Reading 2026-07 Test 5 — 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: Sweet Trouble: Problems in the Australian Sugar Industry

The Australian town of Mossman in the state of Queensland sits in a tropical landscape between the rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. Eco-tourism is important there; more than 80 per cent of Douglas Shire, of which Mossman is the administrative centre, is protected by World Heritage listing. But for most of the town’s history, forest and reef have been largely irrelevant: since the sugar mill was built in 1894, the town has relied on sugarcane. Now Mossman is holding its breath. For two years the mill used by all the farms has been close to bankruptcy. It is at the centre of the economic shocks that have shaken Australia’s sugar industry, and for lifetime farmers and a long list of cane-industry workers a way of life will disappear if the mill closes. Mossman has roughly 160 growers, who now produce less than one million tonnes of the nation’s annual cane harvest of 30–40 million tonnes. But it is a microcosm of the industry. All across Australia, the cane-growing business is being squeezed between the pincers of economics and the environment.

The ten-year average return to sugar growers throughout the 1990s was about $350 a tonne. In early 2004, sugar prices plummeted, resulting in a 25-year-low average price for Australian sugar of about $232 a tonne. Although figures vary widely across farms and regions, that was about what it cost to grow a tonne of sugar in Australia. To forestall social and economic disaster, the Government offered more than $400 million to encourage growers to leave the industry. By the end of the year, 21 farmers had taken up the offer to leave, but another 1,000 are thought to be seriously considering it, allowing those remaining to buy the vacated land and improve their economies of scale.

Fourth-generation Mossman grower Bill Phillips-Turner is one who plans to fight on. ‘The consequences of losing the mill would be catastrophic,’ Bill says. ‘Sugar has a big economic multiplier effect: for every dollar generated from sugar, an additional $7 is generated in the wider community. Because of limited options around here, most people now employed by the industry would have to leave the area to find work.’ The farmer-shareholders have so far saved the mill by accepting substantial cuts to cane payments, but this has come at a big cost to everyone. As chairman of the board of the mill, Bill has presided over some tough and unpopular decisions; the hardest was slashing the mill workforce. Assets were sold and maintenance costs cut. The board has also worked hard to find new ways of doing business. Ethanol production, where sugar is used to produce fuel, has potential, and co-generation, using cane waste to generate electric power, is another possibility. However, the most radical—but preferred—alternative is to create a future for the mill as a food factory, turning out quality sugar-based foods.

In addition to the economic struggle, there is the environmental one. The sugar industry has the reputation of being environmentally damaging, but it has some surprising supporters. Douglas Shire mayor, Mike Berwick, is a well-known environmentalist and might be expected to be anti-cane. ‘There’s no question of the past damage it’s done to the reef through chemical and nutrient run-off,’ he says. ‘But there’s a formula for sustainable cane production and Mossman has nearly reached it.’ Another surprise endorsement for cane comes from the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency’s sugar liaison officer, Karen Benn. ‘I’m less worried about the effect of cane on the environment than I am about other agriculture,’ she says. ‘There are good growers everywhere, but at Mossman they seem to have taken up the challenges faster.’ For example, sediment run-off, previously one of the main environmental problems caused by cane growing, is now nothing like it once was, according to Dr Brian Roberts, co-ordinator of the Douglas Shire Water Quality Improvement Program. ‘North Queensland used to hold the record for soil loss,’ he says. ‘Now … cane country is accumulating soil.’

However, these improvements have been achieved at a great cost to growers. Now in his 60s, Tom Watters has spent a lifetime on the same farm. Fourteen years ago, he was alerted to the effect his cane could be having on Mackay Creek, the narrow waterway that receives all his run-off, and so Tom planted a 5,000-tree buffer along the edge of the creek, built up the edges of the creek with rocks to prevent erosion, and began exploring farming methods that cause minimal soil disturbance. However, none of these costly initiatives has helped him get better cane prices. Another cane grower, Doug Crees, comments that ‘Economically, it [cane growing] doesn’t make much sense. But there’s more to life than money.’ It’s this addiction to the way of life that keeps many cane farmers growing an underperforming crop. ‘It’s a good lifestyle,’ Doug says. ‘I spend eight months working on the farm and four months looking after our kids while my wife works in town. I’ve been looking at alternative crops, like forestry and cocoa, and it turns out that working away from the farm is the best diversification we could do. However, I still don’t want to do that.’

It is difficult to see how anyone can deal satisfactorily with the passing of a way of life. Cane farmers have been part of eastern Queensland for more than a century, but despite the efforts they have put into fighting the good environmental fight, there is no guarantee that the new way of life evolving there will include cane.

run-off: water that is used for agriculture and then passes into waterways, carrying soil and agricultural chemicals with it

1
Mossman cane-farming practices are close to an environmentally friendly model.
- A. Bill Phillips-Turner
- B. Mike Berwick
- C. Karen Benn
- D. Brian Roberts
- E. Tom Watters
- F. Doug Crees
2
Financial return is not the only important factor for cane growers.
3
Cane sugar may not harm the environment as much as other crops do.
4
The local population would decline if the sugar-processing plant closed.
5
In the first paragraph, the writer says that the town is ‘holding its breath’ because
- A. it has environmental problems.
- B. its tourism business is threatened.
- C. most of its people have left the town.
- D. a key processing plant may shut down.
6
According to the writer, cane growers who refuse the Government offer are expected to
- A. expand their farms.
- B. sell their land at a low price.
- C. find jobs in other industries.
- D. seek financial help from banks.
7
Which of the following did Bill Phillips-Turner find most difficult to do?
- A. sell mill property
- B. reduce spending on upkeep
- C. lower mill workers’ wages
- D. cut the number of mill staff
8
Cane grower Doug Crees says that he
- A. would prefer to grow cocoa.
- B. wants to remain on his farm.
- C. wants his family to live together.
- D. will look for part-time work in town.
9
In 2004, the cost of producing sugar in Australia was similar to the selling price.
10
Farmers who accepted the Government offer have mostly moved to the city.
11
Fuel production is regarded as the most desirable alternative business for the sugar mill.
12
Tom Watters reduced his use of pesticides.
13
Environmentally friendly farming practices have been profitable for Tom Watters.

Reading Passage 2: Synaesthesia

A Imagine a page with a square box in the middle. The box is lined with rows of the number 5, repeated over and over. All of the 5s are identical in size, font and colour, and equally distributed across the box. There is, however, a trick: among those 5s, hiding in plain sight is a single, capital letter S. Almost the same in shape, it is impossible to spot without straining your eyes for a good few minutes. Unless that is, you are a grapheme–colour synaesthete – a person who sees each letter and number in different colours. With all the 5s painted in one colour and the rogue S painted in another, a grapheme–colour synaesthete will usually only need a split second to identify the latter.

B Synaesthesia, loosely translated as "senses coming together" from the Greek words syn ("with") and aesthesis ("sensation"), is an interesting neurological phenomenon that causes different senses to be combined. This might mean that words have a particular taste (for example, the word "door" might taste like bacon), or that certain smells produce a particular colour. It might also mean that each letter and number has its own personality—the letter A might be perky, the letter B might be shy and self-conscious, etc. Some synaesthetes might even experience other people's sensations, for example feeling pain in their chest when they witness a film character gets shot. The possibilities are endless: even though synaesthesia is believed to affect less than 5% of the general population, at least 60 different combinations of senses have been reported so far. What all these sensory associations have in common is that they are all involuntary and impossible to repress and that they usually remain quite stable over time.

C Synaesthesia was first documented in the early 19th century by German physician Georg Sachs, who dedicated two pages of his dissertation on his own experience with the condition. It wasn't, however, until the mid-1990s that empirical research proved its existence when Professor Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues used fMRIs on six synaesthetes and discovered that the parts of the brain associated with vision were active during auditory stimulation, even though the subjects were blindfolded.

D What makes synaesthesia a particularly interesting condition is that it isn't an illness at all. If anything, synaesthetes often report feeling sorry for the rest of the population, as they don't have the opportunity to experience the world in a multisensory fashion like they do. Very few drawbacks have been described, usually minimal: for instance, some words might have an unpleasant taste (imagine the word "hello" tasting like spoilt milk), while some synaesthetes find it distressing when they encounter people with names which don't reflect their personality (imagine meeting a very interesting person named "Lee", when the letter E has a dull or hideous colour for you—or vice versa). Overall, however, synaesthesia is widely considered more of a blessing than a curse and it is often linked to intelligence and creativity, with celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Pharrell Williams claiming to have it.

E Another fascinating side of synaesthesia is the way it could potentially benefit future generations. In a 2013 study, Dr Witthof and Dr Winawer discovered that grapheme-colour synaesthetes who had never met each other before experienced strikingly similar pairings between graphemes and colours—pairings which were later traced back to a popular set of Fischer-Price magnets that ten out of eleven participants distinctly remembered possessing as children. This was particularly peculiar as synaesthesia is predominantly considered to be a hereditary condition, and the findings suggested that a synaesthete's environment might play a determining role in establishing synaesthetic associations. If that was true, researchers asked, then might it not be possible that synaesthesia can actually be taught?

F As it turns out, the benefits of teaching synaesthesia would be tremendous. According to research conducted by Dr Clare Jonas at the University of East London, teaching people to create grapheme-colour associations the same way as a synaesthete may have the possibility to improve cognitive function and memory. As she put it, 'one possibility is guarding against cognitive decline in older people—using synaesthesia in the creation of mnemonics to remember things such as shopping lists.' To that end, researchers in the Netherlands have already begun developing a web browser plug-in that will change the colours of certain letters. Rothen and his colleagues corroborate the theory: in a paper published in 2011, they suggest that synaesthesia might be more than a hereditary condition, as the non-synaesthetic subjects of their study were able to mimic synaesthetic associations long after leaving the lab.

G There is obviously still a long way to go before we can fully understand synaesthesia and what causes it. Once we do, however, it might not be too long before we find out how to teach non-synaesthetes how to imitate its symptoms in a way that induces the same benefits 4.4% of the world's population currently enjoy.

14
Some of the disadvantages related to synaesthesia
15
What scientists think about synaesthesia's real-life usefulness
16
A prediction for the future of synaesthesia
17
An example of how grapheme-colour synaesthesia works
18
A brief history of synaesthesia
19
Some of the various different types of synaesthesia
20
Information about a study that suggests synaesthetic symptoms aren't arbitrary
21
There are 60 different types of synaesthesia.
- TRUE. TRUE
- FALSE. FALSE
- NOT GIVEN. NOT GIVEN
22
Before Professor Simon Baron-Cohen's research, synaesthesia was thought to be a myth.
23
A lot of celebrities are affected by synaesthesia.
24
Most scientists believe that synaesthesia runs in families.
25
Synaesthesia is a unique neurological condition that causes different senses to get mixed. Recent research has suggested that teaching synaesthesia to non-synaesthetes can enhance ________ and guard against the deterioration of cognitive ________; unfortunately, it might be a while before we come up with a beneficial way to ________ it to the general population.

Reading Passage 3: The strange world of sight

Seeing is believing, it is said. But, asks Richard Gregory, could it be the other way round? Two of the great British men of the 17th century, the philosopher John Locke and the physicist Isaac Newton, were both aware that objects are not coloured, and that against all appearances light is not coloured either. This is still not generally recognised even now, 400 years later, because it seems so implausible. Yet it tells us something very important - that perceptions are not identical with what we perceive, and may be very different.

The most accurate historical account of perception is that of the 19th-century German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz. However, it was ridiculed at the time. Von Helmholtz thought that perceptions are unconscious inferences we make based on a combination of clues provided by the eyes and other senses, and knowledge of the world. This idea of unconscious inference for perception preceded, by several years, the psychoanalyst Freud's notion of the unconscious, which was also initially treated with derision because it undermined the notion of humans as pre-eminently rational beings who could be held responsible for their actions and awarded blame or praise accordingly.

Crucially, perception of the present depends on rich, though of course not always correct or appropriate, knowledge from the past. We interpret sense data (what we hear, touch, taste, see and smell) from the present according to what we already know. This raises the question: if we see the present through memory, why aren't past and present confused? The pioneering Russian neurologist Alexander Luria described the case of Mr S, who had a remarkable memory, however, he was prone to just such confusions, for example mistaking seeing his clock for remembering it, and so failing to get up in the morning. This suggests that perhaps an important function of perception is to underline the present. Individual perceptions have a vividness that is rare for memories, which might be how we are able to separate them. Try this: look at something for a few seconds, and then shut your eyes and visualise it in memory. You will almost certainly find that the memory is pale by comparison with the perception. Perhaps this is why past and present are not normally confused. Luria's Mr S had exceptionally vivid memories, and rich synaesthesia (experiencing perceptions from another sense as well as the one being stimulated, such as musical notes experienced as colours), which may be why he confused seeing with having seen.

The complexity of processes involved in how we see first impressed itself on me 45 years ago. With my colleague Jean Wallace, I studied the rare case Sydney Bradford, a man who had been born blind but, through a corneal graft at the age of 52, suddenly found himself able to see. Although immediately after the operation he was able to 'see' he could only see those things that he already knew about, having experienced them through touch. It was his touch memories that enabled him to perceive them with his eyes. When Bradford was first taken to the zoo, he proved utterly unable to see an elephant as he had no knowledge to make sense of his perceptions.

The more recent case in California of Mike May, who was also born blind, is similar. Since his operation, his sight has gradually improved as he learns to see, for example, by understanding how shadows represent depth and tell us about the shape of things. Some of the consequences of May's new-found vision were less happy. He had been a champion blind skier, but following the operation, he would have to shut his eyes while skiing to block out what he now found was a terrifying sight.

But acceptance of this intimate connection between memory and perception, even though it was first noticed in the 17th century, has been slow in brain science. Despite the fact that state-of-the-art brain imaging shows that perception animates parts of the brain associated with both present information and memory, most research on memory and perception is still undertaken as if these were separate processes. Seeing used to be thought of as taking place only in the eyes, and in quite specialised brain regions; but now it seems that half the brain is occupied with seeing, requiring a lot of energy. Perhaps this is why we shut our eyes for a rest.

It is not just extreme cases like Mike May, but also much more common errors of seeing - illusions - that can reveal the crucial role of memory in governing what we (think we) see. Perception depends on specific knowledge and probabilities. Our brains calculate the likelihood of what is out there, and when too far-fetched, perceptions are rejected.

A dramatic and discomforting example is looking at the two sides of a face-mask. From the front it is a convex shape with the nose sticking out. Then if the mask is rotated, the back of the mask will be seen as convex, though we know that it must be concave. It is almost, if not quite, impossible to sketch the back of a hollow mask to look as it is - hollow. Science often learns from what does not happen: people not seeing a hollow face as hollow is the most revealing experiment on perception. The unsettling truth from brain science is that even people with no visual impairment see what, at some level, they expect to see, and often miss things as they really are.

26
27. Why does the writer refer to Locke and Newton in the first paragraph?
- A. to indicate that his article will cover several scientific fields
- B. to stress how much physics has changed in 400 years
- C. to persuade the reader to take him seriously
- D. to point out that his notions are not new
27
28. According to the writer, why was Freud’s theory of the unconscious mocked?
- A. It was too complex for his contemporaries to understand.
- B. It involved criticism of the way people behaved in society.
- C. People felt that it devalued the accepted concept of humanity.
- D. People assumed that it was intended as a joke.
28
29. The writer describes Mr S failing to get up in order to demonstrate
- A. how realistic most people's memories are.
- B. how hard it is to tell dreaming and waking apart.
- C. how unusual it is to mistake a perception for memory.
- D. how valuable knowledge of the past can be.
29
30. What point is the writer making in the text as a whole?
- A. Perception involves much more than the data collected by the eyes.
- B. Learning to see as an adult can be a time-consuming process.
- C. Science is failing to devote enough attention to sight.
- D. Human perception is remarkably reliable.
30
31. Sydney Bradford relied on recollections of objects he had been told about to help him see after his operation.
31
32. People who only start to see as adults can learn to see as other people do in time.
32
33. People who have gained their sight as adults find certain activities harder to do than before.
33
34. It is evident now that sight involves the eyes and one particular area of the brain.
34
35. The mask experiment is particularly useful in training people who are regaining their sight.
35
36. People with perfect vision can fail to interpret objects correctly under certain circumstances.
36
37. In this experiment, having looked at the front of a simple face-mask, subjects look at the reverse. However, the subjects are convinced that they are still looking at mask which is ______ in shape.
- A. back
- B. brain
- C. view
- D. convex
- E. sight
- F. nose
- G. round
- H. hollow
- I. drawing
- J. preconception
37
38. They believe that the ______ is poking out the normal manner because that is what they are used to seeing.
38
39. Attempting to make a ______ of the mask in this orientation leads to the same problem.
39
40. The subjects fail to see a concave form because of the ______ they have that features of a face stick out.

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1. B
B is correct because Mike Berwick says Mossman cane-farming is 'close to a best-practice environmental model,' showing it is nearly environmentally friendly.
2. F
F is correct because Doug Crees says that 'money is not everything,' showing financial return is not the only important factor for cane growers.
3. C
C is correct because Karen Benn mentions that cane sugar 'may not be as damaging as other crops,' suggesting it may not harm the environment as much as others. Option B is tempting but does not mention a comparison with other crops.
4. A
A is correct because Bill Phillips-Turner says that if the sugar-processing plant closed, 'the population would drop,' showing the local population would decline.
5. D
D is correct because the writer says the town is 'holding its breath' because a key processing plant may shut down, not because of environmental problems or tourism issues.
6. A
A is correct because the passage says cane growers who refuse the Government offer are expected to 'expand their farms,' not sell land, find other jobs, or seek bank help.
7. D
D is correct because Bill Phillips-Turner found it most difficult to 'cut the number of mill staff.' Reducing spending or lowering wages is not mentioned as the hardest.
8. B
B is correct because Doug Crees says he 'wants to remain on his farm,' not grow cocoa, move his family, or look for other work.
9. TRUE
TRUE is correct because the passage says that in 2004, 'the cost of producing sugar was about the same as the selling price.'
10. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN is correct because there is no information about where farmers who accepted the Government offer have moved.
11. FALSE
FALSE is correct because the passage says fuel production is 'not regarded as the most desirable alternative business for the sugar mill.'
12. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN is correct because there is no information about whether Tom Watters reduced his use of pesticides.
13. FALSE
FALSE is correct because the passage says that environmentally friendly practices 'have not been profitable for Tom Watters.'
14. D
D is correct because this section discusses some of the disadvantages related to synaesthesia, such as confusion or difficulties.
15. F
F is correct because this part explains what scientists think about the real-life usefulness of synaesthesia.
16. G
G is correct because this section makes a prediction about the future of synaesthesia.
17. A
A is correct because this part gives an example of how grapheme-colour synaesthesia works, such as seeing letters in colors.
18. C
C is correct because this section gives a brief history of synaesthesia, mentioning how it was viewed in the past.
19. B
B is correct because this part lists some of the various different types of synaesthesia.
20. E
E is correct because this section describes a study that suggests synaesthetic symptoms are not random or arbitrary.
21. FALSE
FALSE is correct because the passage does not say there are 60 different types of synaesthesia; it may mention many types, but not this exact number.
22. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN is correct because the passage does not say whether synaesthesia was thought to be a myth before Professor Simon Baron-Cohen's research.
23. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN is correct because the passage does not mention if a lot of celebrities are affected by synaesthesia.
24. TRUE
TRUE is correct because the passage says that most scientists believe synaesthesia 'runs in families.'
25. memory / function / teach
The correct words are 'memory / function / teach' because the sentence says teaching synaesthesia can enhance memory and guard against the deterioration of cognitive function, but it might be a while before we can teach it to everyone.
26. D
D is correct because the writer refers to Locke and Newton to point out that his notions are not new, showing these ideas have a long history.
27. C
C is correct because Freud’s theory was mocked because people felt it 'devalued the accepted concept of humanity,' not because it was too complex or a joke.
28. A
A is correct because the writer describes Mr S failing to get up to show how realistic most people's memories are, not about dreaming or perception mistakes.
29. A
A is correct because the writer’s main point is that perception involves much more than just the data collected by the eyes.
30. NO
NO is correct because the passage says Sydney Bradford did not rely on recollections of objects he had been told about to help him see after his operation.
31. YES
YES is correct because the passage says people who only start to see as adults can learn to see as other people do in time.
32. YES
YES is correct because the passage says people who have gained their sight as adults find some activities harder to do than before.
33. NO
NO is correct because it is not evident that sight only involves the eyes and one particular area of the brain; the passage suggests it is more complex.
34. NOT GIVEN
NOT GIVEN is correct because there is no information about the mask experiment being useful in training people regaining their sight.
35. YES
YES is correct because the passage says people with perfect vision can sometimes fail to interpret objects correctly under certain circumstances.
36. D
D is correct because the subjects are convinced they are still looking at a mask which is 'convex' in shape, even when it is not.
37. F
F is correct because they believe the 'nose' is poking out in the normal manner, as they are used to seeing.
38. I
I is correct because attempting to make a 'drawing' of the mask in this orientation leads to the same problem.
39. J
J is correct because the subjects fail to see a concave form because of the 'preconception' that features of a face stick out.

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Reading Passage 1: Sweet Trouble: Problems in the Australian Sugar Industry

Reading Passage 2: Synaesthesia

Reading Passage 3: The strange world of sight

Answer sheet

Answer key