IELTS reading

Cambridge 18 · Academic Reading Test 4

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Section 1

Reading Passage 1

Green Roofs

Rooftops covered with grass, vegetable gardens and lush foliage are now a common sight in many cities around the world. More and more private companies and city authorities are investing in green roofs, drawn to their wide-ranging benefits. Among the benefits are saving on energy costs, mitigating the risk of floods, making habitats for urban wildlife, tackling air pollution and even growing food. These increasingly radical urban designs can help cities adapt to the monumental problems they face, such as access to resources and a lack of green space due to development. But the involvement of city authorities, businesses and other institutions is crucial to ensuring their success – as is research investigating different options to suit the variety of rooftop spaces found in cities. The UK is relatively new to developing green roofs, and local governments and institutions are playing a major role in spreading the practice. London is home to much of the UK’s green roof market, mainly due to forward-thinking policies such as the London Plan, which has paved the way to more than doubling the area of green roofs in the capital. Ongoing research is showcasing how green roofs in cities can integrate with ‘living walls’: environmentally friendly walls which are partially or completely covered with greenery, including a growing medium, such as soil or water. Research also indicates that green roofs can be integrated with drainage systems on the ground, such as street trees, so that the water is managed better and the built environment is made more sustainable. There is also evidence…

Questions 1–5

The Reading Passage has five paragraphs, A-E. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

1.mention of several challenges to be overcome before a green roof can be installed

2.reference to a city where green roofs have been promoted for many years

Section 2

Reading Passage 2

The Growth Mindset

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Over the past century, a powerful idea has taken root in the educational landscape. The concept of intelligence as something innate has been supplanted by the idea that intelligence is not fixed, and that, with the right training, we can be the authors of our own cognitive capabilities. Psychologist Alfred Binet, the developer of the first intelligence tests, was one of many 19th-century scientists who held that earlier view and sought to quantify cognitive ability. Then, in the early 20th century, progressive thinkers revolted against the notion that inherent ability is destiny. Instead, educators such as John Dewey argued that every child’s intelligence could be developed, given the right environment. ‘Growth mindset theory’ is a relatively new – and extremely popular – version of this idea. In many schools today you will see hallways covered in motivational posters and hear speeches on the mindset of great sporting heroes who simply believed their way to the top. A major focus of the growth mindset in schools is coaxing students away from seeing failure as an indication of their ability, and towards seeing it as a chance to improve that ability. As educationalist Jeff Howard noted several decades ago: ‘Smart is not something that you just are, smart is something that you can get.’ The idea of the growth mindset is based on the work of psychologist Carol Dweck in California in the 1990s. In one key experiment, Dweck divided a group of 10- to 12-year-olds into two groups. All were told that they had achieved a high score on a test but the first group were praised for…

Questions 14–16

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

14.What can we learn from the first paragraph?

Section 3

Reading Passage 3

Alfred Wegener: Science, Exploration And The Theory Of Continental Drift

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by Mott T Greene Introduction This is a book about the life and scientific work of Alfred Wegener, whose reputation today rests with his theory of continental displacements, better known as ‘continental drift’. Wegener proposed this theory in 1912 and developed it extensively for nearly 20 years. His book on the subject, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, went through four editions and was the focus of an international controversy in his lifetime and for some years after his death. Wegener’s basic idea was that many mysteries about the Earth’s history could be solved if one supposed that the continents moved laterally, rather than supposing that they remained fixed in place. Wegener showed in great detail how such continental movements were plausible and how they worked, using evidence from a large number of sciences including geology, geophysics, paleontology, and climatology. Wegener’s idea – that the continents move – is at the heart of the theory that guides Earth sciences today: namely plate tectonics. Plate tectonics is in many respects quite different from Wegener’s proposal, in the same way that modern evolutionary theory is very different from the ideas Charles Darwin proposed in the 1850s about biological evolution. Yet plate tectonics is a descendant of Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift, in quite the same way that modern evolutionary theory is a descendant of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. When I started writing about Wegener’s life and work, one of the most intriguing things about him for me was that, although he came up with a theory on…

Questions 27–30

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in The Reading Passage?

27.Wegener’s ideas about continental drift were widely disputed while he was alive.

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Answers & explanations

Every answer is available. The first 3 explanations are free; PrepGo Premium unlocks the rest.

40 answers3 explanations open

1
D
The answer is correct because paragraph D specifically discusses the challenges related to installing green roofs, such as acquiring new skills, potentially needing volunteers, meeting safety requirements, managing public access, dealing with planning restrictions, and addressing disruptions during installation.
2
C
The correct answer is 'C' because the excerpt specifically talks about Toronto, Canada, which has been promoting urban farms on rooftops since the 1990s. This aligns with the information about a city where green roofs have been encouraged for an extended period of time.
3
E
The correct answer is E because the excerpt suggests that green roofs have the potential to transform cities, which aligns with the idea of using existing green roofs as a model for new ones to further enhance sustainable urban development.
4
B
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5
D
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6
energy
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7
food
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8
gardening
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9
obesity
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10
C
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11
D
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12
A
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13
D
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14
B
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15
C
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16
D
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17
C
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18
B
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19
A
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20
E
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21
B
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22
D
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23
YES
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24
NO
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25
NOT GIVEN
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26
YES
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27
YES
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28
NOT GIVEN
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29
NO
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30
NO
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31
I
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32
F
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33
A
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34
C
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35
H
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36
E
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37
B
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38
A
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39
D
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40
C
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Understand why, not only what.

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