blood clots, thereby affecting blood circulation throughout the body. The researchers criticize the practice of some scientific consultants who work with the tobacco industry for assuming that cigarette smoke has the same impact on smokers as it does on non-smokers. They argue that those scientists are underestimating the damage done by passive smoking and, in support of their recent findings, cite some previous research which points to passive smoking as the cause for between 30,000 and 60,000 deaths from heart attacks each year in the United States. This means that passive smoking is the third most preventable cause of death after active smoking and alcohol-related diseases The study argues that the type of action needed against passive smoking should be similar to that being taken against illegal drugs and AIDS (SIDA). The UCSF researchers maintain that the simplest and most cost-effective action is to establish smoke-free work places, schools and public places. Question Type 6 – Multiple Choice On the IELTS academic reading test and the IELTS general reading test, you will need to answer multiple choice questions. Each multiple choice question will vary in terms of how many answer choices you need to select and the question type you'll be asked. The different number of answer choices - Choosing one answer out of four options (The most common) - Choosing two answers out of five options - Choosing three answers out of six options The question type - Completing a sentence - Answering a question Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Multiple Choice Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Questions 10 – 12 Choose the appropriate letters A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 10-12 on your answer sheet. 10. Research completed in 1982 found that in the United States soil erosion - reduced the productivity of farmland by 20 per cent. - was almost as severe as in India and China. - was causing significant damage to 20 per cent of farmland. - could be reduced by converting cultivated land to meadow or forest. 11. By the mid-1980s, farmers in Denmark - used 50 per cent less fertiliser than Dutch farmers. - used twice as much fertiliser as they had in 1960. - applied fertiliser much more frequently than in 1960. - more than doubled the amount of pesticide they used in just 3 years. 12.Which one of the following increased in New Zealand after 1984? - farm incomes - use of fertiliser - over-stocking - farm diversification Answer sheet IELTS Reading Passage All these activities may have damaging environmental impacts. For example, land clearing for agriculture is the largest single cause of deforestation; chemical fertilisers and pesticides may contaminate water supplies; more intensive farming and the abandonment of fallow periods tend to exacerbate soil erosion; and the spread of monoculture and use of high- yielding varieties of crops have been accompanied by the disappearance of old varieties of food plants which might have provided some insurance against pests or diseases in future. Soil erosion threatens the productivity of land in both rich and poor countries. The United States, where the most careful measurements have been done, discovered in 1982 that about one-fifth of its farmland was losing topsoil at a rate likely to diminish the soil's productivity. The country subsequently embarked upon a program to convert 11 per cent of its cropped land to meadow or forest. Topsoil in India and China is vanishing much faster than in America. Government policies have frequently compounded the environmental damage that farming can cause. In the rich countries, subsidies for growing crops and price supports for farm output drive up the price of land. The annual value of these subsidies is immense: about $250 billion, or more than all World Bank lending in the 1980s. To increase the output of crops per acre, a farmer's easiest option is to use more of the most readily available inputs: fertilisers and pesticides. Fertiliser use doubled in Denmark in the period 1960-1985 and increased in The Netherlands by 150 per cent. The quantity of pesticides applied has risen too: by 69 per cent in 1975-1984 in Denmark, for example, with a rise of 115 per cent in the frequency of application in the three years from 1981. In the late 1980s and early 1990s some efforts were made to reduce farm subsidies. The most dramatic example was that of New Zealand, which scrapped most farm support in 1984. A study of the environmental effects, conducted in 1993, found that the end of fertiliser subsidies had been followed by a fall in fertiliser use (a fall compounded by the decline in world commodity prices, which cut farm incomes). The removal of subsidies also stopped land-clearing and over-stocking, which in the past had been the principal causes of erosion. Farms began to diversify. The one kind of subsidy whose removal appeared to have been bad for the environment was the subsidy to manage soil erosion. In less enlightened countries, and in the European Union, the trend has been to reduce rather than eliminate subsidies, and to introduce new payments to encourage farmers to treat their land in environmentally friendlier ways, or to leave it fallow. It may sound strange but such payments need to be higher than the existing incentives for farmers to grow food crops. Farmers, however, dislike being paid to do nothing. In several countries they have become interested in the possibility of using fuel produced from crop residues either as a replacement for petrol (as ethanol) or as fuel for power stations (as biomass). Such fuels produce far less carbon dioxide than coal or oil, and absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. They are therefore less likely to contribute to the greenhouse effect. But they are rarely competitive with fossil fuels unless subsidised - and growing them does no less environmental harm than other crops. Question Type 7 – Matching Sentence Endings In this test type, you will be given a list of incomplete sentences with no endings and another list with possible endings. Your job is to match the incomplete sentences with the correct ending based on the reading text. Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Matching Sentence Endings Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Questions 8 – 10 Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-J from the box below. Write the correct letter A-J in boxes 8-10 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once. - Passive smoking - Compared with a non-smoker, a smoker - The American Medical Association - includes reviews of studies in its reports. - argues for stronger action against smoking in public places. - is one of the two most preventable causes of death. - is more likely to be at risk from passive smoking diseases. - is more harmful to non-smokers than to smokers. - is less likely to be at risk of contracting lung cancer. - is more likely to be at risk of contracting various cancers. - opposes smoking and publishes research on the subject. - is just as harmful to smokers as it is to non-smokers. - reduces the quantity of blood flowing around the body. Answer sheet Reading Passage Discovered in the early 1800s and named 'nicotianine', the oily essence now called nicotine is the main active ingredient of tobacco. Nicotine, however, is only a small component of cigarette smoke, which contains more than 4,700 chemical compounds, including 43 cancer-causing substances. In recent times, scientific research has been providing evidence that years of cigarette smoking vastly increases the risk of developing fatal medical conditions. In addition to being responsible for more than 85 per cent of lung cancers, smoking is associated with cancers of, amongst others, the mouth, stomach and kidneys, and is thought to cause about 14 per cent of leukaemia and cervical cancers. In 1990, smoking caused more than 84,000 deaths, mainly resulting from such problems as pneumonia, bronchitis and influenza. Smoking, it is believed, is responsible for 30 per cent of all deaths from cancer and clearly represents the most important preventable cause of cancer in countries like the United States today. Passive smoking, the breathing in of the side-stream smoke from the burning of tobacco between puffs or of the smoke exhaled by a smoker, also causes a serious health risk. A report published in 1992 by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emphasized the health dangers, especially from sidestream smoke. This type of smoke contains more smaller particles and is therefore more likely to be deposited deep in the lungs. On the basis of this report, the EPA has classified environmental tobacco smoke in the highest risk category for causing cancer. As an illustration of the health risks, in the case of a married couple where one partner is a smoker and one a non-smoker, the latter is believed to have a 30 per cent higher risk of death from heart disease because of passive smoking. The risk of lung cancer also increases over the years of exposure and the figure jumps to 80 per cent if the spouse has been smoking four packs a day for 20 years. It has been calculated that 17 per cent of cases of lung cancer can be attributed to high levels of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke during childhood and adolescence. A more recent study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) has shown that second-hand cigarette smoke does more harm to non-smokers than to smokers. Leaving aside the philosophical question of whether anyone should have to breathe someone else's cigarette smoke, the report suggests that the smoke experienced by many people in their daily lives is enough to produce substantial adverse effects on a person's heart and lungs. The report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA), was based on the researchers' own earlier research but also includes a review of studies over the past few years. The American Medical Association represents about half of all US doctors and is a strong opponent of smoking. The study suggests that people who smoke cigarettes are continually damaging their cardiovascular system, which adapts in order to compensate for the effects of smoking. It further states that people who do not smoke do not have the benefit of their system adapting to the smoke inhalation. Consequently, the effects of passive smoking are far greater on non-smokers than on smokers. This report emphasizes that cancer is not caused by a single element in cigarette smoke; harmful effects to health are caused by many components. Carbon monoxide, for example, competes with oxygen in red blood cells and interferes with the blood's ability to deliver life-giving oxygen to the heart. Nicotine and other toxins in cigarette smoke activate small blood cells called platelets, which increases the likelihood of blood clots, thereby affecting blood circulation throughout the body. The researchers criticize the practice of some scientific consultants who work with the tobacco industry for assuming that cigarette smoke has the same impact on smokers as it does on non-smokers. They argue that those scientists are underestimating the damage done by passive smoking and, in support of their recent findings, cite some previous research which points to passive smoking as the cause for between 30,000 and 60,000 deaths from heart attacks each year in the United States. This means that passive smoking is the third most preventable cause of death after active smoking and alcohol-related diseases. The study argues that the type of action needed against passive smoking should be similar to that being taken against illegal drugs and AIDS (SIDA). The UCSF researchers maintain that the simplest and most cost-effective action is to establish smoke-free work places, schools and public places. Question Type 8 – Sentence Completion In this kind of question, you will be given a number of sentences with gaps in them and asked to complete the sentences with words from the reading text. These questions are as much vocabulary tests as they are reading tests because they require you to be aware of paraphrasing (using different words to repeat a sentence so that it has the same meaning) and synonyms (words with the same or very similar meanings) Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Sentence/Table Completion Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Questions 10 - 13 Complete the sentences below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. - ______would be a more effective target for government investment than micro-turbines. - An indirect benefit of subsidising micro-turbines is the support it provides for ______ - Most spending has a _____effect on the environment - If people buy a micro-turbine, they have less money to spend on things like foreign holidays and ____. Answer sheet Reading Passage A In terms of micro-renewable energy sources suitable for private use, a 15-kilowatt (kW) turbine is at the biggest end of the spectrum. With a nine metre diameter and a pole as high as a four-storey house, this is the most efficient form of wind microturbine, and the sort of thing you could install only if you had plenty of space and money. According to one estimate, a 15-kW micro-turbine (that's one with the maximum output), costing £41,000 to purchase and a further £9,000 to install, is capable of delivering 25,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh)' of electricity each year if placed on a suitably windy site. B I don't know of any credible studies of the greenhouse gas emissions involved in producing and installing turbines, so my estimates here are going to be even more broad than usual. However, it is worth trying. If turbine manufacture is about as carbon intensive per pound sterling of product as other generators and electrical motors, which seems a reasonable assumption, the carbon intensity of manufacture will be around 640 kilograms (kg) per £1,000 of value. Installation is probably about as carbon intensive as typical construction, at around 380 kg per £1,000. That makes the carbon footprint (the total amount of greenhouse gases that installing a turbine creates) 30 tonnes. C The carbon savings from wind-powered electricity generation depend on the carbon intensity of the electricity that you're replacing. Let's assume that your generation replaces the coal-fuelled part of the country's energy mix. In other words, if you live in the UK, let's say that rather than replacing typical grid electricity, which comes from a mix of coal, gas, oil and renewable energy sources, the effect of your turbine is to reduce the use of coal-fired power stations. That's reasonable, because coal is the least preferable source in the electricity mix. In this case the carbon saving is roughly one kilogram per kWh, so you save 25 tonnes per year and pay back the embodied carbon in just 14 months - a great start. D The UK government has recently introduced a subsidy for renewable energy that pays individual producers 24p per energy unit on top of all the money they save on their own fuel bill, and on selling surplus electricity back to the grid at approximately 5p per unit. With all this taken into account, individuals would get back £7,250 per year on their investment. That pays back the costs in about six years. It makes good financial sense and, for people who care about the carbon savings for their own sake, it looks like a fantastic move. The carbon investment pays back in just over a year, and every year after that is a 25-tonne carbon saving. (It's important to remember that all these sums rely on a wind turbine having a favourable location) E So, at face value, the turbine looks like a great idea environmentally, and a fairly good long-term investment economically for the person installing it. However, there is a crucial perspective missing from the analysis so far. Has the government spent its money wisely? It has invested 24p per unit into each micro-turbine. That works out at a massive £250 per tonne of carbon saved. My calculations tell me that had the government invested its money in offshore wind farms, instead of subsidising smaller domestic turbines, they would have broken even after eight years. In other words, the micro-turbine works out as a good investment for individuals, but only because the government spends, and arguably wastes, so much money subsidising it. Carbon savings are far lower too. F Nevertheless, although the micro-wind turbine subsidy doesn't look like the very best way of spending government resources on climate change mitigation, we are talking about investing only about 0.075 percent per year of the nation's GDP to get a one percent reduction in carbon emissions, which is a worthwhile benefit. In other words, it could be much better, but it could be worse. In addition, such investment helps to promote and sustain developing technology. G There is one extra favourable way of looking at the micro-wind turbine, even if it is not the single best way of investing money in cutting carbon. Input- output modelling has told us that it is actually quite difficult to spend money without having a negative carbon impact. So if the subsidy encourages people to spend their money on a carbon-reducing technology such as a wind turbine, rather than on carbon-producing goods like cars, and services such as overseas holidays, then the reductions in emissions will be greater than my simple sums above have suggested. Question Type 9 – Summary, Note, Table, Flow-chart Completion In this question type, you are given a summary from the IELTS text and are required to complete it using information from the text. The summary will only be from one part of the IELTS reading passage, so it will not summarize the whole reading passage. There are two variations of this question type. You may be asked either to select words from the text or to select from a list of answers. The given information may be in the form of: - several connected sentences of text (referred to as a summary) - several notes (referred to as notes) - a table with some of its cells empty or partially empty (referred to as a table) - a series of boxes or steps linked by arrows to show a sequence of events - with some of the boxes or steps empty or partially empty (referred to as a flow-chart). Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Summary Completion Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Question 9 – 13 Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet. Answer sheet Reading Passage Introducing dung1 beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats2 in the cow pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and tunnelling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become a permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and within three or four years the benefits to the pasture are obvious. Dung beetles work from the inside of the pat so they are sheltered from predators such as birds and foxes. Most species burrow into the soil and bury dung in tunnels directly underneath the pats, which are hollowed out from within. Some large species originating from France excavate tunnels to a depth of approximately 30 cm below the dung pat. These beetles make sausage-shaped brood chambers along the tunnels. The shallowest tunnels belong to a much smaller Spanish species that buries dung in chambers that hang like fruit from the branches of a pear tree. South African beetles dig narrow tunnels of approximately 20 cm below the surface of the pat. Some surface-dwelling beetles, including a South African species, cut perfectly-shaped balls from the pat, which are rolled away and attached to the bases of plants. For maximum dung burial in spring, summer and autumn, farmers require a variety of species with overlapping periods of activity. In the cooler environments of the state of Victoria, the large French species (2.5 cms long), is matched with smaller (half this size), temperate-climate Spanish species. The former are slow to recover from the winter cold and produce only one or two generations of offspring from late spring until autumn. The latter, which multiply rapidly in early spring, produce two to five generations annually. The South African ball-rolling species, being a sub-tropical beetle, prefers the climate of northern and coastal New South Wales where it commonly works with the South African tunneling species. In warmer climates, many species are active for longer periods of the year. Glossary 1. dung: the droppings or excreta of animals 2. cow pats: droppings of cows Question Type 10 – Diagram Label Completion This question type requires you to complete labels on a diagram, which relates to a description contained in the IELTS text. There are three kinds of diagrams you might get: a technical drawing of a machine or invention, something from the natural world, or a design or plan. Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Diagram Label Completion Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Questions 6 – 8 Label the tunnels on the diagram below using words from the box. Write your answers in boxes 6-8 on your answer sheet. Answer sheet Question Type 11 – Short Answer Questions In this question type, you have to write one, two or three words or a number as an answer. Questions usually relate to factual information about details in the text. The instructions will make it clear how many words/numbers test takers should use in their answers, e.g. NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage, ONE WORD ONLY or NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS. If test takers write more than the number of words asked for, they will lose marks. Numbers can be written using figures or words. Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Short Answer Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions Questions 1 - 3 Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet. - In which year did the World Health Organisation define health in terms of mental, physical and social well-being - Name the three broad areas which relate to people's health, according to the socio-ecological view of health. - During which decade were lifestyle risks seen as the major contributors to poor health? Answer sheet Reading Passage The concept of health holds different meanings for different people and groups. These meanings of health have also changed over time. This change is no more evident than in Western society today, when notions of health and health promotion are being challenged and expanded in new ways. For much of recent Western history, health has been viewed in the physical sense only. That is, good health has been connected to the smooth mechanical operation of the body, while ill health has been attributed to a breakdown in this machine. Health in this sense has been defined as the absence of disease or illness and is seen in medical terms. According to this view, creating health for people means providing medical care to treat or prevent disease and illness. During this period, there was an emphasis on providing clean water, improved sanitation and housing. In the late 1940s the World Health Organisation challenged this physically and medically oriented view of health. They stated that "health is a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being and is not merely the absence of disease" (WHO, 1946). Health and the person were seen more holistically (mind/body/spirit) and not just in physical terms. The 1970s was a time of focusing on the prevention of disease and illness by emphasising the importance of the lifestyle and behaviour of the individual. Specific behaviours which were seen to increase risk of disease, such as smoking, lack of fitness and unhealthy eating habits, were targeted. Creating health meant providing not only medical health care, but health promotion programs and policies which would help people maintain healthy behaviours and lifestyles. While this individualistic healthy lifestyles approach to health worked for some (the wealthy members of society), people experiencing poverty, unemployment, underemployment or little control over the conditions of their daily lives benefited little from this approach. This was largely because both the healthy lifestyles approach and the medical approach to health largely ignored the social and environmental conditions affecting the health of people. During the 1980s and 1990s there has been a growing swing away from seeing lifestyle risks as the root cause of poor health. While lifestyle factors still remain important, health is being viewed also in terms of the social, economic and environmental contexts in which people live. This broad approach to health is called the socio-ecological view of health. The broad socio-ecological view of health was endorsed at the first International Conference of Health Promotion held in 1986, Ottawa, Canada, where people from 38 countries agreed and declared that: "The fundamental conditions and resources for health are peace, shelter, education, food, a viable income, a stable eco-system, sustainable resources, social justice and equity. Improvement in health requires a secure foundation in these basic requirements." (WHO, 1986) It is clear from this statement that the creation of health is about much more than encouraging healthy individual behaviours and lifestyles and providing appropriate medical care. Therefore, the creation of health must include addressing issues such as poverty, pollution, urbanisation, natural resource depletion, social alienation and poor working conditions. The social, economic and environmental contexts which contribute to the creation of heath do not operate separately or independently of each other. Rather, they are interacting and interdependent, and it is the complex interrelationships between them which determine the conditions that promote health. A broad socio-ecological view of health suggests that the promotion of health must include a strong social, economic and environmental focus. At the Ottawa Conference in 1986, a charter was developed which outlined new directions for health promotion based on the socio-ecological view of health. This charter, known as the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, remains as the backbone of health action today. In exploring the scope of health promotion it states that: Good health is a major resource for social, economic and personal development and an important dimension of quality of life. Political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, behavioural and biological factors can all favour health or be harmful to it. (WHO, 1986) The Ottawa Charter brings practical meaning and action to this broad notion of health promotion. It presents fundamental strategies and approaches in achieving health for all. The overall philosophy of health promotion which guides these fundamental strategies and approaches is one of "enabling people to increase control over and to improve their health" (WHO, 1986). How Trends Help You Prepare for the IELTS Reading Test We've talked about the IELTS reading tips for answering each question type, now let's look at an interesting trend that can help with your reading test preparation. The pie chart below illustrates the proportion of each reading question type that appeared in official IELTS reading tests in 2017. As you can see, "Sentence/Summary/Note/Table/Flow-chart/Diagram completion & Short answer" question types were the most common at 29%, with "Identifying information/viewer claims" question types in close second with 23%. Finally, the "Matching features" question type accounted for 16%, "Matching information/Multiple choice" 11%, and "Matching headings" 10%. With this information, you can see which question types are most likely to appear in your IELTS reading exam. Although you MUST prepare for all question types, knowing this information can help you manage your time between them. Of course, if you are scoring high with certain question types, then you probably should focus more time on the question types you are struggling with. If you want to know exactly what reading question types you struggle with, start a FREE IELTS Reading Sample Test and at the end of the exam, simply click View Results to see your full reading diagnostic report, which also includes how you did for each question type. Next up we'll go over IELTS reading tips and strategies necessary for a high reading score. IELTS Reading Tips - How to Improve your Reading Band Score Most students fail the reading section for following three reasons - Slow reading speed - Poor vocabulary - Little or no preparation First, let's get the obvious out of the way. To improve your reading speed, you need to actually practice reading and do it consistently. Now let's look at a less obvious strategy that will help you understand the meaning of large chunks of sentences. Start by dissecting the sentence. Do this by Looking for the sentence's subject and verb. Finding the subject and verb will help you understand the meaning of the sentence. One reason why academic reading passages cab be hard to comprehend is because they join strings of ideas to form long compound sentences. This produces large chunks of sentences that are harder to absorb, so using the subject and verb as your guide to understanding the entire chunk is a great tool you can use during your IELTS reading exam. Many people think answering reading questions is as simple as scanning the paragraph for keywords and information...Well, unfortunately, it's not that simple. reading questions are usually paraphrased, meaning, the words have been changed to use synonyms of words from the IELTS reading passage. This is done to increase the difficulty, otherwise, the test would be too easy. Because of this, you must improve your vocabulary in order to know the many different synonyms of a word. As you prepare for the reading test and you come across a word you do not know, make a habit of either stopping and looking it up or at least writing it down and looking it up later. It's a little tedious, but it's extremely effective. Your goal should be, but is not limited to, studying 15 to 20 new academic words each day. It is important to know that for some question types, the answers are usually (almost always) in the same order as the IELTS reading passage. For other question types, answers are rarely ever in the same order as the reading passage. We've completed a table for the question types that follow and the one that don't. Please keep in mind. The biggest challenge most people face in the IELTS reading exam is completing all reading questions before time runs out. In the next section, you will learn three strategies and it'll be up to you to figure out which one suits you best. You'll do that using our free reading practices. 3 IELTS Reading Strategies Strategy 1: Reading the entire passage then answering the questions. First of all, this isn't much of a strategy. It's something people do when they don't properly prepare for the reading exam. However, we have included it as a strategy because, technically speaking, if you can retain the information from the passage on your first read through and are able to answer the questions, then you won't need strategy 2. This strategy, if you don't have a better than average memory, is inefficient. You'll end up running out of time before you can answer all the questions. A lot of people make this mistake. However, there are some questions that don't require much effort and will benefit from this strategy like If the question is a "Yes" or "No" answer, then you'll be able to skim quickly and fin the answer quickly, but there aren't enough of these question types, so it's not advisable to use this strategy unless you can handle it. Strategy 2: Reading questions first, read for an objective and take notes, and then answer questions wisely This is our recommended strategy. It will help you get a higher IELTS reading score. Think of this as a clear map of how to generally approach the exam: Step 1: Read questions first One of the most common mistakes that candidates make when approaching the reading exam is reading every single word of the IELTS reading passages. Although you can practice for the exam by reading for pleasure, "reading blindly" (reading without any sense of what the questions will ask) will not do you any favors in the exam. Instead, it will hurt your chances for effectively managing your time and getting the best score. The main reason to read the questions first is because the type of question may determine what you read in the passage or how you read it. For example, some question types will call for the "skimming" technique, while others may call for the "scanning" technique. It is important to tackle a set of questions that are of the same question type. You'll need to determine which question type you want to tackle first. A good strategy would be to start with the easier question type and move on to more difficult question types later. The Easiest question types are the ones where you spend less time reading. For example, the Matching Heading question type is an easier one because you only need to find the heading that best describes the main idea of a paragraph. An example of a difficult question type would be Identifying Information. For this question type, you'll need to read each paragraph to find out if each statement is TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN according to the passage. Here is a table that lists the difficulty levels for each question type. Use this table as a reference when choosing which question type you want to tackle first. Step 2: Read for an objective After you’ve read the questions from the IELTS text, you will be able to read for an objective. What does this mean? For example, if you come across a question that includes the year "1896", you can make a note of when this year comes up in the text, using it to answer the question later on. There are two reading techniques that will help you stay on track with reading for an objective. The first one, skimming, is best defined as reading fast in order to get the "gist", or general idea, or a passage. With this technique, you are not stopping for any unfamiliar words or looking for specific details. The second technique, scanning, is best defined as reading for specific information. With this technique, you are not reading for the overall gist, but rather, specific information. Notice how each of these techniques has a specific objective in mind. This will help you find information more quickly. Step 3: Take notes As you’re reading for an objective, you should also be making notes on the margins of the passage, placing stars next to key information, or underlining things that you believe will help you answer the various questions. This will make it easier for you to check back when you are asked certain things in the questions. Choose whichever note-taking system is right for you—just make sure you do it! Step 4: Answer wisely After you’ve read the questions, read the passage, and have taken any appropriate notes, you you should have located the part of the text where you where you need to read carefully. Then just read carefully and think critically to determine the correct answer. Strategy 3: Skimming, note taking, & question types. This is another strategy used by many IELTS test takers. It will help you get a higher reading score. The strategy consists of 4 steps: - Skim each paragraph to get the general idea of each paragraph. The main idea of a paragraph is usually found in the first few sentences so focus a little more on those sentences. The following sentences can be skimmed quickly, underlining names/words/phrases that stand out. - After skimming each paragraph, write short notes (2-5 words) next to each paragraph with your best guess about the main idea of that paragraph. - Next, answer a set of questions that are of the same question type. - Finally, Answering a set of questions efficiently and correctly. It is important that you spend no more than 3-5 minutes on Steps 1 and 2. Spending too much time on these steps will waste too much time and you'll end up running out of it. Steps 1 & 2 The goal here is to set up an efficient method for finding answers in the passage. By writing down the general idea of each paragraph, you'll know what paragraph contains the answer to each question. This will save you a lot of time because if you didn't write it down, you would likely need to skim each paragraph for the general idea of the question, then you would need to carefully scan the paragraph for the answer. By noting down each paragraph's main idea, you get to skip the first step of skimming each paragraph and start scanning for the answer. Step 3 After you've thoroughly skimmed the text and written down some notes, you're ready for Step 3. In this step, you'll need to determine which question type you want to tackle first. A good strategy would be to start with the easier question type and move on to more difficult question types later. The Easiest question types are the ones where you spend less time reading. For example, the Matching Heading question type is an easier one because you only need to find the heading that best describes the main idea of a paragraph, so technically you only need Step 1 and 2 to answer this question type. An example of a difficult question type would be Identifying Information. For this question type, you'll need to read each paragraph to find out if each statement is TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN according to the passage. Here is a table that lists the difficulty levels for each question type. Use this table as a reference when choosing which question type you want to tackle first. Step 4 Now that you've figured out which set of questions you'll answer first, it's time to actually answer them :( Don't worry! Although each question type is different, the strategy answer them correctly applies to them all. The basic principle is simple, just follow the steps below: - Read the question carefully and identify important keywords. - Find the paragraph that contains the information needed to answer the question.(Hopefully you already have the general ideas written down for each paragraph, so you can easily figure this out.) - Scan the paragraph for the important keywords (They are most likely a synonyms!) until you locate the part of the text where you need to read carefully. - Finally, read carefully and think critically to determine the correct answer. Free IELTS Reading Sample PDF Downloads with Answers Below are some free reading samples from the British Council (the makers of the IELTS exam). Try to answer the questions and see how you do!

IELTS® Reading Practice - IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test | BestMyTest