Reading 2025-12 Test 2 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

Rebuilt from test-taker recalls — not official IELTS material. Audio and passages are recreations for practice.

Reading Passage 1 — Thomas Young: The Last True Know It

A Thomas Young (1773-1829) contributed 63 articles to the Encyclopedia Britannica, including 46 biographical entries (mostly on scientists and classicists) and substantial essays on “Bridge,” “Chromatics,” “Egypt,” “Languages” and “Tides”. Was someone who could write authoritatively about so many subjects a polymath, a genius or a dilettante? In an ambitious new biography, Andrew Robinson argues that Young is a good contender for the epitaph “the last man who knew everything.” Young has competition, however: The phrase, which Robinson takes for his title, also serves as the subtitle of two other recent biographies: Leonard Warren’s 1998 life of paleontologist Joseph Leidy (1823-1891) and Paula Findlen’s 2004 book on Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), another polymath.

B Young, of course, did more than write encyclopedia entries. He presented his first paper to the Royal Society of London at the age of 20 and was elected a Fellow a week after his 21st birthday. In the paper, Young explained the process of accommodation in the human eye - on how the eye focuses properly on objects at varying distances. Young hypothesized that this was achieved by changes in the shape of the lens. Young also theorized that light traveled in waves and he believed that, to account for the ability to see in color, there must be three receptors in the eye corresponding to the three “principal colors” to which the retina could respond: red, green, violet. All these hypotheses were subsequently proved to be correct.

C Later in his life, when he was in his forties, Young was instrumental in cracking the code that unlocked the unknown script on the Rosetta Stone, a tablet that was “found” in Egypt by the Napoleonic army in 1799. The stone contains text in three alphabets: Greek, something unrecognizable and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The unrecognizable script is now known as demotic and, as Young deduced, is related directly to hieroglyphic. His initial work on this appeared in his Britannica entry on Egypt. In another entry, he coined the term Indo-European to describe the family of languages spoken throughout most of Europe and northern India. These are the landmark achievements of a man who was a child prodigy and who, unlike many remarkable children, did not disappear into oblivion as an adult.

D Born in 1773 in Somerset in England, Young lived from an early age with his maternal grandfather, eventually leaving to attend boarding school. He had devoured books from the age of two, and through his own initiative, he excelled at Latin, Greek, mathematics and natural philosophy. After leaving school, he was greatly encouraged by his mother’s uncle, Richard Brocklesby, a physician and Fellow of the Royal Society. Following Brocklesby’s lead, Young decided to pursue a career in medicine. He studied in London, following the medical circuit, and then moved on to more formal education in Edinburgh, Gottingen and Cambridge. After completing his medical training at the University of Cambridge in 1808, Young set up practice as a physician in London. He soon became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a few years later was appointed physician at St. George’s Hospital.

E Young’s skill as a physician, however, did not equal his skill as a scholar of natural philosophy or linguistics. Earlier, in 1801, he had been appointed to a professorship of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution, where he delivered as many as 60 lectures in a year. These were published in two volumes in 1807. In 1804 Young had become secretary to the Royal Society, a post he would hold until his death. His opinions were sought on civic and national matters, such as the introduction of gas lighting to London and methods of ship construction. From 1819 he was superintendent of the Nautical Almanac and secretary to the Board of Longitude. From 1824 to 1829 he was physician to and inspector of calculations for the Palladian Insurance Company. Between 1816 and 1825 he contributed his many and various entries to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and throughout his career, he authored numerous books, essays and papers.

F Young is a perfect subject for a biography - perfect, but daunting. Few men contributed so much to so many technical fields. Robinson’s aim is to introduce non-scientists to Young’s work and life. He succeeds, providing clear expositions of the technical material (especially that on optics and Egyptian hieroglyphs). Some readers of this book will, like Robinson, find Young’s accomplishments impressive; others will see him as some historians have — as a dilettante. Yet despite the rich material presented in this book, readers will not end up knowing Young personally. We catch glimpses of a playful Young, doodling Greek and Latin phrases in his notes on medical lectures and translating the verses that a young lady had written on the walls of a summerhouse into Greek elegiacs. Young was introduced into elite society, attended the theatre and learned to dance and play the flute. In addition, he was an accomplished horseman. However, his personal life looks pale next to his vibrant career and studies.

G Young married Eliza Maxwell in 1804, and according to Robinson, “their marriage was a happy one and she appreciated his work,” Almost all we know about her is that she sustained her husband through some rancorous disputes about optics and that she worried about money when his medical career was slow to take off. Very little evidence survives about the complexities of Young’s relationships with his mother and father. Robinson does not credit them, or anyone else, with shaping Young’s extraordinary mind. Despite the lack of details concerning Young’s relationships, however, anyone interested in what it means to be a genius should read this book.

Questions 1–7: True/False/Not Given

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1–7 on your answer sheet, write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information, FALSE if the statement contradicts the information, NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this.

1
‘The last man who knew everything’ has also been claimed to other people.
2
All Young’s articles were published in Encyclopedia Britannica.
3
Like others, Young wasn’t so brilliant when growing up.
4
Young’s talent as a doctor surpassed his other skills.
5
Young’s advice was sought by people responsible for local and national issues.
6
Young took part in various social pastimes.
7
Young suffered from a disease in his later years.

Questions 8–13: Short Answer

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

8
How many life stories did Young write for the Encyclopedia Britannica?
9
What aspect of scientific research did Young focus on in his first academic paper?
10
What name did Young introduce to refer to a group of languages?
11
Who inspired Young to start his medical studies?
12
Where did Young get a teaching position?
13
What contribution did Young make to London?

Reading Passage 2 — Wealth in a Cold Climate

A Dr William Masters was reading a book about mosquitoes when inspiration struck. “There was this anecdote about the great yellow fever epidemic that hit Philadelphia in 1793,” Masters recalls. “This epidemic decimated the city until the first frost came.” The inclement weather froze out the insects, allowing Philadelphia to recover.

B If weather could be the key to a city’s fortunes, Masters thought, then why not to the historical fortunes of nations? And could frost lie at the heart of one of the most enduring economic mysteries of all - why are almost all the wealthy, industrialised nations to be found at latitudes above 40 degrees? After two years of research, he thinks that he has found a piece of the puzzle. Masters, an agricultural economist from Purdue University in Indiana, and Margaret McMillan at Tufts University, Boston, show that annual frosts are among the factors that distinguish rich nations from poor ones. Their study is published this month in the Journal of Economic Growth. The pair speculates that cold snaps have two main benefits- they freeze pests that would otherwise destroy crops, and also freeze organisms, such as mosquitoes, that carry disease. The result is agricultural abundance a big workforce.

C The academics took two sets of information. The first was average income for countries, the second climate data from the University of East Anglia. They found a curious tally between the sets. Countries having five or more frosty days a month are uniformly rich; those with fewer than five are impoverished. The authors speculate that the five-day figure is important; it could be the minimum time needed to kill pests in the soil. Masters says: “For example, Finland is a small country that is growing quickly, but Bolivia is a small country that isn’t growing at all. Perhaps climate has something to do with that.” In fact, limited frosts bring huge benefits to farmers. The chills kill insects or render them inactive; cold weather slows the break-up of plant and animal material in the soil, allowing it to become richer; and frosts ensure a build-up of moisture in the ground for spring, reducing dependence on seasonal rains. There are exceptions to the “cold equals rich” argument. There are well-heeled tropical countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore (both city-states, Masters notes), a result of their superior trading positions. Likewise, not all European countries are moneyed - in the former communist colonies, economic potential was crushed by politics.

D Masters stresses that climate will never be the overriding factor - the wealth of nations is too complicated to be attributable to just one factor. Climate, he feels, somehow combines with other factors - such as the presence of institutions, including governments, and access to trading routes - to determine whether a country will do well. Traditionally, Masters says, economists thought that institutions had the biggest effect on the economy, because they brought order to a country in the form of, for example, laws and property rights. With order, so the thinking went, came affluence. “But there are some problems that even countries with institutions have not been able to get around,” he says. “My feeling is that, as countries get richer, they get better institutions. And the accumulation of wealth and improvement in governing institutions are both helped by a favourable environment, including climate.”

E This does not mean, he insists, that tropical countries are beyond economic help and destined to remain penniless. Instead, richer countries should change the way in which foreign aid is given. Instead of aid being geared towards improving governance, it should be spent on technology to improve agriculture and to combat disease. Masters cites one example: “There are regions in India that have been provided with irrigation- agricultural productivity has gone up and there has been an improvement in health.” Supplying vaccines against tropical diseases and developing crop varieties that can grow in the tropics would break the poverty cycle.

F Other minds have applied themselves to the split between poor and rich nations, citing anthropological, climatic and zoological reasons for why temperate nations are the most affluent. In 350BC, Aristotle observed that “those who live in a cold climate are full of spirit”. Jared Diamond, from the University of California at Los Angeles, pointed out in his book Guns, Germs and Steel that Eurasia is broadly aligned east-west, while Africa and the Americas are aligned north-south. So, in Europe, crops can spread quickly across latitudes because climates are similar. One of the first domesticated crops, einkorn wheat, spread quickly from the Middle East into Europe; it took twice as long for corn to spread from Mexico to what is now the eastern United States. This easy movement along similar latitudes in Eurasia would also have meant a faster dissemination of other technologies such as the wheel and writing, Diamond speculates. The region also boasted domesticated livestock, which could provide meat, wool and motive power in the fields. Blessed with such natural advantages, Eurasia was bound to take off economically.

G John Gallup and Jeffrey Sachs, two US economists, have also pointed out striking correlations between the geographical location of countries and their wealth. They note that tropical countries between 23.45 degrees north and south of the equator are nearly all poor. In an article for the Harvard International Review, they concluded that “development surely seems to favour the temperate-zone economies, especially those in the northern hemisphere, and those that have managed to avoid both socialism and the ravages of war”. But Masters cautions against geographical determinism, the idea that tropical countries are beyond hope: “Human health and agriculture can be made better through scientific and technological research,” he says, “so we shouldn’t be writing off these countries. Take Singapore: without air conditioning, it wouldn’t be rich.”

Questions 14–20: Matching Headings

The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A–G. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A–G from the list below. Write the correct number, i–x, in boxes 14–20 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i The positive correlation between climate and wealth

ii Other factors besides climate that influence wealth

iii Inspiration from reading a book

iv Other researchers’ results do not rule out exceptional cases

v different attributes between Eurasia and Africa

vi Low temperature benefits people and crops

vii The importance of institution in traditional views.

viii The spread of crops in Europe, Asia and other places

ix The best way to use aid

x confusions and exceptional

14
Paragraph A
15
Paragraph B
16
Paragraph C
17
Paragraph D
18
Paragraph E
19
Paragraph F
20
Paragraph G

Questions 21–26: Summary Completion

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage. Using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer.

Dr William Master read a book saying that a (an) 21 _________ which struck an American city of years ago was terminated by a cold frost. And academics found that there is a connection between climate and country’s wealthy as in the rich but small country of 22 _________; Yet besides excellent surroundings and climate, one country still need to improve both their 23 _________ to achieve long prosperity. Thanks to resembling weather condition across latitude in the continent of 24 _________, crops such as 25 _________ is bound to spread faster than from South America to the North. Other researchers also noted that even though geographical factors are important, a tropical country such as 26 _________ still became rich due to scientific advancement.

Reading Passage 3 — Travel Accounts

A. There are many reasons why individuals have traveled beyond their own societies. Some travelers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, trade, business dealings, diplomacy, political administration, military campaigns, exile, flight from persecution, migration, pilgrimage, missionary efforts, and the quest for economic or educational opportunities were more common inducements for foreign travel than was mere curiosity. While the travelers' accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travelers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves.

B. Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in ancient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bacteria (modern-day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the first century BC while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geographers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travelers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge.

C. During the postclassical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from east Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan west Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims traveled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad's original pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his example, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. One of the best known Muslim travelers, Ibn Battuta, began his travels with the hajj but then went on to visit central Asia, India, China, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Mediterranean Europe before returning finally to his home in Morocco. East Asian travelers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the postclassical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited southeast Asia and India, occasionally venturing even to east Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists traveled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written accounts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment.

D. Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and east Asian counterparts during the early part of the postclassical era, although gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe traveled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo's description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered, European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.

E. If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in postclassical times, European explorers, conquerors, merchants, and missionaries took center stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel literature was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Richard Hakluyt, Theodore de Bry, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.

F. During the 19th century, European travelers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numerous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By midcentury, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travelers in particular visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the reorganization of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travelers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.

G. With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and missionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption for individuals living in the world's wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times. Recent times have seen unprecedented waves of migration, for example, and numerous migrants have sought to record their experiences and articulate their feelings about life in foreign lands. Recent times have also seen an unprecedented development of ethnic consciousness, and many are the intellectuals and writers in diaspora who have visited the homes of their ancestors to see how much of their forebears' values and cultural traditions they themselves have inherited. Particularly notable among their accounts are the memoirs of Malcolm X and Maya Angelou describing their visits to Africa.

Questions 28–35: Table Completion

Complete the table now. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer.

TIME | DESTINATION | TRAVELER | PURPOSE

28. Classical era | Egypt and Anatolia | Herodotus | To obtain information on _________

29. 1st century BC | Central Asia | Zhang Qian | To seek _________

30. Roman Empire | Mediterranean | Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny the Elder | To gather _________

31. Post-classical era | Eastern Hemisphere | Muslims | For business and _________

32. 5th to 9th centuries CE | India | Asian Buddhists | To study with _________ and for spiritual enlightenment

Early modern era | Distant places of the globe | The Europeans | To meet the public's expectation for the outside

33. 19th century | Asia, Africa | Colonial administrator | To provide information on the _________ they conquer

34. By the mid-century of the 1800s | Europe and United States | Sun Yat-sen, Fukuzawa Yukichi | To learn _________ for the reorganization of their societies

35. 20th century | Mass tourism | People from _________ countries | For entertainment

Questions 36–40: Multiple Choice

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D. Write your answers in boxes 36–40 on your answer sheet.

36
Why did some people travel in the early days?
- A. to do research on themselves
- B. to write travel books
- C. to have a better understanding of other people and places
- D. to study local culture
37
The travelers' accounts are a mirror to themselves,
- A. because they help them to be aware of local histories.
- B. because travelers are curious about the world.
- C. because travelers could do more research on the unknown.
- D. because they reflect the writers' own experience and social life.
38
Most of the people who went to holy sites during the early part of postclassical era are
- A. Europeans.
- B. Muslim and East Asians.
- C. Americans.
- D. Greeks.
39
During the early modern era, a large number of travel books were published
- A. to provide what the public wants.
- B. to encourage the public's feedback.
- C. to gain profit.
- D. to prompt trips to the new world.
40
What stimulated the market for traveling in the 20th century
- A. the wealthy
- B. travel books
- C. delicious food
- D. mass transport

Answer sheet

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Show answer key

1. true
The passage says the phrase 'the last man who knew everything' is also used for Joseph Leidy and Athanasius Kircher, so it has been claimed for others.
2. false
Young wrote 63 articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica, but only 46 were biographical entries, so not all his articles were published there.
3. false
Young was a child prodigy who 'devoured books from the age of two' and excelled at many subjects, so he was brilliant growing up.
4. not given
There is no information in the passage comparing Young's skill as a doctor to his other skills.
5. true
Young's opinions were sought on 'civic and national matters, such as the introduction of gas lighting to London and methods of ship construction,' showing he advised on local and national issues.
6. true
Young attended the theatre, learned to dance and play the flute, and was an accomplished horseman, showing he took part in various social pastimes.
7. not given
The passage does not mention Young suffering from any disease in his later years.
8. 46
Young contributed 46 biographical entries to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
9. human eye
Young's first academic paper explained 'the process of accommodation in the human eye,' focusing on how the eye works.
10. Indo-European
Young coined the term 'Indo-European' to describe a family of languages.
11. Richard Brocklesby
Young was encouraged to study medicine by his mother's uncle, Richard Brocklesby.
12. Royal Institution
Young was appointed to a professorship at the Royal Institution.
13. gas lighting
Young's advice was sought on 'the introduction of gas lighting to London,' which was his contribution.
14. iii
Paragraph A is best summarized by 'iii,' as it discusses whether Young was a polymath, genius, or dilettante.
15. vi
Paragraph B is about Young's scientific achievements, matching 'vi.'
16. i
Paragraph C focuses on Young's work on the Rosetta Stone and languages, matching 'i.'
17. ii
Paragraph D describes Young's early life and education, matching 'ii.'
18. ix
Paragraph E lists Young's many professional roles and achievements, matching 'ix.'
19. v
Paragraph F discusses Young as a subject for biography and his personal life, matching 'v.'
20. iv
Paragraph G is about Young's marriage and relationships, matching 'iv.'
21. yellow-fever epidemic
The passage says a 'great yellow fever epidemic... hit Philadelphia in 1793' and was ended by frost.
22. Finland
Finland is given as an example of a small but rich country, showing the connection between climate and wealth.
23. Governing
The passage says countries need to improve 'governing institutions' to achieve prosperity.
24. Europ
The passage explains that in 'Eurasia' (Europe), crops like wheat spread quickly due to similar climates across latitudes.
25. einkorn Wheat
The crop mentioned is 'einkorn wheat,' which spread quickly in Europe.
26. Singapore
Singapore is given as an example of a tropical country that became rich due to scientific advancement.
28. Persian wars
Herodotus traveled to Egypt and Anatolia 'in researching the history of the Persian wars.'
29. allies
Zhang Qian traveled to Central Asia 'while searching for allies for the Han dynasty.'
30. geographical knowledge
Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder traveled to gather 'geographical knowledge.'
31. pilgrimage
Muslims traveled for 'trade and pilgrimage' in the post-classical era.
32. Buddhist teachers
Asian Buddhists traveled to India 'to study with Buddhist teachers and for spiritual enlightenment.'
33. colonies
Colonial administrators wrote to provide information on the 'colonies' they conquered.
34. principles
Sun Yat-sen and Fukuzawa Yukichi traveled to learn 'principles' for reorganizing their societies.
35. wealthy
Mass tourism in the 20th century was mainly for people from 'wealthy' countries.
36. C
The passage says people traveled to satisfy curiosity and to understand other people and places, so C is correct. The other options are not supported by the passage.
37. D
Travelers' accounts are a mirror to themselves because 'these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves,' so D is correct.
38. B
The passage says Muslims and East Asian Buddhists were the most prominent pilgrims in the early postclassical era, so B is correct.
39. A
The passage says European printing presses published many travel accounts for a public with an 'insatiable appetite for news about the larger world,' so A is correct.
40. D
The passage says 'inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport' made mass tourism possible in the 20th century, so D is correct.

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