The real IELTS Reading Test contains three separate reading passages. The reading section is different for the Academic Reading Test takers and the General Reading Test takers.
IELTS Academic Reading Test passage texts are taken from magazines, journals, research papers, books, and newspapers.
IELTS General Reading Test texts are taken from notices, advertisements, official documents, booklets, newspapers, instruction manuals, leaflets, timetables, books and magazines.
Educating psyche Educating Psyche by Bernie Neville is a book which looks at radical new approaches to learning, describing the effects of emotion, imagination and the unconscious on learning. One the theory discussed in the book is that proposed by George Lozanov, which focuses on the power of suggestion. Lozanov’s instructional technique is based on … more →
The keyless society A Students who want to enter the University of Montreal’s Athletic Complex need more than just a conventional ID card – their identities must be authenticated by an electronic hand scanner. In some California housing estates, a key alone is insufficient to get someone in the door; his or her/ Voice print … more →
Making every drop count A The history of human civilization is entwined with the history of ways we have learned to manipulate water resources. As towns gradually expanded, water was brought from increasingly remote sources, leading to sophisticated engineering efforts such as dams and aqueducts. At the height of the Roman Empire, nine major systems, … more →
Sticking power Want to walk on the ceiling? All it takes is a bit of fancy footwork. A If Keilar Autumn, an expert in Biomechanik at Clark College in Portland, Oregon, has his way, the first footprints on Mars won’t be human. They’ll belong to a gecko. Gecko toes have legendary sticking power – … more →
Numeration One of the first great intellectual feats of a young child is learning how to talk, closely followed by learning how to count. From earliest childhood we are so bound up with our system of numeration that it is a feat of imagination to consider the problems faced by early humans who had not … more →
The coral reefs of Agatti Island A. Agatti is one of the Lakshadweep Islands off the southwest coast of India. These islands are surrounded by lagoons and coral reefs which are in turn surrounded by the open ocean. Coral reefs, which are formed from the skeletons of minute sea creatures, give shelter to a variety … more →
Questions 14-18 The reading passage has six paragraphs B-F from the list of headings below Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B-F from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (i-ix) in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet. NB: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use them all. … more →
Absenteeism in nursing A LONGITUDINAL STUDY Absence from work is a costly and disruptive problem for any organization. The cost of absenteeism in Australia has been put at 1.8 million hours per day or $1400 million annually. The study reported here was conducted in the Prince William Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, where, prior to this … more →
The scientific method A ‘Hypotheses,’ said Medawar in 1964,‘are imaginative and inspirational in character’; they are ‘adventures of the mind’. He was arguing in favor of the position taken by Karl Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1972, 3rd edition) that the nature of scientific method is hypothetico-deductive and not, as is generally believed, … more →
Beneath the canopy 1. The world’s tropical rain forests comprise some 6% of the Earth’s land area and contain more than half of all known life forms, or a conservative estimate of about 30 million species of plants and animals. Some experts estimate there could be two or even three times as many species hidden … more →