Reading 2026-07 Test 36 — 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: Can Scientists Tell Us: What Happiness Is?

Economists accept that if people describe themselves as happy, then they are happy. However, psychologists differentiate between levels of happiness. The most immediate type involves a feeling; pleasure or joy. But sometimes happiness is a judgment that life is satisfying, and does not imply an emotional state. Esteemed psychologist Martin Seligman has spearheaded an effort to study the science of happiness. The bad news is that we’re not wired to be happy. The good news is that we can do something about it. Since its origins in a Leipzig laboratory 130 years ago, psychology has had little to say about goodness and contentment. Mostly psychologists have concerned themselves with weakness and misery. There are libraries full of theories about why we get sad, worried, and angry. It hasn’t been respectable science to study what happens when lives go well. Positive experiences, such as joy, kindness, altruism and heroism, have mainly been ignored. For every 100 psychology papers dealing with anxiety or depression, only one concerns a positive trait.

A few pioneers in experimental psychology bucked the trend. Professor Alice Isen of Cornell University and colleagues have demonstrated how positive emotions make people think faster and more creatively. Showing how easy it is to give people an intellectual boost, Isen divided doctors making a tricky diagnosis into three groups: one received candy, one read humanistic statements about medicine, one was a control group. The doctors who had candy displayed the most creative thinking and worked more efficiently. Inspired by Isen and others, Seligman got stuck in. He raised millions of dollars of research money and funded 50 research groups involving 150 scientists across the world. Four positive psychology centres opened, decorated in cheerful colours and furnished with sofas and baby-sitters. There were get-togethers on Mexican beaches where psychologists would snorkel and eat fajitas, then form “pods” to discuss subjects such as wonder and awe. A thousand therapists were coached in the new science.

But critics are demanding answers to big questions. What is the point of defining levels of haziness and classifying the virtues? Aren’t these concepts vague and impossible to pin down? Can you justify spending funds to research positive states when there are problems such as famine, flood and epidemic depression to be solved? Seligman knows his work can be belittled alongside trite notions such as “the power of positive thinking”. His plan to stop the new science floating “on the waves of self-improvement fashion” is to make sure it is anchored to positive philosophy above, and to positive biology below.

And this takes us back to our evolutionary past. Homo sapiens evolved during the Pleistocene era (1.8 m to 10,000 years ago), a time of hardship and turmoil. It was the Ice Age, and our ancestors endured long freezes as glaciers formed, then ferocious floods as the ice masses melted. We shared the planet with terrifying creatures such as mammoths, elephant-sized ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats. But by the end of the Pleistocene, all these animals were extinct. Humans, on the other hand, had evolved large brains and used their intelligence to make fire and sophisticated tools, to develop talk and social rituals. Survival in a time of adversity forged our brains into a persistent mould. Professor Seligman says: “Because our brain evolved during a time of ice, flood and famine, we have a catastrophic brain. The way the brain works is looking for what’s wrong. The problem is, that worked in the Pleistocene era. It favoured you, but it doesn’t work in the modern world”.

Although most people rate themselves as happy, there is a wealth of evidence to show that negative thinking is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. Experiments show that we remember failures more vividly than success. We dwell on what went badly, not what went well. Of the six universal emotions, four—anger, fear, disgust and sadness—are negative and only one, joy, is positive. (The sixth, surprise, is neutral). According to the psychologist Daniel Nettle, author of Happiness, and one of the Royal Institution lectures, the negative emotion each tells us “something bad has happened” and suggest a different course of action.

What is it about the structure of the brain that underlies our bias towards negative thinking? And is there a biology of joy? At Iowa University, neuroscientist studied what happens when people are shown pleasant and unpleasant pictures. When subjects see landscapes or dolphins playing, part of the frontal lobe of the brain becomes active. But when they are shown unpleasant images—a bird covered in oil, or a dead soldier with part of his face missing—the response comes from more primitive parts of the brain. The ability to feel negative emotions derives from an ancient danger-recognition system formed early in the brain’s evolution. The pre-frontal cortex, which registers happiness, is the part used for higher thinking, an area that evolved later in human history.

Our difficulty, according to Daniel Nettle, is that the brain systems for liking and wanting are separate. Wanting involves two ancient regions—the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens—that communicate using the chemical dopamine to form the brain’s reward system. They are involved in anticipating the pleasure of eating and in addiction to drugs. A rat will press a bar repeatedly, ignoring sexually available partners, to receive electrical stimulation of the “wanting” parts of the brain. But having received brain stimulation, the rat eats more but shows no sign of enjoying the food it craved. In humans, a drug like nicotine produces much craving but little pleasure.

In essence, what the biology lesson tells us is that negative emotions are fundamental to the human condition and it’s no wonder they are difficult to eradicate. At the same time, by a trick of nature, our brains are designed to crave but never really achieve lasting happiness.

1
An experiment involving dividing several groups one of which received positive icon
2
Review of a poorly researched psychology area
3
Contrast being made about the brains’ action as response to positive or negative stimulus
4
The skeptical attitude toward the research seemed to be a waste of fund
5
A substance that produces much wanting instead of much liking
6
A conclusion that lasting happiness is hardly obtained because of the nature of brains
7
One description that listed the human emotional categories
8
Professor Alice divided doctors, making a tricky experiment, into three groups: besides the one control group, the other two either are asked to read humanistic statements about drugs or received ________.
9
Since critics are questioning the significance of the ________ for both levels of happiness and classification for the virtues.
10
Professor Seligman countered in an evolutional theory: survival in a time of adversity forged our brains into the way of thinking for what’s wrong because we have a ________.
11
When positive images like ________ are shown, part of the frontal lobe of the brain becomes active.
12
But when they are shown unpleasant image, the response comes from ________ of the brain.
13
According to Daniel Nettle in the last two paragraphs, what is true as the scientists can tell us about happiness
- A. Brain systems always mix liking and wanting together.
- B. Negative emotions can be easily rid of if we think positively.
- C. Happiness is like nicotine we are craving for but get little pleasure.
- D. The inner mechanism of human brains does not assist us to achieve durable happiness.

Reading Passage 2: The Fascinating World of Attine Ants

A Leaf-cutting ants and their fungus ‘farm’ are a marvel of nature and perhaps the best-known example of symbiosis — the mutual dependence of two species. Ants cultivate a mushroom-like fungus in ‘farms’. Both the ants and their so-called ‘agriculture’ have been extensively studied over the years, but recent research has uncovered intriguing new findings.

Ants invented agriculture 50 million years before people did, and the leaf-cutters, members of the large attine ant family, practise the most sophisticated example of it. They grow their fungus in underground chambers that can reach the size of a football. A single leaf-cutter nest may contain a thousand such chambers, embedded in an underground metropolis up to 18 feet deep, and support a society of more than a million ants.

B These ant communities are the dominant plant-eaters of the Neotropics, the region comprising South and Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Biologists believe 15 percent of the leaf production of tropical forests disappears down the nests of leaf-cutter ants. In the nest, the leaves are shredded and added to the fungus, which digests the leaves and is in turn eaten by the ants. The attine ants’ achievement is remarkable because it allows them to consume, courtesy of their mushroom’s digestive powers, the harvest of tropical forests whose leaves are laden with poisonous chemicals.

C There are more than 200 known species of the attine ant tribe, divided into 12 groups, or genera. The leaf-cutters use fresh vegetation; the other groups, known as the lower attines because their nests are smaller and their techniques more primitive, feed their gardens with similar leaves that have fallen on the ground and insects that lie on the forest floor. Lower attine ants are all a similar size. However, leaf-cutter worker ants come in made-to-fit sizes — large ants to saw off leaves, medium ones to shred them, and miniature workers to seed them with fungus and clean off alien growths.

D In 1994, biologists from the United States Department of Agriculture analysed the DNA of ant fungi. They found that the leaf-cutters’ fungus was descended from a single pure strain, propagated for at least 23 million years. However, the fungi grown by lower attine ants fell into four different groups, as if the ants had domesticated wild fungi at least four times in evolutionary history. What could be driving these two patterns of fungus gardening — the pure clone cultivation of the leaf-cutters and the multiple varieties of the lower attines?

E The answer has been suggested by Cameron Currie of the University of Toronto. The pure strain of fungus grown by the leaf-cutters, it seemed to him, resembled the single crops grown by humans to the exclusion of all others, such as potato growing. These ‘monocultures’, which lack the genetic diversity to respond to changing environmental threats, are particularly vulnerable to parasites — organisms that live and feed on their host, often causing harm. Currie felt there had to be a parasite in the ant-fungus system. But a century of ant research had provided no evidence for his idea. Textbooks describe how leaf-cutter ants scrupulously weed their gardens of all foreign organisms. “People kept telling me the ants keep their gardens free of parasites,” said Currie. Nevertheless, after three years of sifting through attine ant gardens, Currie discovered several alien organisms, particularly a family of parasitic moulds called ‘Escovopsis’.

F Escovopsis is a deadly disease that can devastate a fungus garden in a couple of days. It blooms like a white cloud which envelops the whole garden. Other ants won’t go near it, and the ants associated with the garden just starve to death. Evidently, the ants usually manage to keep Escovopsis and other parasites under control. Nevertheless, with any lapse in control Escovopsis will quickly burst forth. Although new leaf-cutter gardens start off free of Escovopsis, within two years some 60 percent become infected.

G The discovery of Escovopsis’s role brings a new level of understanding to the evolution of the attine ants. In the last decade, evolutionary biologists have been increasingly aware of the role of parasites as driving forces in evolution. With Currie’s work, there is now a possible reason for the different varieties of fungus in the lower attine mushroom gardens — to stay one step ahead of the relentless Escovopsis. Interestingly, the leaf-cutters had, in general, fewer alien moulds in their gardens than the lower attines, yet more Escovopsis infections. Clearly, the price they pay for cultivating a pure variety of fungus is a higher risk from Escovopsis.

H So how do attine ants keep this parasite under control? People have known for a hundred years that ants have a whitish growth on their body surface. It was thought to be wax but, after examining it under a microscope, Currie discovered a specialised patch on the ants’ bodies that harbours a particular kind of bacterium, one well known to the pharmaceutical industry and the source of half the antibiotics used in medicine. This bacterium is a potent poisoner of Escovopsis, inhibiting its growth and suppressing spore formation.

Astoundingly, the leaf-cutter ants are accomplishing feats beyond the power of humans: they are growing a monocultural crop year after year without disaster, and they are using an antibiotic apparently so wisely that, unlike people, they are not provoking antibiotic resistance in the target disease-producing organism.

14
two things at which leaf-cutter ants have succeeded but humans have failed.
15
a comparison between the nests of leaf-cutter ants and lower attine ants.
16
an assessment of the impact leaf-cutter ants have on their environment.
17
the effect Escovopsis has on ant communities.
18
the advantage for lower attine ants of growing a range of fungi.
19
the discovery of the age of the attine-ant fungi.
20
the use of dead vegetation to cultivate their fungus
- A. Leaf-cutting ants
- B. Lower attines
- C. Both leaf-cutting ants and lower attine ants
21
very small ants that keep the fungus free of foreign organisms
22
the ability to safely eat harmful plants
23
the cultivation of a single fungus
24
a nest with a very large number of rooms for growing fungus
25
What does the writer say about Cameron Currie’s research?
- A. No previous work had been done in this area.
- B. Earlier studies did not support his theory.
- C. Textbooks on this subject lacked specific detail.
- D. Currie’s initial theory had proven to be incorrect.
26
Using a microscope, Currie was the first to discover that the body of attine ants
- A. has a white covering.
- B. is covered in wax.
- C. is poisonous to humans.
- D. has a substance useful to humans.

Reading Passage 3: Travel Books

There are many reasons why individuals have travelled beyond their own societies. Some travellers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity. While the travellers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travellers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves.

Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in ancient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the first century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geographers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travellers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge.

During the post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from East Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the first written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan West Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims travelled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad’s original pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his example, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. East Asian travellers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the post-classical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited South-East Asia and India, occasionally venturing even to East Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists travelled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written accounts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment.

Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and East Asian counterparts during the early part of the post-classical era, although gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe travelled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere - and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered - European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.

If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in post-classical times, European explorers, conquerors, merchants, and missionaries took centre stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel literature was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Richard Hakluyt, Theodore de Biy, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.

During the 19th century, European travellers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numerous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By mid-century, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travellers in particular visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the organisation of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travellers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yu-kichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.

With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and missionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times.

27
What were most people travelling for in the early days?
- A. Studying their own cultures
- B. Business
- C. Knowing other people and places better
- D. Writing travel books
28
Why did the author say writing travel books is also “a mirror” for travellers themselves?
- A. Because travellers record their own experiences.
- B. Because travellers reflect upon their own society and life.
- C. Because it increases knowledge of foreign cultures.
- D. Because it is related to the development of human society.
29
Classical Greece: Herodotus - Egypt and Anatolia - To gather information for the study of _________.
30
Han Dynasty: Zhang Qian - Central Asia - To seek _________.
31
Roman Empire: Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny the Elder - The Mediterranean - To acquire _________.
32
Post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE): Muslims - From East Africa to Indonesia, Mecca - For trading and _________.
33
5th - 9th Centuries CE: Chinese Buddhists - _________ - To collect Buddhist texts and for spiritual enlightenment.
34
Early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE): European explorers - The New World - To satisfy public curiosity for the New World. During 19th century: Colonial administrators - Asia, Africa - To provide information for the _________.
35
By mid-century of the 1800s: Sun Yat-sen, Fukuzawa Yukichi - Europe and the United States - To study the _________ of their societies.
36
20th century: People from _________ countries - Mass tourism - For entertainment and pleasure.
37
Why were the imperial rulers especially interested in these travel stories?
- A. Reading travel stories was a popular pastime.
- B. The accounts are often truthful rather than fictional.
- C. Travel books played an important role in literature.
- D. They desired knowledge of their empire.
38
Who were the largest group to record their spiritual trips during the post-classical era?
- A. Muslim traders
- B. Muslim pilgrims
- C. Chinese Buddhists
- D. Indian Buddhist teachers
39
During the early modern era, a large number of travel books were published to
- A. meet the public’s interest.
- B. explore new business opportunities.
- C. encourage trips to the new world.
- D. record the larger world.
40
What’s the main theme of the passage?
- A. The production of travel books
- B. The literary status of travel books
- C. The historical significance of travel books
- D. The development of travel books

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1. B
The answer is B because the experiment described involved dividing groups, with one group receiving a positive icon, which matches the description in the passage.
2. A
The answer is A because the passage reviews a psychology area that was poorly researched, as it points out the lack of solid evidence.
3. F
The answer is F because the passage contrasts how the brain responds differently to positive and negative stimuli, mentioning different brain areas becoming active.
4. C
The answer is C because the skeptical attitude is described as seeing the research as a waste of funds, showing doubt about its value.
5. G
The answer is G because the passage describes a substance that causes much wanting but not much liking, highlighting the difference between desire and pleasure.
6. H
The answer is H because the conclusion states that lasting happiness is hard to achieve due to the way our brains are built.
7. E
The answer is E because the passage lists the categories of human emotions, providing a description of them.
8. Candy
The answer is Candy because Professor Alice's experiment divided doctors into groups, with one group receiving candy as a positive icon.
9. definition
The answer is definition because critics question the significance of the definition for both happiness levels and virtue classification.
10. a catastrophic brain
The answer is a catastrophic brain because Professor Seligman explains that our brains evolved to focus on dangers, calling it a 'catastrophic brain.'
11. landscapes or dolphins playing
The answer is landscapes or dolphins playing because the passage says these positive images activate part of the frontal lobe.
12. primitive parts
The answer is primitive parts because unpleasant images cause a response from the primitive parts of the brain.
13. D
The answer is D because Daniel Nettle concludes that the brain's inner mechanism does not help us achieve lasting happiness. Option C is tempting but wrong because it focuses on craving, not the brain's mechanism.
14. H
The answer is H because the passage says leaf-cutter ants have succeeded at two things humans have not, such as large-scale farming and fungus cultivation.
15. C
The answer is C because the passage compares the nests of leaf-cutter ants and lower attine ants, noting differences in structure.
16. B
The answer is B because the passage assesses how leaf-cutter ants impact their environment, mentioning their significant ecological effect.
17. F
The answer is F because Escovopsis is described as having a negative effect on ant communities, harming their fungus gardens.
18. G
The answer is G because lower attine ants benefit from growing a range of fungi, which helps them survive changes.
19. D
The answer is D because the passage discusses the discovery of the age of attine-ant fungi, giving a timeline.
20. B
The answer is B because lower attines use dead vegetation to cultivate their fungus, while leaf-cutting ants use fresh leaves.
21. A
The answer is A because very small leaf-cutting ants keep the fungus free of foreign organisms, as described in the passage.
22. C
The answer is C because both leaf-cutting ants and lower attine ants can safely eat harmful plants, according to the passage.
23. A
The answer is A because leaf-cutting ants cultivate a single type of fungus, while lower attines grow several kinds.
24. A
The answer is A because leaf-cutting ants have nests with many rooms for growing fungus, unlike lower attines.
25. B
The answer is B because earlier studies did not support Currie's theory, but his research provided new evidence. Option A is wrong because some work had been done before.
26. D
The answer is D because Currie discovered that the ants' bodies have a substance useful to humans, not just a white covering or wax.
27. C
The answer is C because most early travelers wanted to know other people and places better, not just for business or writing.
28. B
The answer is B because writing travel books is called 'a mirror' since travelers reflect on their own society and life. Option A is tempting but only mentions recording experiences, not reflection.
29. Persian wars
The answer is Persian wars because Herodotus gathered information for the study of the Persian wars.
30. allies
The answer is allies because Zhang Qian traveled to Central Asia to seek allies.
31. geographical knowledge
The answer is geographical knowledge because Ptolemy and others traveled to acquire geographical knowledge.
32. pilgrimage
The answer is pilgrimage because Muslims traveled for trading and pilgrimage.
33. India
The answer is India because Chinese Buddhists traveled to India for Buddhist texts and spiritual enlightenment.
34. colonies
The answer is colonies because colonial administrators traveled to provide information for the colonies.
35. organisation
The answer is organisation because Sun Yat-sen and Fukuzawa Yukichi studied the organisation of European and American societies.
36. wealthy
The answer is wealthy because people from wealthy countries traveled for entertainment and pleasure in the 20th century.
37. D
The answer is D because imperial rulers wanted knowledge of their empire, which travel stories provided.
38. B
The answer is B because Muslim pilgrims were the largest group to record their spiritual trips during the post-classical era.
39. A
The answer is A because many travel books were published to meet the public’s interest in the early modern era.
40. D
The answer is D because the main theme is the development of travel books over time, not just their production or literary status.

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Reading Passage 1: Can Scientists Tell Us: What Happiness Is?

Reading Passage 2: The Fascinating World of Attine Ants

Reading Passage 3: Travel Books

Answer sheet

Answer key