Reading 2026-09 Test 15 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

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Reading Passage 1: Thomas Young: The Last Man Who Knew Everything

In the 21st century, it would be quite impossible for even the most learned man to know everything. However, as recently as the 18th century, there were those whose knowledge encompassed most of the information available at that time. This is a review of a biography of one such man.

(A) Thomas Young (1773–1829) contributed 63 articles to the great British encyclopaedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, including 46 biographical entries (mostly on scientists and classical scholars) and substantial essays on ‘Bridge’ (a card game), ‘Egypt’, ‘Languages’ and ‘Tides’. Was someone who could write authoritatively about so many subjects a genius, or a dilettante? In an ambitious biography, Andrew Robinson argues that Young is a good contender to be described as “the last man who knew everything”. Young has competition, however: the phrase, which Robinson uses as the title of his biography of Young, also serves as the subtitle of two other recent biographies – Leonard Warren’s 1998 life of palaeontologist Joseph Leidy (1823–1891) and Paula Findlen’s 2004 book on Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680).

(B) Young, of course, did more than write encyclopaedia entries. He presented his first paper, on the human eye, to the prestigious academic institution, the Royal Society of London, at the age of 20 and was elected a Fellow of the Society shortly afterwards. In the paper, which sought to explain how the eye focuses on objects at varying distances, Young hypothesised that this was achieved by changes in the shape of the lens. He also theorised that light travels in waves and believed that, to be able to see in colour, there must be three receptors in the eye corresponding to the three principal colours (red, green and violet) to which the retina could respond. All these hypotheses were subsequently proved correct.

(C) Later in his life, when he was in his forties, Young was instrumental in cracking the code that unlocked the unknown script on the Rosetta Stone, a tablet found in Egypt by the Napoleonic army in 1799. The stone has text in three alphabets: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs and another script that was originally unrecognisable. The unrecognisable script is now known as demotic and, as Young deduced, is directly related to Egyptian hieroglyphs. His initial work on this appeared in the Britannica entry ‘Egypt’. In another entry, Young coined the term ‘Indo-European’ to describe the family of languages spoken throughout most of Europe and northern India. These works are landmark achievements for a man who was a child prodigy but who, unlike many remarkable children, did not fade into obscurity as an adult.

(D) Born in 1773 in Somerset, England, Young lived with his maternal grandfather from an early age. He devoured books from the age of two and excelled at Latin, Greek, mathematics and natural philosophy (the 18th-century term for science). After leaving school, he was greatly encouraged by Richard Brocklesby, a physician and Fellow of the Royal Society. Following Brocklesby’s lead, Young decided to pursue a career in medicine. He studied in London and then moved on to more formal education in Edinburgh, Göttingen and Cambridge. After completing his medical training at the University of Cambridge in 1808, Young set up practice as a physician in London and, a few years later, was appointed physician at St George’s Hospital.

(E) Young’s skill as a physician, however, did not equal his talent as a scholar of natural philosophy or linguistics. In 1801, he had been appointed to a professorship of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution, where he delivered as many as 60 lectures a year. His opinions were sought by civic and national authorities on matters such as the introduction of gas lighting to London streets and methods of ship construction. From 1819, he was Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac and Secretary to the Board of Longitude. Between 1816 and 1825, he contributed many entries to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and throughout his career he authored numerous other essays, papers and books.

(F) Young is a perfect subject for a biography – perfect, but daunting. Few men contributed so much to so many technical fields. Robinson’s aim is to introduce non-scientists to Young’s work and life. He succeeds, providing clear expositions of the technical material (especially that on optics and Egyptian hieroglyphs). Some readers of this book will, like Robinson, find Young’s accomplishments impressive; others will see him, as some historians have, as a dilettante. Yet despite the rich material presented in this book, readers will not end up knowing Young personally. We catch glimpses of a playful Young, doodling Greek and Latin phrases in his notes on medical lectures and translating the verses that a young lady had written on the walls of a summerhouse into Greek elegiacs. Young was introduced into elite society, attended the theatre and learned to dance and play the flute. In addition, he was an accomplished horseman. However, his personal life looks pale next to his vibrant career and studies.

(G) Young married Eliza Maxwell in 1804, and according to Robinson, “their marriage was happy and she appreciated his work”. Almost all we know about her is that she sustained her husband through some acrimonious disputes about optics and that she worried about money when his medical career was slow to take off. Little evidence survives concerning the complexities of Young’s relationships with his mother and father, and Robinson does not credit them with shaping Young’s extraordinary mind. Despite the lack of personal detail, anyone interested in what it means to be a genius should read this book.

Questions 1–7

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 1–7 on your answer sheet, write:

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

1
Other people have been referred to as ‘the last man who knew everything’.
- A. TRUE
- B. FALSE
- C. NOT GIVEN
2
The fact that Young’s childhood brilliance continued into adulthood was normal.
3
Young’s talents as a doctor are described as surpassing his other skills.
4
Young’s advice was sought by several bodies responsible for local and national matters.
5
All Young’s written works were published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
6
Young was interested in a range of social pastimes.
7
Young suffered from poor health in his later years.

Questions 8–13

Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

8
How many life stories did Thomas Young write for the Encyclopaedia Britannica?
9
What was the subject of Thomas Young’s first academic paper?
10
What name did Young give to a group of languages?
11
Who inspired Young to enter the medical profession?
12
At which place of higher learning did Young hold a teaching position?
13
What was the improvement to London roads on which Young’s ideas were sought?

Reading Passage 2: The Return of Monkey Life

Rain-forest trees growing anew on Central American farmland are helping scientists find ways for monkey and agriculture to benefit one another.

(A) Hacienda La Pacifica, a remote working cattle ranch in Guanacaste Province of northern Costa Rica, has for decades been home to a community of mantled howler monkeys. Other native primates—white-faced capuchin monkeys and spider monkeys—were once common in this area too, but vanished after the Pan-American Highway was built nearby in the 1950s and most of the surrounding land was cleared for cattle-raising. At Hacienda La Pacifica, however, an enlightened ranch owner chose to leave some strips of native trees growing. He used these as windbreaks to protect both cattle and their food crops from dry-season winds. In the process, the farmer unwittingly founded a unique laboratory for the study of monkeys.

(B) Ken Glander, a primatologist from Duke University in the USA, is studying La Pacifica's monkeys in an effort to understand the relationship between howlers and regenerating forests at the edges of grazing lands. Studying such disturbed woodlands is increasingly important because throughout much of the New World Tropics, these are the only forests left. In the 18th century, tropical dry forests once covered most of Central America, but by the 1980s less than two percent remained undisturbed, and less than one percent was protected.

(C) Howlers persist at La Pacifica, Glander explains, because they are leaf-eaters. They eat fruit when it is available but, unlike capuchin and spider monkeys, do not depend on large areas of fruiting trees. Glander is particularly interested in howlers' ability to thrive on leaves loaded with toxins—poisonous substances designed to protect the plants. For leaf-eaters, long-term exposure to a specific plant toxin can increase their ability to neutralise the poisonous substances and absorb the leaf nutrients. Watching generations of howlers at La Pacifica has shown Glander that the monkeys keep their systems primed by sampling a variety of plants and then focusing on a small number of the most nutritious food items. The leaves that grow in regenerating forests, like those at La Pacifica, are actually more howler-friendly than those produced by the centuries-old trees that survive farther south. In younger forests, trees put most of their limited energy into growing wood, leaves and fruit, so they produce much lower levels of toxin than do well-established, old-growth trees.

(D) The value of maturing forests to primates is also a subject of study at Santa Rosa National Park, about 35 miles northwest of La Pacifica. Large areas of Santa Rosa's forests had at one time been burnt to make space for cattle ranching and coffee farming, thereby devastating local monkey habitat. But in 1971 the government protected the area by designating it a national park, and species of indigenous trees which had been absent for decades began to invade the abandoned pastures. Capuchins were the first to begin using the reborn forests, followed by howlers. Eventually, even spider monkeys, fruit-eaters that need large areas of continuous forest, returned. In the first 28 years following protection of the area, the capuchin population doubled, while the number of howlers increased seven-fold.

(E) Some of the same traits that allow howlers to survive at La Pacifica also explain their population boom in Santa Rosa. Howler reproduction is faster than that of other native monkey species. They give birth for the first time at about 3.5 years of age, compared with seven years for capuchins, and eight or more for spider monkeys. Also, while a female spider monkey will have a baby about once every four years, well-fed howlers can produce an infant every two years. Another factor is diet. Howlers are very adaptable feeders and need only a comparatively small home range. Spider monkeys, on the other hand, need to occupy a huge home range. Also crucial is the fact that the leaves howlers eat hold plenty of water, so the monkeys can survive away from open streams and water-holes. This ability gives them a real advantage over capuchin and spider monkeys, which have suffered during the long, ongoing drought in the area.

(F) Alejandro Estrada, an ecologist at Estación de Biología Los Tuxtlas in Veracruz, Mexico, has been studying the ecology of a group of howler monkeys that thrive in a habitat totally altered by humans: a cacao plantation in Tabasco State, Mexico. Cacao plants need shade to grow, so 40 years ago the owners of Cholula Cacao Farm planted figs, monkey-pod and other tall trees to form a protective canopy over their crop. The howlers moved in about 25 years ago after nearby forests were cut. This strange habitat seems to support about as many monkeys as would a same-sized patch of wild forest. The howlers eat the leaves and fruit of the shade trees, leaving the valuable cacao pods alone.

(G) Estrada believes the monkeys bring under-appreciated benefits to such plantations, dispersing the seeds of fruits such as fig and other shade trees, and fertilising the soil. Spider monkeys also forage for fruit here, though they need nearby areas of forest to survive in the long term. He hopes that farmers will begin to see the advantages of associating with wild monkeys, which could include potential ecotourism projects. 'Conservation is usually viewed as a conflict between farming practices and the need to preserve nature,' Estrada says. 'We're moving away from that vision and beginning to consider ways in which commercial activities may become a tool for the conservation of primates in human-modified landscapes.'

Questions 14–17

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A–G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–G, in boxes 14–17 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

14
a reason why newer forests provide howlers with better feeding opportunities than older forests
15
a reference to a change in farmers' attitudes towards wildlife
16
a description of the means by which howlers select the best available diet for themselves
17
figures relating to the reduction of natural wildlife habitat over a period of time

Questions 18–21

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 18–21 on your answer sheet.

Why do howlers have an advantage over other Central American monkeys?

Howler monkeys have a more rapid rate of (18) ________ than either capuchin or spider monkeys.

Unlike the other local monkey species, howlers can survive without eating (19) ________ and so can live inside a relatively small habitat area.

Their diet is more flexible, and they are able to tolerate leaves with high levels of (20) ________.

Howlers can also survive periods of (21) ________ better than the other monkey species can.

Questions 22–26

Look at the following features (Questions 22–26) and the list of locations below.

Match each feature with the correct location, A, B, C.

Write the correct letter, A, B, C, in boxes 22–26 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

List of Locations

A Hacienda La Pacifica

B Santa Rosa National Park

C Cholula Cacao Farm

22
It has seen the return of native tree species.
23
It supports only one species of native monkey.
24
Its monkey population helps the agriculture of the area.
25
It is home to populations of all three local monkey species.
26
Its landscape was altered by the construction of a transport link.

Reading Passage 3: The Voynich Manuscript

(A) The starkly modern Beinecke Library at Yale University is home to some of the most valuable books in the world: first folios of Shakespeare, Gutenberg Bibles and manuscripts from the early Middle Ages. Yet the library's most controversial possession is an unprepossessing vellum manuscript about the size of a hardback book, containing 240-odd pages of drawings and text of unknown age and authorship. Catalogued as MS 408, the manuscript would attract little attention were it not for the fact that the drawings hint at esoteric knowledge, while the text seems to be some sort of code — one that no-one has been able to break. It is known to scholars as the Voynich manuscript, after the American book-dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who bought the manuscript from a Jesuit college in Italy in 1912. Over the years, the manuscript has attracted the attention of everyone from amateur dabblers to top code-breakers, all determined to succeed where countless others have failed. Academic research papers, books and websites are devoted to making sense of the contents of the manuscript, which are freely available to all. “Most other mysteries involve second-hand reports,” says Dr Gordon Rugg of Keele University, a leading Voynich expert. “But this is one that you can see for yourself.”

(B) It is certainly strange: page after page of drawings of weird plants, astrological symbolism and human figures, accompanied by a script that looks like some form of shorthand. What does it say — and what are the drawings about? Voynich himself believed that the manuscript was the work of the 13th-century English monk Roger Bacon, famed for his knowledge of alchemy, philosophy and science. In 1921 Voynich's view that Bacon was the writer appeared to win support from the work of William Newbold, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, who claimed to have found the key to the cipher system used by Bacon. According to Newbold, the manuscript proved that Bacon had access to a microscope centuries before they were supposedly first invented. The claim that this medieval monk had observed living cells created a sensation. It soon became clear, however, that Newbold had fallen victim to wishful thinking. Other scholars showed that his “decoding” methods produced a host of possible interpretations.

(C) The Voynich manuscript has continued to defy the efforts of world-class experts. In 1944, a team was assembled to tackle the mystery, led by William Friedman, the renowned American code breaker. They began with the most basic code-breaking task: analysing the relative frequencies of the characters making up the text, looking for signs of an underlying structure. Yet Friedman's team soon found themselves in deep water. The precise size of the “alphabet” of the Voynich manuscript was unclear: it is possible to make out more than 70 distinct symbols among the 170,000-character text. Furthermore, Friedman discovered that some words and phrases appeared more often than expected in a standard language, casting doubt on claims that the manuscript concealed a real language, as encryption typically reduces word frequencies. Friedman concluded that the most plausible resolution of this paradox was that “Voynichese” is some sort of specially created artificial language, whose words are devised from concepts rather than linguistics. So could the Voynich manuscript be the earliest-known example of an artificial language? “Friedman's hypothesis commands respect because of the lifetime of cryptanalytic expertise he brought to bear,” says Rob Churchill, co-author of The Voynich Manuscript. That still leaves a host of questions unanswered, however, such as the identity of the author and the meaning of the bizarre drawings. “It does little to advance our understanding of the manuscript as a whole,” says Churchill.

(D) Even though Friedman was working more than 60 years ago, he suspected that major insights would come from using the device that had already transformed code-breaking: the computer. In this he was right — it is now the key tool for uncovering clues about the manuscript's language. The insights so far have been perplexing. For example, in 2001 another leading Voynich scholar, Dr Gabriel Landini of Birmingham University in the UK, published the results of his study of the manuscript using a pattern-detecting method called spectral analysis. This revealed evidence that the manuscript contains genuine words, rather than random nonsense, consistent with the existence of some underlying natural language. Yet the following year, Voynich expert René Zandbergen of the European Space Agency in Darmstadt, Germany, showed that the entropy of the text (a measure of the rate of transfer of information) was consistent with Friedman's suspicions that an artificial language had been used.

(E) Many are convinced that the Voynich manuscript is not a hoax. For how could a medieval hoaxer create so many tell-tale signs of a message from random nonsense? Yet even this has been challenged in new research by Rugg. Using a system first published by the Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano in 1150, in which a specially constructed grille is used to pick out symbols from a table, Rugg found he could rapidly generate text with many of the basic traits of the Voynich manuscript. Publishing his results in 2004, Rugg stresses that he had not set out to prove the manuscript a hoax. “I simply demonstrated that it is feasible to hoax something this complex in a few months,” he says.

(F) Inevitably, others beg to differ. Some scholars, such as Zandbergen, still suspect the text has genuine meaning, though believe it may never be decipherable. Others, such as Churchill, have suggested that the sheer weirdness of the illustrations and text hints at an author who had lost touch with reality. What is clear is that the book-sized manuscript, kept under lock and key at Yale University, has lost none of its fascination. “Many derive great intellectual pleasure from solving puzzles,” says Rugg. “The Voynich manuscript is as challenging a puzzle as anyone could ask for.”

Questions 27–30

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

In boxes 27–30 on your answer sheet, write:

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

27
It is uncertain when the Voynich manuscript was written.
- A. TRUE
- B. FALSE
- C. NOT GIVEN
28
Wilfrid Voynich donated the manuscript to the Beinecke Library.
29
Interest in the Voynich manuscript extends beyond that of academics and professional code breakers.
30
The text of the Voynich manuscript contains just under 70 symbols.

Questions 31–34

Look at the following statements (Questions 31–34) and the list of people below.

Match each statement with the correct person, A–H.

Write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 31–34 on your answer sheet.

List of People

A Gordon Rugg

B Roger Bacon

C William Newbold

D William Friedman

E Rob Churchill

F Gabriel Landini

G René Zandbergen

H Girolamo Cardano

31
The number of times that some words occur makes it unlikely that the manuscript is based on an authentic language.
32
Unlike some other similar objects of fascination, people can gain direct access to the Voynich manuscript.
33
The person who wrote the manuscript may not have been entirely sane.
34
It is likely that the author of the manuscript is the same person as suggested by Wilfrid Voynich.

Questions 35–39

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 35–39 on your answer sheet.

Voynich Researchers

William Newbold believed that the author of the Voynich manuscript had been able to look at cells through a (35) ________. Other researchers later demonstrated that there were flaws in his argument.

William Friedman concluded that the manuscript was written in an artificial language that was based on (36) ________.

He couldn't find out the meaning of this language but he believed that the (37) ________ would continue to bring advances in code-breaking.

Dr Gabriel Landini used a system known as (38) ________ in his research, and claims to have demonstrated the presence of genuine words.

Dr Gordon Rugg's system involved a grille, that made it possible to quickly select symbols that appeared in a (39) ________. Rugg's conclusion was that the manuscript lacked genuine meaning.

Question 40

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter in box 40 on your answer sheet.

40
The writer's main aim in this passage is to
- A. explain the meaning of the manuscript.
- B. determine the true identity of the manuscript's author.
- C. describe the numerous attempts to decode the manuscript.
- D. identify which research into the manuscript has had the most media coverage.

Answer sheet

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Show answer key

1. A
The passage says that others have also been called ‘the last man who knew everything’, so this statement is TRUE.
2. B
The passage explains that Young’s continued brilliance was unusual, not normal, so the answer is FALSE.
3. B
It is stated that Young was skilled in many areas, but his medical talents were not described as better than his other skills, so the answer is FALSE.
4. A
The passage mentions that several local and national bodies asked for Young’s advice, so this statement is TRUE.
5. B
Not all of Young’s works were published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, so the answer is FALSE.
6. A
The passage says Young enjoyed a variety of social pastimes, so the answer is TRUE.
7. C
There is no information about Young’s health in later years, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.
8. 46
The passage states that Young wrote 46 life stories for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
9. the human eye / human eye
Young’s first academic paper was about the human eye.
10. Indo-European
Young called the group of languages ‘Indo-European’.
11. Richard Brocklesby
Richard Brocklesby inspired Young to become a doctor.
12. the Royal Institution
Young taught at the Royal Institution.
13. gas lighting
Young gave ideas about gas lighting to improve London roads.
14. C
Option C explains that newer forests have more food for howlers than older forests.
15. G
Option G refers to a change in how farmers view wildlife.
16. C
Option C describes how howlers choose the best diet for themselves.
17. B
Option B gives numbers about the loss of wildlife habitat over time.
18. reproduction
19. fruit
20. toxins
21. drought
22. B
Santa Rosa National Park has seen native tree species return.
23. A
Hacienda La Pacifica only has one native monkey species.
24. C
Cholula Cacao Farm’s monkeys help local agriculture.
25. B
Santa Rosa National Park is home to all three local monkey species.
26. A
Hacienda La Pacifica’s landscape changed because of a transport link.
27. A
The passage says it is not certain when the Voynich manuscript was written, so this is TRUE.
28. C
There is no information about Wilfrid Voynich donating the manuscript to the Beinecke Library, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.
29. A
The passage says that people other than academics and code breakers are interested in the manuscript, so this is TRUE.
30. B
The passage states that the manuscript has more than 70 symbols, so this is FALSE.
31. D
32. A
33. E
34. C
35. microscope
36. concepts
37. computer
38. spectral analysis
39. table
40. C
The passage mainly describes the many attempts to decode the manuscript, so option C is correct. Option A is wrong because the passage does not explain the manuscript’s meaning.

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Reading Passage 1: Thomas Young: The Last Man Who Knew Everything

Reading Passage 2: The Return of Monkey Life

Reading Passage 3: The Voynich Manuscript

Answer sheet

Answer key