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| IELTS Reading Practice Test - 2 With Answers |
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Andrea Palladio: Italian architect
A new exhibition celebrates Palladio’s
architecture 500 years on
A
Vicenza is a
pleasant, prosperous city in the Veneto, 60km west of Venice. Its grand families
settled and farmed the area from the 16th century. But its principal claim
to fame is Andrea Palladio, who is such an influential architect that a
neoclassical style is known as Palladian. The city is a permanent
exhibition of some of his finest buildings, and as he was born – in Padua,
to be precise – 500 years ago, the International Centre for the Study of
Palladio’s Architecture has an excellent excuse for mounting la grande
Mostra, the big show
B
The exhibition has
the special advantage of being held in one of Palladio’s buildings,
Palazzo Barbaran da Porto. Its bold façade is a mixture of rustication
and decoration set between two rows of elegant columns. On the second
floor, the pediments are alternately curved or pointed, a Palladian
trademark. The harmonious proportions of the atrium at the entrance lead
through to a dramatic interior of fine fireplaces and painted ceilings.
Palladio’s design is simple, clear and not over-crowded. The show has been
organised on the same principles, according to Howard Burns, the
architectural historian who co-curated it.
C
Palladio’s father
was a miller who settled in Vicenza, where the young Andrea was
apprenticed to a skilled stonemason. How did a humble miller’s son become
a world-renowned architect? The answer in the exhibition is that, as a
young man, Palladio excelled at carving decorative stonework on columns,
doorways and fireplaces. He was plainly intelligent, and lucky enough to
come across a rich patron, Gian Giorgio Trissino, a landowner and
scholar, who organised his education, taking him to Rome in the 1540s,
where he studied the masterpieces of classical Roman and Greek
architecture and the work of other influential architects of the time,
such as Donato Bramante and Raphael.
D
Burns argues that
social mobility was also important. Entrepreneurs, prosperous from
agriculture in the Veneto, commissioned the promising local architect to
design their country villas and their urban mansions. In Venice, the
aristocracy was anxious to co-opt talented artists, and Palladio has given
the chance to design the buildings that have made him famous –
the churches of San Giorgio Maggiore and the Redentore, both easy to
admire because they can be seen from the city’s historical centre across a
stretch of water.
E
He tried his hand
at bridges – his unbuilt version of the Rialto Bridge was decorated with
the large pediment and columns of a temple – and, after a fire at the
Ducal Palace, he offered an alternative design which bears an uncanny
resemblance to the Banqueting House in Whitehall in London. Since it was
designed by Inigo Jones, Palladio’s first foreign disciple, this is not as
surprising as it sounds.
F
Jones, who visited
Italy in 1614, bought a trunk full of the master’s architectural drawings;
they passed through the hands of Dukes of Burlington and Devonshire before
settling at the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1894. Many are
now on display at Palazzo Barbaran. What they show is how Palladio drew on
the buildings of ancient Rome as models. The major theme of both his rural
and urban building was temple architecture, with a strong pointed pediment
supported by columns and approached by wide steps.
G
Palladio’s work for
rich landowners alienates unreconstructed critics on the Italian left, but
among the papers in the show are designed for cheap housing in Venice. In
the wider world, Palladio’s reputation has been nurtured by a text he
wrote and illustrated, “Quattro Libri dell’ Architettura”. His influence
spread to St Petersburg and to Charlottesville in Virginia, where Thomas
Jefferson commissioned a Palladian villa he called Monticello.
H
Vicenza’s show
contains detailed models of the major buildings and is leavened by
portraits of Palladio’s teachers and clients by Titian, Veronese and
Tintoretto; the paintings of his Venetian buildings are all by Canaletto,
no less. This is an uncompromising exhibition; many of the drawings are
small and faint, and there are no sideshows for children, but the impact
of harmonious lines and satisfying proportions is to impart in a viewer a
feeling of benevolent calm. Palladio is history’s most therapeutic architect.
I
“Palladio, 500
Anni: La Grande Mostra” is at Palazzo Barbaran da Porto, Vicenza, until January
6th 2009. The exhibition continues at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from
January 31st to April 13th, and travels afterwards to Barcelona and Madrid.
Questions 1-7
Do the following
statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In
boxes 1-7 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
1 The building where the exhibition
is staged has been newly renovated
2 Palazzo Barbaran da Porto
typically represent the Palladio’s design
3 Palladio’s father worked as an
architect.
4 Palladio’s family refused to pay
for his architectural studies
5 Palladio’s alternative design for
the Ducal Palace in Venice was based on an English building.
6 Palladio designed both wealthy
and poor people.
7 The exhibition includes paintings
of people by famous artists
Questions 8-13
Answer the
questions below
Choose NO
MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write
your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet
8
What
job was Palladio training for before he became an architect?
9
Who
arranged Palladio’s architectural studies?
10 Who was the first non-Italian
architect influenced by Palladio?
11 What type of Ancient Roman
buildings most heavily influenced Palladio’s work?
12 What did Palladio write that
strengthened his reputation?
13 In the writer’s opinion, what
feeling will visitors to the exhibition experience?
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend
about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading
Passage 2 below.
The future never dies?
The prospects for
humanity and for the world as a whole are somewhere between glorious and dire.
It is hard to be much more precise.
A
By ‘glorious’, I
mean that our descendants – all who are born on to this Earth – could live very
comfortably and securely, and could continue to do so for as long as the Earth
can support life, which should be for a very long time indeed. We should at
least be thinking in terms of the next million years. Furthermore, our descendants
could continue to enjoy the company of other species – establishing a much
better relationship with them than we have now. Other animals need not live in
constant fear of us. Many of those fellow species now seem bound to become
extinct, but a significant proportion could and should continue to live
alongside us. Such a future may seem ideal, and so it is. Yet I do not believe
it is fanciful. There is nothing in the physical fabric of the Earth or in our
own biology to suggest that this is not possible.
B
‘Dire’ means that
we human beings could be in deep trouble within the next few centuries, living
but also dying in large numbers in political terror and from starvation, while
huge numbers of our fellow creatures would simply disappear, leaving only the
ones that we find convenient – chickens, cattle – or that we can’t shake off,
like flies and mice. I’m taking it to be self-evident that glory is preferable.
C
Our future is not
entirely in our own hands because the Earth has its own rules, is part of the
solar system and is neither stable nor innately safe. Other planets in the
solar system are quite beyond habitation, because their temperature is far too
high or too low to be endured, and ours, too, in principle could tip either
way. Even relatively unspectacular changes in the atmosphere could do the
trick. The core of the Earth is hot, which in many ways is good for living
creatures, but every now and again, the molten rock bursts through volcanoes on
the surface. Among the biggest volcanic eruptions in recent memory was Mount St
Helens, in the USA, which threw out a cubic kilometre of ash – fortunately, in
an area where very few people live. In 1815, Tambora (in present-day Indonesia)
expelled so much ash into the upper atmosphere that climatic effects seriously
harmed food production around the world for the season after season. Entire
civilisations have been destroyed by volcanoes.
D
Yet nothing we have
so far experienced shows what volcanoes can really do. Yellowstone
National Park in the USA occupies the caldera (the crater formed when
a volcano collapses) of an exceedingly ancient volcano of extraordinary
magnitude. Modem surveys show that its centre is now rising. Sometime in the
next 200 million years, Yellowstone could erupt again, and when it does, the
whole world will be transformed. Yellowstone could erupt tomorrow. But there’s
a very good chance that it will give us another million years, and that surely
is enough to be going on with. It seems sensible to assume that this will be the
case.
E
The universe at
large is dangerous, too: in particular, we share the sky with vast numbers of
asteroids, and now and again, the come into our planet’s atmosphere. An
asteroid the size of a small island, hitting the Earth at 15,000 kilometres an
hour (a relatively modest speed by the standards of heavenly bodies), would
strike the ocean bed like a rock in a puddle, send a tidal wave around the
world as high as a small mountain and as fast as a jumbo jet, and propel us
into an ice age that could last for centuries. There are plans to head off such
disasters (including rockets to push approaching asteroids into new
trajectories), but in truth, it’s down to luck.
F
On the other hand,
the archaeological and the fossil evidence shows that no truly devastating
asteroid has struck since the one that seems to have accounted for the
extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. So again, there seems no
immediate reason for despair. The Earth is indeed an uncertain place, in an
uncertain universe, but with average luck, it should do us well enough. If the
world does become inhospitable in the next few thousand or million years, then
it will probably be our own fault. In short, despite the underlying
uncertainty, our own future and that of our fellow creatures are very much in
our own hands.
G
Given average luck
on the geological and the cosmic scale, the difference between glory and
disaster will be made and is being made, by politics. Certain kinds of
political systems and strategies would predispose us to
long-term survival (and indeed to comfort and security and pleasure of being
alive), while others would take us more and more frenetically towards
collapse. The broad point is, though, that we need to look at ourselves –
humanity – and at the world in general in a quite new light. Our material
problems are fundamentally those of biology. We need to think, and we need our
politicians to think, biologically. Do that, and take the ideas seriously, and
we are in with a chance. Ignore biology and we and our fellow creatures haven’t
a hope.
Questions 14-19
Do the following
statements reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet write
YES
if the statement is true
NO
if the statement is false
NOT
GIVEN if
the information is not given in the passage
14 It seems predictable that some
species will disappear.
15 The nature of the Earth and human
biology make it impossible for human beings to survive another million years.
16 An eruption by Yellowstone is
likely to be more destructive than previous volcanic eruptions.
17 There is a greater chance of the
Earth being hit by small asteroids than large ones.
18 If the world becomes
uninhabitable, it is most likely to be as a result of a natural disaster.
19 Politicians currently in power
seem unlikely to change their way of thinking.
Question 20-25
Complete the
summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
Write your answers in boxes 20-25 on your answer sheet.
The Earth could
become uninhabitable, like other planets, through a major change in the 20…………………..
Volcanic eruptions of 21……………………. can lead to shortages of 22…………………….
in a wide area. An asteroid hitting the Earth could create a 23……………………
that would result in a new 24……………………. Plans are being made to
use 25…………………….. to deflect asteroids heading for the Earth.
Question 26
Choose the correct
letter A, B, C or D.
Write your answer in box 26 on your answer sheet.
26 What is the writer’s purpose in
Reading Passage 2?
A to propose a new theory about
the causes of natural disasters
B to prove that generally held
beliefs about the future are all mistaken
C to present a range of opinions
currently held by scientists
D to argue the need for a general change in
behavior
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend
about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading
Passage 3 below.
Pottery production in ancient Akrotiri
A
Excavations at the
site of prehistoric Akrotiri, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, have revealed
much about the technical aspects of pottery manufacture, indisputably one of
the basic industries of this Greek city. However, considerably less is known
about the socio-economic context and the way production was organised.
B
The bulk of pottery
found at Akrotiri is locally made and dates from the late fifteenth century BC.
It clearly fulfilled a vast range of the settlement’s requirements: more than
fifty different types of pots can be distinguished. The pottery found includes
a wide variety of functional types like storage jars, smaller containers,
pouring vessels, cooking pots, drinking vessels and so on, which all relate to
specific activities and which would have been made and distributed with those
activities in mind. Given a large number of shapes produced and the relatively
high degree of standardisation, it has generally been assumed that most, if not
all, of Akrotiri pottery, was produced by specialised craftsmen in a
non-domestic context. Unfortunately, neither the potters’ workshops nor kilns
have been found within the excavated area. The reason may be that the ceramic
workshops were located on the periphery of the site, which has not yet been
excavated. In any event, the ubiquity of the pottery, and the consistent
repetition of the same types in different sizes suggest production on an
industrial scale.
C
The Akrotirian
potters seem to have responded to pressures beyond their households, namely to
the increasing complexity of regional distribution and exchange systems. We can
imagine them as full-time craftsmen working permanently in a high
production-rate craft such as pottery manufacture, and supporting themselves
entirely from the proceeds of their craft. In view of the above, one can begin
to speak in terms of mass-produced pottery and the existence of organised
workshops of craftsmen during the period 1550-1500 BC. Yet, how pottery
production was organised at Akrotiri remains an open question, as there is no
real documentary evidence. Our entire knowledge comes from the ceramic material
itself, and the tentative conclusions which can be drawn from it.
D
The invention of
units of quantity and of a numerical system to count them was of capital
importance of an exchange-geared society such as that of Akrotiri. In spite of
the absence of any written records, the archaeological evidence reveals that
concepts of measurements, both weight and number, had been formulated. Standard
measures may already have been in operation, such as those evidenced by a
graduated series of lead weights – made in disc form – found at the site. The
existence of units of capacity in Late Bronze Age times is also evidenced, by
the notation of units of a liquid measure for wine on excavated containers.
E
It must be
recognised that the function of pottery vessels plays a very important role in
determining their characteristics. The intended function affects the choice of
clay, the production technique, and the shape and the size of the pots. For
example, large storage jars would be needed to store commodities, whereas
smaller containers would be used for transport. In fact, the length of a man’s
arm limits the size of a smaller pot to a capacity of about twenty litres; that
is also the maximum a man can comfortably carry.
F
The various sizes
of container would thus represent standard quantities of a commodity, which is
a fundamental element in the function of exchange. Akrotirian merchants
handling a commodity such as wine would have been able to determine easily the
amount of wine they were transporting from the number of containers they
carried in their ships since the capacity of each container was known to be
14-18 litres. (We could draw a parallel here with the current practice in
Greece of selling oil in 17-kilogram tins.)
G
We may, therefore,
assume that the shape, capacity, and, sometimes decoration of vessels are
indicative of the commodity contained by them. Since individual transactions
would normally involve different quantities of a given commodity, a range of
‘standardised’ types of the vessel would be needed to meet traders’
requirements.
H
In trying to
reconstruct systems of capacity by measuring the volume of excavated pottery, a
rather generous range of tolerances must be allowed. It seems possible that the
potters of that time had specific sizes of the vessel in mind, and tried to
reproduce them using a specific type and amount of clay. However, it would be
quite difficult for them to achieve the exact size required every time, without
any mechanical means of regulating symmetry and wall thickness, and some
potters would be more skilled than others. In addition, variations in the
repetition of types and size may also occur because of unforeseen circumstances
during the throwing process. For instance, instead of destroying the entire pot
if the clay in the rim contained a piece of grit, a potter might produce a
smaller pot by simply cutting off the rim. Even where there is no noticeable
external difference between pots meant to contain the same quantity of a
commodity, differences in their capacity can actually reach one or two litres.
In one case the deviation from the required size appears to be as much as 10-20
per cent.
I
The establishment
of regular trade routes within the Aegean led to increased movement of goods;
consequently, a regular exchange of local, luxury and surplus goods, including
metals, would have become feasible as a result of the advances in transport
technology. The increased demand for standardised exchanges, inextricably
linked to commercial transactions, might have been one of the main factors
which led to the standardisation of pottery production. Thus, the whole network
of ceramic production and exchange would have depended on specific regional
economic conditions and would reflect the socio-economic structure of
prehistoric Akrotiri.
Questions 27-28
Choose the correct
letter A, B, C or D.
27 What does the writer say about of
pottery excavated at Akrotiri?
A There was very little
duplication.
B They would have met a big
variety of needs.
C Most of them had been imported
from other places.
D The intended purpose of each
piece was unclear.
28 The assumption that pottery from
Akrotiri was produced by specialists is partly based on
A The discovery of kilns.
B The central location of
workshops.
C The sophistication of decorative
patterns.
D The wide range of shapes
represented.
Questions 29-32
Complete each
sentence with the correct ending, A-F, below.
Write the correct letter, A-F.
29 The assumption that standard
units of weight were in use could be based on
30 Evidence of the use of standard
units of the volume is provided by
31 The size of certain types of
containers would have been restricted by
32 Attempts to identify the intended
capacity of containers are complicated by
A The discovery of a collection of
metal discs.
B The size and type of sailing
ships in use.
C Variations in the exact shape
and thickness of similar containers.
D The physical characteristics of
workmen.
E Marks found on wine containers.
F The variety of commodities for
which they would have been used.
Questions 33-38
Do the following
statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3? Write
YES
if the statement agrees with the claims of
the writer
NO
if the statement contradicts the claims of
the writer
NOT
GIVEN
if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
33 There are plans to excavate new
areas of the archaeological site the near future.
34 Some of the evidence concerning
pottery production in ancient Akrotiri comes from written records
35 Pots for transporting liquids
would have held no more than about 20 litres.
36 It would have been hard for
merchants to calculate how much wine was on their ships.
37 The capacity of containers
intended to hold the same amounts differed by up to 20 per cent.
38 Regular trading of goods around
the Aegean would have led to the general standardisation of quantities.
Questions 39-40
Choose the correct
letter A, B, C or D
39 What does the writer say about
the standardisation of container sizes?
A Containers which looked the same
from the outside often varied incapacity.
B The instruments used to control
container size were unreliable.
C The unsystematic use of different
types of clay resulted in size variations.
D Potters usually discarded
containers which were of a non-standard size.
40 What is probably the main purpose
of Reading Passage 3?
A To evaluate the quality of
pottery containers found in prehistoric Akrotiri.
B To suggest how features of
pottery production at Akrotiri reflected other developments in the region.
C To outline the development of
pottery-making skills in ancient Greece.
D To describe methods for storing and transporting household goods in prehistoric societies.
IELTS Writing Task-2 Recent Exam Questions
ANSWERS
1. NOT GIVEN
2. TRUE
3. FALSE
4. NOT GIVEN
5. FALSE
6. TRUE
7. TRUE
8. Stonemason
9. Gian Giorgio Trissino
10. Inigo Jones
11. Temple
12. Quattro Libri dell’ Architettura
13. benevolent calm
14. YES
15. NO
16. YES
17. NOT GIVEN
18. NO
19. NOT GIVEN
20. temperature
21. (molten) rock / ash
22. food
23. tidal wave
24. ice age
25. rockets
26. D
27. B
28. D
29. A
30. E
31. D
32. C
33. NOT GIVEN
34. NO
35. YES
36. NO
37. YES
38. YES
39. A
40. B
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