IELTS General Training Reading Practice Test 13

SECTION 1 — Questions 1–14

Read the text below and answer Questions 1–7.

Port Calder Animal Shelter: Adopting a Dog or Cat

Every year, hundreds of dogs and cats arrive at Port Calder Animal Shelter, and our volunteers care for them until they find a new home. If you are thinking of giving one of them a home, please read the information below.

Meeting the animals
Our animals can be seen every day except Tuesday, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. You do not need an appointment, but you must register at reception when you arrive. Photographs and descriptions of all the animals currently looking for a home are also available on our website, which is updated every morning.

Adoption fees
The fee is $350 for a dog and $180 for a cat. Animals aged eight or over can be adopted for half the usual fee. The fee covers vaccinations, a full health check by our vet and a microchip, which contains your contact details and helps us to return your pet to you if it is ever lost. Every animal is also desexed before it leaves the shelter.

Before you adopt
All adults living in your home must come to meet a dog before you can adopt it, and if you already have a dog, please bring it along too, so that we can check that the two animals get on. If you rent your home, you will need written permission from your landlord to keep a pet. For some of our larger dogs, a member of our team may visit your home to check that the garden is securely fenced.

Settling in
Moving to a new home can be stressful for an animal, so we offer a two-week settling-in period. If things are not working out during this time, you can return the animal, and we will give you a full refund. After that, you can still bring the animal back to us, but the fee will not be refunded.

Not ready to adopt?
Consider fostering instead. Foster carers look after an animal in their own home for a few weeks, often while it recovers from an illness, and we provide all the food and equipment needed. We are especially keen to hear from people who could look after young kittens in spring, when large numbers of them arrive at the shelter. To find out more, ask at reception or come to one of our monthly information evenings.

Questions 1–7

Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text for each answer.

Read the text below and answer Questions 8–14.

Banksia Shire Council: Free Street Trees

A
Trees make our streets cooler, quieter and more attractive, and they provide food and shelter for birds and insects. To increase the number of trees in Banksia Shire, the council will plant a tree free of charge on the grass verge outside any home where there is space for one.

B
To request a tree, complete the form on the council website before 31 March. Planting takes place between May and August, when the weather is cool and the soil is moist, which gives young trees the best chance of survival. You will receive a letter two weeks before your tree is planted.

C
Our tree officers choose the type of tree for each street, taking into account the space available, the soil, and any overhead power lines. Where possible, we plant the same type of tree along the whole street. Residents can say which type they would prefer, but the final decision rests with the council.

D
Before any planting begins, our contractors check for underground pipes and cables. If a tree cannot be planted safely outside your home, we will let you know and suggest another location nearby, such as a local park.

E
For the first two summers, we ask residents to water their new tree once a week, using about two buckets of water. Each tree is planted with a plastic tube around its roots, so that water can be poured straight down to where it is needed.

F
Please do not prune or cut your street tree yourself, even if its branches are hanging over your property. Street trees belong to the council, and damaging one can lead to a fine. If a tree needs attention, contact us, and an inspector will visit within ten working days.

G
Last year, more than 2,400 street trees were planted in Banksia Shire, and over 90% of them survived their first summer. Our aim is for trees to cover a third of the shire's streets by 2040. Residents who would like to do more can join one of our community planting days, which are held in local parks on Saturdays in June and July.

Questions 8–14

The text has seven sections, A–G.

Which section contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–G.

You may use any letter more than once.

SECTION 2 — Questions 15–27

Read the text below and answer Questions 15–20.

Northfield Distribution: The Employee Assistance Programme

A
Everyone has difficult periods in their lives, and sometimes problems at home or at work can be hard to deal with alone. The Employee Assistance Programme, or EAP, is a free service which offers practical and emotional support to anyone who works for Northfield Distribution.

B
The service is open to all employees, whether they work full-time, part-time or on a casual basis. Members of your household, such as your partner or children over the age of sixteen, can also use it. You do not need to tell your manager or anyone else at work that you are using it.

C
The EAP is run by an independent company, Clearpath Support, not by Northfield. Nothing you discuss with Clearpath will be shared with the company, and Northfield only receives general information, such as the total number of people who have used the service each year. Your name is never passed on.

D
Through the EAP, you can speak to a trained counsellor about anything that is worrying you, from stress at work to problems in a relationship. You can have up to six free counselling sessions each year, either by phone, by video call or in person. The service can also give advice on legal matters, such as disputes with a landlord, and help with managing debt.

E
To use the EAP, simply call the free helpline, which is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The person who answers will ask you a few questions and arrange your first session, usually within three working days. In an emergency, you will be put through to a counsellor straight away.

F
The EAP is not the only support available. Your line manager and the Human Resources team are always happy to talk to you, and the company's staff wellbeing fund offers discounts on gym membership and yoga classes. Ask HR for details.

Questions 15–20

The text has six sections, A–F.

Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.

List of headings

• i Other ways in which the company can help
• ii What the service is for
• iii How to get in touch with the service
• iv Who can use the service
• v The cost of extra counselling sessions
• vi The types of help available
• vii How your privacy is protected
• viii Help with children's schoolwork

Read the text below and answer Questions 21–27.

Northfield Distribution: Working in the Cold Store

The cold store at our Elm Road warehouse is kept at minus 25°C so that frozen food stays in perfect condition. Working at this temperature is safe as long as you follow the rules below. Breaking them may lead to disciplinary action.

Training
No one may work in the cold store until they have completed the half-day cold-store training course. New staff take the course during their first week, and everyone must repeat it every two years. Your supervisor will check that your training is up to date before giving you a cold-store pass.

Clothing
The company provides a full set of protective clothing: an insulated jacket and trousers, boots, a hat and two pairs of gloves. All of it must be worn inside the cold store at all times, even if you are only going in for a minute or two. Clothing is collected from the changing room at the start of each shift and must be returned there at the end of it. If any item is damaged, tell your supervisor so that it can be replaced.

Time limits
Staff may spend no more than 45 minutes at a time in the cold store. After each period, you must take a break of at least 15 minutes in the warm rest room, where hot drinks are available free of charge. Your pass records when you enter and leave the cold store, and an alarm sounds on your supervisor's screen if you stay longer than the time allowed.

Never work alone
At least two people must be in the cold store whenever anyone is working there. If your partner leaves, even for a short time, you must leave with them. The door can always be opened from the inside, and there is an emergency button next to it, which sounds an alarm in the main office.

Health
Please tell your supervisor if you have a medical condition that may be affected by the cold, such as asthma or a heart problem. You may be offered work in another part of the warehouse.

Questions 21–27

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?

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

SECTION 3 — Questions 28–40

Read the text below and answer Questions 28–40.

A nation at the table: Singapore's hawker centres

A
Ask a visitor to Singapore what they remember most about the city, and there is a good chance they will mention the food. Ask a Singaporean where to find the best food, and they are just as likely to send you not to a restaurant, but to a hawker centre: a large, open-sided hall, usually with a roof but no walls, filled with dozens of small food stalls and rows of shared tables. Most Singaporeans eat at one regularly, and for many families, a hawker centre is where breakfast, lunch or dinner happens most days of the week.

B
Hawkers have been part of Singapore's life for as long as the city has existed. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the port attracted large numbers of workers from China, India and the Malay Archipelago, many of whom had neither the time nor the facilities to cook for themselves. Street sellers met this need. Some carried their kitchens with them, balancing baskets at each end of a pole across their shoulders, while others pushed carts or set up stalls by the roadside. Their food was cheap and filling, and each community brought its own dishes, which slowly began to borrow ideas from one another.

C
By the middle of the twentieth century, however, street hawking had become a serious problem for the city authorities. Food was often prepared without clean water, waste was washed into open drains, and stalls blocked roads and pavements. After Singapore became independent in 1965, the government began to register hawkers and then, from the early 1970s, to move them off the streets and into purpose-built centres with running water, proper drainage and regular inspections. The aim was first and foremost to protect public health. By the mid-1980s, almost all of the street hawkers had been resettled, many of them in centres built at the heart of new public housing estates, close to where their customers lived.

D
The move changed the way people ate. In a hawker centre, a family can sit at the same table and eat food from several different stalls: chicken rice for one person, a curry with flatbread for another, noodles in a spicy coconut soup for a third. Over time, the centres developed customs of their own. The best known is "choping", the practice of reserving a seat by leaving a packet of tissues on the table before going to queue for food. Visitors are sometimes surprised to find that a table which appears empty has in fact been claimed. Prices remain remarkably low: a plate of chicken rice can still cost less than a cup of coffee in a city-centre café. Because the stalls are small, most specialise in just one or two dishes, which a hawker may cook in exactly the same way for decades. Some stalls have been passed from parents to children for three generations, and regular customers will happily queue for twenty minutes or more for a dish they have been eating since childhood.

E
For many years, hawker food was regarded simply as everyday food: good, cheap and nothing to make a fuss about. That began to change in 2016, when two hawker stalls were each awarded a star by the Michelin Guide, the famous restaurant guide, making them among the cheapest meals in the world to receive the honour. Long queues formed outside both stalls, and food writers from around the world began to include hawker centres in their travel guides. Then, in 2020, UNESCO added Singapore's hawker culture to its list of the world's intangible cultural heritage, describing the centres as "community dining rooms" where people from different backgrounds meet and share meals.

F
Yet the future of the hawker centre is far from certain. The average age of hawkers is now around sixty, and many are struggling to find anyone to take over their stalls when they retire. The work involves very long hours, often starting before dawn, and much of it is done in hot, cramped conditions. At the same time, the cost of ingredients has risen, while customers continue to expect prices to stay low. Many young people with cooking skills prefer to open cafés or work in restaurants, where the hours are more regular.

G
The government has responded in several ways. Under one scheme, new hawkers pay a reduced rent for a stall during their first months while they learn the business, and courses teach the skills needed to run a stall, from preparing traditional dishes to keeping accounts. To make the centres more pleasant, diners have been required by law since 2021 to return their trays and clear away their own rubbish, a rule backed by fines for repeat offenders. Many stalls that once accepted only cash now let customers pay by phone. Whether these changes will be enough to keep the hawker centre alive for another generation remains to be seen, but for now, the queues show no sign of getting shorter.

Questions 28–32

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

• A wealthy families who employed cooks.
• B workers who could not easily prepare their own meals.
• C sailors visiting the port for short periods.
• D tourists who wanted to try local dishes.

• A to make it easier to collect taxes from them
• B to keep roads clear for increasing traffic
• C to reduce the risk of disease
• D to create jobs in new housing estates

• A It shows that someone intends to sit there.
• B It is a sign that the table needs to be cleaned.
• C It is provided free by most stalls.
• D It is often left behind by visitors.

• A The two stalls raised their prices.
• B Other hawkers applied for the same award.
• C The stalls moved to larger premises.
• D More people wanted to eat at the two stalls.

• A Too few younger people want to become hawkers.
• B Customers are spending less money on food.
• C Many centres are in poor condition.
• D Restaurants are offering similar food at lower prices.

Questions 33–36

Classify the following events as happening

• A before Singapore became independent
• B between 1965 and the mid-1980s
• C after 2000

Write the correct letter, A, B or C.

Questions 37–40

Complete the table below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the text for each answer.

Challenges facing hawker centres today

Problem	Response
Hawkers are getting older, and few young people want the work because of the long 371 word	New hawkers pay a lower 381 word for their stall at first, and courses are available
The price of 391 word has gone up, but customers still expect cheap food	(no response mentioned)
Centres could be cleaner and more pleasant	Diners must return their 401 word