IELTS Reading Practice Test 2

Answer Keys

Section 1

1. III. First part of Paragraph One focuses on how fragile the regions of ‘deserts, mountains and Arctic areas’ are. Then, it is said how attractive the business is, because it requires almost no investment. In the second paragraph of the section it is mentioned how important this tourism has become for some countries’ financial well-being.
   Heading VI doesn’t fit here as economic benefits of wilderness tourism is not the main topic of this section.
2. V. All three paragraphs of this section concentrate on the various negative effects of wilderness tourism on the regions – both economically and ecologically. The word ‘disruptive’ here means ‘preventing a system from working of functioning in a traditional, established way’.
   Heading IV shouldn’t be used here. Yes, Paragraph Two focuses on the traditional ways of producing food and harvesting. However, this is not the main topic of the whole section.
3. II. Most of the paragraphs in this section give examples how the local population of the exotic tourism destinations managed to benefit financially from the travel industry. The focus is on how to maintain balance between the influx of tourists that can potentially harm the fragile regions and the money they bring to the local economies.
   Don’t be tempted to choose Heading VI here – economic benefits are mentioned in most paragraphs, but the main idea is divided between that and preserving the regions.

4. Yes. First paragraph of the text, sentence three: ‘The attraction of these areas is obvious’.
5. Yes. Middle of the same paragraph says, that these regions are ‘fragile not just in terms of their ecology, but also in terms of the culture of their inhabitants’. Then they specify the exact range of regions in the following sentence: ‘deserts, mountains and Arctic areas’.
6. No. Last two sentence of the first paragraph state the opposite – these areas are open to tourism for a limited number of days each year because of their ‘marked seasonality’.
7. Yes. First paragraph of Section B mentions how farmers of the hilly regions turned to being porters for tourists, which proved much more profitable and as a result the amount of crops went down: ‘In some hill-regions, this has led to a serious decline in farm output’.
8. No. Second paragraph, the very beginning states the opposite. Ending of sentence one points out how hunting and gathering is spread ‘over a relatively short season’.
9. Not Given. Section B, at the end the second paragraph government handouts are mentioned as being harmful. However, no direct comparison between them and the food-gathering patterns is made.
10. Cheese. Last sentence in the second paragraph of Section C: ‘There has also been a renaissance in communal cheese production in the area’.
11. Tourist/ tourism/tour. Section C, paragraph three, the second sentence: ‘But some Arctic communities are now operating tour businesses themselves.’
12. Pottery. Last sentence of the fourth paragraph in Section C: ‘The Acoma and San Ildefonso pueblos have established highly profitable pottery businesses’.
13. Jewelry/ jewellery. Same last sentence of Paragraph Four: ‘The Acoma and San Ildefonso pueblos have established highly profitable pottery businesses ‘the Navajo and Hopi groups have been similarly successful with jewellery’. ‘Similarly successful’ refers to the business venture of the Acoma and San Ildefonso
    

    Section 2

14. G. Last sentence of Paragraph Two: ‘But he insists that cases are few and far between. ‘It’s a very rare phenomenon,’ he says.’. A short disclaimer: Looking for proper names (just like this task requires us to) is the easiest because they are capitalised, which makes them ideal keywords – they really stand out in the text.
15. A. Last but one sentence of Paragraph Three: ‘‘What you hear is only the tip of the iceberg,’ says Trevor Ford’. He then clarifies that the likely reason for such situation is that ‘No-one wants bad press.’
16. H. Middle of Paragraph Nine has a description of an extreme case of delayed failure in a research building in Lathom, Lancashire.
17. C. Last but one paragraph mentions Waterfront Place undergoing a thorough glass examination due to a high number of failures. The examination was conducted by John Barry.
18. Sharp. Paragraph Four, sentence three mentions the ordinary glass breaking into ‘razor-sharp shards’, whereas toughened glass is different. Not as sharp.
19. Unexpectedly. An adverb is required here. The word is easy to guess from the general context of the passage. Paragraph Nine, sentence three states that ‘The time that elapses before failure occurs is unpredictable.’.
20. Quickly. Paragraph Five gives a description of the glass toughening procedure. First sentence of the paragraph says, that the glass, after being heated is treated with jets of cold air, ‘cooling it rapidly’.
21. Contracts. Paragraph Five, sentence two: ‘This causes the outer layer of the pane to contract and solidify before the interior.’.
22. Warm. Paragraph Nine, sentence three: ‘although if the glass is heated – by sunlight, for example – the process is speeded up’.
23. Disputed. In Paragraph Two Brian Waldron, one of the experts, believes that the cases are few and rare. Then, at the beginning of Paragraph Three it is said that ‘Others disagree.’. Barrie Josie, Tony Wilmott and Simon Armstrong have different experiences and opinions on the topic. Thus, the frequency of occurrences is disputed.
24. True. Last sentence of Paragraph One: ‘minute crystals of nickel sulphide trapped inside the glass had almost certainly caused the failure’.
25. Not given. Paragraph Four gives a brief description of toughened glass properties. However, nothing is said about its visual similarity with the regular glass.
26. False. An incidence is a rate or frequency at which something happens. See Question 23 which covers the same problem. There is no clear data on the frequency of such incidents.
    

    Section 3

27. True. Paragraph Two, third sentence states that the amount of data to support the idea of photoperiodism is ‘considerable’.
28. True. Paragraph Two, sentence four supports this idea by giving an example of simulating longer days to encourage birds to breed.
29. Not given. No such information can be found in any of the paragraphs.
30. False. Last sentence of Paragraph Five states the opposite – these plants use rainfall rather than length of day as a cue to germinate. Therefore, these plants are neither long-day nor short-day.
31. False. First sentence of Paragraph Five gives a different information. According to it, bamboo plants ‘suddenly flower, fruit and die’. Therefore, they can only flower once.
32. True. Paragraph Five, sentence three confirms this information. The trigger, or cue for this species of plants to flower is not known yet.
33. False. Last two sentences of the text contain the answer. However, to interpret the data one has to go back to the beginning of the last paragraph, where the concept of ‘photosynthetic rate’ is explained. In short, hemlock’s photosynthetic rate is low and therefore it is a slow-growing plant.
34. Temperatures. Paragraph Two, sentences two and three talk both about temperatures and length of day. The former can vary and is therefore less predictable, whereas day length changes consistently and is therefore a better cue for the breeding animals.
35. Day-neutral / day-neutral plants. Last sentence of Paragraph Two says that day-neutral plants are plants that flower regardless of photoperiod, which is a term to describe how sensitive a given organism is to the amount of light during the day.
36. Food / food resources / adequate food resources. Last sentence of Paragraph Three gives us the information of birds using warmer seasons to breed because of food being in abundance then.
37. Insects / fertilization by insects. Paragraph Four, second sentence mentions long-day plants relying on fertilization by insects. To answer this question it is important to remember that long-day plants are plants that flower when days become longer (i.e. in summer).
38. Rainfall / suitable rainfall. Last sentence of Paragraph four mentions rain being a trigger for plants in those regions to flower.
39. Sugarcane. Last sentence, Paragraph Six gives the example of sugarcane as a plant that has no limit on the rate of photosynthesis.
40. Classification. Second sentence of the last paragraph talks about horticulture classification.

IELTS Reading Score Reference Table