Essential strategies and practice techniques for this IELTS Reading question type. Learn how to manage time and improve accuracy.
Originally published March 2025. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
The Blog post contains the following IELTS Reading Questions:
IELTS Reading Matching Features IELTS Reading True/False/Not given IELTS Reading Matching heading questions
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IELTS Reading Passage: Mobile phones and driving
Mobile phones and driving
A. Mobile phones used to be expensive items when they were first introduced, but they have now been around for more than ten years and are quite common. These cell phones are now more affordable for the majority of people thanks to technological advancement and public demand. The most contentious issue in today’s world, though, is whether or not one should use a cell phone while driving. Will it have any effect on us or pose a threat to others? Alternately, the likelihood of an accident won’t change.
B. Various nations around the globe have started imposing heavy violations as a national policy. Ireland imposes the harshest penalties on the continent, with the UK, Australia, and Finland joining the ranks of nations opposing this extremely dangerous act more recently. (a third offence can mean 3 months imprisonment). In addition to this, the offenders are charged 2000 Euros and 2 weeks in jail in Europe(the Netherlands).
C. As we continue to take our eyes off the road to talk on the phone or, even more dangerously, text, the statistics for motor vehicle accidents are rising daily. Speaking on the phone while driving increases the likelihood of an accident, and texting while driving increases the likelihood of an accident by nine times. The use of a cell phone by the driver has repeatedly and unequivocally been shown to significantly increase the risk of a car accident in study after study that has been replicated around the world.
D. Although the Ministry of Transport is still putting together a report based on public consultation, a proposal made by a previous Labour-led Government in New Zealand suggests a $50 fine and 27 demerit points for anyone using a cell phone while driving. The government is aware that, even though this is just a pending idea, it will be challenging to police, but something needs to be done and people need to be aware of the potential repercussions. Contrary to popular belief, hands-free devices can be just as hazardous as handheld phones when used, according to research from Waikato University.
E. On the one hand, it will be difficult to break the habit of using a cell phone while driving because it has become a part of our daily lives. However, it has been demonstrated that when faced with a hazard on the road, our reaction times are never quick enough. If you are conversing with someone else at the same time, your reaction time will be even slower. The average person finds that it takes them two and a half seconds to react in a dangerous situation. If you are on the phone, that reaction time can increase by two seconds. You have two things competing for your attention: your conversation and driving. It is a physical and cognitive distraction because you have to take one hand off the wheel to hold the phone due to the demands of the conversation and the road. However, an American radio host argued that outlawing cell phones while driving was going too far, asking, “If we outlaw cell phones, what comes next? There are no billboards, coffee shops, or CD players? The host acknowledged that texting while driving posed a risk, but talking on the phone did not.
F. Texting while driving can lead our eyes off the road and was a definite hazard; majority of the individuals accepted this and agreed with him. Now, a question arises that not holding a conversation while driving is as distracting as eating food or reaching for a CD. Even when mobile phones did not come into existence accidents still used to take place so do we really need to take this matter seriously?
G. Of course, people will have different views on this, and it will always be a contentious topic. The number of nations that have laws prohibiting using cell phones while driving is growing, but there are still many more that have yet to follow. Although there is a lack of data, it appears that tests, surveys, and research are conducted frequently in an effort to draw conclusions about how hazardous and possibly fatal this habit may be.
Look at the following list of the statement (Questions 1-5) based on ‘Mobile phones and driving’
Match the statement with the correct person or department A-E.
A.Ministry of Transport B.Road safety groups C.Waikato University D.American radio host E. The New Zealand government
1. Is assembling the public’s feedback at the moment. 2. proposed particular sanctions for using a phone while driving. 3. The likelihood of an accident is higher, as demonstrated by statistics. 4. Believes that using a phone while driving can be dangerous. 5. The risk of talking on the phone is exaggerated.
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Questions 6-10
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? In boxes 6-10 an your answer sheet write:
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts with the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
6. The world’s strictest regulations regarding cell phone use while driving are found in Ireland. 7. Speaking on the phone while driving increases the risk of an accident by nine times, according to research by organisations that promote road safety. 8. If the driver is on a mobile device, reaction times in an emergency are doubled. 9. Statistics show that eating while driving is just as risky as using a phone. 10. For a clearer conclusion, more investigation is necessary.
Enhance your skills in identifying information as True, False, or Not Given. Click here to discover expert strategies and techniques for mastering this question type in the IELTS Reading section.
Questions 11-13
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A – G.
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B – D from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-x in boxes 11-13.
List of Headings
i. Effects of mobile phones on risks ii. statistics on texting iii. worldwide responses iv. More research required v. Proof from around the globe vi. Difficulties with enforcement vii. global consensus on punishment viii. Data that contradicts each other ix. The Dangers of Interacting with Passengers x. weighing the risks
1. A 2. E 3. B 4. C 5. D 6. Not given 7. False 8. False 9. Not given 10. True 11. iii 12. v 13. vi
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Essential strategies and practice techniques for this IELTS Reading question type. Learn how to manage time and improve accuracy.
Originally published March 2025. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
The Blog post contains the following IELTS Reading Questions:
IELTS reading Matching Headings
IELTS reading Diagram completion
IELTS reading Matching Information
Stay informed and prepared for success – Explore our comprehensive Reading Test Info page to get valuable insights, exam format details, and expert tips for mastering the IELTS Reading section.
IELTS Reading Passage – The Cloud Messenger
The Cloud Messenger
Luke Howard had been speaking for nearly an hour, during which time his audience had found itself in a state of gradually mounting excitement. By the time that he reached the concluding words of his address, the Plough Court laboratory was in an uproar. Everyone in the audience had recognized the importance of what they had just heard, and all were in a mood to have it confirmed aloud by their friends and neighbours in the room. Over the course of the past hour, they had been introduced not only to new explanations of the formation and lifespan of clouds, but also to a poetic new terminology: ‘Cirrus’, ‘Stratus’, ‘Cumulus’, ‘Nimbus’, and the other names, too, the names of intermediate compounds and modified forms, whose differences were based on altitude, air temperature and the shaping powers of upward radiation. There was much that needed to be taken on board.
Clouds, as everyone in the room would already have known, were staging posts in the rise and fall of water as it made its way on endless compensating journeys between the earth and the fruitful sky. Yet the nature of the means of their exact construction remained a mystery to most observers who, on the whole, were still in thrall to the vesicular or ‘bubble’ theory that had dominated meteorological thinking for the better part of a century. The earlier speculations, in all their strangeness, had mostly been forgotten or were treated as historical curiosities to be glanced at, derided and then abandoned. Howard, however, was adamant that clouds were formed from actual solid drops of water and ice, condensed from their vaporous forms by the fall in temperature which they encountered as they ascended through the rapidly cooling lower atmosphere. Balloon pioneers during the 1780s had continued just how cold it could get up in the realm of the clouds: the temperature fell some 6.5″C for every thousand meters they ascended. By the time the middle of a major cumulus cloud had been reached, the temperature would have dropped to below freezing, while the oxygen concentration of the air would be starting to thin choir dangerously. That was what the balloonists meant by ‘dizzy heights’.
Howard was not, of course, the first to insist that clouds were best understood as entities with physical properties of their own, obeying the same essential laws which governed the rest of the natural world (with one or two interesting anomalies: water, after all, is a very strange material). It had long been accepted by many of the more scientifically minded that clouds, despite their distance and their seeming intangibility, should be studied and apprehended like any other objects in creation.
There was more, however, and better. Luke Howard also claimed that there was a fixed and constant number of basic cloud types, and this number was not (as the audience might have anticipated) in the hundreds or the thousands, like the teeming clouds themselves, with each as individual as a thumbprint. Had this been the case, it would render them both unclassifiable and unaccountable; just so many stains upon the sky. Howard’s claim, on the contrary, was that there were just three basic families of cloud, into which every one of the thousands of ambiguous forms could be categorized with certainty. The clouds obeyed a system and, once recognized in outline, their basic forms would be ‘as distinguishable from each other as a tree from a hill, or the latter from a lake’, for each displayed the simplest possible visual characteristics.
The names which Howard devised or they were designed to convey a descriptive sense of each cloud type’s outward characteristics (a practice derived from the usual procedures of natural history classification) and were taken from the Latin, for ease of adoption by the learned of different nations’: Cirrus (from the Latin for fibre or hair), Cumulus (from the Latin for heap or pile) and Stratus (from the Latin for layer or sheet). Clouds were thus divided into tendrils, heaps and layers: the three formations at the heart of their design. Howard then went on to name four other cloud types, all of which were either modifications or aggregates of the three major families of formation. Clouds continually unite, pass into one another and disperse, but always in recognizable stages. The rain cloud Nimbus, for example (from the Latin for cloud), was, according to Howard, a rainy combination of all three types, although Nimbus was reclassified as nimbostratus by meteorologists in 1932, by which time the science of rain had developed beyond all recognition.
The modification of clouds was a major new idea, and what struck the audience most vividly about it was its elegant and powerful fittingness. All of what they had just heard seemed so clear and so self-evident. Some must have wondered how it was that no one – not even in antiquity – had named or graded the clouds before, or if they had, why their efforts had left no trace in the language. How could it be that the task had been waiting for Howard, who had succeeded in wringing a kind of exactitude from out of the vaporous clouds? Their forms, though shapeless and unresolved, had, at last, it seemed, been securely grasped. Howard had given a set of names to a radical fluidity and impermanence that seemed every bit as magical, to that first audience, as the Eskimo’s fabled vocabulary of snow.
You need to choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings bellow.
Write the correct number i-x in the boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
The lists of headings are as follows
i. An easily understood system ii. Doubts dismissed iii. Not a totally unconventional view iv. Theories compared v. A momentous occasion vi. A controversial use of terminology vii. Initial confusion viii. Previous beliefs replaced ix. More straightforward than expected x. An obvious thing to do
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Questions 37-40
Reading Passage has 3 has six paragraphs.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.
NB: You may use any letter more than once.
37. An example of modification made to work done by Howard. 38. A comparison between Howard’s work and another classification system. 39. A reference to the fact that Howard presented a very large amount of information. 40. An assumption is that the audience asked themselves a question.
Master the art of matching information and boost your score in the IELTS Reading section. Click here to access our step-by-step guide on handling Matching Information questions effectively.
27. Answer: E 28. Answer: H 29. Answer: C 30. Answer: I 31. Answer: A 32. Answer: J 33. Answer: DIZZY HEIGHTS 34. Answer: MAJOR CUMULUS CLOUD 35. Answer: OXYGEN 36. Answer: 6.5° CELSIUS, 1000 METERS 37. Answer: E 38. Answer: F 39. Answer: A 40. Answer: F
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The best way to keep up to date with posts like this is to like us on Facebook, then follow us on Instagram and Pinterest. If you need help preparing for the IELTS Test, join the IELTS Achieve Academy and see how we can assist you to achieve your desired band score. We offer an essay correction service, mock exams and online courses.
Essential strategies and practice techniques for this IELTS Reading question type. Learn how to manage time and improve accuracy.
Originally published March 2025. Last reviewed 3 July 2026.
The Blog post contains the following IELTS Reading Questions:
IELTS Reading Matching Headings
IELTS Reading Matching Features
IELTS Reading Summary Completion
Stay informed and prepared for success – Explore our comprehensive Reading Test Info page to get valuable insights, exam format details, and expert tips for mastering the IELTS Reading section.
IELTS Reading Passage – Making Documentary Films
Making Documentary Films
AFor much of the twentieth century, documentary films were overshadowed by their more successful Hollywood counterparts. For a number of reasons, documentaries were frequently ignored by critics and film studies courses at universities. Firstly, the very idea of documentary film made some people suspicious. As the critic Dr Helmut Fischer put it, ‘Documentary makers might have ambitions to tell the “truth” and show only “facts” but there is no such thing as a non-fiction film. That’s because, as soon as you record an incident on camera, you are altering its reality in a fundamental way’. Secondly, even supporters of documentaries could not agree on a precise definition, which did little to improve the reputation of the genre. Lastly, there were also concerns about the ethics of filming subjects without their consent, which is a necessity
in many documentary films.
B None of this prevented documentaries from being produced, though exactly when the process started is open to question. It is often claimed that Nanook of the North was the first documentary. Made by the American filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty in 1922, the film depicts the hard, sometimes heroic lives of native American peoples in the Canadian Arctic. Nanook of the North is said to have set off a trend that continued though the 1920s with the films of Dziga
Vertov in the Soviet Union and works by other filmmakers around the world. However, that 1922 starting point has been disputed by supporters of an earlier date. Among this group is film historian Anthony Berwick, who argues that the genre can be traced back as early as 1895, when similar films started to appear, including newsreels, scientific films and accounts of journeys of exploration.
C In the years following 1922, one particular style of documentary started to appear. These films adopted a serious tone while depicting the lives of actual people. Cameras were mounted on tripods and subjects rehearsed and repeated activities for the purposes of the film. British filmmaker John Grierson was an important member of this group. Grierson’s career lasted nearly 40 years, beginning with Drifters (1929) and culminating with | Remember, | Remember (1968). However, by the 1960s Grierson’s style of film was being rejected by the Direct Cinema movement, which wanted to produce more natural and authentic films: cameras were hand-held; no additional lighting or sound was used; and the subjects did not rehearse. According to film writer Paula Murphy, the principles and methods of Direct Cinema brought
documentaries to the attention of universities and film historians as never before. Documentaries started to be recognized as a distinct genre worthy of serious scholarly analysis.
D Starting in the 1980s, the widespread availability of first video and then digital cameras transformed filmmaking. The flexibility and low cost of these devices meant that anyone could now be a filmmaker. Amateurs working from home could compete with professionals in ways never possible before. The appearance of online film-sharing platforms in the early 2000s only increased the new possibilities for amateur documentaries were being made, perhaps the most popular documentary of 2006 was still the professionally made An Inconvenient Truth. New cameras and digital platforms revolutionised the making of films. But as critic Maria Fiala has pointed out, “The arguments sometimes put forward that these innovations immediately transformed what the public expected to see in a documentary isn’t entirely accurate”.
E However, a new generation of documentary filmmakers then emerged, and with them came a new philosophy of the genre. These filmmakers moved away from highlighting political themes or urgent social issues. Instead the focus moved inwards, exploring personal lives, relationships and emotions. It could be argued that Catfish (2010) was a perfect example of this new trend. The film chronicles the everyday lives and interactions of the social media generation and was both a commercial and critical success. Filmmaker Josh Camberwell maintains that Catfish embodies a new realization that documentaries are inherently subjective and that this should be celebrated. Says Camberwell, it is a requirement for documentary makers to express a particular viewpoint and give personal responses to the material they are recording.
F The popularity and variety of documentaries today is illustrated by the large number of film festivals focusing on the genre around the world. The biggest of all must be the Hot Docs Festival in Canada, which over the years has showcased hundreds of documentaries from more than 50 different countries. Even older is the Hamburg International Short Film Festival. As its name suggests, Hamburg specializes in short films, but one category takes this to its limits – entries may not exceed three minutes in duration. The Short and Sweet Festival is a slightly
smaller event held in Utah, USA. The small size of the festival means that for first timers this is the ideal venue to try to get some recognition for their films. Then there is the Atlanta Shortsfest, which is a great event for a wide variety of filmmakers. Atlanta welcomes all established types of documentaries and recognises the growing popularity of animations, with a category specifically
for films of this type. These are just a few of the scores of film festivals on offer, and there are more being established every year. All in all, it has never been easier for documentary makers to get their films in front of an audience.
Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Select the correct number, i-vill, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i A contrast between two historic approaches to documentary filmmaking ii Disagreement between two individual documentary makers iii A wide range of opportunities to promote documentary filmmaking iv A number of criticisms about all documentary filmmaking in the past v One film that represented a fresh approach to documentary filmmaking vi Some probable future trends in documentary filmmaking vii The debate about the origins of documentary filmmaking viii The ability of ordinary people to create documentary films for the first time
14 Paragraph A 15 Paragraph B 16 Paragraph C 17 Paragraph D 18 Paragraph E 19 Paragraph F
Look at the statements (Questions 20-23) and the list of people below. Match each statement with the correct person, A-E.
List of People
A Dr Helmut Fischer B Anthony Berwick C Paula Murphy D Maria Fiala E Josh Camberwell
Select the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet.
20 The creation of some new technologies did not change viewers’ attitudes towards documentaries as quickly as is sometimes proposed. 21 One set of beliefs and techniques helped to make documentary films academically respectable. 22 The action of putting material on film essentially changes the nature of the original material. 23 Documentary filmmakers have an obligation to include their own opinions about and analysis of the real events that they show in their films.
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Questions 24-26
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
FILM FESTIVALS
There are many festivals for documentary makers. For example, Canada’s Hot Docs festival has screened documentaries from more than 50 countries. Meanwhile, the Hamburg Short Film Festival lives up to its name by accepting films no more than 24 …………………………….. long in one of its categories. The Short and Sweet Film Festival is especially good for documentary makers who are 25 …………………………… . And the Atlanta Shortsfest accepts numerous forms of documentaries including 26 ……………………………, which are becoming more common.
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14Answer: iv 15Answer: vii 16Answer: i 17Answer: viii 18Answer: v. 19Answer: iii 20Answer: D 21Answer: C 22Answer: A 23Answer: E 24Answer: 3 minutes/three minutes 25Answer: 1st timers/ first timers 26Answer: animations
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The best way to keep up to date with posts like this is to like us on Facebook, then follow us on Instagram and Pinterest. If you need help preparing for the IELTS Test, join the IELTS Achieve Academy and see how we can assist you to achieve your desired band score. We offer an essay correction service, mock exams and online courses.
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
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 about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on the Reading Passage below.
Persistent Bullying Reading Answers
How can it be prevented? Peter Smith, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sheffield, directed the Sheffield Anti-Bullying Intervention Project, funded by the Department for Education.
Here he reports on his findings.
A Bullying can take a variety of forms, from the verbal – being taunted or called hurtful names – to the physical – being kicked or shoved – as well as indirect forms, such as being excluded from social groups. A survey I conducted with Irene Whitney found that in British primary schools up to a quarter of pupils reported experience of bullying, which in about one in ten cases was persistent. There was less bullying in secondary schools, with about one in twenty-five suffering persistent bullying, but these cases may be particularly recalcitrant.
B Bullying is clearly unpleasant, and can make the child experiencing it feel unworthy and depressed. In extreme cases it can even lead to suicide, though this is thankfully rare. Victimised pupils are more likely to experience difficulties with interpersonal relationships as adults, while children who persistently bully are more likely to grow up to be physically violent, and convicted of anti-social offences.
C Until recently, not much was known about the topic, and little help was available to teachers to deal with bullying. Perhaps as a consequence, schools would often deny the problem. ‘There is no bullying at this school’ has been a common refrain, almost certainly untrue. Fortunately more schools are now saying: There is not much bullying here, but when it occurs we have a clear policy for dealing with it.’
D Three factors are involved in this change. First is an awareness of the severity of the problem. Second, a number of resources to help tackle bullying have become available in Britain. For example, the Scottish Council for Research in Education produced a package of materials, Action Against Bullying, circulated to all schools in England and Wales as well as in Scotland in summer 1992, with a second pack, Supporting Schools Against Bullying, produced the following year. In Ireland, Guidelines on Countering Bullying Behaviour in Post-Primary Schools was published in 1993. Third, there is evidence that these materials work, and that schools can achieve something. This comes from carefully conducted ‘before and after’ evaluations of interventions in schools, monitored by a research team. In Norway, after an intervention campaign was introduced nationally, an evaluation of forty-two schools suggested that, over a two-year period, bullying was halved. The Sheffield investigation, which involved sixteen primary schools and seven secondary schools, found that most schools succeeded in reducing bullying.
E Evidence suggests that a key step is to develop a policy on bullying, saying clearly what is meant by bullying, and giving explicit guidelines on what will be done if it occurs, what records will be kept, who will be informed, what sanctions will be employed. The policy should be developed through consultation, over a period of time – not just imposed from the head teacher’s office! Pupils, parents and staff should feel they have been involved in the policy, which needs to be disseminated and implemented effectively.
Other actions can be taken to back up the policy. There are ways of dealing with the topic through the curriculum, using video, drama and literature. These are useful for raising awareness, and can best be tied into early phases of development, while the school is starting to discuss the issue of bullying. They are also useful in renewing the policy for new pupils, or revising it in the light of experience. But curriculum work alone may only have short-term effects; it should be an addition to policy work, not a substitute.
There are also ways of working with individual pupils, or in small groups. Assertiveness training for pupils who are liable to be victims is worthwhile, and certain approaches to group bullying such as ‘no blame’, can be useful in changing the behaviour of bullying pupils without confronting them directly, although other sanctions may be needed for those who continue with persistent bullying.
Work in the playground is important, too. One helpful step is to train lunchtime supervisors to distinguish bullying from playful fighting, and help them break up conflicts. Another possibility is to improve the playground environment, so that pupils are less likely to be led into bullying from boredom or frustration.
F With these developments, schools can expect that at least the most serious kinds of bullying can largely be prevented. The more effort put in and the wider the whole school involvement, the more substantial the results are likely to be. The reduction in bullying – and the consequent improvement in pupil happiness – is surely a worthwhile objective.
Questions 1-4
The reading passage has six sections, A-F.
Choose the correct heading for sections A-D from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-vii, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i The role of video violence
ii The failure of government policy
iii Reasons for the increased rate of bullying
iv Research into how common bullying is in British schools
v The reaction from schools to enquiries about bullying
vi The effect of bullying on the children involved
vii Developments that have led to a new approach by schools
1 Section A
2 Section B
3 Section C
4 Section D
Questions 5-8
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet.
5 A recent survey found that in British secondary schools
A there was more bullying than had previously been the case.
B there was less bullying than in primary schools.
C cases of persistent bullying were very common.
D indirect forms of bullying were particularly difficult to deal with.
6 Children who are bullied
A are twice as likely to commit suicide as the average person.
B find it more difficult to relate to adults.
C are less likely to be violent in later life.
D may have difficulty forming relationships in later life.
7 The writer thinks that the declaration ‘There is no bullying at this school’
A is no longer true in many schools.
B was not in fact made by many schools.
C reflected the school’s lack of concern.
D reflected a lack of knowledge and resources.
8 What were the findings of research carried out in Norway?
A Bullying declined by 50% after an anti-bullying campaign.
B Twenty-one schools reduced bullying as a result of an anti-bullying campaign.
C Two years is the optimum length for an anti-bullying campaign.
D Bullying is a less serious problem in Norway than in the UK.
Questions 9-13
Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.
What steps should schools take to reduce bullying?
The most important step is for the school authorities to produce a 9 ………………. which makes the school’s attitude towards bullying quite clear.
It should include detailed 10 ………………. as to how the school and its staff will react if bullying occurs.
In addition, action can be taken through the 11 ……………….
This is particularly useful in the early part of the process, as a way of raising awareness and encouraging discussion.
On its own, however, it is insufficient to bring about a permanent solution.
Effective work can also be done with individual pupils and small groups.
For example, potential 12 ………………. of bullying can be trained to be more self-confident.
Or again,in dealing with group bullying, a ‘no blame’ approach, which avoids confronting the offender too directly, is often effective.
Playground supervision will be more effective if members of staff are trained to recognise the difference between bullying and mere 13 ……………….
Question 14
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in box 14 on your answer sheet.
14 Which of the following is the most suitable title for the Reading Passage?
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 about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on the Reading Passage below.
Canals on Mars
A Popular interest in Mars, the ‘Red Planet’, is long-established, but has enjoyed two dramatic flowerings, one in the 1890s and the other a century later.
B Any speculation about life on Mars, then or now, is part of a long discussion on ‘the plurality of worlds’. Pluralists believe that there are other worlds apart from ours which contain life — an idea that had its origins in classical Greece. In the 19th century, the new science of astrophysics suggested that large numbers of stars in the sky were similar to the sun in their composition — perhaps they too were circled by planetary systems. Nearer to home Mars, our neighbour in the solar system seemed to offer the evidence the pluralists had lacked until then.
C The characteristics of Mars’ orbit are such that its distance from Earth varies considerably — from 34.5 to 234.5 million miles. From an astronomer’s standpoint, it was particularly well-placed for observation in 1877, 1892 and 1909. Observations in each of these years intensified discussion about possible life on Mars.
D If life, intelligent or otherwise, were to be found on Mars, then life on Earth would not be unique. The scientific, theological and cultural outcomes of such a discovery could be stupendous. In 1859, Fr. Angelo Secchi, director of the Vatican observatory and a confirmed pluralist, observed markings on the surface of Mars, which he described as canals, ‘channels’. The fateful word had been launched on its career, although there was little immediate development from Secchi’s work.
E In 1877 another Italian, Giovanni Schiaparelli, one of Europe’s most distinguished astronomers, also observed the canals, but he added the refinement that they appeared to be constituents of a system. Other astronomers observed features that might be continents or seas; Schiaparelli confirmed these findings and gave them finely sonorous classical names such as Hellas, Mare Etythraeum, Promethei Sinus.
F Although Schiaparelli was cautious in his public statements, recent research suggests that he was a pluralist. Certainly his choice of familiar place names for the planet, and his publicising of the calla network, encouraged pluralist speculation. Inevitably, cumuli was soon being translated into English as ‘canals’ rather than ‘channels’. In 1882, Schiaparelli further fuelled speculation by discovering twin canals; a configuration which he named ‘gemination’; he described no fewer than sixty canals and twenty geminations.
G Some of Schiaparellrs findings were confirmed by the astronomers Perrotin and Thollon at Nice Observatory in 1886. In 1888, however, Perrotin confused matters by announcing that the Martian continent of ‘Libya’ observed by Schiaparelli in 1886 ‘no longer exists today’. The confusion grew; two prestigious observatories in the US found in one case no canals, in another a few of them but no geminations, and no changes to Libya.
H While the observers exchanged reports and papers, the popularisers got to work. They were generally restrained at first. The British commentator Richard Proctor thought that the canals might be rivers; he was among the first to suggest that a Martian canal would have to be ‘fifteen or twenty miles broad’ to be seen from Earth.
The leading French pluralist, Camille Flammarion, published his definitive La Planete Mars in 1892: ‘the canals may be due … to the rectification of old rivers by the inhabitants for the purpose of the general distribution of water…! Other commentators supposed the ‘canals’ might be an optical illusion, a line first advanced by the English artist Nathaniel Green, teacher of painting to Queen Victoria and an amateur astronomer.
I The canals debate might have levelled off at this point had it not been for the incursion of its most prominent controversialist — and convinced pluralist — Percival Lowell. Lowell, an eminent Bostonian, entered the astronomical argument after a career in business and diplomacy, mainly in the Orient. He may not have brought an entirely objective mind to the task. Even before he started observing he had announced that the canals were probably ‘the work of some sort of intelligent beings’.
J The newly-arrived popular press was very willing to report Lowell’s findings and views; canal mania grew apace. By 1910 Lowell had reported over 400 canals with.an average length of 1,500 miles. He wrote plausibly about the Martian atmosphere and the means by which the canals distributed water from Mars polar caps to irrigate the planet before evaporation returned moisture to the poles. This water cycle appealed to popular evolutionism which perceived Mars as an old, dying world trying to avert its fate by rational and large-scale engineering — this was, after all, an age of great canals: Panama, Dortmund-Ems, Manchester, Corinth.
Questions 1-2
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
1 What do pluralists believe?
A There is life in other parts of the universe.
B Other stars have planets.
C There is life on Mars.
D There are many other stars like the sun.
2 What circumstance helped astronomers to study Mars in the late 19th century?
A A new science had developed.
B People believed that there was life on other planets.
C Mars was close to Earth on several occasions.
D There was popular interest in Mars at the time.
Questions 3-8
Look at the following lists of astronomers and thinkers (Questions 3-8) and ideas about Mars (A-I).
Match each astronomer with the idea or ideas he expressed.
NB There are more ideas than astronomers and thinkers, so you will not need to use them all.
A A particular geographical feature of Mars has disappeared.
B People think they can see canals, but they do not really exist.
C Life on Mars has become extinct.
D Some canals are organised in pairs.
E The canals are used to carry water from colder areas to warmer areas.
F The canals must be extremely deep to carry so much water.
G The inhabitants of Mars are still building canals.
H The Martians have adapted natural features to meet their needs.
I The canals might be very wide and not artificial.
3 Schiaparelli………
4 Perrotin ……….
5 Proctor……..
6 Flammarion ………
7 Green……….
8 Lowell ……….
Questions 9-14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 9-14 on your answer sheet, write
YES if the statement agrees with the writer’s claims
NO if the statement contradicts the writer’s claims
NOT GIVEN if there is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
9 Discussion about whether there is life on Mars forms part of a long tradition.
10 The belief that life existed on Mars was encouraged by a translation error.
11 The limitations of 19th century technology encouraged the idea that there were canals on Mars.
12 All Lowell’s statements about Mars were based on what he was able to see.
13 Lowell’s investigations of Mars aroused little interest outside the scientific community.
14 Lowell’s theory about how canals on Mars were used may have been inspired by fashionable ideas of the time.
