ANSWER KEY

PREPARING
for

IELTS
TM

English for International Opportunity

LANGUAGE TRAINING CENTER

SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
 For teachers only

IELTS READING ANSWER KEY

Exercise 1 answers

Paragraph A
(v) – Types of settlements
A. The Yoruba people of Nigeria classify their towns in two ways . Permanent towns with their
own governments are called “ilu”, whereas temporary settlements, set up to support work
in the country are “aba”. Although ilu tend to be larger than aba, the distinction is not one
of size, some aba are large, while declining ilu can be small, but of purpose. There is no
“typical” Yoruba town, but some features are common to most towns.

Paragraph B
(vi) - Historical foundations
B. In the 19th century most towns were heavily fortified and the foundations of these walls
are sometimes visible. Collecting tolls to enter and exit through the walls was a major
source of revenue for the old town rulers, as were market fees. The markets were generally
located centrally and in small towns, while in large towns there were permanent stands
made of corrugated iron or concrete. The market was usually next to the local ruler’s
palace.

In this first question, the word 'foundation' is in the topic sentence. This does not automatically
make 'vi' the correct answer. However, it is a good reason to flag this up as a possibility. The
heading also refers to 'history', so the reference to '19th century' in the topic sentence tells us
the paragraph is about the history. A quick skim of the paragraph confirms this.

Paragraph C
(ix) - Various changes
C. The palaces were often very large. In the 1930’s, the area of Oyo’s palace covered 17 acres,
and consisted of a series of courtyards surrounded by private and public rooms. After
colonization, many of the palaces were completely or partially demolished. Often the rulers
built two storey houses for themselves using some of the palace grounds for government
buildings.
The second part of the paragraph goes on to discuss changes that took place.

Paragraph D
(iii) - Urban divisions
D. The town is divided into different sections. In some towns these are regular, extending out
from the center of the town like spokes on a wheel, while in others, where space is limited,
they are more random. The different areas are further divided into compounds called “ile”.

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These vary in size considerably from single dwellings to up to thirty houses. They tend to be
larger in the North. Large areas are devoted to government administrative buildings.
Newer developments such as industrial or commercial areas or apartment housing for civil
servants tends to be build on the edge of the town.

The answer is first seen in the topic sentence. The word 'divided' should have flagged this up to
you as a possibility. Notice the use of the synonym 'urban' to replace 'town'. It is common to see
synonyms in paragraph headings questions and other IELTS reading questions.

Paragraph E
(iv) - Architectural features
E. Houses are rectangular and either have a courtyard in the center or the rooms come off a
central corridor. Most social life occurs in the courtyard. They are usually built of hardened
mud and have roofs of corrugated iron or, in the countryside, thatch. Buildings of this
material are easy to alter, either by knocking down rooms or adding new ones. And can be
improved by coating the walls with cement. Richer people often build their houses of
concrete blocks and, if they can afford to, build two storey houses. Within compounds
there can be quite a mixture of building types. Younger well-educated people may have
well furnished houses while their older relatives live in mud walled buildings and sleep on
mats on the floor.

The topic sentence starts to give you a clue that 'iv' is the correct choice of the paragraph
headings as it discusses architectural styles, which are then discussed further in the supporting
sentences that follow.

Paragraph F
(vii) - Domestic arrangements
A. The builder or the most senior man gets a room either near the entrance or, in a two
storied house, next to the balcony. He usually has more than one room. Junior men get a
room each and there are separate rooms for teenage boys and girls to sleep in. Younger
children sleep with their mothers. Any empty room are used as storage, let out or, if they
face the street, used as shops.

In this context, 'domestic' means of or relating to the home, so the heading is referring to the
arrangements within the home. Again, just by reading the topic sentence you can see that this
paragraph is discussing home arrangements and skimming through the rest of the paragraph
confirms this.

Paragraph G
(i) - Town facilities
G. Amenities vary. In some towns most of the population uses communal water taps and only
the rich have piped water, in others piped water is more normal. Some areas have toilets,

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but bucket toilets are common with waste being collected by a “night soil man”. Access to
water and electricity are key political issues.

'Facilities' is a synonym of 'amenities' so this is the first clue that this could fit this paragraph,
but you need to read on to confirm that the paragraph is discussing the facilities of the town,
which it is.

Exercise 2 answers

1. It has to be heading ix because it's back in the public eye - i.e. in 'the news' / 'the media'
again.
2. This should be viii because Fiorentina are claiming that it was not their fault i.e. they are not
to blame.
3. The paragraph describes the situation in Italy which is serious, so you should choose
heading vii.
4. This paragraph describes the situation in a number of European countries, so the answer
must be heading x.
5. This paragraph talks about the actions of a judge. The answer should be heading v.
6. This paragraph discusses how people are frightened and scared. So you should choose i.
7. Paragraph 7 discusses what action FIFA is considering, in other words, its response. So iii is
the correct answer.

Exercise 3 answers

1. Cultivating fallow land.

2. Improve the stripper.
3. It allowed farmers to cultivate land that hadn’t been fully cleared.
4. Fertilizing the soil.
5. It was drought resistant.

Exercise 4 answers

1. By the year 2005 they will be teenagers--a group that tends to be, in the view of
Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, "temporary sociopaths--impulsive
and immature." If they also have easy access to guns and drugs, they can be extremely
dangerous. (para. 1)
(c) is correct because, as per the quote above, the concern is that when they become
teenagers (grown up) they will commit these crimes.

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2. For all the heartening news offered by recent crime statistics...(para. 2)

"Heartening news" means 'good news' - so the general crime rate is obviously falling as this
would be good news. So the answer is (b)

3. ...14 and 17, the age group that in the early '90s supplanted 18- to 24-year-olds as the most
crime-prone. (para. 2)
This tells us the 14-17 age group replaced ('supplanted') 18-24-year-olds as the most likely
('prone') to commit crime, so the answer for this IELTS reading multiple choice question is
(a).

4. "So long as we fool ourselves in thinking that we're winning the war against crime, we may
be blindsided by this bloodbath of teenage violence that is lurking in the future." (para.2)
Here James is saying that because general crime figures are falling, we may not notice what
is going to happen in the future with teenage crime, so the IELTS reading multiple choice
answer is (a).

5. “At the same time, government is becoming less, not more, interested in spending money
to help break the cycle of poverty and crime.” (para.3)
So the answer is in fact (c) - the government is not doing enough.

6. “Michael Tonry, a professor of law and public policy at the University of Minnesota, argues
that the demographic doomsayers are unduly alarmist...."it's not going to be an apocalyptic
effect." (para.4)

Here Michael is saying that those who are concerned about the problem (like James) are
worrying too much ("unduly alarmist") and there will not be the terrible consequences
("apocalyptic") like they claim. So he is obviously less pessimistic and the answer is (b).

7. “We're not creating new jobs, and we're not improving education to suit poor people for
the jobs that exist." (para.5)
In this paragraph, Jonathan makes lots of negative points and finishes by saying jobs are not
being created and education not improved. He is therefore citing these as a cause of the
problems he mentioned. It thus follows that changing this would improve the situation, so
the answer is (c).

8. "A failure to maintain existing welfare and health commitment for kids," he says, "is to
guarantee that the next wave of juvenile predators will be even worse than we're dealing
with today." (para.6)

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If you don't 'maintain' something, then you don't keep it working as it is. So he is saying that
if spending on welfare and health (social programs) is not kept as it is, things will get worse.
So the IELTS reading multiple choice answer is (a).

Exercise 5 answers

1. TRUE
“After their introduction to Europe they were an immediate sensation and were quickly
incorporated into the diet.”
There two statements are clearly saying the same thing. Notice the use of synonyms:
Became popular = sensation
As soon as = immediately
Brought into = introduced

2. FALSE
“Capsaisin causes temporary irritation the trigeminal cells.”
This is false as the statement says 'damage'. This is not the same as a 'temprary irritation'.

3. TRUE
“Only mammals feel the burning effects; birds feel nothing. As birds are a better method of
distributing the seeds, which pass intact through their guts . . .”
This is true as this section in the reading clearly tells us birds feel nothing (when they eat
them) and they distribute them around when it leaves their body. So clearly chiles are eaten
by birds. In other words, they can be a part of a birds diet.

4. NOT GIVEN
“The smaller chilies tend to be the hottest. This may reflect the fact that they tend to grow
closer to the ground and are therefore more vulnerable to animals.”
We are told that small chilies grow closer to the ground. It can be assumed then that many
of the large ones are higher off the ground.However, it says 'all large chilies. We are not
given any information to say all of them grow high off the ground. It's possible some don't,
so we don't know which means it is Not Given.

5. NOT GIVEN
“The heat of a chili is measured on the Scoville scale.”
Again, this is Not Given. We are given some information about heat in this sentence and
those that follow. But these are just descriptions about how they are hot. We are not told
specifically that this is the reason they are breeding them.

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Exercise 6 answers www.IELTSBuddy.com

1. TRUE
Social services are things such as welfare benefits, pensions and health, so the statement is
the same as this in the reading:
“The demographic shift will present huge challenges to countries' welfare, pension and
healthcare systems. “

2. FALSE
30% is not the same as one in nine, so the text contradicts the statement:
“A Celebration and a Challenge, estimates that one in nine people around the world are
older than 60.”

3. NOT GIVEN
In the reading, we are told that developing countries are not prepared. This does imply that
developed countries are better prepared. However, do you know if they are much better
prepared? It is quite possible they are much better prepared compared to developing
countries so we can’t say for sure it is false. We don’t know as the information is not given.
"In many developing countries with large populations of young people, the challenge is that
governments have not put policies and practices in place to support their current older
populations or made enough preparations for 2050," the agencies said in a joint statement.

4. TRUE
The above statement means the same as this sentence which was written in reference to
pension schemes:
“It stressed that it was not enough to simply pass legislation - the new schemes needed to
be funded properly.”

5. TRUE
These parts tell us the same thing as above:
“Traditionally…people have been well looked after. But…many of the country's elderly are
finding themselves cast out.”
6. FALSE
You will often need to understand synonyms in the reading test. ‘Deal with’ means the
same as ‘get to grips with’. This sentence tells us India is NOT dealing with its problems, so
the information in the text contradicts the statement:
“…one which India still has not got to grips with, our correspondent says.”

7. NOT GIVEN
The paragraph does not tell you if Bolivian families look after their elderly better. It explains
that they get more pension and are involved in some community activities:

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“All Bolivians over the age of 60 get a pension that is the equivalent of about $30 (£19) a
month. Bolivia suffers from frequent flooding and landslides, and older people there have
been organised into "Brigadas Blancas" - White Haired Brigades. They help with
preparations for emergencies, and accessing humanitarian aid.”

Is it possible that Bolivian families tend to look after their elderly relatives better than many
other countries? It’s quite possible but we don’t know. We can’t disprove it from the
reading so it is ‘not given’.

Exercise 7 answers www.dcielts.com

1. Paragraph 1 = heading D Early developments in the practice of acupuncture

This may be a tricky answer as the first two sentences do not explicitly refer to
developments of acupuncture but simply tell you one theory as to how it started. You
can predict this answer by reading the whole text and understanding that it is organised
by time. The first paragraph relates to 2000 years ago and so is the most likely
paragraph to be about early developments.

The two parts of the text that show that this is about change in practice are:
"even the Stone Age, even if it is uncertain acupuncture was used medically at this point
in time. The best evidence we have is the discovery of sharpened stones which it is
claimed performed the same functions as needles in later ages"

"Support for this comes from the earliest Chinese medical texts that date from the same
era and which provide further evidence that acupuncture was an established medical
practice by this time.”

If you chose answer 2, you chose an option that relates to one detail in the paragraph
and not the paragraph as a whole.

2. Paragraph 2 = heading F The rise and fall of the reputation of acupuncture

This time the first sentence pretty much gives you the answer.
"While it enjoyed several hundred years of popularity and acceptance in China, from
around 1300 onwards it gradually fell from grace and lost status."
This is backed up by the final sentence:
"In more recent times, acupuncture has remained controversial and has fallen in and
out of fashion around the world."

If you chose 7, you made the mistake of focusing on key words in the question and
matched "fashion" with "fashionable"

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If you chose 1, you focused on one detail in the paragraph "It began to be seen as a
more technical profession and became associated with the lower-classes" and not the
meaning of the whole paragraph

3. Paragraph 3 = heading G Why acupuncture became fashionable once more

You can find the answer to this by seeing that the first sentence gives the topic of the
paragraph "it once more became a matter of interest and excited international
attention"
This relates to the idea of becoming fashionable in the heading. It helps to understand
that the following sentences give 3 different reasons to show why this happened. "This
was partially due to"."It was also part of a"."Most of all, though," The answers relating
to the American president and journalist are traps for people who word match and do
not read the whole question tutorial on heading and paragraph matching more reading
practice exercises

Exercise 8 answers British Council IELTS practice

1. FALSE 6. FALSE 10. B

2. TRUE 7. TRUE 11. A
3. NOT GIVEN 8. C 12. D
4. FALSE 9. C 13. C
5. TRUE

Exercise 9 answers

1. The students’ countries

2. Performance regulation
3. An industry levy/tax
4. A (or 'The') stable government/ virtually non-existent corruption / education standards
5. A vision
6. The third largest

Exercise 10 answers

1. a number of 3. overcrowded prisons 5. the colonisation

2. a penal colony 4. an entry point 6. poor soil

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These are the paraphrases and synonyms that you would have needed to identify in order to
successfully find the answers:

Original word from the reading Synonym / paraphrase from the

question
Question 1 Began founded
Question 2 most important factor major consideration
Question 3 Used utilized
surrounding neighbouring
Question 4 all these points figured took every factor into account
authorise official permission
Question 5 Left abandoned
openness lack of cover

Exercise 11 answers

(1) Incident
You should have worked out that this is a synonym for 'case'. The other nouns in the box
would not fit here.

(2) Established
Establish' can mean to set up something up such as a system of rules. So this word fits here.
You may have thought it was 'found', but this means to discover something. The new
legislation wasn't 'discovered'.

(3) Increased
If you refer to the reading you can see that this is the trend referred to. 'Rose' does not fit
grammatically.
(4) Predicted
The reading and the summary show that the future is being discussed, so this word fits.

(5) Passengers
It must be the plural as it is being used as a general noun. For the singular, an article would
need to have been used.

(6) Assault
If you put 'injury' this is wrong as the reading does not say people are commonly injured,
but it does refer to assaults. You can get assaulted without getting injured.

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Exercise 12 answers

Questions 1 – 5
http://www.ielts-exam.net/preparing/Reading_task_type_two_matching_headings_to_paragraphs/224/

1. Paragraph D = vi 4. Paragraph H = i
2. Paragraph E = iii 5. Paragraph I = ix
3. Paragraph G = vii

Questions 6 – 8
http://www.ielts-exam.net/preparing/Reading_task_type_four_multiple_choice/226/

6. C 7. B 8. D

Questions 9 - 15
http://www.ielts-exam.net/preparing/Reading_task_type_three_identifying_the_writers_views/225/

9. Yes 12. No 15. Yes

10. No 13. Not Given
11. Not Given 14. Yes

Questions 16 - 18
http://www.ielts-exam.net/preparing/Reading_task_type_nine_short_answer_questions/231/

16. safety / lifeboats 18. maiden

17. Britain / the British government

Questions 19 - 26 http://www.ielts-exam.net/preparing/Reading_task_type_six_table_completion/228/

19. Ice warnings / wireless 21. Yes 24. Yes

messages  22. Doesn’t say 25. 24 hour 
20. Out dated / out of date 23. Buckle 26. Yes

Questions 27 - 35
http://www.ielts-exam.net/preparing/Reading_task_type_one_summary_completion/223/

27. ocean 30. size 33. float 

28. safety  31. confident  34. inadequate 
29. record   32. water 35. procedures 

A. I'm ready in two minds about what to do when I leave school. Should I go straight to
university or should I spend a year travelling around the world? (1)

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B. It is often said that knowledge is the key to power, and I cannot disagree with this. (7)
C. On the one hand, I would experience lots of different cultures. (11)
D. Unfortunately, another point is that if I spent a year travelling I would need a lot of money.
(14)
E. And I'm not alone in this opinion. Many consider a sound career and a good salary to be an
important goal. (5)
F. However, it could be argued that I would also meet lots of interesting people while I was
travelling. (9)
G. Secondly, if I go straight to university, I'll learn so many things that will help me in my future
life.(6)
H. First of all, there are so many benefits of going straight to university. (2)
I. But I believe that it would be easy to make a bit while I was travelling, giving English lessons
or working in hotels and shops. (15)
J. Moreover, I'll be able to take part in the social activities that the university offers, and meet
lots of new friends who share the same interests. (8)
K. The most important point is that the sooner I get my qualifications, the quicker I'll get a job
and start earning. (3)
L. Nevertheless, these inconveniences would be an inevitable part of travelling and would be
greatly outweighed by the other advantages. (13)
M. In my opinion, starting work and making money is one of the most important things in life.
(4)
N. On the other hand, I could end up suffering from culture shock, homesickness and some
strange tropical diseases. (12)
O. Furthermore, if I spent a year travelling, I would learn more about the world. (10)
P. All right, I've made my mind up. Now, where's my nearest travel agency? (16)

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