Reading 2026-05 Test 60 — 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: A Brief History of Humans and Food

During the journey from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the present day, there have been three seismic changes that have impacted the food we eat: the discovery of cooking, the emergence of agriculture, and the invention of methods of preserving food.

The 19th-century scientist Charles Darwin thought that cooking, after language, was the greatest discovery made by man. All of us eat some raw food, such as fruit and vegetables, but the great majority of food we consume is cooked. Cooking can turn plants that are inedible into edible food by destroying toxic chemicals that plants often manufacture to protect themselves against attack by insects or other herbivorous animals. These toxic chemicals are referred to as “plant secondary compounds” because they are not directly involved in the plant’s normal growth, development, and reproduction, and are produced purely as chemical defenses. They give many of the plants we consume, such as coffee or Brussels sprouts, their bitter taste.

Cooked food is often more digestible because heat breaks down tough cellulose cell walls in plants or tough connective tissue in animals. Chewing raw turnip, a plate of uncooked rice, or a raw leg of lamb is much harder work than eating the cooked equivalent. The energy expended in chewing to break down the tough material is replaced by energy from the fuel used in cooking the food, so the ratio of energy gained to energy expended by the body is greater when food is cooked.

Until the development of agriculture, hunter-gatherers spent up to seven hours a day gathering food. This all began to change around 10,500 years ago with the advent of farming, which led to dramatic changes in human societies. People began to create a variety of new tools to aid survival, and in turn, populations increased in size. These changes led to the possibility of specialization of different tasks within society. Around this time, writing became more sophisticated and allowed people to maintain records of the harvest and taxes. Eventually, formalized structures of government were established as people settled in one area.

The arrival of agriculture meant that, for the first time, our ancestors had more food than they could eat immediately. This, combined with the seasonality of production, led them to discover methods of preserving food: smoking, drying, adding acid by fermentation, or adding salt. These four methods all share one feature in common—they make the food a more hostile environment for bacteria that can cause it to spoil. They also tend to slow down natural chemical reactions in the food that would cause decay.

Although foods today are still preserved in these ancient ways, two more recent methods of preserving food have become more common: canning and freezing. Canning was invented by a Frenchman, Nicolas Appert, in the early 19th century. He sealed food in bottles fabricated from glass and then heated them in boiling water to cook the contents. Appert’s method had great advantages over older methods of food preservation: it could be applied to a wide range of foods, and the flavor and texture were similar to freshly cooked products. His idea was soon copied by an Englishman, Peter Durand. Until this point, containers had been too heavy to be widely used, but Durand produced the first ones which were lightweight and resistant to damage. Two years later, in 1812, two Englishmen, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, started the commercial canning of food, although the real rise in popularity of canning had to wait until the invention of the can opener in 1855. Until then, cans were opened with a chisel and hammer. Canning is an extremely effective way of preserving food: one can containing meat, dating back to 1824, was opened in 1939, and the contents were still in good condition.

In the 21st century, the dominance of canning as a method of food preservation has been overtaken by freezing. Chilling food to keep it fresh is an old idea. The earliest mentions of icehouses, thick-walled buildings, half underground, date back to 1700 BC in northwest Iran. In early 16th-century Italy, water was mixed with chemicals to lower its freezing point to -18 degrees Celsius. Several centuries later, frozen fish and other goods were transported by ship from Australia to England. However, the modern frozen food industry was started in the 1920s by an American, Clarence Birdseye. While on a fishing trip with the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, Birdseye observed that rapid freezing creates smaller ice crystals and therefore causes less damage to food—a discovery he had not expected. Nevertheless, the major growth in demand for frozen food came with the arrival of freezers in ordinary people’s homes. The advantages of frozen over canned food include the fact that the flavor and consistency are often identical to the fresh product, and freezing can be used to preserve a wide variety of foods.

1
According to Darwin, cooking was the most significant development in human history.
2
The process of cooking gets rid of some plant poisons.
3
Eating cooked food is more energy efficient than eating raw food.
4
Clarence Birdseye had previously worked in the Australian food industry.
5
Birdseye's trip with the Inuit confirmed what he already believed about rapid freezing.
6
The changes agriculture brought about were: the development of equipment and larger ______
7
...the ability to keep ______ as writing developed
8
Early methods of food preservation included: smoking, drying and combining food with acid or ______
9
Canning — Nicolas Appert put food into containers made of ______
10
Appert's method resulted in preserved food that had the same taste and ______ as fresh food
11
Peter Durand introduced cans which had the advantage of being ______ and hard to break
12
In 1855, the metal can opener replaced the ______ which had been used with a hammer to open cans
13
Some food was still found to be edible after more than a hundred years, e.g. an old can of ______

Reading Passage 2: American Businesses Aim to Support Employees and Their Families

A Companies of all sizes in the US recognize the importance of family-friendly policies, thanks in large part to the increasing number of people-centered entrepreneurs and company CEOs. Many of these go into business themselves as a result of negative experiences they have had in the workplace. So says Jennifer West, Managing Director of the Ohio-based Business Research Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to studying work-life balance. 'Taking a people-centered view is a good recruitment and retention strategy,' says West. 'Employers who care about their employees and help them grow take into account the full range of issues and the external pressures that employees have and arrange things so that people can manage their lives. These considerations are a conscious part of how people-centered bosses organize their practices and strategies.'

B One employer who exemplifies this philosophy is Stephen Harper, co-owner and CEO of Plastic Solutions in California. His company manufactures custom plastics, mainly for medical devices, and offers engineering solutions for other plastics needs. Harper believes in having employees who understand the business. That's why every two weeks, when his employees receive their salary, they also get an update about the company, including who their new customers are, what successes they've had, and what challenges they are facing. Harper also includes a 'coaching' section. This addresses issues like gossip, which employees sometimes indulge in around the water cooler or the rest rooms, and which can negatively impact on the morale of staff. He encourages people to work their way up in the company, and pays, at least partially, for educational opportunities and textbooks. His employees line up to attend his monthly invitation-only Business Pragmatics seminar, in which communication and other vital skills are taught, along with ethics and workplace morals and philosophy. The structure of his company is very family-friendly, and includes a regular Open House day for employees' families where, among other things, kids can experiment with the company's machines that manufacture their products and so on. The Harper philosophy pays off. Attrition at the company is low, and many employees remain with the company for much of their career.

C In Vermont, the Margaret Mills Corporation also strives to be people-centered. It is a third generation, family-run business that sells children's wooden toys internationally, and the company's founder (Margaret Mills) understood all too well the challenges of raising a family while running a business. Like many other like-minded companies, the Margaret Mills Corporation offers liberal leave, flexi-time, good health and retirement packages, and other benefits. The corporation also allows workers to have their children dropped off when school is over, or to spend time with them during the vacations. Annual Christmas and summer parties are standard, and this year, to celebrate an especially strong performance, the company took all employees and their families on a 2-day trip to Montreal, Canada. Says Victor Davies, Human Resources Director, 'We enable employees to maintain equilibrium between work and home, a policy which ultimately results in a more productive and stable workforce.' It works – this year the company will celebrate six 5-year anniversaries, and one 25-year anniversary among its employees.

D For Hazel Gibbs, CEO of Disposal Systems Inc. in Houston, Texas, a waste disposal and environmental cleanup and consultancy firm, the bottom line is keeping her business going. But she realizes that it takes a certain kind of mutuality to do that. 'I'm not altruistic,' she says, 'but if everyone understands what it takes to be in business, that's good for all of us.' That's why she works hard to ensure that everyone, from managers to workers, realizes that they count. 'It's not about "us" and "them", we are a team,' Gibbs says. 'When our employees understand what it takes to keep a business going, then it works and we can accommodate each other's needs.' Despite her success, Gibbs sometimes struggles with being taken seriously. She sees this as a long-term challenge. 'Working mothers still need to be taken more seriously, and so do mothers who are business owners.' She has two children of her own to think about.

E Family-friendly entrepreneurs are becoming more commonplace internationally, and they clearly influence those companies which have so far been slow to accommodate employee needs. According to West, it is already possible to document the dwindling workforces of these latter businesses, or the migration of labor to more family-friendly ones. What is more, parents are important consumers and investors who can change buying practices. Further, in the public policy arena, multinational corporations and aid agencies are beginning to recognize the need to integrate social and economic policy and practice. Family-friendly employers are creating a groundswell of awareness that can only result in changing business practices. And as Hazel Gibbs says, when that happens, 'you've got it working.'

14
a description of a company that provides financial assistance for employees to continue their learning.
15
a mention of worldwide trends in the changing attitudes of businesses and customers.
16
details about years of continuous service by employees at one company.
17
a reference to the reason why many people-centred workers first start their own businesses.
18
a comment about how certain groups are still fighting for respect in the business world.
19
Employees should be kept informed about business development and performance.
- A. Jennifer West
- B. Stephen Harper
- C. Margaret Mills
- D. Victor Davies
- E. Hazel Gibbs
20
Work output increases when employees have a good balance between company and family responsibilities.
21
It is critical to business success that all company members recognise that they matter.
22
At Plastic Solutions, a bi-weekly update is issued to workers at the same time as their pay. This includes a section dealing with problems such as ______ in communal areas of the workplace.
23
The CEO also arranges a regular ______ for selected employees for whom places are in great demand.
24
Finally, employees' families are invited to company open days, when they are allowed to try out the ______.
25
The Margaret Mills Corporation allows employees a great deal of flexibility with their children, who can be brought to the office once ______ has finished.
26
Mills likes to reward employees for company performance with a party or even a ______ for families.

Reading Passage 3: Keeping the Water Away: New Approaches to Flood Control

A Recently, winter floods on the rivers of central Europe have been among the worst for 600 to 700 years, and dams and dykes (protective sea walls) have failed to solve the problem. Traditionally, river engineers have tried to get rid of the water quickly, draining it off the land and down to the sea in rivers reengineered as high-performance drains. But however high they build the artificial riverbanks, the floods keep coming back. And when they come, they seem to be worse than ever.

B Engineers are now turning to a different plan: to sap the water’s destructive strength by dispersing it into fields, forgotten lakes and flood plains. They are reviving river bends and marshes to curb the flow, and even plugging city drains to encourage floodwater to use other means to go underground. Back in the days when rivers took a winding path to the sea, floodwaters lost force and volume while meandering across flood plains and inland deltas, but today the water tends to have a direct passage to the sea. This means that, when it rains in the uplands, the water comes down all at once.

C Worse, when the flood plains are closed off, the river’s flow downstream becomes more violent and uncontrollable; by turning complex river systems into the simple mechanics of a water pipe, engineers have often created danger where they promised safety. The Rhine, Europe’s most engineered river, is a good example. For a long time engineers have erased its backwaters and cut it off from its plain. The aim was partly to improve navigation, and partly to speed floodwaters out of the Alps and down to the North Sea. Now, when it rains in the Alps, the peak flows from several branches of the Rhine coincide where once they arrived separately, and with four-fifths of the Lower Rhine’s flood plain barricaded off, the waters rise. The result is more frequent flooding and greater damage. The same thing has happened in the US on the Mississippi River, which drains the world’s second-largest river catchment into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite some $7 billion spent over the last century on levees (embankments), the situation is growing worse.

D Specialists in water control now say that a new approach is needed — one which takes the whole landscape into consideration. To help keep London’s feet dry, the UK Environment Agency is reflooding 10 square kilometres of the ancient flood plain of the River Thames outside Oxford. Nearer to London, it has spent £100 million creating new wetlands and a relief channel across 16 kilometres of flood plain. Similar ideas are being tested in Austria, in one of Europe’s largest river restorations to date. The engineers calculate that the restored flood plain of the Drava River can now store up to 10 million cubic metres of floodwater, and slow down storm surges coming out of the Alps by more than an hour, protecting towns not only in Austria, but as far downstream as Slovenia and Croatia.

E The Dutch, for whom preventing floods is a matter of survival, have gone furthest. This nation, built largely on drained marshes and seabed, has had several severe shocks in the last two decades, when very large numbers of people have had to be evacuated. Since that time, the Dutch have broken one of their most enduring national stereotypes by allowing engineers to punch holes in dykes. They plan to return up to a sixth of the country to its former waterlogged state in order to better protect the rest.

F Water use in cities also needs to change. At the moment, cities seem to create floods; they are concreted and paved so that rains flow quickly into rivers. A new breed of ‘soft engineers’ wants cities to be porous; Berlin is one place where this is being done. Tough new rules for new developments mean that drains will be prevented from becoming overloaded after heavy rains. Architects of new urban buildings are diverting rainwater from the roofs for use in toilets and the irrigation of roof gardens, while water falling onto the ground is collected in ponds, or passes underground through porous paving. One high-tech urban development can store a sixth of its annual rainfall, and reuse most of the rest.

G Could this be expanded to protect a whole city? The test case could be Los Angeles. With non-porous surfaces covering 70% of the city, drainage is a huge challenge. Billions of dollars have been spent digging huge drains and concreting riverbeds, but many communities still flood regularly. Meanwhile, this desert city ships water from hundreds of kilometres away to fill its taps and swimming pool. Los Angeles has recently launched a new scheme to utilise floodwater in the Sun Valley section of the city. The plan is to catch the rain that falls on thousands of driveways, parking lots and rooftops in the valley. Trees will soak up water from parking lots; houses and public buildings will capture roof water to irrigate gardens and parks, and road drains will empty into old gravel pits to recharge the city’s underground water reserves. Result: less flooding and more water for the city. It may sound expensive, until we realise how much is spent trying to drain cities and protect areas from flooding, and how little this method achieves.

27
how legislation has forced building designers to improve water use
28
two reasons why one river was isolated from its flood plain
29
how natural watercourses in the past assisted flood control
30
an example of flood control on one river, affecting three countries
31
a country which has partly destroyed one of its most typical features in order to control water
32
the writer's comment on the comparative cost-effectiveness of traditional flood control and newer methods
33
According to the article, which TWO of these statements are true of the new approach to flood control?
- A. It aims to slow the movement of water to the sea.
- B. It aims to channel water more directly into rivers.
- C. It will cost more than twice as much as former measures.
- D. It will involve the loss of some areas of land.
- E. It has been tested only in the Netherlands.
34
According to the article, which TWO of these statements are true of the new approach to flood control?
35
Some of the most severe floods for many centuries have recently occurred in parts of ______.
36
The Rhine and the ______ river have experienced similar problems with water control.
37
An area near Oxford will be flooded to protect the city of ______.
38
Planners who wish to allow water to pass more freely through city surfaces are called ______.
39
A proposal for part of the city of ______ could show whether small-scale water projects could be applied on a large scale.

Answer sheet

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Show answer key

1. FALSE
2. TRUE
3. TRUE
4. NOT GIVEN
5. FALSE
6. populations
7. records
8. salt
9. glass
10. texture
11. lightweight
12. chisel
13. meat
14. B
15. E
16. C
17. A
18. D
19. B
20. D
21. E
22. gossip
23. seminar
24. machines
25. school
26. trip
27. F
28. C
29. B
30. D
31. E
32. G
33. A / D
34. A / D
35. central Europe
36. Mississippi
37. London
38. soft engineers
39. Los Angeles

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Reading Passage 1: A Brief History of Humans and Food

Reading Passage 2: American Businesses Aim to Support Employees and Their Families

Reading Passage 3: Keeping the Water Away: New Approaches to Flood Control

Answer sheet

Answer key