Reading 2026-04 Test 8 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

Tái tạo từ ký ức thí sinh — không phải tài liệu chính thức của IELTS. Audio và bài đọc chỉ là bản luyện tập.

Reading Passage 1 - Categorizing societies

When research scholars, including archaeologists and anthropologists, study societies past or present, it can be very useful to have a system of ranking against which to test their ideas. A four-fold categorizing system was developed by the American anthropologist Elman Service; each grouping is associated with certain types of site and settlement. The four types are known as bands, tribes, chiefdoms and early states.

Bands

These are small-scale societies, generally of fewer than 100 people, who live by hunting and gathering, moving seasonally to take advantage of wild (undomesticated) food sources. Most groups who live in this way today, such as the Hadza of Tanzania or the San of southern Africa, would be classified as bands. The members of one band are generally related to each other, either by descent or by marriage. Bands lack formal leaders, so there are no clear economic differences or other differences in status among the members. Because bands are composed of mobile groups, their sites consist mainly of seasonally occupied camps and some other sites, such as work sites, where tools are made or other specific activities are carried out. Archaeological sites associated with this type of society may show evidence of insubstantial dwellings, along with the debris of residential occupation. Most sites from the Palaeolithic period (more than 12,000 years ago) seem to be associated with groups of this type.

Tribes

These are generally larger than bands but rarely number more than a few thousand people, whose diet is mainly based on plants or domestic animals. Typically, these people are settled farmers, but for some groups life is nomadic, with a mobile economy based on herds of animals. Although some tribes have officials, these lack the economic base necessary for effective use of power. The typical settlement pattern for tribes is one of permanent agricultural homesteads or villages. Characteristically, no one settlement dominates any of the others in the region. Instead, the archaeologist often finds evidence of isolated, permanently occupied houses, or permanent villages. These latter may be made up of a collection of free-standing houses like those of the first farmers of the Danube Valley in Europe, or their houses may be grouped together, as in the pueblos of the American Southwest, or the early farming village of Catalhoyuk in what is now Turkey.

Chiefdoms

These operate on the principle of ranking - differences in social status between people. Different lineages (groups claiming descent from a common ancestor) are graded on a scale of prestige, and the senior lineage, and hence the society as a whole, is governed by a chief. Prestige and rank are determined by how closely related one is to the chief, and there is no true stratification into classes. The role of the chief is crucial. Often, there is local specialisation in craft products such as pottery, cloth and leatherware, and any surplus of these and of foodstuffs is periodically paid to the chief. He uses these to pay his retainers and may also redistribute them to his subjects as rewards. The chiefdom generally has a centre of power, often with temples, residences of the chief and his retainers, and craft specialists. Chiefdoms vary greatly in size, but the range is generally between 5,000 and 20,000 persons. Chiefdoms give indications that some sites were more important than others and may have operated as permanent ritual and ceremonial centres, although they were not centres with an established bureaucracy. Examples are Moundville in Alabama, USA, or the late-Neolithic monuments of Wessex in southern Britain, including the famous ceremonial centre of Stonehenge.

Early states

These preserve many of the features of chiefdoms, but the ruler, perhaps a king or queen, has explicit authority to establish laws and to enforce them by means of a standing army. The society no longer depends on kin relationships but is stratified into different classes. Agricultural workers and the poorer urban dwellers make up the base of the pyramid, with the craft specialists above them and the priests and relatives of the ruler higher still. The society is regarded as a territory owned by the ruling lineage and populated by tenants who have the obligation to pay taxes. The central capital houses the officials of a bureaucratic administration. One of their main functions is to collect revenue (often in the form of taxes and tolls) and distribute it to government, army and craft specialists. Many early states developed complex redistribution systems to support these essential services.

Early-state societies show a characteristic settlement pattern in which cities play the predominant part. The city is typically a large population centre of more than 5,000 people, with major public buildings, and often there is a pronounced settlement hierarchy with the capital city as the major centre and subsidiary or regional centres as well as local villages. Certainly, it would be wrong to over-emphasise the importance of the four types of society given above, or to spend too long agonising as to whether a particular society should be classified in one category or another. However, in seeking to talk about early societies, we must use words and hence concepts to do so. Elman Service's categories provide us with a good framework to organise our thoughts. They should not, however, deflect us from focusing on changes over time in the different institutions of a society, whether in the social sphere, the organisation of the food quest, technology, contact and exchange, or the spiritual life.

Questions 1-7: True/False/Not Given

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
There is usually little difference in wealth between the various members of a band.
2
In tribes, farmers typically grow a wide range of food plants.
3
A typical tribe has one settlement which is more important than others.
4
In a chiefdom, social status usually depends on the amount of land a person owns.
5
A chiefdom typically contains some workers who are engaged in making goods.
6
An early state may depend on military power to maintain law and order.
7
Bureaucratic officials in early states receive higher salaries than any other workers.

Questions 8-13: Short Answer

Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND / OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

8
What items do bands produce at work sites?
9
Which way of life, apart from settled farming, may be followed by people in tribes?
10
How were houses arranged in the village of Catalhoyuk?
11
Which items, apart from craft goods, may be given by a chief to members of his chiefdom?
12
What is usually the maximum number of people living in a society which has a chief?
13
Apart from less wealthy inhabitants of cities, which group forms the lowest class in an early state?

Reading Passage 2 - Father of Modern Management

A. Peter Drucker was one of the most important people to think about management in the last 100 years. He wrote about 40 books and thousands of articles, and he never stopped trying to show the world how important management is. 'Management is a part of institutions. It is the part that turns a group of people into an organization and turns human effort into performance.' Did he do well? It was amazing how far his influence went. Drucker's ideas can be found wherever people try to solve hard management problems. This includes big and small organizations, the public and private sectors, and, increasingly, the nonprofit sector.

B. Winston Churchill liked his first two books, The End of Economic Man (1939) and The Future of Industrial Man (1942), but academic critics didn't like how they covered so many different topics. Still, the second of these books got people's attention because it argued passionately that businesses had a social purpose as well as a financial one. The Concept of the Corporation, his third book, was an instant hit and has been in print ever since.

C. The two most interesting arguments in The Concept of the Corporation had very little to do with the decentralization trend. They were going to dominate his work. The first one had to do with 'empowering' workers. Drucker thought that workers should be seen as resources rather than just as costs. He was a harsh critic of the assembly-line system of production, which was the most common at the time. This was partly because assembly lines moved at the speed of the slowest worker and partly because they didn't use the creativity of individual workers. The second point had to do with the rise of knowledge workers. Drucker said that the world is moving from an 'economy of goods' to an 'economy of knowledge' and from a society ruled by the industrial proletariat to one ruled by brain workers. He insisted that this had huge implications for both managers and politicians. Managers had to stop treating workers like parts of a big, cold machine and start treating them like brain workers. In turn, politicians had to realize that knowledge, and therefore education, was the most important resource for any advanced society. Yet Drucker also thought that this economy had effects on knowledge workers themselves. They had to accept that they were neither 'bosses' nor 'workers,' but something in between - entrepreneurs who had to develop their most important resource, their brainpower, and who also had to take more control of their careers, including their pension plans.

D. But his job was also hard in some ways. Drucker came up with 'management by objectives,' one of the most successful ideas from the rational school of management. In 1954's The Practice of Management, one of his most important books, he talked about how important it was for managers and businesses to set clear long-term goals and then turn those long-term goals into more immediate goals. He said that companies should have an elite group of general managers who set these long-term goals, and then another group of more specialized managers. For his critics, this was a change from the way he used to talk about the human side of management. Drucker thought that everything fit together perfectly: if you put too much faith in empowerment, you risk anarchy, and if you put too much faith in command and control, you lose creativity. Managers should set long-term goals, but then let their employees figure out how to reach those goals. Drucker may have helped make management a global field, but he also pushed it outside of business. He was a thinker about management, not just business. He thought that management is 'the organ that defines all modern institutions,' not just companies.

E. Drucker's work is often criticized for three reasons. The first is that he focused on big companies instead of small ones. In many ways, The Concept of the Corporation was a tribute to big organizations. Drucker said, 'We know now that in modern industrial production, especially modern mass production, the small unit is not only inefficient, it can't produce at all.' The book helped start the 'big organization boom' that dominated business thinking for the next 20 years. The second complaint is that Drucker's enthusiasm for management by objectives led the business down a dead end. They prefer that ideas, including ideas for long-term strategies, come from the bottom and middle of the organization, not from the top. Third, Drucker is criticized for being an outsider who is getting left behind as his field becomes more strict. There is no area of academic management theory that he made his own.

F. The first two arguments have some merit. Drucker never wrote anything else as good as The Concept of the Corporation about how entrepreneurs start businesses. Drucker's work on 'management by objectives' doesn't fit well with his earlier and later writings on how important knowledge workers and self-directed teams are. But the third argument is short-sighted and unfair because it doesn't take into account Drucker's role as a pioneer in creating the modern profession of management. He made one of the first organized studies of a big company. He was the first person to suggest that ideas can help companies get going. The biggest problem with judging Drucker's impact is that so many of his ideas have become common knowledge. He is a victim of his success. His writings about the importance of knowledge workers and giving people power may sound a bit boring now. But they weren't boring when he first thought of them in the 1940s or when they were first used in the Anglo-Saxon world in the 1980s. In addition, Drucker kept coming up with new ideas until he was in his 90s. His work on how to run non-profit organizations remained at the cutting edge.

Questions 14-19: Matching headings

Reading Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i. The popularity and impact of Drucker's works

ii. Finding fault with Drucker

iii. The impact of economic globalisation

iv. Government regulation of businesses

v. Early publications of Drucker

vi. Drucker's concept of balanced management

vii. Drucker's rejection of big businesses

viii. An appreciation of the pros and cons of Drucker's works

ix. The changing role of the employee

14
Paragraph A
15
Paragraph B
16
Paragraph C
17
Paragraph D
18
Paragraph E
19
Paragraph F

Questions 20-22: Yes/No/Not Given

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet, write YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer, NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer, NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.

20
Drucker thought that in a period of social transition, managers and politicians would dominate the economy.
21
Drucker believed that workers should not just put themselves just in employment relationships, but also take the initiative to develop their own intellectual resources.
22
Drucker's works on management is out of date in modern days.

Questions 23 and 24: Multiple choice (choose TWO)

Which TWO of the following are true of Drucker's views?

A. Employees should be given more authority and carry out creative tasks.

B. Young executives should be given chances to start from low-level jobs.

C. More emphasis should be laid on fostering the development of the union.

D. Managers should facilitate workers with tools of self-appraisal instead of controlling them from the outside force.

E. Leaders should go beyond the scope of management details and strategically establish feasible goals.

23
Which TWO of the following are true of Drucker's views?
24
Which TWO of the following are true of Drucker's views?

Questions 25 and 26: Multiple choice (choose TWO)

Which TWO of the following are mentioned in the passage as the criticisms of Drucker?

A. His works focused too much on big organisations and ignored the small ones.

B. His views were too broad and lacked precision and accuracy about the facts.

C. He put the source of objectives more on corporate executives but not on average workers.

D. He acted much like a maverick and did not set up his management group.

E. He was overstating the case of knowledge workers when warning businesses to get prepared.

25
Which TWO of the following are mentioned in the passage as the criticisms of Drucker?
26
Which TWO of the following are mentioned in the passage as the criticisms of Drucker?

Reading Passage 3 - The Significant Role of Mother Tongue in Education

One consequence of population mobility is an increasing diversity within schools. To illustrate, in the city of Toronto in Canada, 58% of kindergarten pupils come from homes where English is not the usual language of communication. Schools in Europe and North America have experienced this diversity for years, and educational policies and practices vary widely between countries and even within countries. Some political parties and groups search for ways to solve the problem of diverse communities and their integration in schools and society. However, they see few positive consequences for the host society and worry that this diversity threatens the identity of the host society. Consequently, they promote unfortunate educational policies that will make the 'problem' disappear. If students retain their culture and language, they are viewed as less capable of identifying with the mainstream culture and learning the mainstream language of the society.

The challenge for educators and policy-makers is to shape the evolution of national identity in such a way that the rights of all citizens (including school children) are respected, and the cultural, linguistic, and economic resources of the nation are maximised. To waste the resources of the nation by discouraging children from developing their mother tongues is quite simply unintelligent from the point of view of national self-interest. A first step in providing an appropriate education for culturally and linguistically diverse children is to examine what the existing research says about the role of children's mother tongues in their educational development.

In fact, the research is very clear. When children continue to develop their abilities in two or more languages throughout their primary school, they gain a deeper understanding of language and how to use it effectively. They have more practice in processing language, especially when they develop literacy in both. More than 150 research studies conducted during the past 25 years strongly support what Goethe, the famous eighteenth-century German philosopher, once said: the person who knows only one language does not truly know that language. Research suggests that bilingual children may also develop more flexibility in their thinking as a result of processing information through two different languages.

The level of development of children's mother tongue is a strong predictor of their second language development. Children who come to school with a solid foundation in their mother tongue develop stronger literacy abilities in the school language. When parents and other caregivers (e.g., grandparents) are able to spend time with their children and tell stories or discuss issues with them in a way that develops their mother tongue, children come to school well-prepared to learn the school language and succeed educationally. Children's knowledge and skills transfer across languages from the mother tongue to the school language. Transfer across languages can be two-way: both languages nurture each other when the educational environment permits children access to both languages.

Some educators and parents are suspicious of mother tongue-based teaching programs because they worry that they take time away from the majority language. For example, in a bilingual program when 50% of the time is spent teaching through children's home language and 50% through the majority language, surely children won't progress as far in the latter? One of the most strongly established findings of educational research, however, is that well-implemented bilingual programs can promote literacy and subject-matter knowledge in a minority language without any negative effects on children's development in the majority language. Within Europe, the Foyer program in Belgium, which develops children's speaking and literacy abilities in three languages (their mother tongue, Dutch and French), most clearly illustrates the benefits of bilingual and trilingual education (see Cummins, 2000).

It is easy to understand how this happens. When children are learning through a minority language, they are learning concepts and intellectual skills too. Pupils who know how to tell the time in their mother tongue understand the concept of telling time. In order to tell time in the majority language, they do not need to re-learn the concept. Similarly, at more advanced stages, there is transfer across languages in other skills such as knowing how to distinguish the main idea from the supporting details of a written passage or story, and distinguishing fact from opinion. Studies of secondary school pupils are providing interesting findings in this area, and it would be worth extending this research.

Many people marvel at how quickly bilingual children seem to 'pick up' conversational skills in the majority language at school (although it takes much longer for them to catch up with native speakers in academic language skills). However, educators are often much less aware of how quickly children can lose their ability to use their mother tongue, even in the home context. The extent and rapidity of language loss will vary according to the concentration of families from a particular linguistic group in the neighborhood. Where the mother tongue is used extensively in the community, then language loss among young children will be less. However, where language communities are not concentrated in particular neighborhoods, children can lose their ability to communicate in their mother tongue within 2-3 years of starting school. They may retain receptive skills in the language but they will use the majority language in speaking with their peers and siblings and in responding to their parents. By the time children become adolescents, the linguistic division between parents and children has become an emotional chasm. Pupils frequently become alienated from the cultures of both home and school with predictable results.

Questions 27-30: Multiple choice

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write the correct letter in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.

27
What point did the writer make in the second paragraph?
- A. Some present studies on children's mother tongues are misleading.
- B. A culturally rich education programme benefits some children more than others.
- C. Bilingual children can make a valuable contribution to the wealth of a country.
- D. The law on mother tongue use at school should be strengthened.
28
Why does the writer refer to something that Goethe said?
- A. to lend weight to his argument
- B. to contradict some research
- C. to introduce a new concept
- D. to update current thinking
29
The writer believes that when young children have a firm grasp of their mother tongue
- A. They can teach older family members what they learnt at school.
- B. They go on to do much better throughout their time at school.
- C. They can read stories about their cultural background.
- D. They develop stronger relationships with their family than with their peers.
30
Why are some people suspicious about mother-tongue-based teaching programmes?
- A. They worry that children will be slow to learn to read in either language.
- B. They think that children will confuse words in the two languages.
- C. They believe that the programmes will make children less interested in their lessons.
- D. They fear that the programmes will use up valuable time in the school day.

Questions 31-35: Summary completion

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below. Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes 31-35 on your answer sheet.

A. teachers

B. school

C. dislocation

D. rate

E. time

F. family

G. communication

H. type

I. ability

J. area

Bilingual Children

It was often recorded that bilingual children acquire the 31 _______ to converse in the majority language remarkably quickly. The fact that the mother tongue can disappear at a similar 32 _______ is less well understood. This phenomenon depends, to a certain extent, on the proportion of people with the same linguistic background who have settled in a particular 33 _______. If this is limited, children are likely to lose the active use of their mother tongue, and thus no longer employ it even with 34 _______, although they may still understand it. It follows that teenage children in these circumstances experience a sense of 35 _______ in relation to all aspects of their lives.

Questions 36-40: Yes/No/Not Given

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet, write YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer, NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer, NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.

36
Less than half of the children who attend kindergarten in Toronto have English as their mother tongue.
37
Research proves that learning the host country language at school can have an adverse effect on a child's mother tongue.
38
The Foyer program is to be accepted by the French education system.
39
Bilingual children are taught to tell the time earlier than monolingual children.
40
Bilingual children can apply reading comprehension strategies acquired in one language when reading in the other.

Phiếu trả lời

Điền đáp án khi làm bài — kiểm tra kết quả ngay lập tức và lưu cục bộ, mọi câu sai sẽ vào nhật ký lỗi cùng bài học khắc phục.

Lưu trên thiết bị này — không cần tài khoản. Đăng nhập ở trang tiến trình nếu muốn đồng bộ sang nơi khác.

Hiện đáp án

1. TRUE
This is correct because the passage says bands 'lack formal leaders, so there are no clear economic differences or other differences in status among the members.'
2. NOT GIVEN
The passage does not mention what range of food plants farmers in tribes grow, so the answer is not given.
3. FALSE
This is correct because the passage says, 'no one settlement dominates any of the others in the region' for tribes.
4. FALSE
This is correct because the passage says social status in chiefdoms is based on 'how closely related one is to the chief,' not on land ownership.
5. TRUE
This is correct because the passage says there is 'local specialisation in craft products such as pottery, cloth and leatherware' in chiefdoms.
6. TRUE
This is correct because the passage says the ruler of an early state 'has explicit authority to establish laws and to enforce them by means of a standing army.'
7. NOT GIVEN
The passage does not mention the salaries of bureaucratic officials compared to other workers, so the answer is not given.
8. tool
The passage says bands have 'work sites, where tools are made,' so the answer is 'tool.'
9. nomadic
The passage says some tribes have 'a mobile economy based on herds of animals,' which means they may be nomadic.
10. grouped together
The passage says houses in Catalhoyuk 'may be grouped together,' so the answer is 'grouped together.'
11. foodstuffs
The passage says the chief redistributes 'any surplus of these and of foodstuffs' to his subjects, so foodstuffs is correct.
12. 20,000
The passage says chiefdoms 'generally' range from '5,000 and 20,000 persons,' so 20,000 is the maximum.
13. agricultural workers
The passage says the lowest class in early states is 'agricultural workers and the poorer urban dwellers,' so agricultural workers is correct.
14. i
Paragraph A is best matched with 'i' because it introduces Drucker and his influence on management.
15. v
Paragraph B is best matched with 'v' because it discusses Drucker's early books and their reception.
16. ix
Paragraph C is best matched with 'ix' because it focuses on Drucker's ideas about empowering workers and knowledge workers.
17. vi
Paragraph D is best matched with 'vi' because it discusses 'management by objectives' and balancing empowerment with control.
18. ii
Paragraph E is best matched with 'ii' because it lists criticisms of Drucker.
19. viii
Paragraph F is best matched with 'viii' because it evaluates the criticisms and Drucker's lasting impact.
20. NOT GIVEN
The passage does not say managers and politicians would dominate the economy during social transition, so the answer is not given.
21. YES
This is correct because Drucker said knowledge workers 'had to develop their most important resource, their brainpower, and...take more control of their careers.'
22. NO
This is correct because the passage says Drucker's work 'remained at the cutting edge' and his ideas are now common knowledge, not out of date.
23. A / E
A is correct because Drucker wanted workers to be empowered and creative; E is correct because he said managers should set long-term goals (strategy) and let employees figure out how to reach them. D is tempting but fails because the passage does not mention self-appraisal tools.
24. A / E
A is correct because Drucker wanted workers to be empowered and creative; E is correct because he said managers should set long-term goals (strategy) and let employees figure out how to reach them. D is tempting but fails because the passage does not mention self-appraisal tools.
25. A / C
A is correct because the passage says Drucker focused on big organizations; C is correct because critics said he favored top executives for setting objectives. B is tempting but fails because the passage does not mention lack of precision or accuracy.
26. A / C
A is correct because the passage says Drucker focused on big organizations; C is correct because critics said he favored top executives for setting objectives. B is tempting but fails because the passage does not mention lack of precision or accuracy.
27. C
C is correct because the passage says discouraging mother tongue development is 'unintelligent from the point of view of national self-interest,' showing bilingual children add value to the country.
28. A
A is correct because the writer uses Goethe's quote to support the argument about the value of knowing more than one language.
29. B
B is correct because the passage says children with a solid foundation in their mother tongue 'develop stronger literacy abilities in the school language' and 'succeed educationally.'
30. D
D is correct because the passage says some people worry that mother-tongue programs 'take time away from the majority language,' meaning they fear it uses up valuable school time.
31. I
The passage says bilingual children 'seem to 'pick up' conversational skills in the majority language remarkably quickly,' so 'conversational skills' is correct.
32. D
The passage says 'how quickly children can lose their ability to use their mother tongue,' so 'speed' or 'rate' is correct.
33. J
The passage says language loss depends on 'the concentration of families from a particular linguistic group in the neighborhood,' so 'neighborhood' is correct.
34. F
The passage says children may stop using their mother tongue 'even with their parents,' so 'parents' is correct.
35. C
The passage says children become 'alienated from the cultures of both home and school,' so 'alienation' is correct.
36. YES
This is correct because the passage says 58% of kindergarten pupils in Toronto come from homes where English is not the usual language, so less than half have English as their mother tongue.
37. NO
This is correct because the passage says bilingual programs do not have 'any negative effects on children's development in the majority language.'
38. NOT GIVEN
The passage does not say whether the Foyer program is to be accepted by the French education system, so the answer is not given.
39. NOT GIVEN
The passage does not mention when bilingual children are taught to tell the time compared to monolingual children, so the answer is not given.
40. YES
This is correct because the passage says 'there is transfer across languages in other skills such as knowing how to distinguish the main idea from the supporting details of a written passage or story,' showing reading strategies can transfer.

Muốn trải nghiệm thi có tính giờ đầy đủ? Hãy thử bài thi thử toàn phần miễn phí — câu hỏi thật do thí sinh nhớ lại, trên giao diện thi thật.

Bắt đầu thi thử →