Academic IELTS Reading Test 118

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 ( Passage 1 Canada Lynx, Passage 2 Antarctica – in from the cold?, Passage 3 How should reading be taught? ) we prefer you to work offline, download the test paper and blank answer sheet.

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For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 Answers

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 Reading Passage Canada Lynx below.

Canada Lynx

{A} The Canada lynx is like a gray ghost of the north–elusive, evading human contact. It stands about 20 inches tall at the shoulder but weighs about 20 pounds–scarcely more than a large house cat. It is readily recognized by its long, black ear tufts; short, black-tipped tail; and large, rounded feet with furry pads, which permit it to walk on the snow’s surface. Historically, the Canada lynx ranged from Alaska across Canada and into many of the northern U.S. states. In eastern states, it lived in a transition zone in which boreal coniferous forests yielded to deciduous forests. In the West, it preferred subalpine coniferous forests of mixed age. It would den and seek protection from severe weather in mature forests with downed logs but hunt for its primary prey, the snowshoe hare, in young forests with more open space.

{B} In the northern part of its range, the lynx serves as one half of a classic predator-prey relationship, feeding almost exclusively on the snowshoe hare, a large northern rabbit that wears a brown coat in summer and a white one in winter. The two species evolved together; the cat becoming a specialist in killing the hare, the hare becoming adept at eluding the lynx. The lynx kills an average of one hare every two or three days. It will turn to killing grouse, rodents, and other animals if hares become scarce. The link between lynx and hare is so tight in the north that the two species’ populations fluctuate in almost perfect synchrony. Hare populations follow a natural cyclical pattern, changing approximately every ten years from abundance to scarcity and back to abundance. Adult lynx usually survive periods of hare scarcity, but their kittens often do not. As a result, the lynx population follows a similar pattern, with its peaks and valleys lagging one to two years behind those of the hare. Lynx populations south of the Canadian border were probably never as abundant or dense as the more northern populations.

{C} The diet of lynx in these southern areas is more varied–including squirrels, small rodents, grouse, and hares–and the populations are less dense and less productive than their northern counterparts. This low density and productivity makes southern lynx populations especially vulnerable to the ever-increasing human activities that affect the abundance of the lynx’s prey base in these regions, or that may cause lynx to avoid areas of otherwise acceptable habitat. Although lynx were never abundant in the United States, they probably did occur in most northern states and western mountainous areas as far south as Colorado. Today, while tens of thousands of lynx remain in Canada and Alaska, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) can confirm the presence of lynx populations below the border only in Maine, Montana, Washington, and Colorado.

{D} The lynx’s gradual disappearance from the contiguous U.S. resulted from human activities that have compromised both the lynx and its habitat. In the nineteenth century, trapping put heavy pressure on the species. Now, the cat’s survival in the U.S. is primarily jeopardized by habitat destruction and fragmentation. Some timber practices can remove the mature forest that the lynx needs for denning and rearing young. These activities can also disrupt lynx travel patterns, as the cats prefer tree cover. Roads threaten the lynx by fragmenting its habitat, isolating lynx populations, exposing them to predators, and providing competitor species new access to habitat formerly dominated by the lynx. For example, snowmobile traffic creates trails that may allow competitors like coyotes, wolves, and cougars access to lynx winter habitat. Motor vehicles also cause lynx mortality: Recent attempts to reintroduce lynx from Canada into New York’s Adirondack Mountains failed, primarily because the cats were hit by cars and trucks.

{E} In the 1970s and 1980s, the threat to lynx from trapping reached a new height when the price for hides rose to as much as $600 each. By the early 1990s, the Canada lynx was a clear candidate for Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection. In response to the lynx’s plight, more than a dozen environmental groups petitioned FWS in 1991 to list lynx in the lower 48 states. FWS regional offices and field biologists supported the petition, but FWS officials in the Washington, D.C. headquarters turned it down.

{F} Today, the most suitable lynx habitat in the West is on public land. This includes national and state forests, where logging and recreational development often occur. With memories of the northern spotted owl controversy still fresh, FWS was reluctant to list the lynx in the lower 48 states, particularly as the species was still considered abundant in Canada and Alaska. Furthermore, the exact factors driving the lynx’s decline were unclear, as some methods of timber extraction, which destroy lynx habitat, seem to promote hare populations.

{G} In 1995, the stakes rose yet higher. Portions of the lynx’s habitat were slated for logging when Congress enacted a law that demanded 330 “salvage sales” on national forests. Not only did Congress set logging at an unsustainable level for many forests, but it also protected the sales from court anneal hv exempting them from the safeguards of environmental laws. The logging industry maintained that this cut was necessary because large numbers of trees had died from disease, fire, and insects, thereby making the forests unhealthy. Forest Service statistics show little change in tree deaths during the past half century, however, and the law was written so loosely that living trees were scheduled for cutting.

{H} Trapped between industry pressure and inconclusive science, FWS declined to list the lynx, despite the fact that three out of four FWS regional offices favored its listing. Environmental groups took the case to court, where, in March 1997, the judge overruled the FWS decision not to list the animal as “arbitrary and capricious.” The ESA requires listing decisions to be made within a year after a petition is filed, but the agency did not formally propose to list the lynx as threatened in the contiguous United States until July 1998. In March 2000, FWS finally listed the lynx as threatened in the lower 48. Its listing will provide a critical step in conserving the lynx throughout the southern part of its natural range, since federal protection will spur much-needed research on the species, aid in generating funds for lynx efforts, and form the basis for managing forest uses for lynx survival.

Questions 1-5 

The Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 reading Passage has eight paragraphs A-H. 

Which paragraph contains the following information?

 Write the correct letter A-H, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet. 

(1) Reasons why lynx declined in US 

(2) Physical character of lynx 

(3) Eventually listed as endangered animal 

(4) Appeal for protection was refused 

(5) Subtle balance between two species

Questions 6-8

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

Write your answers in boxes 6-8 on your answer sheet.

Question 6 Why are southern lynx more vulnerable than the northern ones?

(A) Less diversity of diet 

(B) Prefer to live without human trace 

(C) Smaller size 

(D) Live in warmer area

Question 7 Why were more risks put on the lynx’s habitat in 1995?

(A) Lynx was allowed to be hunted by court 

(B) Lynx’s habitat was affected by diseased trees 

(C) Logging was encouraged by law

(D) Volunteers contributed less effort in conservation

Question 8 Which is NOT correct about the benefit of listing lynx as an endangered animal?

(A) More research will be conducted on lynx 

(B) Reserve the number of lynx 

(C) gender analysis of lynx was carried out

(D) Attract financial support 

Questions 9-10 

Choose TWO correct letters from A-E 

Write your answers in boxes 9-10 on your answer sheet.

Please select TWO facts that correctly depict the relationship between lynx and hare?

(A) Lynx size develops faster than hare’s 

(B) Lynx evolved along with hare Lynx 

(C) population peak matches hare’s valley 

(D) Lynx only feed hare in both north and south area 

(E) Population changed nearly simultaneously in north

Questions 11-13 

Choose TWO correct letters from A-E 

Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.

Please select THREE reasons in the following options that caused the number of lynx to decline NOWADAYS?

(A) Climate change 

(B) Trapping 

(C) Habitat loss 

(D) Sudden burst of disease 

(E) Competitive predators 

(F) Harmed by vehicles

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 Reading Passage Antarctica – in from the cold?s below.

Antarctica – in from the cold?

{A} A little over a century ago, men of the ilk of Scott, Shackleton and Mawson battled against Antarctica’s blizzards, cold and deprivation. In the name of Empire and in an age of heroic deeds they created an image of Antarctica that was to last well into the 20th century – an image of remoteness, hardship, bleakness and isolation that was the province of only the most courageous of men. The image was one of a place removed from everyday reality, of a place with no apparent value to anyone.

{B} As we enter the 21st century, our perception of Antarctica has changed. Although physically Antarctica is no closer and probably no warmer, and to spend time there still demands a dedication not seen in ordinary life, the continent and its surrounding ocean are increasingly seen to an integral part of Planet Earth, and a key component in the Earth System. Is this because the world seems a little smaller these days, shrunk by TV and tourism, or is it because Antarctica really does occupy a central spot on Earth’s mantle? Scientific research during the past half century has revealed – and continues to reveal – that Antarctica’s great mass and low temperature exert a major influence on climate and ocean circulation, factors which influence the lives of millions of people all over the globe.

{C} Antarctica was not always cold. The slow break-up of the supercontinent Gondwana with the northward movements of Africa, South America, India and Australia eventually created enough space around Antarctica for the development of an Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), that flowed from west to east under the influence of the prevailing westerly winds. Antarctica cooled, its vegetation perished, glaciation began and the continent took on its present-day appearance. Today the ice that overlies the bedrock is up to 4km thick, and surface temperatures as low as -89.2deg C have been recorded. The icy blast that howls over the ice cap and out to sea – the so-called katabatic wind – can reach 300 km/hr, creating fearsome wind-chill effects.

{D} Out of this extreme environment come some powerful forces that reverberate around the world. The Earth’s rotation, coupled to the generation of cells of low pressure off the Antarctic coast, would allow Astronauts a view of Antarctica that is as beautiful as it is awesome. Spinning away to the northeast, the cells grow and deepen, whipping up the Southern Ocean into the mountainous seas so respected by mariners. Recent work is showing that the temperature of the ocean may be a better predictor of rainfall in Australia than is the pressure difference between Darwin and Tahiti – the Southern Oscillation Index. By receiving more accurate predictions, graziers in northern Queensland are able to avoid overstocking in years when rainfall will be poor. Not only does this limit their losses but it prevents serious pasture degradation that may take decades to repair. CSIRO is developing this as a prototype forecasting system, but we can confidently predict that as we know more about the Antarctic and Southern Ocean we will be able to enhance and extend our predictive ability.

{E} The ocean’s surface temperature results from the interplay between deepwater temperature, air temperature and ice. Each winter between 4 and 19 million square km of sea ice form, locking up huge quantities of heat close to the continent. Only now can we start to unravel the influence of sea ice on the weather that is experienced in southern Australia. But in another way the extent of sea ice extends its influence far beyond Antarctica. Antarctic krill – the small shrimp-like crustaceans that are the staple diet for baleen whales, penguins, some seals, flighted sea birds and many fish – breed well in years when sea ice is extensive and poorly when it is not. Many species of baleen whales and flighted sea birds migrate between the hemispheres and when the krill are less abundant they do not thrive.

{F} The circulatory system of the world’s oceans is like a huge conveyor belt, moving water and dissolved minerals and nutrients from one hemisphere to the other, and from the ocean’s abyssal depths to the surface. The ACC is the longest current in the world, and has the largest flow. Through it, the deep flows of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans are joined to form part of a single global thermohaline circulation. During winter, the howling katabatics sometimes scour the ice off patches of the sea’s surface leaving large ice-locked lagoons, or ‘polynyas’. Recent research has shown that as fresh sea ice forms, it is continuously stripped away by the wind and may be blown up to 90km in a single day. Since only fresh water freezes into ice, the water that remains becomes increasingly salty and dense, sinking until it spills over the continental shelf. Cold water carries more oxygen than warm water, so when it rises, well into the northern hemisphere, it reoxygenates and revitalises the ocean. The state of the northern oceans, and their biological productivity, owe much to what happens in the Antarctic.

{G} Antarctica has, truly, ‘come in from the cold. As we learn more about its effect on climate, ocean circulation and biota we see that it is not a place that is unconnected to the rest of the world; nor is it useless and barren. On the contrary; it is a powerful engine that has impacts on human, animal and plant life across the globe. Australia’s Antarctic scientific research program, undertaken by government and university scientists and facilitated by the Australian Antarctic Division, publishes about 300 research papers and articles annually and is fully engaged in answering fundamental questions about the Continent’s physical and biological attributes, and its role in System Earth. Much of this research was on show at the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering’s symposium “Looking SouthManaging Technology, Opportunities and the Global Environment” held in Hobart late last year.

Questions 14-18 

The Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G. 

Which paragraph contains the following information? 

Write the correct letter A-G, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

(14) The effect of low pressure cells on weather prediction on agriculture

(15) Antarctic sea ice brings life back to the world oceans’ vitality.

(16) A food chain that influence the animals living pattern based on Antarctic fresh sea ice

(17) The explanation of How atmosphere pressure above Antarctica can impose effect on global climate change

(18) Antarctica was once thought to be a forgotten and insignificant continent

(19-21) Matching

Please match the natural phenomenon with the correct determined factor. Write the correct letter A-C, in boxes 19-21 on your answer sheet.

(A) Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) 

(B) katabatic winds 

(C) Southern Oscillation Index 

(D) Ocean deep temperature

(19) facilitates new sea ice’s formation—————–

(20) contributory to western wind ———————

(21) prediction of rainfall in Australia ——————–

Questions 22-26 

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

Write your answers in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet.

Question 22 How does Antarctica benefit the Northern hemisphere?

(A) Antarctica has been a central topic of global warming in Mass media 

(B) huge see ice brings food to million lives to places in the world 

(C) originate flow of cold water which motivate the world ocean current 

(D) Antarctica located in the central spot on Earth geographically

Question 23 Why do Australian farmers keep an eye on the Antarctic ocean temperature ?

(A) help farmers reduce their economic or ecological losses 

(B) Retrieve grassland decreased in the overgrazing process 

(C) Prevent animal from dying 

(D) A cell provides fertilizer for the grassland

Question 24 What is the final effect of katabatic winds?

(A) Increase the moving speed of ocean current 

(B) Increase salt level near ocean surface 

(C) Bring fresh ice into southern oceans 

(D) Pile up the mountainous ice cap respected by mariners

Question 25 the break of the continental shelf is due to the

(A) Salt and density increase 

(B) Salt and density decrease 

(C) global warming resulting a rising temperature 

(D) fresh ice melting into ocean water

Question 26 the decrease in number of Whales and seabirds is due to :

(A) killers whales are more active around 

(B) Sea birds are affected by high sea level salty 

(C) less sea ice reduces productivity of food source 

(D) seals fail to reproduce babies

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 Reading Passage How should reading be taught? below.

How should reading be taught? By Keith Rayner and Barbara R Foorman

{A} Learning to speak is automatic for almost all children, but learning to read requires elaborate instruction and conscious effort. Well aware of the difficulties, educators have given a great deal of thought to how they can best help children learn to read. No single method has triumphed. Indeed, heated arguments about the most appropriate form of reading instruction continue to polarise the teaching community.

{B} Three general approaches have been tried. In one, called whole-word instruction, children learn by rote how to recognise at a glance a vocabulary of 50 to 100 words. Then they gradually acquire other words, often through seeing them used over and over again in the context of a story. Speakers of most languages learn the relationship between letters and the sounds associated with them (phonemes). That is, children are taught how to use their knowledge of the alphabet to sound out words. This procedure constitutes a second approach to teaching reading – phonics. Many schools have adopted a different approach: the whole-language method. The strategy here relies on the child’s experience with language. For example, students are offered engaging books and are encouraged to guess the words that they do not know by considering the context of the sentence or by looking for clues in the storyline and illustrations, rather than trying to sound them out. Many teachers adopted the whole-language approach because of its intuitive appeal. Making reading fun promises to keep children motivated, and learning to read depends more on what the student does than on what the teacher does. The presumed benefits of whole-language instruction and the contrast to the perceived dullness of phonics – led to its growing acceptance across America during the 1990s, and a movement away from phonics.

{C} However, many linguists and psychologists objected strongly to the abandonment of phonics in American schools. Why was this so? In short, because research has clearly demonstrated that understanding how letters related to the component sounds in words is critically important in reading. This conclusion rests, in part, on knowledge of how experienced readers make sense of words on a page. Advocates of whole-language instruction have argued forcefully that people often derive meanings directly from print without ever determining the sound of the word. Some psychologists today accept this view, but most believe that reading is typically a process of rapidly sounding out words mentally. Compelling evidence for this comes from experiments which show that subjects often confuse homophones (words that sound the same, such as Jrose) and ‘rows5). This supports the idea that readers convert strings of letters to sounds.

{D} In order to evaluate different approaches to teaching reading, a number of experiments have been carried out, firstly with college students, then with school pupils. Investigators trained English-speaking college students to read using unfamiliar symbols such as Arabic letters (the phonics approach), while another group learned entire words associated with certain strings of Arabic letters (whole-word). Then both groups were required to read a new set of words constructed from the original characters. In general, readers who were taught the rules of phonics could read many more new words than those trained with a whole-word procedure. Classroom studies comparing phonics with either whole-word or whole-language instruction are also quite illuminating. One particularly persuasive study compared two programmes used in 20 first-grade classrooms. Half the students were offered traditional reading instruction, which included the use of phonics drills and applications. The other half were taught using an individualised method that drew from their experiences with language; these children produced their own booklets of stories and developed sets of words to be recognised (common components of the whole-language approach). This study found that the first group scored higher at year’s end on tests of reading and comprehension.

{E} If researchers are so convinced about the need for phonics instruction, why does the debate continue? Because the controversy is enmeshed in the philosophical differences between traditional and progressive (or new) approaches, differences that have divided educators for years. The progressives challenge the results of laboratory tests and classroom studies on the basis of a broad philosophical scepticism about the values of such research. They champion student-centred learning and teacher empowerment. Sadly, they fail to realise that these very admirable educational values are equally consistent with the teaching of phonics.

{F} If schools of education insisted that would be reading teachers learned something about the vast research in linguistics and psychology that bears on reading, their graduates would be more eager to use phonics and would be prepared to do so effectively. They could allow their pupils to apply the principles of phonics while reading for pleasure. Using whole-language activities to supplement phonics instruction certainly helps to make reading fun and meaningful for children, so no one would want to see such tools discarded. Indeed, recent work has indicated that the combination of literature-based instruction and phonics is more powerful than either method used alone. Teachers need to strike a balance. But in doing so, we urge them to remember that reading must be grounded in a firm understanding of the connections between letters and sounds. Educators who deny this reality are neglecting decades of research. They are also neglecting the needs of their students.

Questions 27 – 31

Reading Passage 3 has six sections, A-F. Choose the correct heading for sections B-F from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

(i) Disagreement about the reading process 

(ii) The roots of the debate 

(iii) A combined approach 

(iv) Methods of teaching reading 

(V) A controversial approach 

(vi) Inconclusive research 

(vii) Research with learners 

(viii) Allowing teachers more control 

(ix) A debate amongst educators

Example 

Section A ix 

(27) Section B 

(28) Section C 

(29) Section D 

(30) Section E 

(31) Section F

Questions 32-36

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 Reading Passage 3? In boxes 32-36 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is True
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN If the information is not given in the passage

(32) The whole-language approach relates letters to sounds.

(33) Many educators believe the whole-language approach to be the most interesting way to teach children to read.

(34) Research supports the theory that we read without linking words to sounds.

(35) Research has shown that the whole-word approach is less effective than the whole-language approach.

(36) Research has shown that phonics is more successful than both the whole word and whole-language approaches.

Questions 37 – 40

Complete the summary of sections E and F using the list of words, A-G, below. Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

In the teaching community, 37______________ question the usefulness of research into 

Methods of teaching reading. These critics believe that 38__________ is incompatible 

with student-centred learning. In the future, teachers need to be aware of 39____________ 

so that they understand the importance of phonics. They should not, however, ignore the ideas of 40____________which make reading enjoyable for learners.

(A) the phonics method 

(B) the whole word method 

(C) the whole-language method 

(D) traditionalists 

(E) progressives 

(F) linguistics 

(G) research studie

For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 118 Answers

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