IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 with Answers

IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 ( Passage 1 Endangered chocolate, Passage 2 Sense in America and Europe Owned film, Passage 3 America‟s Oldest Art? ) we prefer you to work offline, download the test paper, and blank answer sheet.

For any query regarding the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160, you can mail us at [email protected], or you can mention your query in the comments section. Or send your questions on our IELTSfever Facebook page. Best of luck with your exam

Question PDF IELTSFever-academic-reading-test-160 pdf

For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 Answers

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 Reading Passage Endangered chocolate below.

Endangered Chocolate

{A}. The cacao tree, once native to the equatorial American forest, has some exotic traits for a plant. Slender and shrubby, the cacao has adapted to live close to the leaf-littered forest floor. Its large leaves droop down. away from the sun. Cacao doesn’t flower, as most plants do at the tips of its outer and uppermost branches. Instead. its sweet white buds hang from the trunk and along a few Fat branches which form where leaves drop off. These tiny flowers transform into pulp-filled pods almost the size of rugby balls. The low-hanging pods contain bitter-tasting magical seeds.

{B}. Somehow, more than 2,000 years ago. ancient humans in Mesoamerica discovered the secret of these beans. If you scoop them from the pod with their pulp. let them ferment and dry in the sun, then roast them over a gentle fire, something extraordinary happens: they become chocolaty. And if you then grind and press the beans, which are half-cocoa butter or more, you will obtain a rich crumbly taste. chestnut brown paste – chocolate at its most pure and simple.

{C}. The Maya and Aztecs revered this chocolate, which they Frothed up with water and spices to make bracing concoctions. It was an edible treasure, offered up to their gods, used as money and hoarded like gold. Long after Spanish explorers introduced the beverage to Europe in the sixteenth century. chocolate retained an aura of aristocratic luxury. In 1753. the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus gave the cacao tree genus the name Theobroma. which means ‘food of the gods’,

{D}. In the last 200 years, the bean has been thoroughly democratized – transformed from an elite drink into ubiquitous candy bars, cocoa powders and confections. Today chocolate is becoming more popular worldwide, with new markets opening up in Eastern Europe and Asia. This is both good news and bad because. Although farmers are producing record numbers of the cacao bean, this is not enough, some researchers worry, to keep pace with global demand. Cacao is also facing some alarming problems.

{E}. Philippe Petithuguenin, head of the cacao program at the Centre For International Cooperation in Development-Oriented Agricultural Research (CiRAD) in France, recently addressed a seminar in the Dominican Republic. He displayed a map of the world revealing a narrow band within 180 north and south of the equator. where cacao grows. In the four centuries since the Spanish first happened upon cacao, it has been planted all around this hot humid tropical belt – from South America and the Caribbean to West Africa, East Asia, and New Guinea and Vanuatu in the Pacific.

{F}. Today 70% of all chocolate beans come from West Africa and Central Africa. In many parts, growers practice so-called pioneer Farming. They strip patches of forest of all but the tallest canopy trees and then they put in cacao, using temporary plantings of banana to shade the cacao while it’s young. With luck, groves like this may produce annual yields of 50 to 60 pods per tree for 25 to 30 years. But eventually, pests, pathogens and soil exhaustion take their toll and yields diminish. Then the growers move on and clear a new forest patch – unless farmers of other crops get there first. ‘You cannot keep cutting the tropical forest, because the forest itself is endangered: said Petithuguenin. ‘World demand for chocolate increases by 3% a year on average. With a lack of land for new plantings in tropical forests, how do you meet that?’

{G}. Many farmers have a more imminent worry: outrunning disease. Cacao, especially when grown in plantations, is at the mercy of many afflictions, mostly rotting diseases caused by various species of fungi which cover the pods in fungus or kill the trees. These fungi and other diseases spoil more than a quarter of the world’s yearly harvest and can devastate entire cacao-growing regions.

{H}. One such disease, witches broom, devastated the cacao plantations in the Bahia region of Brazil. Brazil was the third largest producer of cacao beans but in the 1980s the yields fell by 75%. According to Petithuguenin, ‘if a truly devastating disease like witches broom reached West Africa (the world’s largest producer), it could be catastrophic.’ If another producer had the misfortune to falter now, the ripples would be felt the world over. In the United States, for example, imported cacao is the linchpin of an $8.6 billion domestic chocolate industry that in turn supports the nation’s dairy and nut industries; 20% of all dairy products in the US go into confectionery.

{I}. Today research is being carried out to try to address this problem by establishing disease-resistant plants. However, even the best plants are useless if there isn’t anywhere to grow them. Typically, farmers who grow cacao get a pittance for their beans compared with the profits reaped by the rest of the chocolate business. Most are at the mercy of local middlemen who buy the beans then sell them for a much higher price to the chocolate manufacturers. If the situation is to improve for farmers, these people need to be removed from the process. But the economics of cacao is rapidly changing because of the diminishing supply of beans. Some companies have realized that they need to work more closely with the farmers to ensure that sustainable farming practices are used. They need to replant areas and create a buffer for the forest, to have ground cover, shrubs, and small trees as well as the canopy trees. Then the ‘soil will be more robust and more productive. They also need to empower the farmers by guaranteeing them a higher price for their beans so that they will be encouraged to grow cacao and can maintain their way of life.

Questions 1-3

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

Write your answers on your answer sheet from 1-3

Question 1. The flowers of the cacao plant appear

     (A). at the end of its top branches.

     (B). along all of its branches.

     (C). mainly on its trunk.

     (D). close to its leaves.

Question 2. In Africa, banana trees are planted with cacao plants in order to

    (A). replace the largest trees.

    (B). protect the new plants.

    (C). provide an extra crop.

    (D). help improve soil quality.

Question 3. In paragraph H, what is the writer referring to when he says ‘the ripples would be felt the world over’?

   (A). the impact a collapse in chocolate production could have on other industries

   (B). the possibility of disease spreading to other crops

   (C). the effects of the economy on world chocolate growers

   (D). the link between Brazilian growers and African growers

Questions 4-9

The IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 Passage has nine paragraphs labelled A-I.

Which paragraph contains the following. Information?

Write the correct letter A-I in your answer sheet from 4-9.

(4).   a list of the cacao growing areas

(5).   an example of how disease has affected one cacao growing region

(6).   details of an ancient chocolate drink

(7).   a brief summary of how the chocolate industry has changed in modern times

(8).   the typical lifespan and crop size of a cacao plantation

(9).   a reference to the scientific identification of the cacao plant

Questions 10-13

Complete the notes below.

Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 passage for each answer.

Write your answers on your answer sheet from 10-13.

Ways of dealing with the plant’s problems

• Need to find plants which are not affected by (10) __________.
• Chocolate producers need to work directly with farmers instead of (11) __________.
• Need to encourage farmers to use (12)  __________. methods to grow cacao plants
• Make sure farmers receive some of the (13) __________. made by the chocolate industry.

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 Reading Passage sense in America and Europe owned film below.

The sense in America and Europe Owned film

There has always been a sense in which America and Europe owned the film. They invented it at the end of the nineteenth century in unfashionable places like New Jersey, Leeds, and the suburbs of Lyons. At first, they saw their clumsy new camera-projectors merely as more profitable versions of Victorian lantern shows, mechanical curiosities which might have a use as a sideshow at a funfair. Then the best of the pioneers looked beyond the fairground properties of their invention. A few directors, now mostly forgotten, saw that the flickering new medium was more than just a diversion. This crass commercial invention gradually began to evolve as an art. D W Griffith in California glimpsed its grace, German directors used it as an analog to the human mind and the modernizing city, Soviets emphasized its agitational and intellectual properties, and the Italians reconfigured it on an operatic scale. 

So heady were these first decades of cinema that America and Europe can be forgiven for assuming that they were the only game in town. In less than twenty years western cinema had grown out of all recognition; its unknowns became the most famous people in the world; it made millions. It never occurred to its financial backers that another continent might borrow their magic box and make it its own. But film industries were emerging in Shanghai, Bombay and Tokyo, some of which would outgrow those in the west. 

Between 1930 and 1935, China produced more than 500 films, mostly conventionally made in studios in Shanghai, without soundtracks. China’s best directors – Bu Wancang and Yuan Muzhi – introduced elements of realism to their stories. The Peach Girl (1931) and Street Angel (1937) are regularly voted among the best ever made in the country. 

India followed a different course. In the west, the arrival of talkies gave birth to a new genre -the musical – but in India, every one of the 5000 films made between 1931 and the mid-1950s had musical interludes. The films were stylistically more wide ranging than the western musical, encompassing realism and escapist dance within individual sequences, and they were often three hours long rather than Hollywood’s 90 minutes. The cost of such productions resulted in a distinctive national style of cinema. They were often made in Bombay, the centre of what is now known as ‘Bollywood’. Performed in Hindi (rather than any of the numerous regional languages), they addressed social and peasant themes in an optimistic and romantic way and found markets in the Middle East, Africa and the Soviet Union. 

In Japan, the film industry did not rival India’s in size but was unusual in other ways. Whereas in Hollywood the producer was the central figure, in Tokyo the director chose the stories and hired the producer and actors . The model was that of an artist and his studio of apprentices. Employed by a studio as an assistant, a future director worked with senior figures, learned his craft, gained authority, until promoted to director with the power to select screenplays and performers. In the 1930s and 40s, this freedom of the director led to the production of some of Asia’s finest films. 

The films of Kenji Mizoguchi were among the greatest of these. Mizoguchi’s films were usually set in the nineteenth century and analysed the way in which the lives of the female characters whom he chose as his focus were constrained by the society of the time . From Osaka Elegy (1936) to Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) and beyond, he evolved a sinuous way of moving his camera in and around a scene, advancing towards significant details but often retreating at moments of confrontation or strong feeling. No one had used the camera with such finesse before. 

Even more important for film history, however, is the work of the great Ozu. Where Hollywood cranked up drama, Ozu avoided it. His camera seldom moved. It nestled at seated height, framing people square on, listening quietly to their words. Ozu rejected the conventions of editing, cutting not on action, as is usually done in the west, but for visual balance. Even more strikingly, Ozu regularly cut away from his action to a shot of a tree or a kettle or clouds, not to establish a new location but as a moment of repose. Many historians now compare such ‘pillow shots’ to the Buddhist idea that mu – empty space or nothing – is itself an element of the composition. 

As the art form most swayed by money and market, cinema would appear to be too busy to bother with questions of philosophy. The Asian nations proved and are still proving that this is not the case. Just as deep ideas about individual freedom have led to the aspirational cinema of Hollywood, so it is the beliefs that underlie cultures such as those of China and Japan that explain the distinctiveness of Asian cinema at its best. Yes, these films are visually striking, but it is their different sense of what a person is, and what space and action are, which makes them new to western eyes. 

Questions 14-18 

Do the following statements agree with the information given in IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 Passage 2? In boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet write 

(14) The inventors of cinema regarded it as a minor attraction. 

(15) Some directors were aware of cinema’s artistic possibilities from the very beginning. 

(16) The development of cinema’s artistic potential dependent on technology. 

(17) Cinema’s possibilities were developed in varied ways in different western countries. 

(18) Western businessmen were concerned about the emergence of film industries in other parts of the world. 

Questions 19-25 

Complete the notes below using the list of words (A-K} from the box below. 

Write the correct letters in boxes 19-25 on your answer sheet. 

Chinese cinema 

• large number of (19) ………………… films produced in 1930s 
• Some early films are still generally regarded as (20) ……………….. 

Indian cinema 

• films included musical interludes
• films avoided (21) ………………… topics 

Japanese cinema 

• unusual because the film director was very (22) ………………… 
• two important directors:

Mizoguchi – focused on the (23) ………………… restrictions faced by women 

– camera movement related to (24) ………………… content of film Ozu – (25) ………………… camera movement 

Question 26 

Question 26 Which of the following is the most suitable title for IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 Reading Passage 2? 

(A) Blind to change: how is it that the west has ignored Asian cinema for so long? 

(B) A different basis: how has the cinema of Asian countries been shaped by their cultures and beliefs? 

(C) Outside Asia: how did the origins of cinema affect its development worldwide? 

(D) Two cultures: how has western cinema tried to come to terms with the challenge of the Asian market? 

Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on the IELTSFever Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 Reading Passage America‟s oldest art? below.

America‟s Oldest Art? 

{A}. Set within treacherously steep cliffs, and hidden away valleys of northeast Brazil, is some of Southeast America‟s most significant and spectacular rock-art. Most of the art so far discovered from the ongoing excavations comes from the archaeologically – important National Park of the Serra da Capivara in the state of Piauí, and it is causing quite a controversy. The reason for the uproar? The art is being dated to around 25.CC0 or perhaps. According to some archaeologists, even 36,000 years ago. If correct, this is set to challenge the wide-field view that America was first colonized from the north, via the Bering Straits from eastern Siberia at around 10.000 BC. only moving down into Central and South America in the millennia thereafter. 

{B}. Prior to the designation of 130,000 hectares as a National Park, the rock-art sites were difficult to get to and often dangerous to enter. In ancient times, this inaccessibility must have heightened the importance of the sites, and indeed of the people who painted on the rocks. Wild animals and human figures dominate the art and are incorporated into often complex scenes involving hunting, supernatural beings, fighting and dancing. The artists depicted the animals that roamed the local ancient brushwood forest. The large mammals are usually hunted in groups and tend to be shown a running stance, as they try to escape from hunting parties. Processions – lines of human and animal figures – also appear of great importance to these ancient artists. Might such lines represent family units or groups of warriors? On a number of panels, rows of stylized figures, some numbering up to 30 individual figures, were painted using the natural undulating contours of the rock surface, evoking the contours of the seconding landscape. Other interesting, but very rare, occurrences are scenes that show small human figures holding on to and dancing around a tree, possibly involved in some form of a ritual dance. 

{C}. Due to the favorable climatic conditions. The imagery on many panels is in a remarkable state of preservation. Despite this, however, there are serious conservation issues that affect their long-term survival. The chemical and mineral quantities of the rock on which the imagery is painted are fragile and on several panels it is unstable. As well as the secretion of sodium carbonate on the rock surface, complete panel sections have, over the ancient and recent past, broken away from the main rock surface. These have then become buried and sealed into sometimes-ancient floor deposits. Perversely, this form of natural erosion and subsequent deposition has assisted archaeologists in dating several major rock-art sites. Of course, dating the art is extremely difficult oven the non-existence of plant and animal remains that might be scientifically dated. However, there am a small number of sites in the Serra da Capivara that are giving up their secrets through good systematic excavation. Thus, at Toca do Rock.omo da Pedra Furada. rock-art researcher Nide Guidon managed to obtain a number of dates. At different levels of excavation, she located fallen painted rock fragments, which she was able to dale to at least 36,000 years ago. Along with toe painted fragments, crude stone tools were found. Also discovered were a series of scientifically datable sites of fireplaces, or hearths, the earliest dated to 46,000 BC. arguably the oldest dates for human habitation in America. 

{D}. However, these conclusions are not without controversy. Critics, mainly from North America, have suggested that the hearths may, in fact, be a natural phenomenon, the result of seasonal brushwood fires. Several North American researchers have gone further and suggested that the rock art from this site dates from no earlier than about 3,730 years ago, based on the results of limited radiocarbon dating. Adding further fool to the general debate is the fact that the artists in the area of the National Hark tended not to draw over old motifs (as often occurs with rock-art), which makes it hard to work out the relative chronology of the images or styles. However, the diversity of imagery and the narrative the paintings created from each of the many sites within the National Park suggests different artists were probably making their art at different times and potentially using each site over many thousands of years. 

{E}. With fierce debates thus raging over to dating, where these artists originate from is also still very much open to speculation. The traditional view ignores the early dating evidence from the South American rock-art sites. In a revised scenario, some anthropologists are now suggesting that modern humans may‟ have migrated from Africa using the strong currents of the Atlantic Ocean some 63.000 years or more ago, while others suggest more improbable colonization coming from the Pacific Ocean. Yet, while the ether hypothesis is plausible, there is still no supporting archaeological evidence between the South American coastline and the interior. Rather, it seems possible that there were a number of waves of human colonization of the Americas occurring possibly over a 60,000-100,000 year period, probably using the Bering Straits as a land bridge to cross into the Americas. 

{F}. Despite the compelling evidence from South America, it stands alone: the earliest secure human evidence yet found in the state of Oregon in North America only dates to 12,300 years BC. So this is a fierce debate that is likely to go on for many more years. However, the splendid rock art and its allied anthropology of northeast Brazil, described here, is playing a huge and significant role in the discussion. 

Questions 27-29 

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write the correct letter in boxes 27-29 on your answer sheet. 

Question 27. According to the first paragraph, the rock-art in Serra da Capivara may revolutionize accepted ideas about ……………………. 

(A). the way primitive people lived in North America. 

(B). the date when the earliest people arrived in South America. 

(C). the origin of the people who crossed the Bering Straits. 

(D). the variety of cultures which developed in South America. 

Question 28. How did the ancient artists use the form of the rock where they painted? 

(A). to mimic the shape of the countryside nearby 

(B). to emphasize the shape of different animals 

(C). to give added light and shade to their paintings 

(D). to give the impression of distance in complex works 

Question 29. In the fourth paragraph, what does the winter say is unusual about the rock artists of Serra da Capivara? 

(A). They had a very wide range of subject matter. 

(B). Their work often appears to be illustrating a story. 

(C). They tended to use a variety of styles in one painting, 

(D). They rarely made new paintings on top of old ones. 

Questions 30-36

 In boxes 30-36 on your answer sheet, write 

(30). Archaeologists have completed their survey of the rock-art in Piaui. 

(31). The location of the rock art suggests that the artists had a significant role in their society. 

(32). The paintings of animals show they were regarded as sacred by ancient humans. 

(33). Some damage to paintings is most likely due to changes in the weather of the region. 

(34).. The fact that some paintings wore buried is useful to archaeologists. 

(35). The tools found near some paintings were probably used for hunting animals. 

(36). The North American researchers have confirmed Niede Guidons dating of the paintings. 

Questions 37-40 

Complete each sentence with the correct ending. A-F below. 

Write the correct letter A-F on your answer sheet. 

(37). Materials derived from plants or animals ………………… 

(38). The discussions about the ancient hearths ………………. 

(39). Theories about where the first South Americans originated from ……………….. 

(40). The finds of archaeologists in Oregon ……………………. 

(A). giving rise to a great deal of debate among anthropologists. 

(B). does not support the earliest dates suggested for the arrival of people in America. 

(C). are absent from rock-art sites In the Serra da Capivara. 

(D). have not been accepted by academics outside America. 

(E). center on whether or not they are actually man-made. 

(F). reflect the advances in scientific dating methods 

For Answers Academic IELTS Reading Test 160 Answers