IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test — October 2026 Test 1

Exam month: 2026-10

In this test

About this set: compiled and lightly cleaned up from real test material that test-takers recalled. IELTS draws from a global question pool, so this material circulates worldwide. To give you a complete, sittable test, material reported around the same period is assembled together — so a set may combine content from several exam dates, not one single sitting. Any audio is a recreation for practice. Organized for study convenience. Based on test-taker recalls — not official IELTS material.

Reading Passage 1: A River Reveals Its Roman Past

2,000 years ago, the town of Arles, in what is now south-western France, was a busy gateway to the area of the Roman Empire known as Gaul. Goods from all over the Mediterranean were transferred there to barges – long, shallow riverboats – then pulled up the Rhône river to supply the northern half of the great empire. Today, Arles is a small, quiet place, and the Rhône is polluted and mostly ignored.
Archaeologist Luc Long is a native of Arles. He had already worked on sunken ships all over the Mediterranean when, in 1986, a friend persuaded him to dive for the first time in his home river. Long reluctantly agreed. The two men entered the river on a chilly November morning, when the water was around 8°C, thick, cloudy and foul-smelling. They could see no more than a metre ahead through the murky water. At a depth of about six metres, Long saw a sunken truck. To his surprise, he discovered an ancient Roman jar – known as an amphora – on the driver’s seat. These containers were used throughout the Roman Empire to transport olive oil, fish sauce, and other products. When empty, they would simply be discarded. Within a short time the divers found themselves swimming over a vast field of amphorae. Long had never seen so many intact ones, and he has been mapping this Roman rubbish dump ever since.
For the first 20 years or so, no one paid much attention to what Long was doing. When, in 2004, one of his colleagues came across a 34-metre-long Roman barge, Long doubted that there would ever be enough money available to raise it. In 2007, Long handed over the study of this wreck – which he named Arles-Rhône 3 – to three younger archaeologists, and continued his survey of the rest of the dump, around 50 metres upstream. This was where he started finding pieces of the Roman town of Arles, including statues. Word began to leak out. The French customs police warned Long that antiquities thieves might be watching his operation. So when his divers found a two-metre statue of the god Neptune, they brought it to the surface at night.
Before the diving season was over, divers had discovered a rare marble bust of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. An exhibition was built around the statue, and news of it spread around the world. ‘The exhibition’s success was astonishing,’ said Claude Sintes, director of Arles’ local antiquities museum, where the exhibition was held. ‘When a modest town like ours gets 400,000 visitors, the politicians understood that the economic return was strong.’ By the autumn of 2010, the Caesar exhibition was nearing its end, and some politicians were looking for more culture to invest in, because the European Union had designated the region around Arles a 2013 European Capital of Culture. Suddenly nine million euros became available to build a new wing on the museum and put a Roman barge into it. There was just one small problem. The project would need to be completed by 2013. That meant the barge needed to be extracted by the end of the diving season in 2011. This was because although the wood of the boat had suffered no microbial decay, water had filled its cells, leaving the whole structure soft and spongy. If that were to evaporate, the boat would collapse. The solution was to bathe the wood for months in a polymer called polyethylene glycol, then freeze-dry it in small sections – gradually infusing it with the polymer before extracting the water. The process would take nearly two years.
So there was only one diving season to extract the boat from the Rhône. ‘We thought the project was doomed to fail,’ said Benoît Poinard, a professional diver and the site foreman. Normally, Poinard explained, the Rhône is safe for diving only from late June to October; otherwise the current is too strong. Only three or four months would not be enough to excavate Arles-Rhône 3. Then 2011 arrived. It hardly snowed in the Alps that winter and that spring it barely rained. The Rhône’s current was so gentle that the team got in the water by early May. The team worked straight into November, losing only a single week to bad weather – and completed the job. ‘Two hours after we finished,’ Poinard said, ‘the Rhône became undiveable for the whole winter.’
When Arles-Rhône 3 sank, it was carrying 33 tons of stone for building work. It had come from a quarry just north of Arles, and was probably heading towards a construction site further down the river. The boat was pointed upstream, though, rather than downstream, indicating it had been moored at the quay when it sank. A flash flood had probably swamped it. As soon as the flood subsided, the barge would have been covered in a coating of fine clay no more than 20 cm thick. This was where the archaeologists discovered the personal effects that the crew had left on the boat, including cooking utensils and plates. When the restorers were taking the boat apart, they also found a silver coin sealed between two planks of wood; it had been put there to bring good luck. And it did – 2,000 years later. Arles-Rhône 3 was able to take its place in the new wing of the museum, on schedule, just over two years after re-emerging from the cloudy depths of the Rhône.

Questions 1–6

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 1–6 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. 1. In 1986 Luc Long had been looking for an opportunity to dive in the Rhone for some time.

    • A. TRUE
    • B. FALSE
    • C. NOT GIVEN

  2. 2. Long and his friend were the first divers to find Roman remains in the Rhone.

  3. 3. Long's work in the Rhone attracted immediate interest.

  4. 4. It was thought that the Neptune statue would be of interest to thieves.

  5. 5. Benoit Poinard doubted that the barge could be raised in one diving season.

  6. 6. The restorers were surprised to discover a silver coin in the barge.

Questions 7–13

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

The Roman barge Arles-Rhone 3
The discovery and condition of the barge:
The barge was 34 metres long and was found by one of Long’s (7) ________ in 2004.
The wood had not decayed, but water had filled its cells, making the structure soft and (8) ________.
Extraction from the Rhone:
Normally, the Rhone is safe for diving only from late June to (9) ________.
In 2011, because it hardly snowed in the Alps, the river’s (10) ________ was very gentle.
The diving team lost only one (11) ________ to bad weather.
What was found on or near the barge:
The barge was carrying 33 tons of (12) ________ for building work.
Under the floorboards, restorers found a silver (13) ________ dated to 30 BCE.

Reading Passage 2: A New Look For Talbot Park

Talbot Park, a housing project in Auckland, New Zealand, was once described as a ghetto, troubled by high rates of crime and vandalism. However, it has just been rebuilt at a cost of $48 million and the project reflects some new thinking about urban design.
A The new Talbot Park is immediately eye-catching because the buildings look quite different to other state-housing projects in Auckland. ‘There is no reason why state housing should look cheap in my view,’ says architect Neil Cotton, one of the design team. ‘In fact, I was anticipating a backlash by those who objected to the quality of what is provided with government money.’ The tidy brick and wood apartments and townhouses would not look out of place in some of the city’s most affluent suburbs, and this is a central theme of the Talbot Park philosophy.
B Talbot Park is a triangle of government-owned land, which in the early 1960s was developed for state housing built around a linear garden that ran through the middle. Initially, there was a strong sense of neighbourliness. Former residents recall how the garden played a big part in their childhoods — a place where kids came together to play softball, cricket and bullrush. ‘We had respect for our neighbours and addressed them by title — Mr and Mrs so-and-so,’ recalls Georgie Thompson, who grew up there in the 1960s.
C Exactly what went wrong with Talbot Park is unclear. The community began to change in the late 1970s as more immigrants moved in. The new arrivals didn’t always integrate with the community and a ‘them and us’ mentality developed. In the process, standards dropped and the neighbourhood began to look shabbier. The buildings themselves were also deteriorating and becoming run-down, petty crime was on the rise and the garden was considered unsafe. In 2002, Housing New Zealand decided the properties needed upgrading. The question was, how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past?
D One controversial aspect of the upgrade is that the new development has actually made the density of housing in Talbot Park greater, putting 52 more homes on the same site. Doing this required a fresh approach that can be summed up as ‘mix and match’. The first priority was to mix up the housing by employing a variety of plans by different architects: some of the accommodation is free-standing houses, some semi-detached, some low-level, multi-apartment blocks. By doing this, the development avoids the uniform appearance of so many state-housing projects, which residents complain denies them any sense of individual identity. The next goal was to prevent overspending by using efficient designs to maximise the sense of space from minimum room sizes. There was also a no-frills, industrial approach to kitchens, bathrooms and flooring, to optimise durability and ensure the project did not go over budget. Architecturally, the buildings are relatively conservative: fairly plain houses standing in a small garden. There’s a slight reflection of the traditional Pacific beach house (a fale) but it’s not over-played. ‘It seems to us that low-cost housing is about getting as much amenity as you can for the money,’ says architect Michael Thompson. Another key aspect of the ‘mix and match’ approach is openness: one that not only lets residents see what is going on but also lets them know they are seen. The plan ensures there are no cul-de-sacs or properties hidden from view, that the gardens are not enclosed by trees and that most boundary fences are see-through — a community contained but without walls.
E The population today is cosmopolitan: 50% Pacific Islanders, 20% Māori, 15% Asian, 10% New Zealand European and the rest composed of immigrants from Russia, Ukraine and Iran. ‘It was important that the buildings were sufficiently flexible to cater for the needs of people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds,’ explains designer James Lundy.
F Despite the quality of the buildings, however, there should be no doubt that Talbot Park and its surrounding suburb of Tāmaki are low socio-economic areas. Of the 5,000 houses there, 55% are state houses, 28% privately owned (compared to about 65% nationally) and 17% private rental. The area has a high density of households with incomes in the $5,000 to $15,000 range and very few with an income over $70,000. That’s in sharp contrast to the more affluent suburbs in Auckland.
G Another important part of the new development is what Housing New Zealand calls ‘intensive tenancy management’. Opponents of the project call it social control. ‘The focus is on frequent inspections and setting clear guidelines and boundaries regarding the sort of behaviour we expect from tenants,’ says Graham Bodman, Housing New Zealand’s regional manager. The result is a code of sometimes strict rules: no loud parties after 10 pm; no washing hung over balcony rails; and a requirement to mow lawns and keep the property tidy. The Tenancy Manager walks the site every day, knows everyone by name and deals with problems quickly. ‘It’s all based on the intensification,’ says project manager Stuart Bracey. ‘We acknowledge that if you are going to ask people to live in these quite tightly-packed communities, you have to actually help them to get to know each other by organising morning teas and street barbecues.’ So far it seems to be working and many involved in the project believe Talbot Park represents the way forward for state housing.

Questions 14–20

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A–G.

Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i–x, in boxes 14–20 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings
i Some of the problems that developed at Talbot Park
ii Where the residents lived while the work was being completed
iii The ethnic makeup of the new Talbot Park
iv The unexpectedly high standard of the housing
v Financial hardship in Talbot Park and a neighbouring community
vi The experiences of one family living at Talbot Park today
vii How to co-ordinate and assist the people who live at Talbot Park
viii Raising the money to pay for the makeover
ix A close community in the original Talbot Park development
x Details of the style of buildings used in the makeover
  1. 14

    Paragraph A

  2. 15

    Paragraph B

  3. 16

    Paragraph C

  4. 17

    Paragraph D

  5. 18

    Paragraph E

  6. 19

    Paragraph F

  7. 20

    Paragraph G

Questions 21–23

Look at the following people (Questions 21–23) and the list of ideas below.

Match each person with the correct idea, A–F.

Write the correct letter, A–F, in boxes 21–23 on your answer sheet.

List of Ideas
A Good tenant management involves supervision and regulation.
B State housing must be built at minimum expense to the public.
C Organising social events helps tenants to live close together.
D Mixed-race communities require adaptable and responsive designs.
E Complaints were expected about the high standard of the development.
F Too many rules and regulations will cause resentment from tenants.
  1. 21

    James Lundy

  2. 22

    Graham Bodman

  3. 23

    Stuart Bracey

Questions 24–26

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 24–26 on your answer sheet.

The ‘mix and match’ strategy
One aspect of the Talbot Park project that some critics are concerned about is that the higher (24) ________ of accommodation would lead to the old social problems returning.
To prevent this, a team of various (25) ________ worked on the project to ensure the buildings were not uniform.
Further, they created pleasant, functional interiors that could still be built within their (26) ________.
Finally, the absence of walls means Talbot Park is characterised by openness, making it easier to regulate behaviour within the community.

Reading Passage 3: John Franklin and the Quality of Slowness

The English explorer and writer John Franklin (1786–1847) joined the Navy at the age of 14, and fought at the battle of Trafalgar. When peace came, he turned his attention to Arctic exploration, and in particular to solving the conundrum of the Northwest Passage, a mythical clear-water route through the ice which would, if it existed, link the Pacific Ocean on America’s West Coast with the Atlantic on its East. The first expedition Franklin led to the Arctic was an arduous overland journey lasting from 1819 to 1822, in which he and his twenty-strong team covered 8,880 kilometres on foot. Their expedition was a triumph of surveying – they managed to chart hundreds of kilometres of previously unknown coastline – but food ran out on their journey back to civilisation, and the men were forced to eat their belts and their boots (which they boiled up to make leather soup).
There followed a career as a travel writer and public speaker (‘the man who ate his boots’ was Franklin’s tag-line). Then in 1845, Franklin set off back to the Arctic with two ships – the Erebus and the Terror – and 129 men. Nothing was heard of them for 14 years, although more than 30 expeditions were dispatched in search of them. Eventually it was discovered that Franklin and all his team had perished after their ships were trapped in the ice.
In his personal correspondence and published memoirs, Franklin comes across as a man dedicated to the external duties of war and exploration, who kept introspection and self-analysis to a minimum. His blandness makes him an amenably malleable subject for a novelist, and Sten Nadolny has taken full advantage of this in his book. Most important, Nadolny has endowed John Franklin with a defining trait for which there is no historical evidence: Langsamkeit (‘slowness’, or ‘calmness’).
Slowness influences not only Franklin’s behaviour, but also his vision, his thought and his speech. The opening scene of The Discovery of Slowness depicts Franklin as a young boy, failing to catch a ball because his reaction time is too slow. Despite the bullying of his peers, Franklin resolves not to fall into step with ‘their way of doing things’. For Nadolny, Franklin’s fascination with the Arctic stems from his desire to find an environment suited to his peculiar slowness. He describes Franklin as a boy dreaming of the ‘time without hours and days’ which exists in the far north, a place ‘where nobody would find him too slow’.
Ice is a slow mover. The compressed blue ice inside an Alpine crevasse will have fallen as snow several decades earlier. Polar pack ice takes at least two years to form. The film of crystals which first appears on the surface of the sea thickens into a silkily pliant layer called nilas; this in turn consolidates into young ice, which then deepens during several seasons to become pack. Ice demands a corresponding patience from those who venture onto it. The explorers who have thrived at high latitudes and at high altitudes haven’t usually been men of great speed. They have tended instead to demonstrate unusual self-possession, a considerable capacity for boredom, and a talent for the uncomplaining endurance of suffering.
These were all qualities which the historical Franklin possessed in abundance, and so Nadolny’s exaggeration of them isn’t unreasonable. Even as an adult, Franklin’s slowness of thought means that he is unable to speak fluently, so he learns by heart ‘entire fleets of words and batteries of responses’, and speaks a languid, bric-à-brac language. In the Navy, his method of thinking first and acting later initially provokes mockery from his fellow sailors. But Franklin persists in doing things his way, and gradually earns the respect of those around him. To a commodore who tells him to speed up his report of an engagement, he replies: ‘When I tell something, sir, I use my own rhythm.’ A lieutenant says approvingly of him: ‘Because Franklin is so slow, he never loses time.’
Nadolny also brings his central metaphor of slowness to bear on the novel’s language. The chapters describing Franklin’s early years are a medley of separate fragments, rhetorical questions, associative jumps and exclamation marks. In the later sections recounting Franklin’s first Arctic expedition, Nadolny brilliantly sets the narrative pace to the rhythms of the frozen landscape, and to the ‘slowness which is bred by hunger’.
Since it was first published in Germany in 1983, The Discovery of Slowness has sold more than a million copies and been translated into 15 languages. It has been adopted as a manual and manifesto by European pressure groups and institutions representing causes as diverse as sustainable development, management science and motoring policy, even becoming involved in the debate about speed limits on German roads. The various groups that have taken the novel up have one thing in common: a dislike of the high-speed culture of Post-modernity. Nadolny’s Franklin appeals to them because he is immune to ‘the compulsion to be constantly occupied’, and to the idea that ‘someone was better if he could do the same thing fast’. It’s easy to see where the attraction lies for those in management. The novel is crammed with quotations about time-efficiency, punctiliousness and profitability: ‘What did “too late” mean? They hadn’t waited for it long enough, that’s what it meant.’

Questions 27–31

Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs, A–H.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 27–31 on your answer sheet.

  1. 27

    a summary of Franklin’s occupation in the period before his first expedition

  2. 28

    a reference to a feature of Franklin’s character in Nadolny’s novel that has no definite basis in fact

  3. 29

    a connection between the central theme of the novel and an environmental process

  4. 30

    a reference to the widespread appeal of Nadolny’s novel

  5. 31

    a summary of events following Franklin’s return from his first expedition

Questions 32–35

Complete the summary using the list of words, A–L, below.

Write the correct letter, A–L, in boxes 32–35 on your answer sheet.

John Franklin and the Quality of Slowness
Little is known from Franklin’s correspondence and published writings about his (32) ________.
The author, Nadolny, suggests that Franklin’s whole life can be explained by the quality of ‘slowness’.
He begins the book by showing how this affects the young Franklin’s (33) ________ activities, and makes him become (34) ________.
As a child, it is the quality of (35) ________ that attracts Franklin to the Arctic.
A a bully
B discoveries
C educational
D family
E isolation
F an outsider
G personality
H problems
I remoteness
J a scholar
K sporting
L timelessness

Questions 36–40

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 36–40 on your answer sheet.

  1. 36

    In paragraph E, the writer describes different types of ice in order to illustrate

    • A. the extreme conditions that Polar explorers have to face.
    • B. the unusual quality of the beauty of Polar regions.
    • C. the vital importance of preserving the Arctic environment.
    • D. the personal qualities required of an explorer in Arctic conditions.
  2. 37

    What is said about the way Franklin communicates?

    • A. He expresses a very limited range of ideas.
    • B. He is only willing to discuss things he is familiar with.
    • C. He uses words and phrases that he has previously memorised.
    • D. He is only fluent when talking about naval matters.
  3. 38

    How does the attitude of the other sailors change towards Franklin?

    • A. They no longer notice his slowness.
    • B. They start to copy his approach to work.
    • C. They begin to recognise his efforts to overcome his problems.
    • D. They eventually appreciate his good qualities.
  4. 39

    The chapters of The Discovery of Slowness which describe Franklin’s early years contain

    • A. text from a wide variety of sources.
    • B. short, disconnected pieces of text.
    • C. descriptions of the Arctic landscape.
    • D. information about other explorers like Franklin.
  5. 40

    The Discovery of Slowness has achieved widespread popularity because

    • A. it reflects many people’s concern about one aspect of modern life.
    • B. it offers achievable solutions to many of the problems of today.
    • C. it tells the story of someone’s triumph over personal problems.
    • D. it shows how life in the past was less pressured than it is now.

Answer sheet

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Answer key

  1. 1. B

    The answer is FALSE because the passage says Long was persuaded by a friend to dive in the Rhone and he 'reluctantly agreed,' not that he had been looking for an opportunity.

  2. 2. C

    The answer is NOT GIVEN because the passage does not say whether Long and his friend were the first divers to find Roman remains in the Rhone.

  3. 3. B

    The answer is FALSE because the passage says that for the first 20 years or so, no one paid much attention to what Long was doing.

  4. 4. A

    The answer is TRUE because the French customs police warned Long that antiquities thieves might be watching his operation, so the Neptune statue was brought up at night.

  5. 5. A

    The answer is TRUE because Benoît Poinard said, 'We thought the project was doomed to fail,' showing he doubted the barge could be raised in one diving season.

  6. 6. C

    The answer is NOT GIVEN because the passage only says restorers found a silver coin, but does not mention if they were surprised.

  7. 7. colleague

  8. 8. spongy

  9. 9. October

  10. 10. current

  11. 11. week

  12. 12. stone

  13. 13. coin

  14. 14. iv

  15. 15. ix

  16. 16. i

  17. 17. x

  18. 18. iii

  19. 19. v

  20. 20. vii

  21. 21. D

  22. 22. A

  23. 23. C

  24. 24. density

  25. 25. architects

  26. 26. budget

  27. 27. A

  28. 28. C

  29. 29. E

  30. 30. H

  31. 31. B

  32. 32. G

  33. 33. K

  34. 34. F

  35. 35. L

  36. 36. D

    The answer is D because the writer describes different types of ice to show the personal qualities, like patience and endurance, needed by explorers in Arctic conditions.

  37. 37. C

    The answer is C because the passage says Franklin learns by heart 'entire fleets of words and batteries of responses,' so he uses memorised words and phrases.

  38. 38. D

    The answer is D because the passage says Franklin gradually earns the respect of those around him, so the sailors eventually appreciate his good qualities.

  39. 39. B

    The answer is B because the passage says the chapters about Franklin’s early years are a medley of separate fragments, rhetorical questions, and associative jumps, which means short, disconnected pieces of text.

  40. 40. A

    The answer is A because the passage says the novel appeals to groups who dislike the high-speed culture of modern life, showing it reflects many people’s concern about this aspect of life.

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