Academic Reading sample task – Table completion

Introducing dung beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats in the cow pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and tunnelling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become a permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and with in three or four years the benefits to the pasture are obvious.

Academic Reading sample task – Multiple choice

Academic Reading sample task – Multiple choice.

All these activities may have damaging environmental impacts. For example, land clearing for agriculture is the largest single cause of deforestation; chemical fertilisers and pesticides may contaminate water supplies; more intensive farming and the abandonment of fallow periods tend to exacerbate soil erosion; and the spread of monoculture and use of high-yielding varieties of crops have been accompanied by the disappearance of old varieties of food plants which might have provided some insurance against pests or diseases in future.

IELTS Reading sample task – Matching headings (5)

IELTS

IELTS Reading sample task – Matching headings

Questions 1 – 5

Sample Passage 6 has six sections, A-F. Choose the correct heading for sections A-D and F from the list of headings below. Write the correct number i-ix in boxes 1-5 on your onswer sheet.

List of Headings

i The probable effects of the new international trade agreement

ii The environmental impact of modern farming

iii Farming and soil erosion

iv The effects of government policy in rich countries

v Governments and management of the environment

vi The effects of government policy in poor countries

vii Farming and food output

viii The effects of government policy on food output

ix The new prospects for world trade

IELTS Reading sample task – Matching features (04)

IELTS Reading

The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of 'black powder'. Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. They base their belief on studies of Chinese writings or on the notebooks of early Europeans who settled in or made long visits to China to study its history and civilisation. It is probable that, some time in the tenth century, black powder was first compounded from its basic ingredients of saltpetre, charcoal and sulphur. But this does not mean that it was immediately used to propel rockets.
By the thirteenth century, powder-propelled fire arrows had become rather common. The Chinese relied on this type of technological development to produce incendiary projectiles of many sorts, explosive grenades and possibly cannons to repel their enemies.

Reading sample task – Identifying writer’s views/claims (3)

Identifying writer’s views/claims

Academic Reading sample task – Identifying writer’s views/claims

The Risks of Cigarette Smoke

Discovered in the early 1800s and named ‘nicotianine’, the oily essence now called nicotine is the main active ingredient of tobacco. Nicotine, however, is only a small component of cigarette smoke, which contains more than 4,700 chemical compounds, including 43 cancer-causing substances. In recent times, scientific research has been providing evidence that years of cigarette smoking vastly increases the risk of developing fatal medical conditions.

Academic Reading – Diagram label completion (02)

IELTS Beatle :)

Academic Reading sample task – Diagram label completion 

[Note: This is an extract from an Academic Reading passage on the subject of dung beetles. The text preceding this extract gave some background facts about dung beetles, and went on to describe a ecision to introduce non-native varieties to Australia.] 

Introducing dung1 beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats2 in the cow pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and tunnelling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become a permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and within three or four years the benefits to the pasture are obvious.

General Training Reading sample task – Identifying information (01)

IELTS London Bike

IELTS General Training Reading sample task.

Read the text below and answer Questions 1-8.

London to Brighton Bike Ride.

The start

The bike ride starts at Clapham Common tube station.

• Your Start Time is indicated by the colour of your body number in this pack. It is also printed on the address label of the envelope. Please arrive no earlier than 30 minutes before that time.

• We allocate an equal number of cyclists for each Start Time to ensure a steady flow. Please keep to the time you've been given so we can keep to our schedule and avoid delaying other riders and prevent 'bunching' further down ('Agrupamiento' más abajo) the route.

• An Information Point, toilets and refreshment stands will be open from very early in the day.