TASK TYPE 1 Identifying Information (True/False/Not Given)

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

Charles-Marie de la Condamine
The man who helped measure the shape of the world

Although ordinary people may have thought so, few scientists had ever really believed that the
world was flat. And certainly, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, they agreed without
exception that it was round. There was still some minor disagreement, however, about exactly what
being 'round' meant in this context. Some said the planet was a perfect sphere, like a ball. Others
thought it might be generally round, but with some irregularities. The English scientist Sir Isaac
Newton argued that the Earth bulged outwards around the equator. On the other hand, the French
astronomer royal, Jacques Cassini, believed that the planet was stretched out at the north and
south poles, making it shaped more like an egg. The debate was partly just a reflection of the way
England and France competed about many things at the time, but it was also a serious question
that affected how maps and sailing charts were drawn, and therefore the safety of sailors at sea.
So in 1734 the French Academy of Sciences decided to measure the Earth's shape. An expedition
under Pierre de Maupertius would travel close to the North Pole, and another under Charles-Marie
de la Condamine would travel to the equator. Both expeditions would survey the shape of the
Earth's surface and then compare findings. After a long voyage, Condamine reached Peru in South
America, where the scientific experiments began. His team climbed high into the mountains to take
measurements using surveying equipment and then descended to the desert plains to continue
their work. Finally, after four years' work more than
twice the time the leader had intended the survey
work was complete. As part of their research, they had built small pyramids made of rock as
permanent features from which to take certain measurements, and their remains can still be seen
today as monuments to the expedition. When Condamine's team returned to France, the Earth was
found to be slightly wider between the poles than when measured through its centre at the equator.
Condamine and Maupertius were now counted as among the most eminent scientists in Europe.

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 Questions 1 6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
You should write

TRUEif the statement agrees with the information

FALSEif the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVENif there is no information on this

At the start of the1eighteenth century, scientists knew the Earth was round. Sir Isaac Newton had done scientific experiments at the equator.
The debate between 2 Newton and Cassini was important for sailors. Maupertius and Condamine had worked together in the past.
Condamine finished 3 his research sooner than he had expected.
Condamine left behind
4 no physical evidence of his expedition to South America.
5
6
 TASK TYPE 2 Note/Table Completion

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

Extinct birds of New Zealand

Many species of birds that once lived in this South Pacific country aren't found today.

Today, New Zealand is a typical, modern country with cities, towns and roads. But for many
thousands of years, and until relatively recently, the more than 3,000 islands that make up the
country had no human inhabitants at all. Instead, a vast number of birds lived in its forests,
mountains and along the thousands of kilometres of beaches. In fact, New Zealand probably had
more species of birds than any other country in the world. One reason for this was that the natural
environment was a perfect source of food to support the bird population, particularly from the
enormous oceans that surround the country. With so much food readily available, it's not
surprising that the bird population grew. Another important factor was that the birds had no
predators on land because, with the exception of a single species of bat, there weren't any
mammals at all in the country that would otherwise have killed birds and kept their numbers down.
Because of this, over many, many years, New Zealand's birds developed characteristics not
associated with bird populations in other countries. For example, they didn't have to defend
themselves from predators, so many birds lived on the ground and didn't have wings because they
didn't need to fly, such as the iconic kiwi bird and also the much larger, ostrich-like bird called the
moa. This characteristic allowed the birds to save huge amounts of energy and provided them
with numerous other advantages so long as they didn't need to defend themselves against
attacks by predators! One final development was that many of these birds now made their nests
on the ground rather than in tress and the eggs that they laid became much bigger over time. This
was just one more factor that made these populations of birds very vulnerable when humans
eventually reached New Zealand.

The first human migrants to New Zealand were the Maori people, who arrived approximately 800
years ago. The Maori sailed from their original homes in the tropical Pacific to New Zealand in
canoes, bringing food supplies and many of the things they needed to set up new homes.
Unfortunately, however, they unintentionally brought Pacific rats with them as well, a species
previously unknown in New Zealand, and these killed many birds that were unable to fly away. The
Maori themselves also hunted birds for food, and their loud calls in the forest at night time made
them particularly easy to find. Birds were useful in other ways, too. Fish hooks were frequently
manufactured from bones, while feathers were highly prized as decorations to be worn in the hair or
clothing. The results of this, in terms of bird populations, has been calculated by the scientist Paul
Martin. His research since the 1960s has assessed the impact on flora and fauna of human arrival
in various parts of the world, and he has concluded that New Zealand is a unique example because
bird species were wiped out so fast, relative to other countries.

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European migrants started arriving in significant numbers in the early 1800s and brought with them a whole lot of new problems. The journ

Questions 1 4

Complete the notes below.

Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
 Questions 5 10
Complete the table below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Human migration to New Zealand

Reasons Birds Died Results

Maori 5.....................were accidentally according to Paul Martin,
migration introduced to New Zealand the extinction of some
species was unusually
birds' loud calls made them easy to 7 ....................
find

birds' feathers were used for

decoration and bones for
6 ....................

European explorers used 8.....................to kill attempts to save

migration birds for food endangered species on
10.....................around the
creating farms caused country
9.....................and loss of habitat
 TASK TYPE 3 Short Answer Questions

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

Classic style
For a few short years, fins were in fashion on American cars.

It's rare to see fins on the back of motor cars today those raised, stylish extrusions on the car's
rear end that once made each model unique. But for a decade or two in the years after the
Second World War, the inclusion of ever more extravagant and ostentatious fins was the height of
fashion among American car designers and the must-have automotive accessory for the
discerning car buyer.

It started in 1947 when chief of styling at the car-making firm of General Motors, Harley Earl,
developed the entirely new notion of attaching fins to the back of the company's motor cars,
typically on the edges of the trunk, or boot, running down to the vehicle's brake lights. Earl had
been inspired by the twin tail fins he had seen on the Lightning fighter planes used during the war
and instructed General Motors' team of designers to play around with the same concept. The
designers liked the idea immediately perhaps unsurprisingly, could there be any
better symbol of speed and power? And after some experimentation, the first General Motors'
Cadillac was released the following year sporting a pair of relatively modest fins. The effect was
immediate: the public loved the new innovation the young and young at heart especially
and competing firms were forced quite literally to go back to the drawing board. So, in
the 1950s, a race began between American car manufacturers to see who could produce cars with
the most pronounced, extreme and even outlandish fins. It seemed almost impossible to overdo it
as consumers rushed to the showroom to buy the latest model and keep one step ahead.

It's necessary to understand the culture of the times in America if one is to truly comprehend
exactly why it was that fins became so popular. After all, they served no practical purpose
whatsoever; these were not the 'spoilers' or similar appendages that were later attached to cars to
improve aerodynamics, road handling and fuel economy. They existed simply to amplify the shape
of the car, to accentuate its curves, speed and style. And as such, fins would have been quite
unthinkable in earlier times the Great Depression of the 1920s most obviously. But in the
1950s and 60s the American people were filled with a sense of national optimism, because theirs
was a young country, the economy was booming and their place in the world was assured.
Furthermore, iron ore was cheap, as were the coal and oil necessary to turn it into steel, so car
production costs were a fraction of what they are today. The result was some truly extravagant
cars: General Motors' Firebird III had no fewer than nine fins still a world record while
the nearly six-metre long Eldorado might not have had so many but the tallest was nearly 300mm
high.

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Of course, it couldn't last. By the 1980s, American society had become concerned about a wide
range of issues including petrol consumption, road safety and car-affordability. In short, people
wanted a different type of car. The result was that the Federal Government passed a number of
new laws that transformed the automotive industry. Cars undoubtedly became safer and greener,
but some of the flair and individualism has arguably been lost along the way, as so many models of
cars all around the world today look remarkably similar. And one final point to note: it would be very
easy to see the fashion for fins as an oddly human extravagance, but there may actually be a
parallel in nature. In 1998, Chinese researchers found a fossil, deep beneath the ground, of a
species they named the abnormal shrimp. This was a two-metre long predator with five eyes and
mouth parts on the end of a prehensile proboscis. What's more, on its tail, it had a series of fins to
which the researchers have been able to attribute no practical purpose whatsoever.

Questions 1 6
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

1 In 1947 Cadillac cars copied the fins on what type of transport?

2 What did car companies take part in during the 1950s?
3 What feeling in America did car makers exploit in the 1950s and 1960s?
4 Which model of car had the most number of fins ever?
5 In the 1980s, what was introduced to make motoring more expensive?
6 According to Chinese research in 1998, what creature once had fins?
 TASK TYPE 4 Matching Headings

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

Questions 1 5
The Reading Passage has five paragraphs, A E.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-vii, below.

List of headings

i How one mall has promoted itself over the years

ii Reasons for government support of malls

iii Ongoing research into the psychology of shoppers

iv How malls have gone in and out of fashion

v How different countries interpret malls in new ways

vi The ideas behind the original malls

vii The influence one type of shop has had on malls

1 Paragraph A ..........
2 Paragraph B ..........
3 Paragraph C ..........
4 Paragraph D ..........
5 Paragraph E ..........

Shop till you drop!

The rise and rise of the shopping mall?

Today, shopping malls are found in almost every nation, in both the developed and developing
world. Visitors to any city, from Auckland to Washington, and Beijing to Jogjakarta, can expect to
find shopping malls in the suburban centres, and all of them will appear to be broadly similar. So it's
easy to forget that malls are actually a relatively recent development. The first suburban shopping
malls as we would recognise them today only started to be built in America in the 1950s, and in
most of the rest of the world in the decades after that as the craze for mall shopping went global.
But 50 or so years on, while malls are still an important part of the retail economy, mall owners
have little to celebrate as increased competition from the Internet means fewer and fewer people
walk into their air-conditioned halls. In the U.S.A, few if any new malls have opened since 2006, and
those already operating are having to work harder and harder to attract customers.

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B

One of the first indoor 'shopping centres' was the Cleveland Arcade, built in the late nineteenth
century. However, this was an inner city shopping venue without parking and cannot really be
considered the forebear of today's malls which didn't appear until much later and in response to
a new feature of urban development. Their invention is usually credited to an Austrian-born U.S.
immigrant, who hated suburban living, seeing it as essentially 'empty' and lacking any focal
point. His solution was to try to recreate in the suburbs the same compact shopping experience
as was found in city centres the shopping mall, a town square for the suburbs, but one with
plentiful parking for the increasingly car-dominated culture of the 1950s.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that consumers have always flocked to malls on impulse
without any effort being made to entice them. In fact, if my own local mall is any guide, these
institutions have always found it necessary to publicise themselves and actively seek customers. In
the 1960s my local mall ran a variety of publicity events such as beauty pageants, fashion parades
and even a bed-making competition. More recently these events have focussed on appearances by
minor celebrities, aspiring singers, unemployed actors, and discarded contestants from the latest
television reality series. So it's apparent that malls have never taken their customers for granted and
have always been prepared to lure them away from alternative shopping venues.

While malls come in a variety of shapes and sizes, they nearly always contain at least one
supermarket, and it is arguably this store that is the crucial component of any mall: the necessity of
buying groceries draws customers in, and thereafter they may well be persuaded to purchase non-
essential items from some of the other stores on site. What's more, the whole mall enterprise has
learned a great deal from supermarkets, which have always led the field in understanding the
shopper's mind. Studies conducted since the 1960s have established certain fixed principles to
apply to supermarket design: essential items are spread throughout the shop, forcing customers to
walk down every aisle, where they might be tempted into an unplanned purchase; chocolate and
sweets are placed at child's eye level at the checkouts, and so on. The potential for all shops to
exploit consumers in similar ways is one that mall designers have been quick to recognise.
E

These days it's not an understatement to say that malls extensively spy on their customers in order
to better understand their shopping habits. This, of course, is justified in terms of 'better meeting
customer needs', but it also has the fortunate by-product of increasing sales. Cameras are
commonly used in numerous malls around the world, not just for security purposes but also to
monitor shoppers' behaviour so as to learn how to exploit it. It's commonplace today for business
schools to conduct these sorts of studies, to record how long shoppers spend in every store, which
goods they inspect, what they try on and whether or not they ask for assistance. This way,
according to marketers, real-time shopping in actual stores will always be more popular than
internet-based alternatives.
 TASK TYPE 5 Matching Information

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

Are germs bad?

Scientists know that bacteria make humans sick,
but research suggests some bacteria may also keep people alive.

The bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is able to live indeed, thrive inside the human
stomach, which makes it relatively rare because the stomach is so acidic as to be an extremely
hostile environment for most bacteria. H. pylori is shaped like a corkscrew and is three microns
long
to give a sense of scale, a grain of sand is about three hundred microns long. Research has
shown that over 50% of the world's population is infected by H. pylori, making it the most common
infection of its kind among human beings. However, it would be a mistake to assume from its
diminutive proportions or the fact that it occurs so frequently that the bacteria is a benign presence
in the human body.

In the 1980s doctors realised that antibiotic medications could free the body of the bacterium and
thus cure various illnesses including gastritis and stomach ulcers. At the time there was complete
consensus among scientists that H. pylori did nothing but harm and all steps should be taken to
eradicate it. One of those at the forefront of the research was Martin Blaser, professor of
microbiology at New York University School of Medicine. Professor Blaser still remembers how
certain the academic community was in those days about H. pylori. 'It was bad for us, so the idea

Professor Blaser's laboratory was ahead of the field and developed the original blood analysis
techniques to identify the bacterium, and most of them are commonly in use today. But Professor
Blaser has a mind that engages with a number of different intellectual activities; for example, in
addition to his medical work, he helped to set up an important magazine of literary criticism in the
United States. And perhaps it was this diversity of perspective that first caused him to wonder about
H. pylori. In particular, he was curious to know how a bacterium that was as old as humans could
survive in the human body if its only role was negative. As a result, Professor Blaser began to
examine fresh aspects of the bacterium, such as its molecular make up and behaviour.

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omach. He pointed to the fact that, while the incidence of H. pylori is decreasing thanks to the widespread use of antibiotics, some diseases are actually becoming more

ge has four paragraphs, A D. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A D, next to each question.
y letter more than once.

some details of the first1 test to determine the presence of H. pylori

some details of a pioneering
2 academic publication
the suggestion that one3 man's range of interests led to a new approach a warning about underestimating the importance of H. pylori
an example of a medical 4 benefit attributed to the presence of H. pylori
a comparison between5H. pylori and a natural substance familiar to most people examples of some medical problems caused by H. pylori being present
6
7
 TASK TYPE 6 Matching Features

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

Building cities right

How do we plan and design the best urban environments?

Researchers have estimated that sometime in 2007, more than 50% of the human race lived in
cities for the first time in history. In this sense then, most of us are urban dwellers: our home, the
place we know best in the world, is a city. Yet despite this widespread familiarity with the urban
environment, the issues involved in town planning and design are hugely complex and sometimes
misunderstood, according to Dr Simon Lavers, a senior lecturer in urban planning and management
at the Millennium Institute. 'I can think of no other form of design that incorporates such a broad
range of factors,' he says. 'It comprises a huge number of sometimes conflicting considerations
economic, political, legal, cultural, aesthetic.' Part of the problem, Lavers believes, is that
governments pass too many laws regulating design issues, leaving the planning process inflexible
and bureaucratic.

'There's something very symbolic about that majority figure,' says Helene Olav, a research fellow at
the Institute for Urban Affairs, referring to the fact that over 50% of people now live in cities. In fact,
in many countries it's more like 80%. 'Urban life is a fundamentally human experience,' says Olav,
'but in some cities it doesn't necessarily feel like it. Urban planners need to incorporate this reality at
the heart of their designs, creating urban facilities intended for all residents, whether that be
galleries, museums, recreational centres, or open areas such as parks and squares.' A similar point
is made by Professor Margaret Evans, a long-time advocate for tighter controls on urban planning.
Too often, she argues, urban planning is geared solely towards commerce and city centres are sold
into private ownership. Says Evans, 'Most cities are good at protecting their great landmarks and
national monuments, but the smaller heritage sites, the homes of lesser writers or community
leaders for example, which also give our cities a sense of common ancestry, are too often torn down
by property developers and replaced with glass towers.'

In reality, good urban planning and design is not that hard, continues Olav. 'It's definitely possible to
overthink it,' she says. 'Roads, water, sewage disposal the unexciting but essential issues faced
by every urban centre that's where designers should concentrate their efforts.' However, the next
generation of planners might disagree, if doctorate student Suzy Wong is representative. 'I think
planning is changing very fast,' she says. 'My contemporaries want urban designs that protect the
environment, not only take waste water out of the city but treat it at the same time that's an
initiative for the future.' She also thinks there's too much repetition in urban architecture and that
planners need to conceive of architecture in far more innovative and individual ways. Lavers,
however, offers a word of caution. 'Planners live in the real world,' he says, 'or more accurately,
they

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 is different, it has its own climate and landscape, its own types of stone, wood and traditional building methods. All of these should be apparent in the way each city is p
are cities.

Questions 1 6

Look at the following statements (Questions 1 6) and the list of researchers below. Match each statement with one of the researchers, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter A D in boxes 1 6 on your answer sheet.

NBYou may use any letter more than once.

e on simple, universal, practical

1 issues. Conserving buildings of minor historical value is often overlooked. Urban design should reflect local conditions and materials.
ared public spaces in cities is 2essential. It's important to create unusual and original designs.
a unique type of design. 3
4
5
6

List of researchers
Dr Simon Lavers
Helene Olav
Professor Margaret Evans
Suzy Wong
 TASK Line
1 Graphs

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The graph below shows changes in the distribution of average household income between 1965 and 2015.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Distribution of household income

Year

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 TASK Bar Charts
1

The charts below show how often people in three age groups did various different evening activities in 1980 and 2010.

Write a report for a university lecturer summarising the information shown in the charts.

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 TASK Tables
1

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The table below shows the type of accommodation chosen by foreign students
studying English in the city of Hamilton and other related information.

Write a summary of the most important statistics shown in the table.

Write at least 150 words.

Foreign Student Accommodation in the City of Hamilton

Rating for
Average
English
Type of % of $ per distance from Overall
language
Accommodation students week city centre in rating
development
kms

Homestay 31 175 15 ***** ****

Staying with relatives 11 65 20 ** **

Shared student flat 34 195 5 *** *****

Student hostel 15 160 4 ** *

One-room apartment 8 250 5 * **

Own home 1 20 * ****

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 TASK Pie Charts and Multiple
1 Charts

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The diagrams below give information about internet use in different regions of the world.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Internet use by world regions

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 TASK Diagrams
1

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The diagram below shows the stages in the production of silk.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

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 TASK Maps and
1 Plans

IELTS PRACTICE TASK

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

Below is a map of the town of Riverton. A new sports centre (S) has been planned for the town. The map shows two possible sites for the

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Map of Riverton with two proposed sites for a sports centre

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