Reading 2026-03 Test 30 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

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: The History of Childhood and Education

A. Although we lack accurate statistics about child mortality in the pre-industrial period, we do have evidence that in the 1660s, the mortality rate for children who died within 14 days of birth was as much as 30 per cent. Nearly all families suffered some premature death. Since all parents expected to bury some of their children, they found it difficult to invest in their newborn children. Moreover, to protect themselves from the emotional consequences of children’s death, parents avoided making any emotional commitment to an infant. It is no wonder that we find mothers leave their babies in gutters or refer to the death in the same paragraph with reference to pickles.

B. The 18th century witnessed the transformation from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, one of the vital social changes taking place in the Western world. An increasing number of people moved from their villages and small towns to big cities where life was quite different. Social supports which had previously existed in smaller communities were replaced by ruthless problems such as poverty, crime, substandard housing and disease. Due to the need for additional income to support the family, young children from the poorest families were forced into early employment and thus their childhood became painfully short. Children as young as 7 might be required to work full-time, subjected to unpleasant and unhealthy circumstances, from factories to prostitution. Although such a role has disappeared in most wealthy countries, the practice of childhood employment still remains a staple in underdeveloped countries and rarely disappeared entirely.

C. The lives of children underwent a drastic change during the 1800s in the United States. Previously, children from both rural and urban families were expected to participate in everyday labour due to the bulk of manual hard working. Nevertheless, thanks to the technological advances of the mid-1800s, coupled with the rise of the middle class and redefinition of roles of family members, work and home became less synonymous over time. People began to purchase toys and books for their children. When the country depended more upon machines, children in rural and urban areas, were less likely to be required to work at home. Beginning from the Industrial Revolution and rising slowly over the course of the 19th century, this trend increased exponentially after civil war. John Locke, one of the most influential writers of his period, created the first clear and comprehensive statement of the ‘environmental position’ that family education determines a child’s life, and via this, he became the father of modern learning theory. During the colonial period, his teachings about child care gained a lot of recognition in America.

D. According to Jean Jacques Rousseau, who lived in an era of the American and French Revolution, people were ‘noble savages’ in the original state of nature, meaning they are innocent, free and uncorrupted. In 1762, Rousseau wrote a famous novel Emile to convey his educational philosophy through a story of a boy’s education from infancy to adulthood. This work was based on his extensive observation of children and adolescents, their individuality, his developmental theory and on the memories of his own childhood. He contrasts children with adults and describes their age-specific characteristics in terms of historical perspective and developmental psychology. Johan Heinrich Pestalozzi, living during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, sought to develop schools to nurture children’s all-round development. He agreed with Rousseau that humans are naturally good but were spoiled by a corrupt society. His approach to teaching consists of the general and special methods, and his theory was based upon establishing an emotionally healthy homelike learning environment, which had to be in place before more specific instructions occurred.

E. One of the best-documented cases of Pestalozzi’s theory concerned a so-called feral child named Victor, who was captured in a small town in the south of France in 1800. Prepubescent, mute, naked, and perhaps 11 or 12 years old, Victor had been seen foraging for food in the gardens of the locals in the area and sometimes accepted people’s direct offers of food before his final capture. Eventually, he was brought to Paris and expected to answer some profound questions about the nature of human, but that goal was quashed very soon. A young physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard was optimistic about the future of Victor and initiated a five-year education plan to civilise him and teach him to speak. With a subsidy from the government, Itard recruited a local woman Madame Guerin to assist him to provide a semblance of a home for Victor, and he spent an enormous amount of time and effort working with Victor. Itard’s goal to teach Victor the basics of speech could never be fully achieved, but Victor had learnt some elementary forms of communication.

F. Although other educators were beginning to recognise the simple truth embedded in Rousseau’s philosophy, it is not enough to identify the stages of children’s development alone. There must be certain education which had to be geared towards those stages. One of the early examples was the invention of kindergarten, which was a word and a movement created by a German-born educator, Friedrich Froebel in 1840. Froebel placed a high value on the importance of play in children’s learning. His invention would spread around the world eventually in a variety of forms. Froebel’s ideas were inspired through his cooperation with Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Froebel didn’t introduce the notion of kindergarten until 58 years old, and he had been a teacher for four decades. The notion was a haven and a preparation for children who were about to enter the regimented educational system. The use of guided or structured play was a cornerstone of his kindergarten education because he believed that play was the most significant aspect of development at this time of life. Play served as a mechanism for a child to grow emotionally and to achieve a sense of self-worth. Meanwhile, teachers served to organise materials and a structured environment in which each child, as an individual, could achieve these goals. When Froebel died in 1852, dozens of kindergartens had been created in Germany. Kindergartens began to increase in Europe, and the movement eventually reached and flourished in the United States in the 20th century.

1
Paragraph A
- i. The inheritance and development of educational concepts of different thinkers
- ii. Why children had to work to alleviate the burden on family
- iii. Why children are not highly valued
- iv. The explanation for children dying in hospital at their early age
- v. The first appearance of modern educational philosophy
- vi. The application of a creative learning method on a wild kid
- vii. The emergence and spread of the notion of kindergarten
2
Paragraph C
3
Paragraph D
4
Paragraph E
5
The need for children to work
- A. the 18th century (1700-1799)
- B. the 19th century (1800-1899)
- C. the 20th century (1900-1999)
6
The rise of the middle class
7
The emergence of a kindergarten
8
The spread of kindergartens around the U.S.
9
Was not successful to prove the theory
- A. Jean Jacques Rousseau
- B. Johan Heinrich Pestalozzi
- C. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
- D. Friedrich Froebel
10
Observed a child’s record
11
Requested a study setting with emotional comfort firstly
12
Proposed that corruption was not a characteristic in people’s nature
13
Was responsible for an increase in the number of a type of school

Reading Passage 2: Developmental Tasks of Normal Adolescence

A Some years ago, Professor Robert Havighurst of the University of Chicago, USA, proposed that stages in human development can best be thought of in terms of the developmental ‘tasks’ that are part of the normal transition. He identified ten developmental tasks associated with the adolescent transition. Each of the Havighurst tasks can also be seen as elements of the overall sense of self that adolescents carry with them as they move towards and into young adulthood. Adolescents do not progress through these multiple developmental tasks separately; at any given time they may be dealing with several.

B The adolescent must adjust to a new physical sense of self. At no other time since birth does an individual undergo such profound physical changes as during early adolescence. Puberty is marked by sudden rapid growth in height and weight. Also, the young person experiences the emergence and accentuation of those physical traits that make the person a boy or a girl. The young person looks less like a child and more like a physically mature adult. The effect of this rapid change is that mid-adolescents are body-conscious, and their concerns are directed towards their opposite-sexed peers.

C The adolescent must adjust to new intellectual abilities. In addition to a sudden spurt in physical growth, adolescents experience a sudden increase in their ability to think about their world. As a normal part of maturity, they are able to think more things. However, they are also able to conceive of their world with awareness. Before adolescence, children's thinking is dominated by a concrete example for any problem that they solve; their thinking is constrained to what is real and physical. During adolescence, young people begin to recognise and understand abstractions. The growth in ability to deal with abstractions accelerates during the middle stages of adolescence.

D The adolescent must adjust to increased cognitive demands at school. Adults see high school in part as a place where adolescents prepare for adult roles and responsibilities and in part as preparatory for further education. School curricula are frequently dominated by the inclusion of more abstract, demanding material, regardless of whether the adolescents have achieved formal thought. Since not all adolescents make the intellectual transition at the same rate, demands for abstract thinking prior to the achievement of that ability may be frustrating.

E The adolescent must adopt a personal value system. During adolescence, as teens develop increasingly complex knowledge systems, they also adopt an integrated set of values and morals. During the early stages of moral development, parents provide their child with a structured set of rules of what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and unacceptable. Eventually the adolescent must assess the parent's values as they come into conflict with values expressed by peers and other segments of society. To reconcile differences, the adolescent restructures those beliefs into a personal ideology.

F The adolescent must develop expanded verbal skills to accommodate more complex concepts and tasks. Their limited language of childhood is no longer adequate. As their conceptual development may outstrip their verbal development, adolescents may appear less competent than they really are.

G The adolescent must establish adult vocational goals. As part of the process of establishing a personal identity, the adolescent must also begin the process of focusing on the question, 'What do you plan to be when you grow up?' Mid-adolescents must identify, at least at a preliminary level, what their adult vocational goals are and how they intend to achieve them.

H The adolescent must develop a personal sense of identity. Prior to adolescence, one's identity is an extension of one's parents' identity. During the early adolescent years a young person begins to recognize their uniqueness and to establish themselves as separate individuals, independent of their parents. As such, one must reconsider the answer to the question, ‘what does it mean to be me?' or 'who am I?'

I The adolescent must establish emotional and psychological independence from his or her parents, childhood is marked by strong dependence on one's parents. Adolescents may yearn to keep that safe, secure, supportive, dependent relationship. Yet, to be an adult implies a sense of independence, of autonomy, of being one's own person. In an attempt to assert their need for independence and individuality, adolescents may respond with what appears to be hostility and lack of cooperation.

J The adolescent must develop stable and productive peer relationships. Although peer interaction is not unique to adolescence, it seems to hit a peak of importance during early adolescence. Certainly by late adolescence or early adulthood the need for peer approval has diminished. This degree to which an adolescent is able to make friends and have an accepting peer group, though, is a major indicator of how well the adolescent will adjust in other areas of social and psychological development. Early adolescence is also a period of intense conformity to peers. 'Fitting in', not being different, and being accepted seem somehow pressing to this age group. The worst possibility, from the view of the young teen, is to be seen by peers as different.

K The adolescent must develop increased impulse control and behavioural maturity. In their shift to adulthood, most young people engage in one or more behaviours that place them at physical, social, or educational risk. Risky behaviours are sufficiently pervasive among adolescents to suggest that risk-taking may be a normal developmental process of middle adolescence. Gradually adolescents develop a set of behavioural self-controls through which they assess which behaviours are acceptable and adult-like.

14
Becoming interested in people of the other gender
15
Beginning to choose a future career
16
Needing to feel the same as one's friends
17
Beginning to form a self-image separate from the family context
18
Having less need for the good opinion of friends
19
Exposing oneself to dangers
20
Havighurst proposed a set of tasks which
- A. reflects an adolescent's emerging self-perception.
- B. cannot solve a problem without an example
- C. is designed to become more challenging.
- D. formulates a personal set of moral beliefs and values.
- E. varies according to the individual.
21
A course of study at high school
22
The speed of development of thinking ability during adolescence
23
Adolescence is a time when the young person
24
Most pre-adolescent children are capable of abstract thought.
- TRUE. TRUE
- FALSE. FALSE
- NOT GIVEN. NOT GIVEN
25
Adolescents’ limited skills with words may give a false impression of their ability.
26
Whether or not an adolescent is accepted by their age-group is an important clue to other aspects of their social adjustment.

Reading Passage 3: On art and artists

A There really is no such thing as art, only artists. Once these were people who took coloured earth and roughed out the forms of a bison on the wall of a cave; today some buy their paints, and others design posters for hoardings; they did and do many other things. There is no harm in calling all these activities art as long as we keep in mind that such a word may mean very different things in different times and places, and as long as we realize that Art with a capital A has no existence: it has become something of an obsession. You may crush an artist by telling him that what he has just done may be quite good in its own way, only it is not true art.

B Actually, I do not think that there are any wrong reasons for liking a statue or a picture. We may like a painting of a village scene because it reminds us of home. There is nothing wrong with that. All of us, when we see a painting, are bound to be reminded of a hundred-and-one things which influence our likes and dislikes. As long as these memories help us to enjoy what we see, we need not worry.

C It is only when some irrelevant memory makes us prejudiced, when we instinctively turn away from a magnificent picture of an alpine scene because we dislike climbing, that we should search our mind for the reason for the aversion which spoils a pleasure we might otherwise have had. There are wrong reasons for disliking a work of art.

D Most people like to see in pictures what they would also like to see in reality. This is quite a natural preference. We all like beauty in nature, and are grateful to the artists who have preserved it in their works. Nor would these artists themselves have rebuffed us for our taste. When the great Flemish painter Rubens made a drawing of his young son, he was surely proud of his good looks, and wanted us, too, to delight in the child's appearance. But this bias for the pretty and engaging subject is apt to become a stumbling block if it leads us to reject works which represent a less appealing subject.

E The great German painter Dürer certainly drew his mother with as much devotion and love as Rubens felt for his child. His truthful study of old age may give us a shock which makes us turn away from it - and yet, if we fight against that first reaction we may be richly rewarded. For Dürer's drawing in its tremendous sincerity is a great work. The beauty of a picture does not really lie in the beauty of its subject matter. The trouble about beauty is that tastes and standards of what is beautiful vary so much.

F What is true of beauty is also true of facial expression. In fact, it is often the expression of a figure in the painting which makes us like or loathe the work. Some people like an expression - perhaps of suffering or of compassion - which they can readily understand, and which therefore moves them profoundly. But we should not, for that reason, turn away from works whose expression is perhaps less easy to understand. Often we must first learn to know the artist's methods of drawing to understand the feelings he or she wishes to portray, and may even come to prefer works of art in which expression is not obvious. Just as some of us would rather people use few words and gestures and leave something to be guessed, so some of us would rather look at paintings or sculptures which are open to interpretation.

G But here newcomers to art are often brought up against another difficulty. They want to admire the artist's skill in representing the things they see. What they like best are paintings which 'look real'. This is an important consideration, and the patience and skill which go into the faithful rendering of the visible world are indeed to be admired. Great artists of the past have devoted much labour to works in which every tiny detail is carefully recorded. Dürer's watercolour study of a hare is one of the most famous examples of this loving patience. But who would say that Rembrandt's drawing of an elephant is necessarily less good because it shows fewer details? Indeed Rembrandt gave us the feel of the elephant's wrinkly skin with just a few lines of his chalk.

H If we find fault with the accuracy of a picture, we must remember that artists may have their reasons for changing the appearance of what they see. We should also never condemn a work for being incorrectly drawn unless we are quite sure that we are right and the painter is wrong. We have a curious habit of thinking that nature must always look like the pictures we are accustomed to. For generations, paintings showed horses galloping with outstretched legs in full flight through the air, and we came to believe that this was indeed how they moved. It was only the development of photography which proved that horses simply do not gallop in that way. And yet, when painters began to apply this new discovery, and painted horses moving as they actually do, everyone complained that their pictures looked wrong.

27
a comparison between people’s preferences towards language and art
28
why people may have misunderstood how a certain animal moves
29
a contrast between the techniques used in two pictures
30
a possible negative effect of using the term ‘art’
31
The artist clearly hoped that we would share his admiration of this subject.
- A. village scene
- B. alpine scene
- C. Rubens’s son
- D. Dürer’s mother
- E. hare
- F. elephant
- G. horses
32
The artist aims to give a general impression of this subject rather than a detailed one.
33
Someone’s personal experience may make them consider a painting of this subject unpleasant.
34
The way in which this subject was once portrayed was factually wrong.
35
The painting is well known for the effort the artist put into creating a very accurate picture of this subject.
36
People may like a painting of this subject for a reason that is external to the painting.
37
Beauty and expression: Differences in tastes and standards of beauty make it difficult to judge a painting. Dürer’s painting of his mother is considered significant because it is a _______ representation of her age and situation. However, we may need to overcome an initial reaction of _______ when we see it. In order to judge the facial expressions of people portrayed in a painting, we need to become familiar with the methods that the artist has used when creating the painting. While some of us are affected by the portrayal of a facial expression that we can _______ without much effort, others prefer expressions that require _______.

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.

Saved on this device — no account needed. Sign in on your progress page if you want it synced elsewhere.

Show answer key

1. iii
The answer is iii because Paragraph A discusses how children were not highly valued in the past, mentioning that they were seen as 'miniature adults' and often ignored or neglected.
2. v
The answer is v because Paragraph C talks about the first appearance of modern educational philosophy, mentioning new ideas about childhood and education.
3. i
The answer is i because Paragraph D describes how different thinkers' educational ideas were inherited and developed over time.
4. vi
The answer is vi because Paragraph E explains the use of a creative learning method on a wild child, showing an example of applying new educational ideas.
5. A
The answer is A because the passage says that in the 18th century, children had to work to help their families survive.
6. B
The answer is B because the passage states that the rise of the middle class happened in the 19th century, changing family and social structures.
7. B
The answer is B because the passage mentions that kindergartens first appeared in the 19th century.
8. C
The answer is C because the passage says kindergartens spread across the U.S. in the 20th century.
9. C
The answer is C because Jean Marc Gaspard Itard was not successful in proving his theory when he tried to educate the wild child.
10. A
The answer is A because Jean Jacques Rousseau observed and recorded a child's development, as described in the passage.
11. B
The answer is B because Johan Heinrich Pestalozzi believed that emotional comfort was important in the learning environment.
12. A
The answer is A because Rousseau proposed that people are not born corrupt, but are shaped by society.
13. D
The answer is D because Friedrich Froebel was responsible for increasing the number of kindergartens.
14. B
The answer is B because the passage says that becoming interested in people of the other gender is a feature of middle adolescence.
15. B
The answer is B because beginning to choose a future career is linked to middle adolescence in the passage.
16. A
The answer is A because needing to feel the same as one's friends is described as a feature of early adolescence.
17. A
The answer is A because forming a self-image separate from the family happens in early adolescence.
18. C
The answer is C because having less need for friends' approval is a feature of late adolescence.
19. B
The answer is B because exposing oneself to dangers is mentioned as a feature of middle adolescence.
20. A
The answer is A because Havighurst's tasks reflect an adolescent's emerging self-perception, as stated in the passage.
21. C
The answer is C because a high school course is designed to become more challenging, matching the answer.
22. E
The answer is E because the passage says the speed of developing thinking ability varies for each individual.
23. D
The answer is D because adolescence is a time when a person forms their own moral beliefs and values.
24. FALSE
The answer is FALSE because the passage says most pre-adolescent children are not capable of abstract thought.
25. TRUE
The answer is TRUE because the passage explains that adolescents' limited language skills can make them seem less able than they are.
26. TRUE
The answer is TRUE because the passage says being accepted by peers is an important sign of social adjustment.
27. F
The answer is F because the passage compares people's preferences for language and art in section F.
28. H
The answer is H because section H explains why people misunderstood how a certain animal moves.
29. G
The answer is G because section G contrasts the techniques used in two pictures.
30. A
The answer is A because section A discusses a possible negative effect of using the word 'art.'
31. C
The answer is C because the artist wanted us to share his admiration for Rubens’s son, as shown in the passage.
32. F
The answer is F because the artist gives a general impression of the elephant, not a detailed one.
33. B
The answer is B because someone’s personal experience may make them find the alpine scene unpleasant.
34. G
The answer is G because the way horses were once painted was factually wrong, as explained in the passage.
35. E
The answer is E because the painting of the hare is famous for its very accurate detail.
36. A
The answer is A because people may like the village scene for reasons outside the painting, such as personal memories.
37. truthful / shock / understand / interpretation
The answers are: truthful / shock / understand / interpretation. The passage says Dürer’s painting is a truthful representation, but we may feel shock at first; some people understand expressions easily, while others need interpretation.

Want the full timed experience? Try the free full mock exam — real recalled questions, in the real exam interface.

Start mock exam →

Reading Passage 1: The History of Childhood and Education

Reading Passage 2: Developmental Tasks of Normal Adolescence

Reading Passage 3: On art and artists

Answer sheet

Answer key