IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 11

READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

Striking a light: the story of the match

For most of human history, making fire was slow and uncertain work. People rubbed sticks together, or struck a piece of flint against steel so that sparks fell onto a little pile of dry material, which then had to be blown gently until it burst into flame. In damp weather, this could take many minutes, and even in good conditions it required practice. It is not surprising, then, that many households tried never to let their fire go out at all, and that a neighbour's fire was often the easiest source of a new one.

The first device that could produce a flame instantly, in the hand, was the result of an accident. In 1826, John Walker, a chemist in the town of Stockton-on-Tees in the north of England, was mixing chemicals with a small wooden stick. When he later scraped the stick across the stone floor to clean it, the dried mixture on its end caught fire. Walker realised the importance of what had happened, and by the following year he was selling what he called "friction lights" in his shop. Each box came with a folded piece of sandpaper, and the stick had to be pulled sharply through it to make it light. Walker's matches were far from perfect. They often produced showers of sparks, which could burn a customer's clothes, and they gave off an unpleasant smell. Nevertheless, they sold steadily.

Walker never applied for a patent, the legal protection that would have stopped others from copying his invention. Within a few years, a London businessman named Samuel Jones was selling almost identical matches under the name "Lucifers", and it was Jones, rather than Walker, who made a fortune from them. Walker continued to run his shop and eventually retired in comfort, but he never became famous.

The next step forward came from France. Around 1830, Charles Sauria replaced some of the chemicals in the match head with white phosphorus, a substance that catches fire very easily. The new matches could be struck on almost any rough surface, such as a wall or the sole of a boot, and they lit far more reliably than Walker's. Within a few years, they had become the standard type of match across Europe and North America, and millions were being produced every day.

However, white phosphorus has a serious disadvantage: it is highly poisonous. The people who suffered most were the workers, many of them women and children, who made the matches in crowded, badly ventilated factories. After years of breathing the fumes, many developed a terrible condition that came to be known as "phossy jaw", in which the bone of the jaw slowly died. In severe cases, workers needed an operation to remove the damaged bone, and some sufferers died. The danger was also faced by the public. Since a match could light so easily, matches in people's pockets sometimes caught fire by accident, and children occasionally died after eating the heads.

A safer alternative was developed in Sweden. In the 1840s, the Austrian chemist Anton Schrötter discovered a different form of phosphorus, known as red phosphorus, which is not poisonous and does not catch fire on its own. In 1844, a Swedish professor, Gustaf Erik Pasch, came up with the idea of separating the chemicals in a match. Instead of putting everything in the match head, he put the phosphorus on a special striking surface on the outside of the box. The head contained the other ingredients, and it would only light when it was rubbed against this surface. In the 1850s, Johan Edvard Lundström and his brother Carl turned Pasch's idea into a practical product, using red phosphorus, and began producing "safety matches" in large numbers in their factory in the town of Jönköping. Swedish safety matches soon won international prizes and were exported all over the world.

Yet the new matches did not immediately replace the old ones. They were more expensive to make, and many customers preferred matches that could be struck anywhere. In Britain, attention was drawn to the problem in 1888, when around 1,400 women and girls at the Bryant and May match factory in London went on strike. Their action followed a newspaper article that described the low wages, long hours and dangerous conditions in the factory. The strike lasted about two weeks and ended with improvements in pay and conditions, and it is now seen as an important moment in the history of workers' rights.

Real change, however, required action by governments. In 1906, a group of European countries signed an agreement in the Swiss city of Berne, promising to ban the use of white phosphorus in matches. Britain introduced its own law in 1908, and other countries followed. Matches that can be struck anywhere are still made today, but they contain a different, far less dangerous chemical.

In the twentieth century, cheap lighters began to compete with matches, and many people today rarely use either. Even so, the match has not disappeared. Hundreds of billions are still produced every year. They are used to light cookers, candles and fires, and they are kept in emergency kits because, unlike a lighter, a match has no parts that can fail. For a small piece of wood with some chemicals on one end, it has had a remarkably long and eventful history.

Questions 1–7

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

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

Questions 8–13

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

The development of the match

Walker's "friction lights" (1827)

• lit by pulling the stick through a piece of 81 word
• problems: sparks and an unpleasant smell

Matches containing white phosphorus (from about 1830)

• could be lit on surfaces such as walls
• caused the illness known as "phossy jaw": some severely affected workers needed an 91 word to remove damaged bone
• sometimes caught fire by accident in people's 101 word

Safety matches (1850s)

• Pasch separated the chemicals by putting phosphorus on a special striking 111 word on the box
• first produced in a factory in Jönköping

The end of white phosphorus

• an 1888 strike in London followed an article in a 121 word
• an international 131 word signed in 1906 led to bans

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14–26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Why does a zebra have stripes?

A
Few animals are as instantly recognisable as the zebra. There are three species, all found in Africa, and every individual has its own pattern of black and white stripes, as unique as a human fingerprint. Yet the purpose of these stripes has puzzled scientists for more than 150 years. A boldly patterned animal living on open grassland, where lions and hyenas hunt, seems to break all the rules of survival. Over the years, at least half a dozen explanations have been proposed, and only recently has one of them begun to receive strong support.

B
The earliest and most obvious idea was that the stripes act as camouflage. In long grass, or in the shimmering heat of the African afternoon, a striped animal might be harder to see than a plain one. Others argued that, when a herd of zebras runs away, the mass of moving stripes makes it difficult for a predator to pick out a single animal to chase. Both ideas seem reasonable, but neither has stood up well to testing. A study published in 2016 used photographs of zebras and information about how well lions and hyenas can see to calculate what the predators actually see. It suggested that, in daylight, lions and hyenas would have difficulty distinguishing individual stripes beyond about fifty metres, and at dusk, when lions usually hunt, beyond about thirty metres. The predators could still see the zebra's outline, so at these distances the stripes are unlikely to hide it, and the predators may well smell or hear it first. Because the study used still photographs, however, it left open what a predator sees when a whole herd is moving.

C
A second group of explanations is social. Perhaps, some biologists suggested, the stripes help zebras to recognise one another, or to stay together as a group. A mother and her young may indeed learn each other's patterns. However, other members of the horse family, such as wild asses, live in similar groups without any need for stripes, and zebras rely heavily on sound and smell to recognise each other. Most researchers now think that, while stripes may be used socially, this is unlikely to be the reason why they evolved.

D
The idea that stripes help to keep zebras cool has attracted more attention. Black surfaces absorb more heat from the sun than white ones, so in theory, the difference in temperature between the stripes could create small movements of air across the zebra's back, cooling the animal down. In 2015, a team led by Brenda Larison of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that plains zebras living in hotter regions tend to have bolder stripes, which seemed to support this idea. But when Gábor Horváth and his colleagues in Hungary filled metal barrels with water and covered them in real zebra skin, plain grey skin, and plain black and white skins, they found that the striped barrel was no cooler than the grey one. The question remains open, but most scientists now regard cooling as, at best, a minor benefit.

E
The explanation that now has the most support is perhaps the least expected: stripes protect zebras from biting flies. In Africa, flies such as horseflies and tsetse flies carry serious diseases, and zebras, which have shorter hair than many other animals, are particularly easy to bite. In 2014, a team led by Tim Caro of the University of California, Davis, compared the distribution of striped animals in the horse family with a range of factors, including the presence of predators, temperature and the amount of shade. The only factor that consistently matched the pattern was the presence of biting flies for long periods of the year. Where the flies were common, the animals had stripes.

F
Further evidence came from a study in 2019, in which Caro worked with Martin How of the University of Bristol. The researchers filmed horseflies around zebras and around horses at a farm in the south-west of England. The flies approached both animals in similar numbers, but far fewer of them managed to land on the zebras. The same horses then wore striped, black-and-white coats and plain coats in turn. Fewer flies landed on the striped fabric, while landing rates on the horses' bare heads changed little. The film showed that the flies did not slow down properly as they came close to the stripes, and simply flew into them or past them. The researchers suggest that the stripes may confuse the flies' view of movement at close range, making it impossible for them to judge their approach.

G
These discoveries may have practical uses. In 2019, a team of Japanese scientists led by Tomoki Kojima painted white stripes on black cattle, using a type of paint that does not harm the animals. The number of biting flies on the striped cows fell by about half, and the cows spent less time flicking their tails and shaking their heads to drive the insects away. If the method can be made to last, it could reduce farmers' use of chemicals that are harmful to the environment. However, no one yet fully understands why flies are put off by stripes, and some researchers believe that zebras may have gained more than one benefit from them. The puzzle of the zebra's stripes may not be completely solved, but after a century and a half, the answer at last seems to be coming into focus.

Questions 14–19

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A–G.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B–G from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i–ix, next to Questions 14–19.

List of Headings

• i Mixed evidence for a possible cooling effect
• ii A pattern that matches the presence of insects
• iii Testing whether stripes hide a zebra from view
• iv A possible way of helping farmers
• v The role of stripes in attracting a partner
• vi A theory weakened by comparison with related animals
• vii A close look at what happens as insects arrive
• viii How young zebras learn to avoid danger
• ix The danger of being seen by predators

Example: Paragraph A — the long history of an unanswered question

Questions 20–23

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

• A They are most visible to predators at dusk.
• B Beyond certain distances, predators would struggle to distinguish individual stripes.
• C They make it harder for predators to hear zebras.
• D They are less effective in long grass than in short grass.

• A It explains why stripes evolved only in zebras.
• B It has been shown to be false.
• C It may describe a use of stripes but not their origin.
• D It is the most widely accepted explanation.

• A Zebras with bolder stripes lose heat more quickly.
• B Zebras with bolder stripes live in hotter places.
• C Black stripes are hotter than white stripes.
• D Plains zebras have bolder stripes than other species.

• A Fewer flies came close to the horses.
• B More flies landed on the horses' heads than before.
• C Fewer flies landed on the coats.
• D The flies slowed down before reaching the coats.

Questions 24–26

Complete the sentences below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Why everything takes longer than we think

Almost everyone has had the experience. A piece of work that we expected to finish in an afternoon takes three days. A kitchen that was supposed to be rebuilt in a month is still unfinished at Christmas. The essay that seemed manageable on Monday is being written in a panic at midnight on Sunday. What is remarkable is not that these things happen, but that we never seem to learn from them. We underestimate the next job just as badly as the last.

The psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky gave this tendency a name in 1979: the planning fallacy. It was later defined more broadly as the habit of underestimating the time, cost and risks of future actions, while overestimating their benefits, even when we know that similar tasks have taken longer in the past. The last part of the definition is the most important. The planning fallacy is not simply a lack of information. It is a failure to use information that we already have.

A well-known study by Roger Buehler and his colleagues in Canada illustrates the point. In 1994, they asked final-year psychology students to predict when they would complete their research projects. The students' average estimate was about 34 days. The researchers also asked them how long it would take "if everything went as poorly as it possibly could"; the average answer to this question was about 49 days. In fact, the students took an average of 56 days, and fewer than a third had finished by the time they had predicted. Across this group, the average completion time exceeded even the average estimate students had given for a project going badly.

On a larger scale, the consequences can be dramatic. When work on the Sydney Opera House began in 1959, it was expected to be completed in 1963, at a cost of seven million Australian dollars. It finally opened in 1973, ten years late, having cost 102 million dollars. Today, it is regarded as one of the great buildings of the twentieth century, and few people would say that it was not worth building. But many other projects, from bridges and railways to computer systems, have run over time and budget without producing anything so admired.

Why do we make these errors? One reason is that, when we plan, we naturally imagine the task going smoothly. We picture the steps that need to be taken and the time each one should take, but we do not picture the illness, the broken equipment, the missing document or the colleague who fails to reply. Each of these problems is unlikely in itself, but taken together, it is almost certain that something will go wrong. Another reason is that we tend to see each task as unique. The fact that our last three projects ran late seems irrelevant, because this one is different. Finally, there are social pressures. A builder who gives a realistic estimate may lose the contract to a competitor who promises to finish sooner. A manager who asks for a realistic budget may find that the project is never approved.

Kahneman himself described an experience that taught him how powerful the fallacy can be. In the 1970s, he was part of a team writing a new school textbook. After a year, the team members each estimated how long it would take to finish; their answers ranged from eighteen months to two and a half years. Kahneman then asked one member, an expert in developing courses, how long similar teams had taken. After some thought, the expert admitted that about forty per cent had never finished at all, and that those which did had taken between seven and ten years. Yet nobody, including the expert, changed their plans. The book was completed eight years later, by which time the government department that had asked for it had lost interest.

The solution that Kahneman proposed is known as taking the "outside view". Instead of focusing on the details of the particular task, planners begin by asking how long similar tasks have taken other people, and then adjust that figure for any special features of their own case. This method, sometimes called reference class forecasting, has been developed by the Danish planning expert Bent Flyvbjerg, and it is now used by a number of governments. In the United Kingdom, for example, official guidance asks teams planning public projects to allow for optimism in their estimates. They should use evidence from comparable projects where they can, and if they lack reliable figures of their own, published allowances for different types of project give them a starting point.

Should we therefore try to eliminate our optimism altogether? I am not convinced. A certain amount of over-confidence may be what gives people the courage to start difficult projects at all. If the builders of the Sydney Opera House had known what lay ahead, they might never have begun, and the world would be poorer for it. Nobody would write a novel or start a business if they were fully aware of the difficulties involved. The answer, I believe, is not to stop being optimistic about what we can achieve, but to be realistic about how long it will take. We can be enthusiastic about the destination while accepting that the journey will be slower than we hope.

There are also simple steps that anyone can take. Breaking a large task into smaller parts and estimating each one separately tends to produce longer, and more accurate, estimates. Asking someone else how long they think a task will take you can also help, since other people are less influenced by our good intentions than we are. And keeping a record of how long things actually took, and looking at it before making the next plan, is perhaps the most effective step of all, although it is also the one that most of us, myself included, are least likely to take.

Questions 27–31

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

• A do not have enough information to make accurate plans.
• B pay too much attention to the risks of a task.
• C ignore what they know about earlier tasks.
• D are unwilling to admit that their plans have failed.

• A Most of them finished their projects earlier than they expected.
• B On average, they took longer than their most pessimistic predictions.
• C Their estimates became more accurate as the deadline came closer.
• D About a third of them failed to complete their projects.

• A large projects are more likely than small ones to be delayed.
• B a project can go over budget and still be considered a success.
• C public buildings are particularly difficult to plan.
• D the cost of a project is harder to predict than its length.

• A The expert had not worked on a similar project before.
• B The team had made unusually optimistic estimates.
• C The team continued with the project after learning about similar teams.
• D The government department asked them to finish more quickly.

• A Optimism can be useful, provided that plans for time are realistic.
• B Most successful projects are started by people who underestimate them.
• C People who write novels are especially affected by the planning fallacy.
• D The builders of the Sydney Opera House should have planned more carefully.

Questions 32–36

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–G, below.

Write the correct letter, A–G, next to Questions 32–36.

• A because they believe that each new task is unlike earlier ones.
• B can use published allowances when reliable local estimates are unavailable.
• C usually results in more accurate predictions.
• D often overlook the interruptions that could delay it.
• E because they fear that they will not otherwise be chosen for the work.
• F are required to finish projects within the original budget.
• G usually makes people less satisfied with the quality of the finished work.

Questions 37–40

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

Write

• YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer
• NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer
• NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this