IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test — October 2026 Test 4

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: Building A Castle

Guédelon is no ordinary building site. There is no rumble of diggers or shriek of circular saws. All is peaceful and quiet, save for the continual tapping of the small army of stonemasons, the quacking of the ducks or the occasional crow of the cockerel. Slowly but surely, a brand new medieval castle is rising from the woods of Guédelon, Yonne, home to the Burgundy vineyards in the heart of France. The year is 1229—that is, for the purposes of this project: to build a prince’s château fort using only the techniques and tools of the 13th century.
‘The project has four main aims,’ explains Maryline Martin, managing director for Guédelon. ‘The first is experimental archaeology – to try and verify all the theories, based on documents of the time. There’s also a social aim, because this region is very poor, with high unemployment: so it provides jobs. Then there’s tourism: the project couldn’t work without visitors because a lot of money is needed to pay people working here and to run the site. And finally, we want to open experimental archaeology to everybody – because in France, history and architecture are still very much oriented to academics.’
The idea for the project emerged about five years ago. It was the brainchild of Michel Guyot, who bought and renovated the nearby castle of Saint-Fargeau, which was built and rebuilt between the 10th and 18th centuries. Beneath his castle were the original foundations of the 13th-century building. Guyot thought it would be fun to construct a château to the same plans, but this proved too big to attempt. So Jacques Moulin, managing director for the local historical monuments, drew up plans for a smaller castle that would still be ambitious, but realistic. Five months later, having managed to get together 600,000 Euros in funding, they began looking for a site that would provide all the materials they needed: stone, water, sand, wood, iron and clay. They found it at Guédelon.
The only major cheat so far was early on when a mechanical earthmover was brought in to raise the castle floor. Archaeologists know how it was done in the 13th century: by backbreaking, tedious work. ‘To do it by hand would have added ten years to the project,’ says Franck, one of the site’s guides. It’s still a long, painstaking task. Next to the beginnings of the east wall is the quarry, where masons extract the ferruginous limestone to build the thick castle walls. They bore lines of holes into the rocks and then they hammer metal wedges into them until the rock splits along the line. It is then hewn into bricks, and cemented together with a mortar of chalk, sand and quicklime. Quicklime is made by heating limestone to 800°C – done off-site because of the poisonous gases that come from the process. Little wonder that 13th-century lime-burners had a life expectancy of only 25–30 years. ‘The bricks are then laid horizontally for the first metre of the wall, and vertically thereafter,’ says Franck, ‘because if there was a shock from, say, a catapult, and the stones were all laid in the same way, the shockwave would shatter the wall.’
The scientists and craftspeople alike are learning on the job, as they don’t know exactly why or how things were done as the historical evidence suggests. One such discovery concerns the significance of the marks that masons carved into each finished stone. It was thought that these probably had superstitious meaning, but experience and archaeological research reveals three very practical uses: to establish how much each mason should be paid; to keep track of who made what, in case of any problems; and to specify where the stone should be placed in the castle reconstruction.
Guédelon has a scientific committee of archaeologists that discusses ideas and problems as they emerge, and will approve works and practices only when its members are sure that they are true to the 13th century. Reaching unanimity is not always easy. ‘All the big plans for the castle itself are all done but the details aren’t settled,’ says Martin. ‘So, during the winter, the site manager and I visit other castles in the region. When we see something we want to do here, we draw a sketch, make plans and show this to the committee.’
The castle will take at least a decade longer to build than it would have in the 13th century. ‘With the same number of workers it would have taken 15 years then,’ says Franck. ‘But we could do this too if we had only professional workers, if the site wasn’t open to the public and if we worked harder – today it’s illegal to work more than 8 hours a day, as they did at the time.’
Workers come and go but at any one time about 40 people are working on the site. Some are students, others have ‘downshifted’ from other careers, others are local unemployed people learning skills they might use elsewhere – say, in château restorations around France. They are trained on the site as the need arises, and in the winter they may be trained in modern techniques as part of Guédelon’s social remit.
So, indeed, what will happen when Guédelon’s magical-looking castle is complete? They might build houses around it; perhaps villages may develop, testing out 13th-century agricultural techniques. If they can build this castle, anything seems possible.

Questions 1–4

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

In boxes 1–4 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

    One of the reasons for building the castle is to make history more accessible to the general public.

    • A. TRUE
    • B. FALSE
    • C. NOT GIVEN
  2. 2

    Guyot was reluctant to abandon his original idea in favour of a more realistic project.

  3. 3

    The lime-burners did not live long because their bodies were damaged by the extreme heat.

  4. 4

    The bricks used to be laid in different ways to lessen the impact of an attack.

Questions 5–7

Choose THREE letters, A–H.

Write the correct letters in boxes 5–7 on your answer sheet.

The list below gives reasons why the castle may be taking a long time to build.

Which THREE reasons are mentioned by the writer of the text?

  1. 5–7

    Which THREE reasons are mentioned by the writer of the text?

    • A. the reluctance of workers to commit themselves to the project
    • B. the lengthy training programmes the workers have to do
    • C. having to abide by modern employment regulations
    • D. the inability of committee members to reach any decisions
    • E. tourists who come and visit the site
    • F. the number of unskilled workers employed
    • G. having to do everything by hand
    • H. the difficulty of finding authentic raw materials

Questions 8–13

Complete the flow-chart below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 8–13 on your answer sheet.

How the limestone is extracted and used
The (8) ________ drill rows of (9) ________.
↓
(10) ________ are used.
↓
The result is that the rock eventually (11) ________.
↓
Once extracted, the limestone
is made into (12) ________
or, through a (13) ________ process, can be used to make quicklime

Reading Passage 2: Antarctic Research

Thirteen nations took part in the recent International Polar Year.
(A) New Zealand’s contribution to International Polar Year was a 52-day voyage by the ship Tangaroa in order to conduct research in Antarctica’s Ross Sea. Lead scientist Mary Livingston emphasises just what a multi-faceted expedition this was, bringing together zoologists, oceanographers, meteorologists and other scientists from the Ministry of Fisheries, the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research, the National Museum and various universities, to study life beneath the seas of Antarctica. Competition for berths – the ship can carry 44 people, including 13 crew – was fierce. Voyage leader Stu Hanchet says, ‘We could have filled the science positions four times over … we had so many people requesting a berth … We ended up with a really strong team.’
(B) It would be hard to overstate how hostile the Antarctic environment is for scientists. The Tangaroa’s captain, Graham Leachman, explains that the Ross Sea is subject to katabatic winds* that sweep down off the Antarctic continent to create rough seas. Another danger is the possibility of the ship colliding with floating ice. ‘Even though the ship’s officers use all sorts of high-tech equipment … none of it can tell you how thick the ice is,’ says Leachman, ‘and you still can’t beat looking out of the window.’ In the dark, he says, you can’t tell how thick the ice is, but if you can see its colour, it’s possible to estimate. This is why he prefers sailing in summer, when the hours of daylight in these high latitudes are longest, even though this plays tricks with his passengers’ body clocks.
(C) Analysis of what the expedition found continues, but it’s likely that several new species have been discovered and numerous other secrets revealed about life 3,000 metres below the surface. ‘We have collected huge worms and strange crustaceans,’ says Livingston, ‘but most impressive of all were the starfish that measured more than half a metre across – that’s most abnormal for creatures belonging to this species.’ This phenomenon of Antarctic seas is called ‘gigantism’ – the fact that some species grow to unusually large sizes. Livingston suggests various possible causes for gigantism, including the extreme cold, few predators and high levels of oxygen in the seawater, but as yet, no final determination can be made. Another interesting discovery was that in some places every inch of the sea floor was covered with life, whereas elsewhere icebergs have scoured out deep scars and ravines in the sea floor as they go by.
(D) By using deep-sea trawl nets, high-definition cameras and water samplers, the team has revealed that many of the creatures that live at extreme depths have a bizarre appearance. Among them were spotted tunicates, plankton-eating animals that are slender structures that appear to be fashioned from glass. The most fearsome-looking fish was the Southern Ocean daggertooth, a species that is ‘monocyclic’, meaning the fish die after the first spawning. They are also unusual for being capable of shedding their teeth and growing a new set. Another predatory fish brought to the surface was the stareater, an extraordinary species that has an appendage like a piece of cord hanging from its chin. In these deep, dark waters, this glows red and attracts prey to swim within striking distance. Just as impressive and much more beautiful were the basket stars, a species related to starfish that lives on the seabed. The basket stars’ five arms branch out numerous times to form a spectacular fan-like structure which they turn to face into the current so that food is brought into their embrace.
(E) But whatever exciting discoveries were made, everyday life onboard ship in the Ross Sea is unrelenting. Most people share a cabin with one other person – they’re allocated so that as one person begins their 12 hours off duty, the other occupant is starting work on deck. The fresh food runs out in a few days and after that, most provisions are frozen, canned or dried. Expedition general manager Fred Smits recognises that the cook has an essential role in ensuring the well-being of those onboard. ‘When you are at sea for so long,’ he says, ‘you think a lot about your next meal.’
(F) Perhaps most controversially, one of the precious berths on the Tangaroa was taken up by cameraman Max Quinn, who filmed a documentary about the voyage. Quinn’s inclusion wasn’t welcomed at first. ‘Scientists by nature,’ Livingston says, ‘tend to be camera-shy and quiet. They’re not into having cameras there, so it was difficult getting everyone’s permission and agreement.’ But in the end Quinn fitted in very well. ‘The trick,’ he says, ‘is to mostly film the scientists at work, in their professional roles … rather than eating their breakfast.’ He knows when not to intrude. The documentary is a window on a trip few people get to make and also a peek into what research really looks like. ‘Science,’ says Livingston, ‘is intrepid, more so than people realise. It’s not necessarily examining dry samples in the laboratory, but can also mean braving the elements on deck. That’s what the documentary captures, the sense of real people with real lives.’
Katabatic wind: a wind caused by the local downward motion of cool air.

Questions 14–17

Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A–F.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–F, in boxes 14–17 on your answer sheet.

  1. 14

    details of some equipment used by the scientists

  2. 15

    a description of the challenging sailing conditions in Antarctica

  3. 16

    information about the composition of the scientific group

  4. 17

    the identity of a potentially unpopular person on the ship

Questions 18–23

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 18–23 on your answer sheet.

The expedition’s findings
Analysis continues of the expedition’s remarkable discoveries, including a (18) ________, very notable for its unusual width.
The reasons why creatures grow so large at great depths in Antarctica may include the highly oxygenated water, the temperature, or the small number of (19) ________.
A further fascinating finding was the existence of canyons in the seabed caused by passing (20) ________.
Many creatures living at great depth look very strange, such as tunicates, which seem to be made of (21) ________.
One frightening-looking fish species is characterised by the loss of its (22) ________ and the fact that it spawns only once.
Another fish has something like a length of string attached to its (23) ________ that assists with hunting.

Questions 24–26

Look at the following people (Questions 24–26) and the list of opinions below.

Match each person with the correct opinion, A–G.

Write the correct letter, A–G, in boxes 24–26 on your answer sheet.

List of Opinions
A The repetitive food was one of the hardships of the voyage.
B Respecting your subjects’ privacy gets the best results.
C The summer is the best time to sail these waters.
D The kitchen is one of the most important parts of the ship.
E Being separated from family was difficult.
F The nature of scientific work may surprise some people.
G More applications to join the group were received than there were places.
  1. 24

    Mary Livingston

  2. 25

    Stu Hanchet

  3. 26

    Max Quinn

Reading Passage 3: How To Clean A Beach

After the oil tanker Prestige spilt her cargo just off north-west Spain in November 2002, the beautiful beaches of the Galician coastline were covered by a metre-deep mixture of oil and seawater. The Prestige was only one incident in a long series of accidents involving oil tankers. But while each new incident, including that of the Prestige, brings environmental destruction and financial loss, it also improves our understanding of how to deal with oil spills. This knowledge is hard-won, as people have often learned from mistakes made in dealing with oil spills. Aggressive clean-ups have sometimes caused more damage than the oil. But such difficulties apart, a rough consensus on how to deal with the issues involved in cleaning up oil spills has begun to emerge.
Oil is much less damaging at sea than on shore, so the best option is to skim the spilled oil off the surface of the water using specially equipped ships. A series of wooden booms floating on the surface of the water can also be used to protect the coastline. But the sea around the Prestige was too rough for the former, and much of the coast too exposed for booms to work, so there was little that could be done except watch the oil wash up onto the beaches.
When oil arrives onshore, the question becomes how best to save affected plants and animals, while minimizing damage to the surrounding ecosystem, without running up a huge bill. In large spills, leaving nature to do the job is a bad idea. Even the oiliest shore will return to normal, but without human intervention this can take many years. In the case of the Prestige, both the volume of oil spilt and the wildlife, fishing and tourist value of the Galician coast demanded action by specialists.
To decide what to do, specialists combined their own professional experience with local knowledge in an assessment process known as 'net environmental benefit analysis'. Factors taken into account include possible environmental destruction, such as damage to an oiled beach which is home to a breeding colony of seals or seabirds. Less immediate socio-economic repercussions also come into play: local people may rely on shellfish beds, for example, or an affected beach could be a tourist destination. And such practical realities as the cost incurred by a particular clean-up option and how easy it will be to implement are also assessed.
Every intensive clean-up option has its drawbacks. When oil from the Exxon Valdez polluted the Alaskan shoreline in 1989, hot water applied under high pressure was used to scrub the beaches. But the parts of the shoreline that got this treatment recovered more slowly than those that did not. In Spain, this technique has so far been used only on man-made structures such as harbour walls.
Other methods have been even more aggressive than this. When the Torrey Canyon ran aground off the south coast of England in March 1967, oiled beaches were treated with 10,000 tonnes of chemical sprays. These turned out to be more toxic than the oil: many seashore invertebrates died, and the nutrients in the dispersants caused an explosion of seaweed growth.
In Galicia, local people wanted heavy machinery to come in and remove large quantities of oil quickly. But this has its own environmental cost. There were no tracks to the worst-affected beaches and it was feared that building them would harm the surrounding landscape. But in one of the areas affected, oil on the surface of the beaches was likely to be washed into the pipe that supplied water to a large fish farm. In the end, the desire to safeguard the farm tipped the balance in favour of building tracks for bulldozers and earthmovers, which scooped up the oil from the beach. Such equipment was not used in all areas affected by the Prestige spill, however. Salt-marshes and estuaries are such delicate terrain that almost any activity does more damage than the oil.
After the Amoco Cadiz disaster in 1978, when nearly a quarter of a million tonnes of oil were spilt off the coast of north-western France, heavy equipment was sent in to some polluted salt-marshes, where it scraped up the top half-metre of sediment. Twelve years later, these areas had still not recovered, whereas the oiled marshes that went uncleaned seemed in good shape.
After a short period of time, the Prestige spill moved from the emergency phase—high profile, high pressure—to a long-term painstaking project. Cleaning the beaches, for example, was a huge task. At Carnota, one of the most heavily affected areas of Galicia, dozens of volunteers and soldiers worked their way along six kilometres of sand on hands and knees, scraping up the small lumps of solidified oil. At other beaches nearby, people sifted the sand and combed seaside plants by hand to remove the oil and stop it becoming buried.
Once workers there had done all they could, stubborn patches still remained on rocks and in crevices. A possibility was to move oily rocks down the beach into the surf since this accelerates the natural cleaning process, as can 'flushing'—i.e. pumping seawater over the shore and sifting the oil out of the run-off. But as the coastline became cleaner, the clean-up started to cost more for progressively less reward and more environmental damage. The Galicians were then faced with perhaps their most difficult decision: when to stop. As with most such operations, this decision is usually taken by local politicians rather than by environmentalists.

Questions 27–31

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 27–31 on your answer sheet, write

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

  1. 27. Each new oil spill improves our understanding of how to deal with such incidents.

    • A. YES
    • B. NO
    • C. NOT GIVEN

  2. 28. Aggressive clean-ups have sometimes caused more damage than the oil itself.

  3. 29. The Prestige disaster caused more damage than any previous oil spill in the region.

  4. 30. It is best to let nature clean up large oil spills without any human intervention.

  5. 31. Most oil spills are caused by poor maintenance of tankers.

Questions 32–36

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 32–36 on your answer sheet.

Deciding how to respond to an oil spill
When specialists have to decide how to react to an oil spill, they use a process called ‘net environmental benefit analysis’.
In this process, they combine their professional experience with (32) ________.
They consider the possible environmental destruction, as well as less immediate (33) ________ effects on the local community.
Practical issues, including the (34) ________ of each option, are assessed too.
Every intensive clean-up method has disadvantages.
Following the Exxon Valdez spill, (35) ________ under high pressure was used on the beaches, but this slowed their recovery.
After the Torrey Canyon ran aground, the beaches were treated with (36) ________, which proved to be more toxic than the oil itself.

Questions 37–40

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 37–40 on your answer sheet.

  1. 37. Why did the authorities decide to build tracks for heavy machinery in one part of Galicia?

    • A. Local residents demanded that the oil be removed quickly.
    • B. They wanted to protect the water supply to a fish farm.
    • C. The beaches there were too exposed for other methods.
    • D. It was the cheapest available way to remove the oil.

  2. 38. What did the Amoco Cadiz disaster demonstrate about salt-marshes?

    • A. Leaving them untouched can be better than cleaning them.
    • B. They recover from oil pollution within a few years.
    • C. Heavy machinery is the most effective way to clean them.
    • D. They are less sensitive to oil than other environments.

  3. 39. How was the oil mainly removed from the beaches at Carnota?

    • A. by pumping seawater over the shore
    • B. by hand
    • C. using bulldozers and earthmovers
    • D. by moving oily rocks into the surf

  4. 40. According to the writer, who usually decides when to stop a clean-up operation?

    • A. environmental specialists
    • B. local politicians
    • C. the owners of the tankers
    • D. the central government

Answer sheet

Fill in as you go — checking is instant and local, and every miss lands in your mistake log with the lesson that fixes it.

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Answer key

  1. 1. A

    The answer is TRUE because the passage says one aim of the project is 'to open experimental archaeology to everybody', making history and architecture less academic and more accessible to the general public.

  2. 2. C

    The answer is NOT GIVEN because the passage does not say whether Guyot was reluctant or not to change his original idea; it only describes how the project changed.

  3. 3. B

    The answer is FALSE because the passage says lime-burners had a short life expectancy due to 'poisonous gases' from the process, not because of damage from extreme heat.

  4. 4. A

    The answer is TRUE because the passage explains that bricks were laid differently ('horizontally for the first metre...vertically thereafter') to prevent the wall from shattering if attacked, which lessens the impact of a shock.

  5. 5. C / E / F

  6. 6. C / E / F

  7. 7. C / E / F

  8. 8. masons

  9. 9. holes

  10. 10. metal wedges

  11. 11. splits

  12. 12. bricks

  13. 13. heating

  14. 14. D

  15. 15. B

  16. 16. A

  17. 17. F

  18. 18. starfish

  19. 19. predators

  20. 20. icebergs

  21. 21. glass

  22. 22. teeth

  23. 23. chin

  24. 24. F

  25. 25. G

  26. 26. B

  27. 27. A

    The answer is YES because the passage says, 'each new incident...improves our understanding of how to deal with oil spills.'

  28. 28. A

    The answer is YES because the passage says, 'Aggressive clean-ups have sometimes caused more damage than the oil.'

  29. 29. C

    The answer is NOT GIVEN because the passage does not compare the Prestige disaster's damage to previous oil spills in the region.

  30. 30. B

    The answer is NO because the passage says, 'In large spills, leaving nature to do the job is a bad idea...without human intervention this can take many years.'

  31. 31. C

    The answer is NOT GIVEN because the passage does not say what causes most oil spills.

  32. 32. local knowledge

  33. 33. socio-economic

  34. 34. cost

  35. 35. hot water

  36. 36. chemical sprays

  37. 37. B

    The answer is B because the passage says, 'oil on the surface of the beaches was likely to be washed into the pipe that supplied water to a large fish farm. In the end, the desire to safeguard the farm tipped the balance in favour of building tracks for bulldozers and earthmovers.'

  38. 38. A

    The answer is A because the passage says, 'the oiled marshes that went uncleaned seemed in good shape,' showing leaving them untouched can be better than cleaning them.

  39. 39. B

    The answer is B because the passage says, 'dozens of volunteers and soldiers worked their way along six kilometres of sand on hands and knees, scraping up the small lumps of solidified oil,' meaning the oil was mainly removed by hand.

  40. 40. B

    The answer is B because the passage says, 'this decision is usually taken by local politicians rather than by environmentalists.'

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