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| IELTS Reading Practice Test-14 With Answers |
READING PASSAGE 1
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which
are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Food
for thought 2
A
There
are not enough classrooms at the Msekeni primary school, so half the lessons
take place in the shade of yellow-blossomed acacia trees. Given this shortage,
it might seem odd that one of the school’s purpose-built classrooms has been
emptied of pupils and turned into a storeroom for sacks of grain. But it makes
sense. Food matters more than shelter.
B
Msekeni
is in one of the poorer parts of Malawi, a landlocked southern African country
of exceptional beauty and great poverty. No war lays waste Malawi, nor is the
land unusually crowed or infertile, but Malawians still have trouble finding
enough to eat. Half of the children under five are underfed to the point of
stunting. Hunger blights most aspects of Malawian life, so the country is as
good a place as any to investigate how nutrition affects development, and vice
versa.
C
The
headmaster at Msekeni, Bernard Kumanda, has strong views on the subject. He
thinks food is a priceless teaching aid. Since 1999, his pupils have received
free school lunches. Donors such as the World Food Programme (WFP) provide the
food: those sacks of grain (mostly mixed maize and soya bean flour, enriched
with vitamin A) in that converted classroom. Local volunteers do the cooking –
turning the dry ingredients into a bland but nutritious slop and spooning it
out on to plastic plates. The children line up in large crowds, cheerfully
singing a song called “We are getting porridge”.
D
When
the school’s feeding programme was introduced, enrolment at Msekeni doubled.
Some of the new pupils had switched from nearby schools that did not give out
free porridge, but most were children whose families had previously kept them
at home to work. These families were so poor that the long-term benefits of
education seemed unattractive when setting against the short-term gain of
sending children out to gather firewood or help in the fields. One plate of
porridge a day completely altered the calculation. A child fed at school will
not howl so plaintively for food at home. Girls, who are more likely than boys
to be kept out of school, are given extra snacks to take home.
E
When
a school takes in a horde of extra students from the poorest homes, you would
expect standards to drop. Anywhere in the world, poor kids tend to perform
worse than their better-off classmates. When the influx of new pupils is not
accompanied by an increase in the number of teachers, as was the case at
Msekeni, you would expect standards to fall even further. But they have not.
Pass rates at Msekeni improved dramatically, from 30% to 85%. Although this was
an exceptional example, the nationwide results of school feeding programmes
were still pretty good. On average, after a Malawian school started handing out
free food it attracted 38% more girls and 24% more boys. The pass rate for boys
stayed about the same, while for girls it improved by 9.5%.
F
Better
nutrition makes for brighter children. Most immediately, well-fed children find
it easier to concentrate. It is hard to focus the mind on long division when
your stomach is screaming for food. Mr Kumanda says that it used to be easy to
spot the kids who were really undernourished. “They were the ones who stared
into space and didn’t respond when you asked the question,” he says. More
crucially, though, more and better food helps brains grow and develop. Like any
other organ in the body, the brain needs nutrition and exercise. But if it is
starved of the necessary calories, proteins and micronutrients, it is stunted,
perhaps not as severely as a muscle would be, but stunted nonetheless. That is
why feeding children at schools work so well. And the fact that the effect of
feeding was more pronounced in girls than in boys gives a clue to who eats
first in rural Malawian households. It isn’t the girls.
G
On a
global scale, the good news is that people are eating better than ever before.
Homo sapiens has grown 50% bigger since the industrial revolution. Three
centuries ago, chronic malnutrition was more or less universal. Now, it is
extremely rare in rich countries. In developing countries, where most people
live, plates and rice bowls are also fuller than ever before. The proportion of
children under five in the developing world who are malnourished to the point
of stunting fell from 39% in 1990 to 30% in 2000, says the World Health
Organisation (WHO). In other places, the battle against hunger is steadily
being won. Better nutrition is making people cleverer and more energetic, which
will help them grow more prosperous. And when they eventually join the ranks of
the well off, they can start fretting about growing too fast.
Questions 1-7
The
reading passage has seven paragraphs, A-G
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-G from the list below.
Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 1-7 on your answer
sheet.
List
of Headings
i
Why better food helps students’ learning
ii A song for getting
porridge
iii Surprising use of school
premises
iv Global perspective
v Brains can be starved
vi Surprising academics outcome
vii Girls are specially treated in
the program
viii How food program is operated
ix How food program affects school
attendance
x None of the usual
reasons
xi How to maintain an academic
standard
1 Paragraph
A
2 Paragraph
B
3 Paragraph
C
4 Paragraph
D
5 Paragraph
E
6 Paragraph
F
7 Paragraph
G
Questions 8-11
Complete
the sentences below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from
the passage?
Write your answers in boxes 8-11 on your answer sheet
8 …………………..
are exclusively offered to girls in the feeding programme.
9 Instead
of going to school, many children in poverty are sent to collect ……………………. in
the fields.
10 The
pass rate as Msekeni has risen to …………………….. with the help of the feeding
programme.
11 Since
the industrial revolution, the size of the modern human has grown by …………………….
Questions 12-13
Choose TWO letters, A-F
Write your answers in boxes 12 and 13 on your answer
sheet.
Which TWO of the following statements are true?
A
Some children are taught in the open air.
B
Malawi has trouble to feed its large population.
C
No new staffs were recruited when attendance rose.
D
Girls enjoy a higher status than boys in the family
E
Boys and girls experience the same improvement in the pass rate.
F
WHO has cooperated with WFP to provide grain to the school at Msekeni.
READING PASSAGE 2
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on
Reading Passage 2 below.
Biodiversity
A
It
seems biodiversity has become a buzzword beloved of politicians, conservationists,
protesters and scientists alike. But what exactly is it? The Convention on
Biological Diversity, an international agreement to conserve and share the
planet’s biological riches, provides a good working definition: biodiversity
comprises every form of life, from the smallest microbe to the largest animal
or plant, the genes that give them their specific characteristics and the
ecosystems of which they are apart.
B
In
October, the World Conservation Union (also known as the IUCN) published its
updated Red List of Threatened Species, a roll call of 11,167 creatures facing
extinction – 121 more than when the list was last published in 2000. But the
new figures almost certainly underestimate the crisis. Some 1.2 million species
of animal and 270,000 species of plant have been classified, but the well-being
of only a fraction has been assessed. The resources are simply not available.
The IUCN reports that 5714 plants are threatened, for example, but admits that
only 4 per cent of known plants has been assessed. And, of course, there are
thousands of species that we have yet to discover. Many of these could also be
facing extinction.
C
It
is important to develop a picture of the diversity of life on Earth now so that
comparisons can be made in the future and trends identified. But it isn’t
necessary to observe every single type of organism in an area to get a snapshot
of the health of the ecosystem. In many habitats, there are species that are
particularly susceptible to shifting conditions, and these can be used as
indicator species.
D
In
the media, it is usually large, charismatic animals such as pandas, elephants,
tigers and whales that get all the attention when a loss of biodiversity is
discussed. However, animals or plants far lower down the food chain are often
the ones vital for preserving habitats – in the process saving the skins of
those more glamorous species. There are known as keystone species.
E
By
studying the complex feeding relationships within habitats, species can be
identified that have a particularly important impact on the environment. For
example, the members of the fig family are the staple food for hundreds of
different species in many different countries, so important that scientists
sometimes call figs “jungle burgers”. A whole range of animals, from tiny
insects to birds and large mammals, feed on everything from the tree’s bark and
leaves to its flowers and fruits. Many fig species have very specific
pollinators. There are several dozen species of the fig tree in Costa Rica, and
a different type of wasp has evolved to pollinate each one. Chris Lyle of the
Natural History Museum in London – who is also involved in the Global Taxonomy
Initiative of the Convention on Biological Diversity – points out that if fig
trees are affected by global warming, pollution, disease or any other
catastrophe, the loss of biodiversity will be enormous.
F
Similarly,
sea otters play a major role in the survival of giant kelp forests along the
coasts of California and Alaska. These “marine rainforests” provide a home for
a wide range of other species. The kelp itself is the main food of purple and
red sea urchins and in turn, the urchins are eaten by predators, particularly
sea otters. They detach an urchin from the seabed then float to the surface and
lie on their backs with the urchin shell on their tummy, smashing it open with
a stone before eating the contents. Urchins that are not eaten tend to spend
their time in rock crevices to avoid the predators. This allows the kelp to
grow – and it can grow many centimetres in a day. As the forests form, bits of
kelp break off and fall to the bottom to provide food for the urchins in their
crevices. The sea otters thrive hunting for sea urchins in the kelp, and many
other fish and invertebrates live among the fronds. The problems start when the
sea otter population declines. As large predators they are vulnerable – their
numbers are relatively small to disease or human hunters can wipe them out. The
result is that the sea urchin population grows unchecked and they roam the
seafloor eating young kelp fronds. This tends to keep the kelp very short and
stops forests developing, which has a huge impact on biodiversity.
G
Conversely,
keystone species can also make dangerous alien species: they can wreak havoc if
they end up in the wrong ecosystem. The cactus moth, whose caterpillar is a
voracious eater of prickly pear was introduced to Australia to control the
rampant cacti. It was so successful that someone thought it would be a good
idea to introduce it to Caribbean islands that had the same problem. It solved
the cactus menace, but unfortunately, some of the moths have now reached the US
mainland – borne on winds and in tourists’ luggage – where they are devastating
the native cactus populations of Florida.
H
Organisations
like the Convention on Biological Diversity work with groups such as the UN and
with governments and scientists to raise awareness and fund research. A number
of major international meetings – including the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg this year – have set targets for governments around
the world to slow the loss of biodiversity. And the CITES meeting in Santiago
last month added several more names to its list of endangered species for which
trade is controlled. Of course, these agreements will prove of limited value if
some countries refuse to implement them.
I
There
is cause for optimism, however. There seems to be a growing understanding of
the need for sustainable agriculture and sustainable tourism to conserve biodiversity.
Problems such as illegal logging are being tackled through sustainable forestry
programmes, with the emphasis on minimising the use of rainforest hardwoods in
the developed world and on rigorous replanting of whatever trees are harvested.
CITES is playing its part by controlling trade in wood from endangered tree
species. In the same way, sustainable farming techniques that minimise
environmental damage and avoid monoculture.
J
Action
at a national level often means investing in public education and awareness.
Getting people like you and me involved can be very effective. Australia and
many European countries are becoming increasingly efficient at recycling much
of their domestic waste, for example, preserving natural resources and reducing
the use of fossil fuels. This, in turn, has a direct effect on biodiversity by
minimising pollution, and an indirect effect by reducing the number of
greenhouse gases emitted from incinerators and landfill sites. Preserving
ecosystems intact for future generations to enjoy is obviously important, but
biodiversity is not some kind of optional extra. Variety may be “the spice of
life”, but biological variety is also our life-support system.
Questions 14-20
Do
the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement is true
FALSE
if the statement is false
NOT
GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
14 The
term “biodiversity” consists of living creatures and the environment that they
live in.
15 There
are species that have not been researched because it’s unnecessary to study all
creatures.
16 It
is not necessary to investigate all creatures in a certain place.
17 The
press more often than not focuses on animals well-known.
18 There
is a successful case that cactus moth plays a positive role in the US.
19 Usage
of hardwoods is forbidden in some European countries.
20 Agriculture
experts advise farmers to plant single crops in the field in terms of
sustainable farming.
Questions 21-26
Complete
the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using NO MORE
THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 21-26 on your answer sheet.
Because
of the ignorance brought by media, people tend to neglect significant creatures
called 21……………………. Every creature has diet connections with others, such
as 22…………………………., which provide a majority of foods for other species. In
some states of America, the decline in a number of sea otters leads to
the boom of 23………………………. An impressing case is that
imported 24………………………. successfully tackles the plant cacti
in 25………………………… However, the operation is needed for the government to
increase its financial support in 26………………………..
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READING
PASSAGE 3
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on
Reading Passage 3 below.
Soviet’s
New Working Week
Historian
investigates how Stalin changed the calendar to keep the Soviet people
continually at work
A
“There
are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm”. With these words, Stalin
expressed the dynamic self-confidence of the Soviet Union’s Five Year Plan:
weak and backward Russia was to turn overnight into a powerful modern
industrial country. Between 1928 and 1932, production of coal, iron and steel
increased at a fantastic rate, and new industrial cities sprang up, along with
the world’s biggest dam. Everyone’s life was affected, as collectivised farming
drove millions from the land to swell the industrial proletariat. Private
enterprise disappeared in city and country, leaving the State supreme under the
dictatorship of Stalin. Unlimited enthusiasm was the mood of the day, with the Communists
believing that iron will and hard-working manpower alone would bring about a
new world.
B
Enthusiasm
spread to time itself, in the desire to make the state a huge efficient
machine, where not a moment would be wasted, especially in the workplace. Lenin
had already been intrigued by the ideas of the American Frederick Winslow
Taylor (1856-1915), whose time-motion studies had discovered ways of
stream-lining effort so that every worker could produce the maximum. The
Bolsheviks were also great admirers of Henry Ford’s assembly line mass
production and of his Fordson tractors that were imported by the thousands. The
engineers who came with them to train their users helped spread what became a
real cult of Ford. Emulating and surpassing such capitalist models formed part
of the training of the new Soviet Man, a heroic figure whose unlimited capacity
for work would benefit everyone in the dynamic new society. All this culminated
in the Plan, which has been characterized as the triumph of the machine, where
workers would become supremely efficient robot-like creatures.
C
Yet
this was Communism whose goals had always included improving the lives of the
proletariat. One major step in that direction was the sudden announcement in
1927 that reduced the working day from eight to seven hours. In January 1929,
all Indus-tries were ordered to adopt the shorter day by the end of the Plan.
Workers were also to have an extra hour off on the eve of Sundays and holidays.
Typically though, the state took away more than it gave, for this was part of a
scheme to increase production by establishing a three-shift system. This meant
that the factories were open day and night and that many had to work at highly
undesirable hours.
D
Hardly
had that policy been announced, though, then Yuri Larin, who had been a close
associate of Lenin and architect of his radical economic policy, came up with
an idea for even greater efficiency. Workers were free and plants were closed
on Sundays. Why not abolish that wasted day by instituting a continuous
workweek so that the machines could operate to their full capacity every day of
the week? When Larin presented his idea to the Congress of Soviets in May 1929,
no one paid much attention. Soon after, though, he got the ear of Stalin, who
approved. Suddenly, in June, the Soviet press was filled with articles praising
the new scheme. In August, the Council of Peoples’ Commissars ordered that the
continuous workweek be brought into immediate effect, during the height of
enthusiasm for the Plan, whose goals the new schedule seemed guaranteed to
forward.
E
The
idea seemed simple enough but turned out to be very complicated in practice.
Obviously, the workers couldn’t be made to work seven days a week, nor should
their total work hours be increased. The solution was ingenious: a new five-day
week would have the workers on the job for four days, with the fifth day free;
holidays would be reduced from ten to five, and the extra hour off on the eve
of rest days would be abolished. Staggering the rest-days between groups of
workers meant that each worker would spend the same number of hours on the job,
but the factories would be working a full 360 days a year instead of 300. The
360 divided neatly into 72 five-day weeks. Workers in each establishment (at
first factories, then stores and offices) were divided into five groups, each
assigned a colour which appeared on the new Uninterrupted Work Week calendars
distributed all over the country. Colour-coding was a valuable mnemonic device
since workers might have trouble remembering what their day off was going to
be, for it would change every week. A glance at the colour on the calendar
would reveal the free day, and allow workers to plan their activities. This
system, however, did not apply to construction or seasonal occupations, which
followed a six-day week, or to factories or mines which had to close regularly
for maintenance: they also had a six-day week, whether interrupted (with the
same day off for everyone) or continuous. In all cases, though, Sunday was treated
like any other day.
F
Official
propaganda touted the material and cultural benefits of the new scheme. Workers
would get more rest; production and employment would increase (for more workers
would be needed to keep the factories running continuously); the standard of
living would improve. Leisure time would be more rationally employed, for
cultural activities (theatre, clubs, sports) would no longer have to be crammed
into a weekend, but could flourish every day, with their facilities far less
crowded. Shopping would be easier for the same reasons. Ignorance and
superstition, as represented by organized religion, would suffer a mortal blow,
since 80 per cent of the workers would be on the job on any given Sunday. The
only objection concerned the family, where normally more than one member was
working: well, the Soviets insisted, the narrow family was har less important
than the vast common good and besides, arrangements could be made for husband
and wife to share a common schedule. In fact, the regime had long wanted to
weaken or sideline the two greatest potential threats to its total dominance:
organised religion and the nuclear family. Religion succumbed, but the family,
as even Stalin finally had to admit, proved much more resistant.
G
The
continuous work week, hailed as a Utopia where time itself was conquered and
the sluggish Sunday abolished forever, spread like an epidemic. According to
official figures, 63 per cent of industrial workers were so employed by April
1930; in June, all industry was ordered to convert during the next year. The
fad reached its peak in October when it affected 73 per cent of workers. In
fact, many managers simply claimed that their factories had gone over to the
new week, without actually applying it. Conforming to the demands of the Plan
was important; practical matters could wait. By then, though, problems were
becoming obvious. Most serious (though never officially admitted), the workers
hated it. Coordination of family schedules was virtually impossible and usually
ignored, so husbands and wives only saw each other before or after work; rest
days were empty without any loved ones to share them – even friends were likely
to be on a different schedule. Confusion reigned: the new plan was introduced
haphazardly, with some factories operating five-, six- and seven-day weeks at
the same time, and the workers often not getting their rest days at all.
H
The
Soviet government might have ignored all that (It didn’t depend on public
approval), but the new week was far from having the vaunted effect on
production. With the complicated rotation system, the work teams necessarily
found themselves doing different kinds of work in successive weeks. Machines,
no longer consistently in the hands of people how knew how to tend them, were often
poorly maintained or even broken. Workers lost a sense of responsibility for
the special tasks they had normally performed.
I
As a
result, the new week started to lose ground. Stalin’s speech of June 1931,
which criticised the “depersonalised labor” its too hasty application had
brought, marked the beginning of the end. In November, the government ordered
the widespread adoption of the six-day week, which had its own calendar, with
regular breaks on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, and 30th, with Sunday usually as a
working day. By July 1935, only 26 per cent of workers still followed the
continuous schedule, and the six-day week was soon on its way out. Finally, in
1940, as part of the general reversion to more traditional methods, both the
continuous five-day week and the novel six-day week were abandoned, and Sunday
returned as the universal day of rest. A bold but typically ill-conceived
experiment was at an end.
Questions 27-34
Reading
Passage 3 has nine paragraphs A-I
Choose
the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write
the correct number i-xii in boxes 27-34 on your answer
sheet
List
of Headings
i
Benefits of the new scheme and its resistance
ii Making use of the once
wasted weekends
iii Cutting work hours for
better efficiency
iv Optimism of the great future
v Negative effects on the
production itself
vi Soviet Union’s five-year
plan
vii The abolishment of the new
work-week scheme
viii The Ford model
ix Reaction from factory
workers and their families
x The color-coding scheme
xi Establishing a three-shift
system
xii Foreign inspiration
27 Paragraph
A
28 Paragraph
B
Example
Answer
Paragraph C
iii
29 Paragraph
D
30 Paragraph
E
31 Paragraph
F
32 Paragraph
G
33 Paragraph
H
34 Paragraph
I
Questions 35-37
Choose
the correct letter A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.
35 According
to paragraph A, the Soviet’s five-year plan was a success because
A
Bolsheviks built a strong fortress.
B
Russia was weak and backward.
C industrial
production increased.
D
Stalin was confident about the Soviet’s potential.
36 Daily
working hours were cut from eight to seven to
A
improve the lives of all people
B boost
industrial productivity.
C get
rid of undesirable work hours.
D change
the already establish three-shift work system.
37 Many
factory managers claimed to have complied with the demands of the new work week
because
A
they were pressurized by the state to do so.
B they
believed there would not be any practical problems.
C they
were able to apply it.
D workers
hated the new plan.
Questions 38-40
Answer
the questions below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for
each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.
38 Whose
idea of continuous work week did Stalin approve and helped to implement?
39 What
method was used to help workers to remember the rotation of their off days?
40 What
was the most resistant force to the new work week scheme?
ANSWERS
1. iii
2. x
3. viii
4. ix
5. vi
6. i
7. iv
8. extra snacks
9. firewood
10. 85%
11. 50%
12. A
13. C
14. TRUE
15. FALSE
16. TRUE
17. TRUE
18. FALSE
19. NOT GIVEN
20. NOT GIVEN
21. keystone
22. fig family/figs
23. sea urchins (urchins)
24. cactus moth
25. Australia
26. Public education
27. iv
28. xii
29. ii
30. x
31. i
32. ix
33. v
34. vii
35. C
36. B
37. A
38. Yuri Larin
39. Colour-coding/colour
40. family
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