Reading 2026-06 Test 13 — 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: Dyes and Fabric Dyeing

When primitive people began using their hands to be creative, they began to add color to their lives. They used natural materials like ochre to stain animal hides, decorate shells and feathers, and paint on the walls of caves. Ochre is a naturally occurring brownish-yellow earth containing iron oxide. Scientists have been able to date the black, white, yellow and reddish pigments made from ochre, used in cave paintings, to over 15,000 BCE. With the development of fixed settlements and agriculture, around 7,000 to 2,000 BCE, people began to produce fabrics, and used natural substances such as ochre to color them.

Natural dyes, or dyes made from substances found in nature, can be broken down into two categories: substantive and adjective. Substantive, or direct dyes, become fixed to fibers without the aid of any other chemicals or additives. Adjective dyes require a mordant (usually a metal salt), which acts as a fixative and prevents the color from washing out or being bleached by sunlight. Most natural dyes are adjective dyes, and require the application of a mordant solution to the fibers at some point in the dyeing process.

Historically, three natural fibers were used in making fabrics: wool, silk and cotton. Wool fabric remains have been found in Europe dating back to 2,000 BCE. It was a common medieval fabric worn in both dyed and natural colors and was processed by both professional manufacturers and by people in their own homes. Silk was imported from China to Europe, and in the 14th to 16th centuries major silk manufacturing centers were set up in France, Spain and Italy. These silk production centers also became centers of dye technology, as most silk was dyed and required the highest quality dyes available. Cotton was considered a luxury fabric in Europe, as it was imported all the way from India and was dyed before it was shipped. Cotton was also valued because of the brightness and colorfastness of the dyes used to color it.

Dyes that gave fabrics a good bright color and were able to withstand washing and exposure to sunlight without losing their color were highly prized. The names of some of these valued and traded colors are still familiar today. The color known as Tyrian purple, for example, originated in the Mediterranean 2,000 years ago, and cochineal is the name given to the red dye from Latin America. Both of these colors came from animals; the mucus found in certain species of shellfish produced the deep, rich Tyrian purple and cochineal was extracted from insects. Two other natural sources of color were saffron and indigo. Saffron, the base of yellow dyes, comes from the flowers of a particular kind of crocus which is thought to have first been cultivated on Crete in the eastern Mediterranean. The leaves of a plant native to India were used to produce indigo, which was the main source of the color blue.

As societies developed over the centuries, the demand for dyes and dyed fabric grew, and by the 17th century a worldwide shipping and trading network was in place, allowing dyestuffs from all parts of the world to be brought to Europe. This meant that numerous dyestuffs could be blended to create a variety of colors for the rich and powerful. Fiber dyeing in the lower classes was a bit more restrictive. Without the money to buy exotic imported dyes, clothing in the countryside tended to be black, brown, grey and tan. Country people had some resources they could use to get a wider range of colors. They had always used local plants as food, and many of these plants were also used as medicines and in some cases as sources of dyes. Home dyers used any plants they could find that would give a good color. People who picked blackberries to make jam soon recognized this wild fruit as a source for a blue dye. Washing beehives in preparation for making mead (a popular drink containing honey) yielded a liquid that could be used as a yellow dye. The mosses which grow in many parts of Europe were used to produce green dye.

With the tremendous rise of interest in chemistry in the mid-19th century, several important innovations in dyeing came about. W. H. Perkin, a student of celebrated European scientist Wilhelm von Hofmann, accidentally discovered the first synthetic dye, later called mauve. The color was so popular that Perkin was able to open a factory of his own and went on to develop more synthetic dye colors. Synthetic dye production grew in Europe, and hardly a year passed until the end of the century without a new synthetic dye being patented. Eventually, the old natural dyes lost popularity in favor of the newer synthetic ones, and now the use of natural dyes on a commercial scale only exists in a few remote areas where people have either little access to synthetic dyes or a vested interest in retaining their ancient dyeing customs.

1
Ochre was used in paintings before it was used in fabric dyes.
2
Natural dyes that need a mordant are rare.
3
In medieval times people sometimes wore fabric made of undyed wool.
4
Silk has always been more expensive than cotton and wool.
5
Cotton imported from India was dyed upon arrival in Europe.
6
Perkin became more famous than his teacher, von Hofmann.
7
Very few synthetic dyes were produced in Europe in the second half of the 19th century.
8
Today the commercial production of natural dyes is limited to a small number of isolated communities.
9
Tyrian purple – mucus from ________ found in the Mediterranean.
10
Cochineal (a red dye) – made from ________ found in Latin America.
11
________ had two uses – jam – blue dye.
12
Liquid from cleaning ________ had two uses – making mead – yellow dye.
13
Progress in study of ________ led to synthetic dyes.

Reading Passage 2: Do Animals Really Remember?

A Humans are born time travellers: we can relive events that happened long ago or imagine ourselves in the future. Clues about different kinds of memory can be discovered from research conducted on people with certain brain injuries that cause them to forget autobiographical details without forgetting the information they picked up along the way. A man known as KC in the scientific literature, for instance, could play chess with no memory of having ever played it before. He could also remember sentences psychologists taught him without any memory of the lessons. KC had lost what psychologists now call 'episodic memory'. Dr Endel Tulving, a Canadian psychologist, defined episodic memory as the ability to recall the details of personal experiences: what happened, where it happened, when it happened and so on. Dr Tulving argued that episodic memory was distinct from other kinds of memory and that it was unique to our species.

B But are humans alone in this respect? Dr Nicola Clayton, of Cambridge University, has performed experiments which test American birds called western scrub jays to see if they met any of the criteria for episodic memory. The jays bury several thousand pieces of food a year and remember the location of each one. Dr Clayton wondered if scrub jays simply remembered the locations or if they remembered details of the experience of hiding the food. She ran an experiment using two kinds of food: moth larvae and peanuts. Scrub jays prefer larvae to peanuts if the larvae are still fresh. However, if the larvae have been dead for even a few hours, the jays prefer peanuts. Dr Clayton gave the birds a chance to hide both kinds of food in a sandy hiding area. Dr Clayton noted exactly what the birds had hidden and where, and then put the birds in a cage. She later returned the birds to the area where they had hidden the food, in some cases after four hours and in other cases after five days. The time the scrub jays had spent away from their hiding area affected the type of food they looked for. The birds that waited only four hours tended to dig up larvae, while the birds that had to wait for five days passed the larvae by and dug up peanuts instead. To make sure they were not just smelling the rotten larvae and avoiding those spots, Dr Clayton replaced the sand with fresh sand in the hiding area as soon as the birds had hidden the food.

C Research with other animals to determine if they are capable of episodic memory has had mixed results. When experimental rats are exploring a maze they seem to be able to recall which kinds of food they encounter along the way. Observation of hummingbirds as they feed appears to show that they remember where and when they visited individual flowers for nectar. Tests using Rhesus monkeys have found that they can remember where they put food, but not how long ago they put it there.

D True episodic memory, argues Dr Thomas Suddendorf of Queensland's Queensland University, involves more than just memory of information. It requires an awareness of the self and an ability to use the past to predict the future. He points to the discovery of stone tools which primitive humans used for killing animals 2.5 million years ago. Scientists assume that primitive humans had to find a way of adding much-needed protein to their diet. Paleontologists have determined that some of these tools were moved many kilometres from where they were originally made. 'If you've just eaten, the only reason you're going to take a tool with you is if you anticipate using it in the future,' said Dr Suddendorf.

E Recent brain scanning studies provide physiological support for this link between past and future. Daniel Schacter, a psychologist at Harvard University, studied how brains function as people think about past experiences and imagine future ones. When Schacter's subjects constructed episodic memories, distinct networks of their brains became active, as recorded by brain scans. When they are asked to think about themselves in the future, many parts of the same episodic memory networks become active again, suggesting an inter-connection between the processing of the past and future.

F Dr Suddendorf's notions have spurred comparative psychologists to look for evidence that animals can also think ahead. Some studies suggest not. Cebus monkeys, for example, will eat until they are full and throw the rest of the food out of their cage, despite the fact that they will not have anything to eat the next morning. But in other studies, animals show more promise. 'We tested squirrel monkeys to see if they could anticipate the future, and to our surprise it looks like they could,' said Dr William Roberts, a comparative psychologist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. He and his colleagues ran a test in which they gave squirrel monkeys a choice of between one or four dates to eat. Not surprisingly, the monkeys took four. But the scientists then began to take away water from the monkeys before they gave them the choice. If the monkeys took four, the scientists kept the water away for three hours. If the monkeys took one, the scientists returned it in half an hour. The monkeys learned to choose one. Though they were not thirsty at the time, they seemed to understand that they would become so in future.

14
Paragraph A
- A. evidence that man's ancestors had a concept of the future
- B. research into the relation between brain size and memory
- C. animals that can remember place and time
- D. research into various animal capacity for future planning
- E. a memory type described with reference to brain damage
- F. conflicting experimental results concerning animal memory
- G. research evidence of memory loss in various animals
- H. experimental evidence of a relation between past and future in human mental processes
- I. research into ways to improve episodic memory
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Paragraph B
16
Paragraph C
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Paragraph D
18
Paragraph E
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Paragraph F
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20-21. Which TWO of the following statements concerning episodic memory are found in the text?
- A. Dr Tulving believes that most kinds of memory involve aspects of episodic memories.
- B. The experimental subject KC was unable to recall the process by which he learned to play a particular board game.
- C. In the case of KC the subject's episodic memory was affected by his brain injuries.
- D. Dr Tulving carried out extensive observations of the episodic memories of animals as well as humans.
- E. To test his episodic memory KC was given various mathematical problems to solve.
21
22-23. Which TWO of the following statements are TRUE concerning Dr Clayton's experiments with scrub jays?
- A. The experiments indicated that the birds could remember how long their food had been buried.
- B. In the experiments, the scrub jays preferred burying moth larvae to burying peanuts.
- C. In the experiments, the birds were guided by the smell of the hidden food.
- D. Scrub jays were taught by Dr Clayton to store food for future use.
- E. Scrub jays would rather eat certain nuts than decaying moth larvae.
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24. Dr Suddendorf believes that 'true' episodic memory requires the ability to use that memory for the future. He cites as evidence ancient _______ which early humans had taken some distance from where they had been originally fashioned.
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25. However, in experiments, squirrel monkeys chose not to take the extra _______ they were offered as food, in anticipation of wanting _______ soon afterwards.
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26. However, in experiments, squirrel monkeys chose not to take the extra dates they were offered as food, in anticipation of wanting _______ soon afterwards.

Reading Passage 3: Saving Languages: The Campaign to Keep Minority Languages Alive

A Ten years ago, Michael Krauss, a professor at the University of Alaska, shocked his colleagues in the discipline of linguistics with his prediction that half the 6,000 or so languages spoken in the world would disappear within a century. Krauss founded the Alaskan Native Language Center to preserve as much as possible of the 20 tongues still known to the state’s indigenous people. Only two of those languages were being taught to children, and the rest were rapidly falling from use. Other linguists are making similar predictions. A survey in Australia found that 70 of the surviving 90 Aboriginal languages were no longer used regularly by all age groups. The same is true for all but 20 of the other 175 North American languages in the US.

B Outwardly, the consolidation of human language might seem like a good trend that could ease ethnic tensions and aid global commerce. Linguists don’t deny those benefits, and they acknowledge that small communities often choose to switch to the majority language because they believe it will boost their social or economic status.

C Many experts in the field nonetheless mourn the loss of rare languages, for several reasons. Some of the most basic questions in linguistics have to do with the limits of human speech, still far from fully explored. Many researchers would like to know which elements of grammar and vocabulary—if any—are universal. An English researcher, Nicholas Ostler, offers an example: ‘Ica, spoken in northern Colombia, seems to have nothing comparable to a personal pronoun system—I, we, you, etc. Otherwise, I would have thought that personal pronouns were a linguistic universal.’ Other scientists try to reconstruct ancient migration patterns by comparing borrowed words in otherwise unrelated languages. In each of these cases, the wider the range of languages you study, the more likely you are to get the right answers.

D ‘I think the value is mostly in human terms,’ says James Matisoff, a specialist in rare Asian languages at the University of California. ‘Language is the most important element in the culture of a community. When it dies, you lose the special knowledge of that culture and a unique window on the world. But despite the constant talk about saving endangered languages over the past ten years, the field of descriptive linguistics has accomplished little in this respect. You would think that there would be some organised response to this situation, some attempt to determine which languages can be saved and which should be documented before they disappear,’ says Sarah G. Thomason, of the University of Michigan. ‘But there isn’t any such effort.’

E However, there are some signs of progress. The Volkswagen Foundation, a German charity, has created a multimedia archive in the Netherlands that can house recordings, grammars, dictionaries and other data. Contributions from the Ford Foundation have helped a master-apprentice programme, in which fluent speakers receive $3,000 to teach a younger relative their native tongue through shared activities. So far, about 75 teams have completed the programme. ‘It’s too early to call this language revitalisation,’ admits Leanne Hinton of Berkeley. ‘In California, the death rate of elderly speakers will always be greater than the recruitment rate of young speakers. But if nothing else, we prolong the survival of the language.’ This will give linguists more time to record these tongues before they vanish.

F Complicating matters, dozens of institutions around the world are setting up digital libraries on endangered languages. This could create chaos, because the projects use non-standardised data formats, terminology and even names of languages. Gary F. Simons, of the Dallas-based research group SIL International, has been working to bring some order to this by building an ‘open languages data community’—a kind of digital card catalogue. This system will allow researchers to check their theories against a vast array of data.

G However, even if a language has been fully documented, all that remains once it vanishes from use is a fossil skeleton. Linguists may be able to sketch an outline of the language and fix its place on the evolutionary tree, but little more. As yet, there is no discipline of conservation linguistics. Almost every strategy to keep people speaking a language has succeeded in some places but failed in others. One factor that always seems to occur in the death of a language, according to Hans-Jurgen Sasse of the University of Cologne in Germany, is that speakers start regarding their own language as inferior to the majority language. Children pick up on the attitude, and prefer to speak the dominant language. This is how Cornish and some dialects of Scottish Gaelic slipped into extinction.

H ‘Ultimately, the answer to the problem of language extinction is multilingualism,’ argues James Matisoff. ‘Even uneducated people can speak a number of languages if they start as children.’ Many people in the world are at least bilingual, and in some places it is common to speak three or four languages. But in addition to the fact that children may reject minority languages, there is also the concern that speakers of a majority language may react badly to speakers of minority languages. The first step in saving dying languages may be to persuade the world’s majorities to allow the minorities among them to speak with their own voices.

25
27 Paragraph A
- i. The conservation role of majority language speakers
- ii. Some advantages of changing languages
- iii. The loss rate of European languages
- iv. Positive gains of conservation programmes
- v. The economic value of minority languages
- vi. The success rate of language rescue strategies in the past decade
- vii. Improving the consistency of research data
- viii. The potential failure of language conservation
- ix. The value of minority languages to language researchers
- x. The current position of minority languages
26
28 Paragraph B
27
29 Paragraph C
28
30 Paragraph E
29
31 Paragraph F
30
32 Paragraph G
31
33 Paragraph H
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34 In the long run, the California scheme will not have enough tutors.
33
35 Decisions need to be made about priorities in language rescue.
34
36 Languages currently in use face extinction in the foreseeable future.
35
37 There is a solution to the problem of languages dying out.
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38 A language may be dying when its speakers begin to value it less.
37
39 The Alaskan Language Center was set up to
- A. teach indigenous languages to children.
- B. revive indigenous languages which have fallen from use.
- C. prevent further loss of indigenous languages.
- D. predict the rate of loss of indigenous languages.
38
40 According to the writer, majority language speakers
- A. usually speak more than one language.
- B. generally have a high level of education.
- C. should make an effort to learn a minority language.
- D. should be more tolerant of minority languages.

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1. TRUE
The passage says ochre was used for cave paintings before it was used to dye fabrics, so this is TRUE.
2. FALSE
It is FALSE because the passage states that many natural dyes require a mordant, meaning they are not rare.
3. TRUE
The passage mentions that in medieval times, people sometimes wore undyed wool, so this is TRUE.
4. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN because the passage does not say if silk has always been more expensive than cotton and wool.
5. FALSE
It is FALSE because the passage says cotton imported from India was already dyed, not dyed after arrival in Europe.
6. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN because there is no information about whether Perkin became more famous than von Hofmann.
7. FALSE
It is FALSE because the passage says many synthetic dyes were produced in Europe in the second half of the 19th century, not very few.
8. TRUE
TRUE because the passage says today, commercial production of natural dyes is limited to a few isolated communities.
9. shellfish
The answer is 'shellfish' because Tyrian purple comes from the mucus of shellfish found in the Mediterranean.
10. insects
The answer is 'insects' because cochineal is made from insects found in Latin America.
11. blackberries
The answer is 'blackberries' because they were used both for making jam and as a blue dye.
12. beehives
The answer is 'beehives' because liquid from cleaning beehives was used to make mead and as a yellow dye.
13. chemistry
The answer is 'chemistry' because progress in the study of chemistry led to the creation of synthetic dyes.
14. E
E is correct because Paragraph A describes a memory type with reference to brain damage, matching option E.
15. C
C is correct because Paragraph B talks about animals that can remember place and time, matching option C.
16. F
F is correct because Paragraph C discusses conflicting experimental results about animal memory, matching option F.
17. A
A is correct because Paragraph D gives evidence that early humans had a concept of the future, matching option A.
18. H
H is correct because Paragraph E gives experimental evidence of a link between past and future in human mental processes, matching option H.
19. D
D is correct because Paragraph F discusses research into various animals' capacity for future planning, matching option D.
20. B / C
B and C are correct because the passage says KC could not recall how he learned a board game (B) and his episodic memory was affected by brain injuries (C).
21. A / E
A and E are correct because the passage says scrub jays remembered how long food was buried (A) and preferred certain nuts over decaying moth larvae (E).
22. tools
The answer is 'tools' because Dr Suddendorf uses ancient tools as evidence that early humans planned for the future.
23. dates
The answer is 'dates' because squirrel monkeys chose not to take extra dates, expecting they would want something else soon.
24. water
The answer is 'water' because the monkeys did not take extra dates, knowing they would want water soon afterwards.
25. x
x is correct because Paragraph A discusses the current position of minority languages.
26. ii
ii is correct because Paragraph B talks about some advantages of changing languages.
27. ix
ix is correct because Paragraph C discusses the value of minority languages to language researchers.
28. iv
iv is correct because Paragraph E talks about positive gains of conservation programmes.
29. vii
vii is correct because Paragraph F discusses improving the consistency of research data.
30. viii
viii is correct because Paragraph G talks about the potential failure of language conservation.
31. i
i is correct because Paragraph H discusses the conservation role of majority language speakers.
32. E
E is correct because the passage says the California scheme will not have enough tutors in the long run.
33. D
D is correct because the passage says decisions must be made about which languages to save first.
34. A
A is correct because the passage says many languages currently in use are at risk of extinction soon.
35. C
C is correct because the passage says there is a solution to the problem of languages dying out.
36. G
G is correct because the passage says a language may be dying when its speakers start to value it less.
37. C
C is correct because the Alaskan Language Center was set up to prevent further loss of indigenous languages.
38. D
D is correct because the writer says majority language speakers should be more tolerant of minority languages.

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Reading Passage 1: Dyes and Fabric Dyeing

Reading Passage 2: Do Animals Really Remember?

Reading Passage 3: Saving Languages: The Campaign to Keep Minority Languages Alive

Answer sheet

Answer key