Reading 2026-09 Test 4 — 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: Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was born in 1888, into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand. She became one of New Zealand's best-known writers, using the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. The daughter of a banker, and born into a middle-class family, she was also a first cousin of Countess Elizabeth von Arnim, a distinguished novelist in her time. Mansfield had two older sisters and a younger brother. Her father, Harold Beauchamp, went on to become the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand. In 1893, the Mansfield family moved to Karori, a suburb of Wellington, where Mansfield would spend the happiest years of her childhood; she later used her memories of this time as an inspiration for her Prelude story.

Her first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls' High School magazine in 1898 and 1899. In 1902, she developed strong feelings for a musician who played the cello, Arnold Trowell, although her feelings were not, for the most part, returned. Mansfield herself was an accomplished cellist, having received lessons from Trowell's father. Mansfield wrote in her journals of feeling isolated to some extent in New Zealand, and, in general terms, of her interest in the Maori people (New Zealand's native people), who were often portrayed in a sympathetic light in her later stories, such as How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped.

She moved to London in 1903, where she attended Queen's College, along with her two sisters. Mansfield recommenced playing the cello, an occupation that she believed, during her time at Queen's, she would take up professionally. She also began contributing to the college newspaper, with such a dedication to it that she eventually became its editor. She was particularly interested in the works of the French writers of this period and in the 19th century British writer, Oscar Wilde, and she was appreciated amongst fellow students at Queen's for her lively and charismatic approach to life and work. She met fellow writer Ida Baker, a South African, at the college, and the pair became lifelong friends. Mansfield did not actively support the suffragette movement in the UK. Women in New Zealand had gained the right to vote in 1893.

Mansfield first began journeying into other parts of Europe in the period 1903–1906, mainly to Belgium and Germany. After finishing her schooling in England, she returned to her New Zealand home in 1906, only then beginning to write short stories in a serious way. She had several works published in Australia in a magazine called The Native Companion, which was her first paid writing work, and by this time she had her mind set on becoming a professional writer. It was also the first occasion on which she used the pseudonym “K. Mansfield”. Mansfield rapidly grew discontented with the provincial New Zealand lifestyle, and with her family. Two years later she headed again to London. Her father sent her an annual subsidy of £100 for the rest of her life. In later years, she would express both admiration and disdain for New Zealand in her journals.

In 1911, Mansfield met John Middleton Murry, the Oxford scholar and editor of the literary magazine Rhythm. They were later to marry in 1918. Mansfield became a co-editor of Rhythm, which was subsequently called The Blue Review, in which more of her works were published. She and Murry lived in various houses in England and briefly in Paris. The Blue Review failed to gain enough readers and was no longer published. Their attempt to set up as writers in Paris was cut short by Murry's bankruptcy, which resulted from the failure of this and other journals. Life back in England meant frequently changed addresses and very limited funds.

Between 1915 and 1918, Mansfield moved between England and Bandol, France. She and Murry developed close contact with other well-known writers of the time such as D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell and Aldous Huxley. By October 1918 Mansfield had become seriously ill; she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and was advised to enter a sanatorium. She could no longer spend winters in London. In the autumn of 1918 she was so ill that she decided to go to Ospedaletti in Italy. It was the publication of Bliss and Other Stories in 1920 that was to solidify Mansfield's reputation as a writer. Mansfield also spent time in Menton, France, as the tenant of her father's cousin at “The Villa Isola Bella”. There she wrote eight stories including Miss Brill and The Daughters of the Late Colonel, the latter of which she pronounced to be “…the only story that satisfies me to any extent”.

Mansfield produced a great deal of work in the final years of her life, and much of her prose and poetry remained unpublished at her death in 1923. After her death, her husband, Murry, took on the task of editing and publishing her works. His efforts resulted in two additional volumes of short stories, The Doves' Nest and Something Childish, published in 1923 and 1924 respectively; the publication of her Poems; as well as a collection of critical writings (Novels and Novelists) and a number of editions of Mansfield's previously unpublished letters and journals.

Questions 1–6

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

In boxes 1–6 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
The name Katherine Mansfield, which appears on the writer's books, was exactly the same as her original name.
- A. TRUE
- B. FALSE
- C. NOT GIVEN
2
Mansfield won a prize for a story she wrote for the High School Reporter.
3
How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped portrayed Maori people in a favourable way.
4
When Mansfield was at Queen's College, she planned to be a professional writer.
5
Mansfield was unpopular with the other students at Queen's College.
6
In London, Mansfield showed little interest in politics.

Questions 7–13

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 7–13 on your answer sheet.

Katherine Mansfield's adult years

(7) ________

– moved from England back to New Zealand

– first paid writing work was in a publication based in (8) ________

– her (9) ________ and the New Zealand way of life made her feel dissatisfied

1908

– returned to London

1911–1919

– Met John Middleton Murry in 1911

– (10) ________ prevented Mansfield and Murry from staying together in Paris

– spent time with distinguished (11) ________

– from 1916, tuberculosis restricted the time she spent in London

1920

– her (12) ________ was consolidated when Bliss and Other Stories was published

– wrote several stories at “Villa Isola Bella”

1923–1924

– Mansfield's (13) ________ published more of her works after her death

Reading Passage 2: Early Approaches to Organisational Design

A review of the classical and neoclassical theories of organisational structures

(A) Determining the ‘best’ type of organisational structure for a particular situation has long been an important task for managers in all types of organisations. All structures have advantages and disadvantages and managers face the challenge of developing the most appropriate design for changing circumstances.

(B) The Classical Approach

Early management writers attempted to approach organisational design using a set of principles that would make an organisational structure perform efficiently in most situations, independent of external conditions and internal objectives. The sociologist Max Weber and management writers Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol were major contributors to this so-called classical approach. They believed that the most efficient organisations had a legalised, formal and hierarchical structure called a ‘bureaucracy’. Members of the organisation were guided by a sense of duty to the organisation and by a set of rational rules and regulations. According to Weber, such organisations were characterised by the specialisation of tasks, appointment by merit, and an impersonal climate. Today the word ‘bureaucracy’ sometimes has negative connotations. Early management writers, however, commended bureaucracy as an organisational design for its rationality, rules for decision-making, clear chain of command, and promotion of people based on ability and experience, rather than favouritism or whim. Weber also believed that clearly specified authority and responsibility made performance easier to evaluate and reward.

Weber, Taylor and Fayol developed their theories when organisations that resembled this bureaucratic model were modern and efficient. It became evident, however, that some of the major advantages of the bureaucratic structure could become disadvantages if the theory were applied dogmatically. For example, the safeguards against favouritism could be rigidly imposed by adhering excessively to rules, resulting in both managers and subordinates becoming depersonalised. The classical approach has been criticised from two major perspectives. First, the theory may not have a basis in reality. Have organisations like those described by Weber and the others ever existed? Second, it claims that organisations designed and managed according to bureaucratic principles will enjoy the predicted benefits. But critics argue that the world no longer fits the assumptions in Weber’s model (if it ever did), and so a bureaucracy might not yield beneficial results. Early human relations researchers and behavioural scientists attempted to deal with the major inadequacy of the classical bureaucratic model: neglect of the human element. They argued that an industrial organisation has two objectives: economic effectiveness and employee satisfaction. They also wrote that the bureaucratic structure could be improved by permitting more subordinate participation in decision-making. Because these researchers tried to improve, and not reject, the classical model, they are sometimes called neoclassical theorists and include Douglas McGregor, Chris Argyris and Rensis Likert.

(D) The Neoclassical Approach

McGregor believed that the vertical division of labour that characterised bureaucratic organisations was derived from negative and false assumptions about workers which he called Theory X. Managers assume lower-level employees lack ambition and need orders to work effectively. The rigid formal hierarchy is designed to maintain managers’ power over subordinates. Decision-making takes place at upper levels of management while the decisions are carried out by people at lower levels. McGregor argued that organisations based instead on Theory Y assumptions use their members’ potential. Theory Y assumes that most people find work satisfying, commit themselves willingly to organisational goals and seek responsibility. Members have more independence than in bureaucratic organisations and lower-level participation in decision-making is encouraged.

(E) Argyris was concerned that managers in bureaucratic organisations had near-total responsibility for controlling their subordinates’ work. He argued that managerial domination makes subordinates passive and dependent, and decreases their sense of responsibility and self-control. Argyris argued for an alternative organisational design that acknowledged human needs and feelings, and increased workers’ satisfaction. Like McGregor, he favoured giving subordinates more independence and decision-making power to create a more informal organisational culture. Likert shared the perspectives of McGregor and Argyris. In his research, he found that managers who encouraged their subordinates could motivate them more than traditional authoritarian managers. Likert based his model of four possible systems on these findings. In System 1, power and authority are distributed strictly according to the classical management subordinate relationship: a manager gives orders to lower-level members. In System 4 organisations, by contrast, there is extensive participation in decision-making and problem-solving groups. Some individuals in each group also belong to other work groups to ensure communication between them. System 4 represents Likert’s view of an ideal organisation.

(F) Criticisms of the Neoclassical Approach

The neoclassical approach to organisational design compensates for limitations in the traditional classical model, but it has also been criticised. First, the neoclassicists share the classical assumption that there is one best way to design an organisation. They overlook environmental, technological, and other variables that might affect an organisation’s design, and overemphasise psychological and behavioural variables. Second, Theories X and Y oversimplify human motivation and neglect individual differences. Not everyone is motivated by the non-monetary aspects of work, nor is all work satisfying. Finally, the coordination of work groups to achieve organisational goals may be more difficult than the neoclassicists suggest, particularly when the objectives of lower-level employees are not consistent with those of upper-level managers.

Questions 14–15

Choose TWO letters, A–E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 14 and 15 on your answer sheet.

14–15
According to the writer, which TWO of the following are characteristics of the classical approach to organisational design?
- A. a marked ranking order for employees
- B. giving importance to everyone’s work
- C. the advancement of older workers
- D. a neutral working environment
- E. increased benefits for workers

Questions 16–17

Choose TWO letters, A–E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 16 and 17 on your answer sheet.

16–17
According to the writer, which TWO of the following are criticisms of the classical approach to organisational design?
- A. Too many guidelines are proposed.
- B. Certain practices become negative if they are implemented too strictly.
- C. Managers and workers are unable to co-operate with each other.
- D. The administrative standards are unsuited to some work environments.
- E. Positive outcomes which were expected in the past would be unlikely today.

Questions 18–19

Choose TWO letters, A–E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 18 and 19 on your answer sheet.

18–19
According to the writer, which TWO of the following are aims of the neoclassical approach to organisational design?
- A. to ensure workers are treated as individual people
- B. to create a formal atmosphere in the workplace
- C. to change the methods of production
- D. to allow workers a greater say in what happens at the workplace
- E. to standardise the procedures for promotion of workers

Questions 20–21

Choose TWO letters, A–E.

Write the correct letters in boxes 20 and 21 on your answer sheet.

20–21
According to the writer, which TWO of the following are criticisms of the neoclassical approach to organisational design?
- A. It suggests that workers are involved in too many decisions.
- B. The effects of some psychological factors are given low importance.
- C. The effects of the workplace surroundings are ignored.
- D. It exaggerates the success of the organisations that use this approach.
- E. It assumes that all people work for enjoyment rather than financial gain.

Questions 22–26

Look at the following beliefs (Questions 22–26) and the list of people below.

Match each belief with the correct person, A–D.

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

NB You may use any letter more than once.

List of People

A Max Weber

B Douglas McGregor

C Chris Argyris

D Rensis Likert

22
The classical approach relied upon managers having incorrect views about workers.
23
In the best organisational model, there is shared decision-making and interaction between teams at work.
24
In an efficient organisation, workers develop expertise in particular areas.
25
An organisation must take into account the emotional demands of people.
26
The classical approach allowed workers’ skills to be assessed in a straightforward way.

Reading Passage 3: Neanderthal Technology

A We think of our prehistoric ancestors as people of the ice and snow, living in caves, and for many of the West European Neanderthalers that is just a picture of their life. But where there were no caves, further to the east on the Russian steppe, for example, open-air sites with some sort of constructed shelter were the only option. We now know much more about the cave sites than the open-air ones because, historically, it was the cave sites of Western Europe that were first explored by archaeologists and also because open-air sites are harder to find – many of them have disappeared under deep mud deposits or under the rising postglacial seas. Caves, moreover, aid the survival of archaeological material and can preserve the records of remote millennia.

B In south-west France, the limestone caves of the Périgord region made ideal homes for the Neanderthal people. There were good supplies of flint to hand for axes and the like, and the caves were often sited in small river valleys that offered protection against the worst of the weather. The Neanderthalers liked south-facing caves, for obvious reasons of sunshine and wind avoidance, and caves at some height above the valley floor offered refuge from floods and good game-watching vantage points. The Périgord region during the last ice age was, in fact, an exceptionally benign habitat for humans. It enjoyed a rather maritime climate with cooler summers that permitted the extension of tundra and steppe over its higher plateaux, and its year-round high levels of sunshine favoured the growth of the ground plants needed by reindeer, bison and horse. Winters were mildish for the ice age, animals never needed to migrate far from summer to winter, and men never needed to travel far from home to find abundant supplies of meat.

C In Central and Eastern Europe, where caves are less readily available, such open-air sites as have been discovered were mostly located near water: bottom-land was a good area to be for people and animals, and also because the sedimentation pattern of lakes and stream courses has aided archaeological preservation – whereas erosion has presumably blown away sites which were out in the open. Some of the open-air sites in Germany, Central Europe and Russia have provided valuable information about Neanderthal man and his way of life. From Moldova, for example, comes evidence that has been interpreted as the remains of wind-breaks, or even a large tent-ring, up to about 8 x 5 m in size, of mainly mammoth bones enclosing a dense concentration of stone tools, animal bones and ash.

D From the West European caves more evidence of built structures is available, and some of it goes back a long way in time. In the Grotte du Lazaret, near Nice, at a date during the last ice age but one, claims for some sort of skin tent within the cave have been advanced, on the basis of arrangements of large stones out from the cave wall that might have supported timber struts for a covering of skins up to the rock face above. At Lazaret, what might be openings in the hypothesised tents seem to point away from the cave mouth, and finds of wolf and fox foot bones, without the rest of the skeletons, inside these 'tents' have been thought to indicate the use of animal pelts as bed coverings. The two patches of ash at Lazaret that mark ancient fires, with stone tools around them evidently made and used on the spot, are edged with small marine mollusc shells, prompting the excavator to suggest that seaweed had been used as bedding around the fires. The cave of Baume-Bonne in the Basses-Alpes region of France, another early site, boasts ten square metres of cobbles brought up from the local river and laid down, as though to take care of a puddle area in the cave, with the smoothest and roundest surfaces of the stones uppermost, and there are other similar cases.

E The ash encountered in concentrations at some sites testifies to the Neanderthal people's use of fire: not surprising, since use of fire was, by Neanderthal times, an already ancient accomplishment of evolving humanity, and survival in the sub-arctic conditions faced by the Neanderthalers is inconceivable without control of fire. Fire gave warmth, light, heat for cooking and defence against predatory animals. A charred piece of birch from Krapina in Croatia is thought to be the remains of a fire-making twirl stick. But Neanderthal hearths, in the sense of specially constructed places for fire, are fewer and harder to identify with certainty than the mere ash piles that are a regular feature of their sites. They seem often to have just lit a small fire (40–50 cm across) on the existing ground surface of the cave, without preparation. Judging from the shallow penetration of heat effects under the ash, this fire was only of short duration. Sometimes the fires were larger in size, up to one metre across, and quite irregular in shape. It is not always easy to decide how much additional structure some fires possessed: claims of stone circles to contain the fire run up against the fact that stones tend to litter the cave floors everywhere and those around a fire can quite accidentally look as though they were arranged in a circle.

Questions 27–31

Reading Passage 3 has five sections, A–E.

Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i–vi, in boxes 27–31 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i Evidence of outdoor dwellings

ii Learning to make fire

iii A perfect place to live

iv Examining the cave contents

v Contrasting two types of home

vi A vital source of power

27
Section A
28
Section B
29
Section C
30
Section D
31
Section E

Questions 32–36

Look at the following findings (Questions 32–36) and the list of places below.

Match each finding with the correct place, A–E.

Write the correct letter, A–E, in boxes 32–36 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

List of Places

A The Périgord region

B Moldova

C The Grotte du Lazaret

D The cave of Baume-Bonne

E Krapina

32
a burnt piece of wood
33
evidence of efforts to prevent pools of water forming
34
the remains of sea creatures
35
a circular arrangement of animal bones
36
evidence suggesting the use of animal fur for warmth

Questions 37–39

Complete the summary below.

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

Write your answers in boxes 37–39 on your answer sheet.

The use of fire

Neanderthalers could not have survived without fire because the conditions they lived in were (37) ________. Most evidence of purpose-built fires takes the form of ash piles, features of which suggest that the fires lasted a (38) ________ time. It is hard to be certain about the size and structure of the fires, though they were certainly needed to protect the occupants from dangerous (39) ________, among other things.

Question 40

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

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

40
The purpose of the writer of this article is to
- A. argue that Neanderthal homes were bigger than originally thought.
- B. explain why Neanderthal people migrated to Western Europe.
- C. discuss what is known about Neanderthal settlements.
- D. track the progress of early Neanderthal development.

Answer sheet

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Show answer key

1. B
The answer is FALSE because the passage says Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp, so her published name was not exactly the same as her original name.
2. C
The answer is NOT GIVEN because there is no information in the passage about Mansfield winning a prize for a story in the High School Reporter.
3. A
The answer is TRUE because the passage says 'How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped' showed Maori people in a positive or favourable way.
4. B
The answer is FALSE because the passage says Mansfield did not plan to be a professional writer while at Queen's College.
5. B
The answer is FALSE because the passage says she was popular with other students at Queen's College, not unpopular.
6. C
The answer is NOT GIVEN because there is no information about Mansfield's interest or lack of interest in politics while in London.
7. 1906
8. Australia
9. family
10. bankruptcy
11. writers
12. reputation
13. husband
14. A / D
The answers are A and D because the passage says the classical approach has a marked ranking order for employees and a neutral working environment. Option B is wrong because it does not mention giving importance to everyone’s work.
15. A / D
16. B / E
17. B / E
18. A / D
19. A / D
20. C / E
21. C / E
22. B
23. D
24. A
25. C
26. A
27. v
28. iii
29. i
30. iv
31. vi
32. E
33. D
34. C
35. B
36. C
37. sub-arctic
38. short
39. predatory animals
40. C

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Reading Passage 1: Katherine Mansfield

Reading Passage 2: Early Approaches to Organisational Design

Reading Passage 3: Neanderthal Technology

Answer sheet

Answer key