IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 10 with Answers

This IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test consists of three reading passages. Passage 1 is titled "Our Vanishing Night"; Passage 2 covers "Climate Change Reveals Ancient Artefacts In Norway’s Glaciers"; and Passage 3 focuses on "Plant ‘Thermometer’ Triggers Springtime Growth by Measuring Night-time Heat". The test includes a variety of question types, such as True/False/Not Given, Table Completion, Match The Following, Multiple Choice, Summary Completion, Matching Information, and Sentence Completion. You have 60 minutes to complete the entire test.

Passage 1 {Q1–Q13}

Our Vanishing Night
IELTS True/False/Not Given Questions (Q1–Q7)
IELTS Table Completion Questions (Q8–Q13)

Passage 2 {Q14–Q26}

Climate Change Reveals Ancient Artefacts in Norway’s Glaciers
IELTS Matching Information Questions (Q14–Q19)
IELTS Summary Completion Questions (Q20–Q22)
IELTS Multiple Choice Questions (Q23–Q26)

Passage 3 {Q27–Q40}

Plant ‘Thermometer’ Triggers Springtime Growth by Measuring Night-time Heat
IELTS True/False/Not Given Questions (Q27–Q32)
IELTS Matching Information Questions (Q33–Q37)
IELTS Sentence Completion Questions (Q38–Q40)

READING ACADEMIC: TEST PAPER 10

Passage 1

Our Vanishing Night

“ Most city skies have become virtually empty of stars” 

A. If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars, it would make no difference to us whether we were out and about at night or during the day; the midnight world would be as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal species on this planet. Instead, we are diurnal creatures, meaning our eyes are adapted to living in the sun’s light. This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don’t think of ourselves as diurnal beings any more than as primates or mammals or Earthlings. Yet it’s the only way to explain what we’ve done to the night: we’ve engineered it to meet our needs by filling it with light.

B. This kind of engineering is no different from damming a river. Its benefits come with consequences –called light pollution, whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky, where it is not wanted, instead of focusing it downward, where it is. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect of life –migration, reproduction, feeding –is affected. For most of human history, the phrase “light pollution” would have made no sense. Imagine walking toward London on a moonlit night around 1800, when it was one of Earth’s most populous cities. Nearly a million people lived there, making do, as they always had, with candles and lanterns. There would be no gaslights in the streets or squares for another seven years.

C. Now, most of humanity lives under reflected, refracted light from overlit cities and suburbs, from light-flooded roads and factories. Nearly all of nighttime Europe is a bright patch of light, as is most of the United States and much of Japan. In the South Atlantic, the glow from a single fishing fleet–squid fishermen luring their prey with metal halide lamps –can be seen from space, burning brighter on occasions than Buenos Aires. In most cities, the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, and taking their place is a constant orange glow. We’ve become so used to this that the glory of an unlit night–dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadows on Earth –is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost. And yet above the city’s pale ceiling lies the rest of the universe, utterly undiminished by the light we waste.

D. We've lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country when nothing could be further from the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and in many species, it acts as a magnet. The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being ‘captured’ by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms, circling and circling in the thousands until they drop. Migrating at night, birds are apt to collide with brightly lit buildings; immature birds suffer in much higher numbers than adults.

E. Insects, of course, cluster around streetlights and feeding on those insects is a crucial means of survival for many bat species. In some Swiss valleys, the European lesser horseshoe bat began to vanish after streetlights were installed, perhaps because those valleys were suddenly filled with light-feeding pipistrelle bats. Other nocturnal mammals, like desert rodents and badgers, are more cautious about searching for food under the permanent full moon of light pollution because they've become easier targets for predators hunting them.

F. Some birds –blackbirds and nightingales, among others-sing at unnatural hours in the presence of artificial light. Scientists have determined that long artificial days and artificially short nights induce early breeding in a wide range of birds. And because a longer day allows for longer feeding, it can also affect migration schedules. The problem, of course, is that migration, like most other aspects of bird behaviour, is a precisely timed biological behaviour. Leaving prematurely may mean reaching a destination too soon for nesting conditions to be right.

G. Nesting sea turtles, which seek out dark beaches, find fewer and fewer of them to bury their eggs on. When the baby sea turtles emerge from the eggs, they gravitate toward the brighter, more reflective sea horizon but find themselves confused by artificial lighting behind the beach. In Florida alone, hatching losses number in the hundreds of thousands every year. Frogs and toads living on the side of major highways suffer nocturnal fight levels that are as much as a million times brighter than normal, disturbing nearly every aspect of their behaviour, including their night-time breeding choruses.

H. It was once thought that light pollution only affected astronomers, who need to see the night sky in all its glorious clarity. And, in fact, some of the earliest civic efforts to control light pollution were made half a century ago to protect the view from Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. In 2001, Flagstaff was declared the first International Dark Sky City. By now, the effort to control light pollution has spread around the globe. More and more dues and even entire countries have committed themselves to reducing unwanted glare.

Questions 1-7

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading Passage? 

In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write

1. Few people nowadays recognise that human beings are designed to function best in daylight.

2. Most light pollution is caused by the direction of artificial lights rather than their intensity.

3. By 1800, the city of London had such a large population that it was already causing light pollution.

4. The fishermen of the South Atlantic are unaware of the light pollution they are causing.

5. Shadows from the planet Venus are more difficult to see at certain times of the year.

6. In some Swiss valleys, the total number of bats declined rapidly after the introduction of streetlights.

7. The first attempts to limit light pollution were carried out to help those studying the stars.

Questions 8-13

Complete the table below.

Passage 2

Climate Change Reveals Ancient Artefacts in Norway’s Glaciers

A. Well above the treeline in Norway’s highest mountains, ancient fields of ice are shrinking as Earth’s climate warms. As the ice has vanished, it has been giving up the treasures it has preserved in cold storage for the last 6,000 years years, items such as ancient arrows and skis from Viking Age* traders. And those artefacts have provided archaeologists with some surprising insights into how ancient Norwegians made their living.

B. Organic materials like textiles and hides are relatively rare finds at archaeological sites. This is because unless they’re protected from the microorganisms that cause decay, they tend not to last long. Extreme cold is one reliable way to keep artefacts relatively fresh for a few thousand years, but once thawed out, these materials experience degradation relatively swiftly. With climate change shrinking ice cover around the world, glacial archaeologists need to race the clock to find newly revealed artefacts, preserve them, and study them. If something fragile dries and is windblown, it might very soon be lost to science, or an arrow might be exposed, then covered again by the next snow, and remain well preserved. The unpredictability means that glacial archaeologists must be systematic in their fieldwork.

C. Over a nine-year period, a team of archaeologists, which included Lars Pilo of Oppland County Council, Norway, and James Barrett of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, surveyed patches of ice in Oppland, an area of south-central Norway that is home to some of the country’s highest mountains. Reindeer once congregated on these icy patches in the late summer months to escape biting insects, and from the late Stone Age**, hunters followed. In addition, trade routes threaded through the mountain passes of Oppland, linking settlements in Norway to the rest of Europe.

The slow but steady movement of glaciers tends to destroy anything at their bases, so the team focused on stationary patches of ice, mostly above 1,400 metres. That ice is found amid fields of frost-weathered boulders, fallen rocks, and exposed bedrock that, for nine months of the year, is buried beneath snow.

‘Fieldwork is hard work — hiking with all our equipment, often camping on permafrost — but very rewarding. You’re rescuing the archaeology, bringing the melting ice to wider attention, discovering a unique environmental history, and really connecting with the natural environment,’ says Barrett.

D. At the edges of the contracting ice patches, archaeologists found more than 2,000 artefacts, which formed a material record that ran from 4,000 BCE to the beginnings of the Renaissance in the 14th century. Many of the artefacts are associated with hunting. Hunters would have easily misplaced arrows, and they often discarded broken bows rather than take them all the way home. Other items could have been used by hunters traversing the high mountain passes of Oppland: all-purpose items like tools, skis, and horse tack.

E. Barrett’s team radiocarbon-dated 153 of the artefacts and compared those dates to the timing of major environmental changes in the region, such as periods of cooling or warming — and major social and economic shifts — such as the growth of farming settlements and the spread of international trade networks leading up to the Viking Age. They found that some periods had produced lots of artefacts, which indicates that people had been pretty active in the mountains during those times. But there were few or no signs of activity during other periods.

F. What was surprising, according to Barrett, was the timing of these periods. Oppland’s mountains present daunting terrain, and in periods of extreme cold, glaciers could block the higher mountain passes and make travel in the upper reaches of the mountains extremely difficult. Archaeologists assumed people would stick to lower elevations during a time like the Late Antique Little Ice Age, a short period of deeper-than-usual cold from about 536-600 CE. But it turned out that hunters kept regularly venturing into the mountains even when the climate turned cold, based on the amount of stuff they had apparently dropped there.

‘Remarkably, though, the finds from the ice may have continued through this period, perhaps suggesting that the importance of mountain hunting increased to supplement failing agricultural harvests in times of low temperatures,’ says Barrett. A colder turn in the Scandinavian climate would likely have meant widespread crop failures, so more people would have depended on hunting to make up for those losses.

G. Many of the artefacts Barrett’s team recovered date from the beginning of the Viking Age, the 700s through to the 900s CE. Trade networks connecting Scandinavia with Europe and the Middle East were expanding around this time. Although we usually think of ships when we think of Scandinavian expansion, these recent discoveries show that plenty of goods travelled on overland routes, like the mountain passes of Oppland. And growing Norwegian towns, along with export markets, would have created a booming demand for hides to fight off the cold, as well as antlers to make useful things like combs. Business must have been good for hunters.

H. Norway’s mountains are probably still hiding a lot of history and prehistory in remote ice patches. When Barrett’s team looked at the dates for their sample of 153 artefacts, they noticed a gap with almost no artefacts from about 3,800 to 2,200 BCE. In fact, archaeological finds from that period are rare all over Norway. The researchers say that could be because many of those artefacts have already disintegrated or are still frozen in the ice. That means archaeologists could be extracting some of those artefacts from retreating ice in the years to come.

Questions 14-19

Reading Passage 2 has eight sections, A-H.

Which section contains the following information? 

14. An explanation for weapons being left behind in the mountains

15. A reference to the physical difficulties involved in an archaeological expedition

16. An explanation of why less food may have been available

17. A reference to the possibility of future archaeological discoveries

18. Examples of items that would have been traded

19. A reference to the pressure archaeologists are under to work quickly.

Questions 20-22

Complete the summary below.

Interesting Finds At An Archaeological Site

Organic materials such as animal skins and textiles are not discovered very often at archaeological sites. They have little protection against 20. ______, which means that they decay relatively quickly. But this is not always the case. If temperatures are low enough, fragile artefacts can be preserved for thousands of years. A team of archaeologists have been working in the mountains in Oppland in Norway to recover artefacts revealed by shrinking ice cover. In the past, there were trade routes through these mountains and 21. ______ gathered there in the summer months to avoid being attacked by 22. ______on lower ground. The people who used these mountains left things behind, and it is those objects that are of interest to archaeologists.

Questions 23-26

Choose TWO letters, A-E.

23 - 24 Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make about the discoveries of Barrett’s team?

A. Artefacts found in the higher mountain passes were limited to skiing equipment.

B. Hunters went into the mountains even during periods of extreme cold.

C. The number of artefacts from certain time periods was relatively low.

D. Radiocarbon dating of artefacts produced some unreliable results.

E. More artefacts were found in Oppland than at any other mountain site.

Choose TWO letters, A-E.

25 - 26 Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make about the Viking Age?

A. Hunters at this time benefited from an increased demand for goods.

B. The beginning of the period saw the greatest growth in the wealth of the Vikings.

C. Vikings did not rely on ships alone to transport goods.

D. Norwegian towns at this time attracted traders from around the world.

E. Vikings were primarily interested in their trading links with the Middle East.

Passage 3

Plant ‘Thermometer’ Triggers Springtime Growth By Measuring Night-Time Heat

A. An international team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge has discovered that the ‘thermometer’ molecule in plants enables them to develop according to seasonal temperature changes. Researchers have revealed that molecules called phytochromes – used by plants to detect light during the day – actually change their function in darkness to become cellular temperature gauges that measure the heat of the night. The new findings, published in the journal Science, show that phytochromes control genetic switches in response to temperature as well as light to dictate plant development.

B. At night, these molecules change states, and the pace at which they change is ‘directly proportional to temperature’, say scientists, who compare phytochromes to mercury in a thermometer. The warmer it is, the faster the molecular change stimulates plant growth. 

C. Farmers and gardeners have known for hundreds of years how responsive plants are to temperature: warm winters cause many trees and flowers to bud early, something humans have long used to predict weather and harvest times for the coming year. The latest research pinpoints for the first time, a molecular mechanism in plants that reacts to temperature – often triggering the buds of spring, we long to see at the end of winter.

D. With weather and temperatures set to become ever more unpredictable due to climate change, researchers say the discovery that this light-sensing molecule also functions as the internal thermometer in plant cells could help us breed tougher crops. ‘It is estimated that agricultural yields will need to double by 2050, but climate change is a major threat to achieving this. Key crops such as wheat and rice are sensitive to high temperatures. Thermal stress reduces crop yields by around 10% for every one degree increase in temperature,’ says lead researcher Dr Philip Wigge from Cambridge’s Sainsbury Laboratory. ‘Discovering the molecules that allow plants to sense temperature has the potential to accelerate the breeding of crops resilient to thermal stress and climate change.’

E. In their active state, phytochrome molecules bind to DNA to restrict plant growth. During the day, sunlight activates the molecules, slowing down growth. If a plant finds itself in shade, phytochromes are quickly inactivated – enabling it to grow faster to find sunlight again. This is how plants compete to escape each other’s shade. ‘Light-driven changes to phytochrome activity occur very fast, in less than a second,’ says Wigge. At night, however, it’s a different story. Instead of a rapid deactivation following sundown, the molecules gradually change from their active to inactive state. This is called ‘dark reversion’. ‘Just as mercury rises in a thermometer, the rate at which phytochromes revert to their inactive state during the night is a direct measure of temperature,’ says Wigge.

F. ‘The lower the temperature, the slower the rate at which phytochromes revert to inactivity, so the molecules spend more time in their active,growth-suppressing state. This is why plants are slower to grow in winter. Warm temperatures accelerate dark reversion, so that phytochromes rapidly reach an inactive state and detach themselves from the plant’s DNA– allowing genes to be expressed and plant growth to resume.’ Wigge believes phytochrome thermo-sensing evolved at a later stage, and co-opted the biological network already used for light-based growth during the downtime of night.

G. Some plants mainly use day length as an indicator of the season. Other species, such as daffodils, have considerable temperature sensitivity, and can flower months in advance during a warm winter. In fact, the discovery of the dual role of phytochromes provides the science behind a well-known rhyme long used to predict the coming season: oak before ash we’ll have a plash, ash before oak we’re in for a soak. Wigge explains: ‘Oak trees rely much more on temperature, likely using phytochromes as thermometers to dictate development, whereas ash trees rely on measuring day length to determine their seasonal timing. A warmer spring, and consequently a higher likelihood of a hot summer, will result in oak leafing before ash. A cold spring will see the opposite. As the British know only too well, a colder summer is likely to be a rain-soaked one.’

H. The new findings are the culmination of twelve years of research involving scientists from Germany, Argentina and the US, as well as the Cambridge team. The work was done in a model system, using a mustard plant called Arabidopsis, but Wigge says the phytochrome genes necessary for temperature sensing are found in crop plants as well. ‘Recent advances in plant genetics now mean that scientists are able to rapidly identify the genes controlling these processes in crop plants, and even alter their activity using precise molecular “scalpels”,’ adds Wigge. ‘Cambridge is uniquely well-positioned to do this kind of research as we have outstanding collaborators nearby who work on more applied aspects of plant biology, and can help us transfer this new knowledge into the field.’ 

Questions 27-32

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading Passage?

 In boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, write

27. The Cambridge scientists’ discovery of the ‘thermometer molecule’ caused surprise among other scientists.

28. The target for agricultural production by 2050 could be missed.

29. Wheat and rice suffer from a rise in temperatures.

30. It may be possible to develop crops that require less water.

31. Plants grow faster in sunlight than in shade.

32. Phytochromes change their state at the same speed day and night.

Questions 33-37

Reading Passage 3 has eight sections, A-H.

Which section contains the following information?

33. Mention of specialists who can make use of the research findings

34. A reference to a potential benefit of the research findings

35. Scientific support for a traditional saying

36. A reference to people traditionally making plans based on plant behaviour

37. A reference to where the research has been reported

Questions 38-40

Complete the sentences below.

38. Daffodils are likely to flower early in response to _______ weather.

39. If ash trees come into leaf before oak trees, the weather in _______ will probably be wet.

40. The research was carried out using a particular species of _______.

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