Comprehensive guide covering essential IELTS preparation strategies and techniques to help you achieve your target band score.
Originally published April 2023. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on the reading passage below.
The Dover Bronze-Age Boat
A beautifully preserved boat, made around 3,000 years ago and discovered by chance in a muddy hole, has had a profound impact on archaeological research.
It was 1992. In England, workmen were building a new road through the heart of Dover, to connect the ancient port and the Channel Tunnel, which, when it opened just two years later, was to be the first land link between Britain and Europe for over 10,000 years. A small team from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust (CAT) worked alongside the workmen, recording new discoveries bought to light by the machines.
At the base of the deep shaft six meters below the modern streets, a wooden structure was revealed. Cleaning away the waterlogged site overlying the timbers, archaeologists realized its true nature. They had found a prehistoric boat, preserved by the type of sediment in which it was buried. It was then named by Dover Bronze- Age Boat.
About nine meters of the boat’s length was recovered; one end lay beyond the excavation and had to be left. What survived consisted essentially of four intricately carved oak planks: two on the bottom, joined along a central seam by a complicated system of wedges and stitched to the others. The seams had been made watertight by pads of moss, fixed by wedges and yew stitches.
The timbers that closed the recovered end of the boat had been removed in antiquity when it was abandoned, but much about its original shape could be deduced. There was also evidence for missing upper side planks. The boat was not a wreck, but had been deliberately discarded, dismantled and broken. Perhaps it had been “ritually killed” at the end of its life, like other Bronze-Age objects.
With hindsight, it was significant that the boat was found and studied by mainstream archaeologists who naturally focused on its cultural context. At the time, ancient boats were often considered only from a narrower technological perspective, but news about the Dover boat reached a broad audience. In 2002, on the tenth anniversary of the discovery, the Dover Bronze-Age Boat Trust hosted a conference, where this meeting of different traditions became apparent. Alongside technical papers about the boat, other speakers explored its social and economic contexts, and the religious perceptions of boats in Bronze- Age societies. Many speakers came from overseas, and debate about cultural connections was renewed.
Within seven years of excavation, the Dover boat had been conserved and displayed, but it was apparent that there were issues that could not be resolved simply by studying the old wood. Experimental archaeology seemed to be the solution: a boat reconstruction, half-scale or full-sized, would permit assessment of the different hypotheses regarding its build and the missing end. The possibility of returning to Dover to search for a boat’s unexcavated northern end was explored, but practical and financial difficulties were insurmountable- and there was no guarantee that the timbers had survived the previous decade in the changed environment.
Detailed proposals to reconstruct the boat were drawn up in 2004. Archaeological evidence was beginning to suggest a Bronze- Age community straddling the Channel, brought together by the sea, rather than separated by it. In a region today divided by languages and borders, archaeologists had a duty to inform the general public about their common cultural heritage.
The boat project began in England but it was conceived from the start as a European collaboration. Reconstruction was only part of a scheme that would include a major exhibition and an extensive educational and outreach programme. Discussions began early in 2005 with archaeological bodies, universities and heritage organizations either side of the Channel. There was much enthusiasm and support, and an official launch of the project was held at an international seminar in France in 2007. Financial support was confirmed in 2008 and the project then named BOAT 1550BC got under way in June 2011.
A small team began to make the boat at the start of 2012 on the Roman Lawn outside Dover museum. A full- scale reconstruction of a mid-section had been made in 1996, primarily to see how Bronze- Age replica tools performed. In 2012, however, the hull shape was at the centre of the work, so modern power tools were used to carve the oak planks, before turning to prehistoric tools for finishing. It was decided to make the replica haft-scale for reasons of cost and time, any synthetic materials were used for the stitching, owing to doubts about the scaling and tight timetable.
Meanwhile, the exhibition was being prepared ready for opening in July 2012 at the Castle Museum in Boulogne-sur-Mer. Entitled ‘Beyond the Horizon: Societies of the Channel & North Sea 3,500 years ago’ it brought together for the first time a remarkable collection of Bronze- Age objects, including many new discoveries for commercial archaeology and some of the great treasure of the past. The reconstructed boat, as a symbol of the maritime connections that bound together the communities either side of the Channel, was the centrepiece.
Questions 1-5
Complete the chart below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
Key events
1992- the boat was discovered during the construction of a 1……………
2002-an international 2…………… was held to gather information
2004- 3……………. for the reconstruction were produced
2007- the 4…………… Of BOAT 1550BC took place
2012- the Bronze-Age 5…………… featured the boat and other objects
Questions 6-9
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?
In boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
6. Archaeologists realized that the boat had been damaged on purpose. 7. Initially, only the technological aspects of the boat were examined. 8. Archaeologists went back to the site to try and find the missing northern. 9. Evidence found in 2004 suggested that the Bronze-Age Boat had been used for trade.
Questions 10-13
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.
10. How far under the ground was the boat found? 11. What natural material had been secured to the boat to prevent water entering? 12. What aspect of the boat was the focus of the 2012 reconstruction? 13. Which two factors influenced the decision not to make a full-scale reconstruction of the boat?
Click the button to Show/ Hide Answers.
Answer: 1. road 2. conference 3. proposals 4. launch 5. exhibition 6. TRUE 7. FALSE 8. FALSE 9. NOT GIVEN 10. 6/six meters/meters/m 11. (pads of) moss 12. (the) hull (shape) 13. cost and time
Comprehensive guide covering essential IELTS preparation strategies and techniques to help you achieve your target band score.
Originally published April 2023. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1- 13, which are based on Passage 31 below.
Going Bananas
The world’s favourite fruit could disappear forever in 10 years’ time
The banana is among the world’s oldest crops. Agricultural scientists believe that the first edible banana was discovered around ten thousand years ago. It has been at an evolutionary standstill ever since it was first propagated in the jungles of South-East Asia at the end of the last ice age. Normally the wild banana, a giant jungle herb called Musa acuminata, contains a mass of hard seeds that make the fruit virtually inedible. But now and then, hunter- gatherers must have discovered rare mutant plants that produced seedless, edible fruits. Geneticists now know that the vast majority of these soft-fruited I plants resulted from genetic accidents that gave their cells three copies of each chromosome instead of the usual two. This imbalance prevents seeds and pollen from developing normally, rendering the mutant plants sterile. And that is why some scientists believe the world’s most popular fruit could be doomed. It lacks the genetic diversity to fight off pests and diseases that are invading the banana plantations of Central America and the smallholdings of Africa and Asia alike.
In some ways, the banana today resembles the potato before blight brought famine to Ireland a century and a half ago. But “it holds a lesson for other crops, too,” says Emile Frison, top banana at the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain in Montpellier, France. “The state of the banana,” Frison warns, “can teach a broader lesson: the increasing standardisation of food crops round the world is threatening their ability to adapt and survive.”
The first Stone Age plant breeders cultivated these sterile freaks by replanting cuttings from their stems. And the descendants of those original cuttings are the bananas we still eat today. Each is a virtual clone, almost devoid of genetic diversity. And that uniformity makes it ripe for diseases like no other crop on Earth. Traditional varieties of sexually reproducing crops have always had a much broader genetic base, and the genes will recombine in new arrangements in each generation. This gives them much greater flexibility in evolving responses to disease – and far more genetic resources to draw on in the face of an attack. But that advantage is fading fast, as growers increasingly plant the same few, high-yielding varieties. Plant breeders work feverishly to maintain resistance in these standardised crops. Should these efforts falter, yields of even the most productive crop could swiftly crash. “When some pest or disease comes along, severe epidemics can occur,” says Geoff Hawtin, director of the Rome-based International Plant Genetic Resources Institute.
The banana is an excellent case in point. Until the 1950s, one variety, the Gros Michel, dominated the world’s commercial banana business. Found by French botanists in Asia in the 1820s, the Gros Michel was by all accounts a fine banana, richer and sweeter than today’s standard banana and without the latter’s bitter aftertaste when green. But it was vulnerable to a soil fungus that produced a wilt known as Panama disease. “Once the fungus gets into the soil, it remains there for many years. There is nothing farmers can do. Even chemical spraying won’t get rid of it,” says Rodomiro Ortiz, director of the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria. So plantation owners played a running game, abandoning infested fields and moving to “clean” land – until they ran out of clean land in the 1950s and had to abandon the Gros Michel. Its successor, and still the reigning commercial king, is the Cavendish banana, a 19th-century British discovery from southern China. The Cavendish is resistant to Panama disease and, as a result, it literally saved the international banana industry. During the 1960s, it replaced the Gros Michel on supermarket shelves. If you buy a banana today, it is almost certainly a Cavendish. But even so, it is a minority in the world’s banana crop.
Half a billion people in Asia and Africa depend on bananas. Bananas provide the largest source of calories and are eaten daily. Its name is synonymous with food. But the day of reckoning may be coming for the Cavendish and its indigenous kin. Another fungal disease, black Sigatoka, has become a global epidemic since its first appearance in Fiji in 1963. Left to itself, black Sigatoka – which causes brown wounds on leaves and premature fruit ripening – cuts fruit yields by 50 to 70 per cent and reduces the productive lifetime of banana plants from 30 years to as little as 2 or 3. Commercial growers keep black Sigatoka at bay by a massive chemical assault. Forty sprayings of fungicide a year is typical. But despite the fungicides, diseases such as black Sigatoka are getting more and more difficult to control. “As soon as you bring in a new fungicide, they develop resistance,” says Frison. “One thing we can be sure of is that black Sigatoka won’t lose in this battle.” Poor farmers, who cannot afford chemicals, have it even worse. They can do little more than watching their plants die. “Most of the banana fields in Amazonia have already been destroyed by the disease,” says Luadir Gasparotto, Brazil’s leading banana pathologist with the government research agency EMBRAPA. Production is likely to fall by 70 per cent as the disease spreads, he predicts. The only option will be to find a new variety.
But how? Almost all edible varieties are susceptible to the diseases, so growers cannot simply change to a different banana. With most crops, such a threat would unleash an army of breeders, scouring the world for resistant relatives whose traits they can breed into commercial varieties. Not so with the banana. Because all edible varieties are sterile, bringing in new genetic traits to help cope with pests and diseases is nearly impossible. Nearly, but not totally. Very rarely, a sterile banana will experience a genetic accident that allows an almost normal seed to develop, giving breeders a tiny window for improvement. Breeders at the Honduran Foundation of Agricultural Research have tried to exploit this to create disease-resistant varieties. Further back-crossing with wild bananas yielded a new seedless banana resistant to both black Sigatoka and Panama disease.
Neither Western supermarket consumers nor peasant growers like the new hybrid. Some accuse it of tasting more like an apple than a banana. Not surprisingly, the majority of plant breeders have till now turned their backs on the banana and got to work on easier plants. And commercial banana companies are now washing their hands of the whole breeding effort, preferring to fund a search for new fungicides instead. “We supported a breeding programme for 40 years, but it wasn’t able to develop an alternative to the Cavendish. It was very expensive and we got nothing back,” says Ronald Romero, head of research at Chiquita, one of the Big Three companies that dominate the international banana trade.
Last year, a global consortium of scientists led by Frison announced plans to sequence the banana genome within five years. It would be the first edible fruit to be sequenced. Well, almost edible. The group will actually be sequencing inedible wild bananas from East Asia because many of these are resistant to black Sigatoka. If they can pinpoint the genes that help these wild varieties to resist black Sigatoka, the protective genes could be introduced into laboratory tissue cultures of cells from edible varieties. These could then be propagated into new disease-resistant plants and passed on to farmers.
It sounds promising, but the big banana companies have, until now, refused to get involved in GM research for fear of alienating their customers. “Biotechnology is extremely expensive and there are serious questions about consumer acceptance,” says David McLaughlin, Chiquita’s senior director for environ- mental affairs. With scant funding from the companies, the banana genome researchers are focusing on the other end of the spectrum. Even if they can identify the crucial genes, they will be a long way from developing new varieties that smallholders will find suitable and affordable. But whatever biotechnology’s academic interest, it is the only hope for the banana. Without it, banana production worldwide will head into a tailspin. We may even see the extinction of the banana as both a lifesaver for hungry and impoverished Africans and the most popular product on the world’s supermarket shelves.
Questions 1-3
Complete the sentences below with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.
1. Banana was first eaten as a fruit by humans almost ……………………… years ago. 2. Banana was first planted in ……………………… 3. Wild banana’s taste is adversely affected by its ………………………
Questions 4-10
Look at the statements (Questions 4-10) and the list of people. Match each statement with the correct person A-F.
Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 4-10 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
4. A pest invasion may seriously damage banana industry. 5. The effect of fungal infection in soil is often long-lasting. 6. A commercial manufacturer gave up on breeding bananas for disease-resistant 7. Banana disease may develop resistance to chemical sprays. 8. A banana disease has destroyed a large number of banana plantations. 9. Consumers would not accept genetically altered crops. 10. Lessons can be learned from bananas for other crops.
List of People
A. Rodomiro Ortiz B. David McLaughlin C. Emile Frison D. Ronald Romero E. Luadir Gasparotto F. Geoff Hawtin
Questions 11-13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 31? In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
11. Banana is the oldest known fruit. 12. Gros Michel is still being used as a commercial product. 13. Banana is the main food in some countries.
Answer: 1. ten thousand 2. South-East Asia 3. hard seeds 4. F 5. A 6. D 7. C 8. E 9. B 10. C 11. NOT GIVEN 12. FALSE 13. TRUE
Essential strategies and practice techniques for this IELTS Reading question type. Learn how to manage time and improve accuracy.
Originally published April 2023. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
You should spend no more than 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Visual Symbols and the Blind
Part 1
From a number of recent studies, it has become clear that blind people can appreciate the use of outlines and perspectives to describe the arrangement of objects and other surfaces in space. But pictures are more than literal representations. This fact was drawn to my attention dramatically when a blind woman in one of my investigations decided on her own initiative to draw a wheel as it was spinning. To show this motion, she traced a curve inside the circle (Fig. 1). I was taken aback, lines of motion, such as the one she used, are a very recent invention in the history of illustration. Indeed, as art scholar David Kunzle notes, Wilhelm Busch, a trend-setting nineteenth-century cartoonist, used virtually no motion lines in his popular figure until about 1877.
When I asked several other blind study subjects to draw a spinning wheel, one particularly clever rendition appeared repeatedly: several subjects showed the wheel’s spokes as curves lines. When asked about these curves, they all described them as metaphorical ways of suggesting motion. Majority rule would argue that this device somehow indicated motion very well. But was it a better indicator than, say, broken or wavy lines or any other kind of line, for that matter? The answer was not clear. So I decided to test whether various lines of motion were apt ways of showing movement or if they were merely idiosyncratic marks. Moreover, I wanted to discover whether there were differences in how the blind and the sighted interpreted lines of motion.
To search out these answers, I created raised-line drawings of five different wheels, depicting spokes with lines that curved, bent, waved, dashed and extended beyond the perimeters of the wheel. I then asked eighteen blind volunteers to feel the wheels and assign one of the following motions to each wheel: wobbling, spinning fast, spinning steadily, jerking or braking. My control group consisted of eighteen sighted undergraduates from the University of Toronto.
All but one of the blind subjects assigned distinctive motions to each wheel. Most guessed that the curved spokes indicated that the wheel was spinning steadily; the wavy spokes, they thought; suggested that the wheel was wobbling, and the bent spokes were taken as a sign that the wheel was jerking. Subjects assumed that spokes extending beyond the wheel’s perimeter signified that the wheel had its brakes on and that dashed spokes indicated the wheel was spinning quickly.
In addition, the favoured description for the sighted was favoured description for the blind in every instance. What is more, the consensus among the sighted was barely higher than that among the blind. Because motion devices are unfamiliar to the blind, the task I gave them involved some problem solving. Evidently, however, the blind not only figured out the meaning for each of the motion, but as a group they generally came up with the same meaning at least as frequently as did sighted subjects.
Part 2
We have found that the blind understand other kinds of visual metaphors as well.One blind woman drew a picture of a child inside a heart-choosing that symbol, she said, to show that love surrounded the child. With Chang Hong Liu, a doctoral student from china, I have begun exploring how well blind people understand the symbolism behind shapes such as hearts that do not directly represent their meaning.
We gave a list of twenty pairs of words to sighted subjects and asked them to pick from each pair the term that best related to a circle and the term that best related to assure. For example, we asked: what goes with soft? A circle or a square? Which shape goes with hard?
All our subjects deemed the circle soft and the square hard. A full 94% ascribed happy to the circle, instead of sad. But other pairs revealed less agreement: 79% matched fast to slow and weak to strong, respectively. And only 51% linked deep to circle and shallow to square. (see Fig. 2) When we tested four totally blind volunteers using the same list, we found that their choices closely resembled those made by the sighted subjects. One man, who had been blind since birth, scored extremely well. He made only one match differing from the consensus, assigning ‘far’ to square and ‘near’ to circle. In fact, only a small majority of sighted subjects, 53%, had paired far and near to the opposite partners. Thus we concluded that the blind interprets abstract shapes as sighted people do.
Questions: 27-29 Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 27 –29 on your answer sheet.
27. In the first paragraph, the writer makes the point that blind people A. may be interested in studying art. B. can draw outlines of different objects and surfaces. C. can recognise conventions such as perspective. D. can draw accurately.
28. The writer was surprised because the blind woman A. drew a circle on her own initiative. B. did not understand what a wheel looked like. C. included a symbol representing movement. D. was the first person to use lines of motion.
29. From the experiment described in Part 1, the writer found that the blind subjects A. had good understanding of symbols representing movement. B. could control the movement of wheels very accurately. C. worked together well as a group in solving problems. D. got better results than the sighted undergraduates.
Questions 30 –32 Look at the following diagrams (Questions 30 –32), and the list of types of movement below. Match each diagram to the type of movement A–E generally assigned to it in the experiment. Choose the correct letter A–E and write them in boxes 30–32 on your answer sheet.
A steady spinning B jerky movement C rapid spinning D wobbling movement E use of brakes
Questions 33–39 Complete the summary below using words from the box. Write your answers in boxes 33–39 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any word more than once.
In the experiment described in Part 2, a set of word 33…….…… was used to investigate whether blind and sighted people perceived the symbolism in abstract 34…..……… in the same way. Subjects were asked which word fitted best with a circle and which with a square. From the 35………… volunteers, everyone thought a circle fitted ‘soft ’while a square fitted ‘hard’. However, only 51% of the 36…….…… volunteers assigned a circle to 37…..…… . When the test was later repeated with 38………… volunteers, it was found that they made 39………… choices.
associations blind deep hard hundred identical pairsshapes sighted similar shallow soft words
Question 40 Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D. Write your answer in box 40 on your answer sheet.
Which of the following statements best summarises the writer’s general conclusion? A The blind represent some aspects of reality differently from sighted people. B The blind comprehend visual metaphors in similar ways to sighted people. C The blind may create unusual and effective symbols to represent reality. D The blind may be successful artists if given the right training.
Answer: 27. C 28. C 29. A 30. E 31. C 32. A 33. pairs 34. shapes 35. sighted 36. sighted 37. deep 38. blind 39. similar 40. B
Comprehensive guide covering essential IELTS preparation strategies and techniques to help you achieve your target band score.
Originally published April 2023. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
The question of whether we are alone in the Universe has haunted humanity for centuries, but we may now stand poised on the brink of the answer to that question, as we search for radio signals from other intelligent civilizations. This search is often known by the acronym SETI [search for extraterrestrial intelligence], is a difficult one. Although groups around the world have been searching intermittently for three decades, it is only now that we have reached the level of technology where we can make a determined attempt to search all nearby stars for any sign of life.
A. The primary reason for the search is basic curiosity – the same curiosity about the natural world that drives all pure science. We want to know whether we are alone in the Universe. We want to know whether life evolves naturally if given the right conditions, or whether there is something very special about the Earth to have fostered the variety of life forms that we see around us on the planet. The simple detection of a radio signal will be sufficient to answer this most basic of all questions. In this sense, SETI is another cog in the machinery of pure science which is continually pushing out the horizon of our knowledge. However, there are other reasons for being interested in whether life exists elsewhere. For example, we have had civilization on Earth for perhaps only a few thousand years, and the threats of nuclear war and pollution over the last few decades have told us that our survival may be tenuous. Will we last another two thousand years or will we wipe ourselves out? Since the lifetime of a planet like ours is several billion years, we can expect that if other civilizations do survive in our galaxy, their ages will range from zero to several billion years. Thus any other civilization that we hear from is likely to be far older on average than ourselves. The mere existence of such a civilization will tell of that long-term survival is possible, and gives us some cause for optimism. It is even possible that the older civilization may pass on the benefits of their experience in dealing with threats to survival such as nuclear war and global pollution, and other threats that we haven’t yet discovered.
B. In discussing whether we are alone, most SETI scientists adopt two ground rules. First. UFOs [Unidentified Flying objects] are generally ignored since most scientists don’t consider the evidence for them to be strong enough to bear serious consideration (although it is also important to keep an open mind in case any really convincing evidence emerges in the future). Second, we make a very conservative assumption that we are looking for a life form that is pretty well like us, since if it differs radically from us we may well not recognize it as a life form, quite apart from whatever we are able to communicate with it. In other words, the life form we are looking for may well have two green heads and seven fingers, but it will nevertheless resemble us in that it should communicate with its fellows. Be interested in the Universe, Live on a planet orbiting a star like our Sun, and perhaps most restrictively have chemistry, like us, based on carbon and water.
C. Even when we make these assumptions, our understanding of other life forms is still severely limited. We do not even know, for example, how many stars have planets, and we certainly do not know how likely it is that life will arise naturally, given the right conditions. However, when we look at the 100 billion stars in our galaxy [the Milky Way], and 100 billion galaxies. In the observable Universe, it seems inconceivable that at least one of these planets does not have a life form on it; in fact, the best educated guess we can make using the little that we do know about the conditions for carbon-based life, leads us to estimate that perhaps one in 100,000 stars might have a life-bearing planet orbiting it. That means that our nearest neighbors are perhaps 1000 light years away, which is almost next door in astronomical terms.
D. An alien civilization could choose many different ways of sending information across the galaxy, but many of these either require too much energy. or else are severely attenuated while traversing the vast distances across the galaxy. It bums out that. for a given amount of transmitted power: radio waves in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz travel the greatest distance. and so all searches to date have concentrated on looking for radio waves in this frequency range. So far there have been a number of searches by various groups around the world, including Australian searches using the radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales. Until now there have not been any detections from the few hundred stars which have been searched. The scale of the searches has been increased dramatically since 1992, when the US Congress voted NASA $10 million per year for ten years to conduct a thorough search for extra-terrestrial life. Much of the money in this project is being spent on developing the special hardware needed to search many frequencies at once. The project has two parts. One part is a targeted search using the world’s largest radio telescopes. The American-operated telescope in Arecibo. Puerto Rico and the French telescope in Nancy in France. This part of the project is searching the nearest 1000 likely stars with a high sensibility for signals in the frequency range 1000 to 3000 MHz. The other parts of the project is an undirected search which is monitoring all of the space with a lower using the smaller antennas of NASA`s Deep Space Network.
E. There is considerable debate over how we should react if we detect a signal from an alien civilization. Everybody agrees that we should not reply immediately. Quite apart from the impracticality of sending e reply over such large distances at short notice, it raises a host of ethical questions that would have to be addressed by the global community before any reply could be sent. Would the human race face the culture shock if faced with a superior and much older civilization? Luckily, there is no urgency about this. The stars being searched are hundreds of light years away. so it takes hundreds of years for their signal to reach us, and a further few hundred years for our reply to reach them. It is not important, then, if there`s a delay of a few years, or decades, while the human race debates the question of whether to reply and perhaps carefully drafts a reply.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on the reading passage below.
Questions 14-17 The Reading Passage has five paragraphs, A-E. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-E from the headings below.
Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings i. Seeking the transmission of radio signals from planets ii. Appropriate responses to signals from other civilizations iii. Vast distances to Earth’s closest neighbors iv. Assumptions underlying the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence v. Reasons for the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence vi. Knowledge of extra-terrestrial life forms vii. Likelihood of life on other planets
ExampleAnswer Paragraph A v
14. Paragraph B 15. Paragraph C 16. Paragraph D 17. Paragraph E
Question 18-20 Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 18-20 on your answer sheet.
18. What is the life expectancy of Earth? 19. What kind of signals from other intelligent civilizations are SETI scientists searching for? 20. How many stars are the world’s most powerful radio telescopes searching?
Questions 21-26 Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 49?
In boxes 21-26 on your answer sheet, write:
YES if the statement agrees with the information NO if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this more than once.
21. Alien civilizations may be able to help the human race to overcome serious problems 23. SETI scientists are trying to find a life form that resembles humans in many ways. 23. The Americans and Australians have co-operated on joint research projects. 24. So far SETI scientists have picked up radio signals from several stars. 25. The NASA project attracted criticism from some members of Congress. 26. If a signal from outer space is received, it will be important to respond promptly.
Answers: 14. iv 15. vii 16. i 17. ii 18. several billion years 19. radio (waves/signals) 20. 1000 (stars) 21. YES 22. YES 23. NOT GIVEN 24. NO 25. NOT GIVEN 26. NO
Comprehensive guide covering essential IELTS preparation strategies and techniques to help you achieve your target band score.
Originally published April 2023. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-12 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below:
Population Viability Analysis
Part A To make political decisions about the extent and type of forestry in a region it is important to understand the consequences of those decisions. One tool for assessing the impact of forestry on the ecosystem is population viability analysis (PVA). This is a tool for predicting the probability that a species will become extinct in a particular region over a specific period. It has been successfully used in the United States to provide input into resource exploitation decisions and assist wildlife managers and there is now an enormous potential for using population viability to assist wildlife management in Australia’s forests. A species becomes extinct when the last individual dies. This observation is a useful starting point for any discussion of extinction as it highlights the role of luck and chance in the extinction process. To make a prediction about extinction we need to understand the processes that can contribute to it and these fall into four broad categories which are discussed below.
Part B A) Early attempts to predict population viability were based on demographic uncertainty whether an individual survives from one year to the next will largely be a matter of chance. Some pairs may produce several young in a single year while others may produce none in that same year. Small populations will fluctuate enormously because of the random nature of birth and death and these chance fluctuations can cause species extinctions even if, on average, the population size should increase. Taking only this uncertainty of ability to reproduce into account, extinction is unlikely if the number of individuals in a population is above about 50 and the population is growing.
B) Small populations cannot avoid a certain amount of inbreeding. This is particularly true if there is a very small number of one sex. For example, if there are only 20 individuals of a species and only one is a male, all future individuals in the species must be descended from that one male. For most animal species such individuals are less likely to survive and reproduce. Inbreeding increases the chance of extinction.
C) Variation within a species is the raw material upon which natural selection acts. Without genetic variability, a species lacks the capacity to evolve and cannot adapt to changes in its environment or to new predators and new diseases. The loss of genetic diversity associated with reductions in population size will contribute to the likelihood of extinction.
D) Recent research has shown that other factors need to be considered. Australia’s environment fluctuates enormously from year to year. These fluctuations add yet another degree of uncertainty to the survival of many species. Catastrophes such as fire, flood, drought or epidemic may reduce population sizes to a small fraction of their average level. When allowance is made for these two additional elements of uncertainty the population size necessary to be confident of persistence for a few hundred years may increase to several thousand.
Part C Besides these processes, we need to bear in mind the distribution of a population. A species that occurs in five isolated places each containing 20 individuals will not have the same probability of extinction as a species with a single population of 100 individuals in a single locality. Where logging occurs (that is, the cutting down of forests for timber) forest-dependent creatures in that area will be forced to leave. Ground-dwelling herbivores may return within a decade. However, arboreal marsupials (that is animals which live in trees) may not recover to pre-logging densities for over a century. As more forests are logged, animal population sizes will be reduced further. Regardless of the theory or model that we choose, a reduction in population size decreases the genetic diversity of a population and increases the probability of extinction because of any or all of the processes listed above. It is, therefore, a scientific fact that increasing the area that is loaded in any region will increase the probability that forest-dependent animals will become extinct.
Questions 1-4: Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Part A of Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet write:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer NO if the statement contradicts the writer NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
Example: A link exists between the consequences of decisions and the decision-making process itself. Answer: YES.
1. Scientists are interested in the effect of forestry on native animals. 2. PVA has been used in Australia for many years. 3. A species is said to be extinct when only one individual exists. 4. Extinction is a naturally occurring phenomenon.
Questions 5-8: These questions are based on Part B of Reading Passage 1.
In paragraphs A to D the author describes four processes which may contribute to the extinction of a species. Match the list of processes (i-vi) to the paragraphs. Write the appropriate number (i-vi) in boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet.
NB. There are more processes than paragraphs so you will not use all of them.
Paragraphs 5. Paragraph A 6. Paragraph B 7. Paragraph C 8. Paragraph D
Processes i Loss of ability to adapt ii Natural disasters iii An imbalance of the sexes iv Human disasters v Evolution vi The haphazard nature of reproduction
Questions 9-11: Based on your reading of Part C, complete the sentences below.
Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 9-11 on your answer sheet.
While the population of a species may be on the increase, there is always a chance that small isolated groups ………. (9) ………. Survival of a species depends on a balance between the size of a population and its ………. (10) ……… The likelihood that animals which live in forests will become extinct is increased when ………. (11) ………..
Question 12: Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in box 12 on your answer sheet.
12. An alternative heading for the passage could be: A. The protection of native flora and fauna B. Influential factors in assessing survival probability C. An economic rationale for the logging of forests D. Preventive measures for the extinction of a species
Answer:
1. NOT GIVEN 2. NO 3. NO 4. NOT GIVEN 5. vi 6. iii 7. i 8. ii 9. will(/may) not survive, [or, will (/ may/ could) become extinct] 10. locality/ distribution 11. logging takes place/ logging occurs 12. B
Comprehensive guide covering essential IELTS preparation strategies and techniques to help you achieve your target band score.
Originally published April 2023. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
The Creativity Myth
A. It is a myth that creative people are born with their talents: gifts from God or nature. Creative genius is, in fact, latent within many of us, without our realising. But how far do we need to travel to find the path to creativity? For many people, a long way. In our everyday lives, we have to perform many acts out of habit to survive, like opening the door, shaving, getting dressed, walking to work, and so on. If this were not the case, we would, in all probability, become mentally unhinged. So strongly ingrained are our habits, though this varies from person to person, that sometimes, when a conscious effort is made to be creative, automatic response takes over. We may try, for example, to walk to work following a different route, but end up on our usual path. By then it is too late to go back and change our minds. Another day, perhaps. The same applies to all other areas of our lives. When we are solving problems, for example, we may seek different answers, but, often as not, find ourselves walking along the same well-trodden paths.
B. So, for many people, their actions and behavior are set in immovable blocks, their minds clogged with the cholesterol of habitual actions, preventing them from operating freely, and thereby stifling creation. Unfortunately, mankind’s very struggle for survival has become a tyranny – the obsessive desire to give order to the world is a case in point. Witness people’s attitude to time, social customs, and the panoply of rules and regulations by which the human mind is now circumscribed.
C. The groundwork for keeping creative ability in check begins at school. School, later university and then work, teach us to regulate our lives, imposing a continuous process of restrictions which is increasing exponentially with the advancement of technology. Is it surprising then that creative ability appears to be so rare? It is trapped in the prison that we have erected. Yet, even here in this hostile environment, the foundations for creativity are being laid; because setting off on the creative path is also partly about using rules and regulations. Such limitations are needed so that once they are learnt, they can be broken.
D. The truly creative mind is often seen as totally free and unfettered. But a better image is of a mind, which can be free when it wants, and one that recognises that rules and regulations are parameters, or barriers, to be raised and dropped again at will. An example of how the human mind can be trained to be creative might help here. People’s minds are just like tense muscles that need to be freed up and the potential unlocked. One strategy is to erect artificial barriers or hurdles in solving a problem. As a form of stimulation, the participants in the task can be forbidden to use particular solutions or to follow certain lines of thought to solve a problem. In this way they are obliged to explore unfamiliar territory, which may lead to some startling discoveries. Unfortunately, the difficulty in this exercise, and with creation itself, is convincing people that creation is possible, shrouded as it is in so much myth and legend. There is also an element of fear involved, however subliminal, as deviating from the safety of one’s own thought patterns is very much akin to madness. But, open Pandora’s box, and a whole new world unfolds before your very eyes.
E. Lifting barriers into place also plays a major part in helping the mind to control ideas rather than letting them collide at random. Parameters act as containers for ideas, and thus help the mind to fix on them. When the mind is thinking laterally and two ideas from different areas of the brain come or are brought together, they form a new idea, just like atoms floating around and then forming a molecule. Once the idea has been formed, it needs to be contained or it will fly away, so fleeting is its passage. The mind needs to hold it in place for a time so that it can recognise it or call on it again. And then the parameters can act as channels along which the ideas can flow, developing and expanding. When the mind has brought the idea to fruition by thinking it through to its final conclusion, the parameters can be brought down and the idea allowed to float off and come in contact with other ideas.
Questions 1-5
Reading Passage 1 has five paragraphs, A-E.
Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-E in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.
the way parameters in the mind help people to be creative
the need to learn rules in order to break them
how habits restrict us and limit creativity
how to train the mind to be creative
how the mind is trapped by the desire for order
Questions 6-10
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
According to the writer, creative people
A. are usually born with their talents
B. are born with their talents
C. are not born with their talents
D. are geniuses
According to the writer, creativity is
A. a gift from God or nature
B. an automatic response
C. difficult for many people to achieve
D. a well-trodden path
According to the writer
A. the human race’s fight to live is becoming a tyranny
B. the human brain is blocked with cholesterol
C. the human race is now circumscribed by talents
D. the human race’s fight to survive stifles creative ability
Advancing technology
A. holds creativity in check
B. improves creativity
C. enhances creativity
D. is a tyranny
According to the author, creativity
A. is common
B. is increasingly common
C. is becoming rarer and rarer
D. is a rare commodity
Questions 11-14
Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer?
In boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the information in the passage
NO if the statement contradicts the information in the passage
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about the statement in the passage
Rules and regulations are examples of parameters.
The truly creative mind is associated with the need for free speech and a totally free society.
One problem with creativity is that people think it is impossible.
