Reading 2026-05 Test 59 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

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Reading Passage 1: Traditional Māori fishing hooks

The discovery of ancient fishing hooks in New Zealand has revealed that the Māori people were remarkably skilled at crafting highly effective tools for catching fish. These hooks, often made from organic materials such as bone or shell, functioned with surprising precision, even when compared to modern alternatives. However, for many centuries, their true purpose was misunderstood by researchers and collectors alike. Many assumed these intricately shaped hooks served only decorative, ceremonial, or ritualistic purposes due to their unusual appearance and craftsmanship. Ironically, in recent years, engineers and product designers have turned to modern technologies – such as 3D scanning and computer-aided manufacturing – to recreate these hooks. These reproductions, now made using high-tech materials, replicate the original Māori designs that were created over a millennium ago.

When the Māori first arrived in New Zealand from the Pacific Islands, they encountered an environment rich in natural resources. They quickly adapted by using familiar materials such as bones and stones to make their fishing hooks and began practicing intensive agriculture. Their fishing lines and nets, made from native plants like flax and cabbage trees, proved just as strong – if not stronger – than those used by Europeans, which were typically made from hemp. Although the structure of the Māori hooks was highly efficient for catching fish, their form was somewhat limited. This was because the materials they had access to could not be forged or bent like metal, thus restricting the range of shapes the hooks could take.

More than 230 years after the Māori settled, Europeans landed in New Zealand and began exploring the land. As they moved through the region, they came across various local fishing tools, including the Māori hooks. Despite their effectiveness, many Europeans viewed the tools with skepticism. They considered them awkward and ineffective, failing to recognize the ingenuity of the designs. Even modern archaeologists sometimes share this view, finding the hooks odd and questioning their efficiency. In 1777, however, William Anderson made an observation that challenged this view. He noted that although the hooks looked unconventional, the Māori had already developed advanced methods of intensive farming – evidence of their broader ingenuity. Still, the unusual appearance of the hooks overshadowed how successful they truly were.

Recent research conducted by Victoria University has revealed that Māori fishing hooks functioned quite differently from those used by Europeans. Rather than piercing directly like a standard hook, Māori hooks worked by rotating the fish away from the point and catching it securely under the jaw. This rotational mechanism proved remarkably effective in practice. Unlike the lever-based mechanisms common in European designs, the Māori hooks employed a unique principle that required neither barbs nor baiting in the same manner, showcasing a distinctly original approach to fishing.

After the 1700s, Māori craftsmen began using new materials introduced by Europeans, such as metals. However, they did not abandon their traditional designs. Instead, they incorporated the new materials into the same forms they had long used. As bones and stones fell out of use, hooks made from traded metals became more common. Some artisans even used rare and valuable materials like ivory or greenstone, crafting hooks that were later taken into luxury markets and sold as jewelry, blurring the line between utility and art.

Following the 1800s, Europe began exporting mass-produced hooks to New Zealand. These items were cheaper and quickly gained popularity among local users. Despite their affordability, the production of traditional Māori hooks declined due to the nails and other metallic materials required, which were difficult to manipulate without specialized tools. In the early 1900s, however, interest in Pacific culture grew, and collectors began to seek out original Māori fishing hooks once again. This renewed attention turned the hooks into coveted antique items. Unfortunately, the demand also led to a wave of imitations — many of the hooks appearing on the market today are fake, though they can usually be identified by their inconsistent design and materials.

The Māori did not only adapt their fishing hooks through European influence but also modified other traditional items using both metals and more recently, synthetic plastic. Importantly, these changes were often adaptations rather than complete replacements, preserving core aspects of Māori design. What is perhaps most remarkable is that many hooks found on boats in New Zealand today still bear a striking resemblance to the ancient forms crafted hundreds of years ago, a testament to the enduring utility and brilliance of traditional Māori design.

1
People have mistaken opinions about fishing hooks’ functions.
2
Fishing is more difficult in New Zealand than Pacific islands.
3
Māoris use new materials to build hooks after they arrived New Zealand.
4
Māoris’ hooks are limited in forms because of the material limitation it used.
5
The fishing line of Māoris is worse than the European.
6
Europeans are given fishing hooks as a gift from local Māoris.
7
According to William Anderson, Māoris have already engaged in crop growing.
8
Hooks of Māoris are functioned in the same way to the hooks of European.
9
After 1700s: Some valued hooks are made into ________.
10
After 1800s: The difficulty associated with the material like ________ and other metals makes the hooks production less.
11
After 1900s: Some ________ were again interested in hooks.
12
After 1900s: Many hooks are ________ which can be identified easily.
13
Conclusion: We can find the hooks’ design of old times today on ________.

Reading Passage 2: What is an unfair advantage in sport?

A What happened to the Australian athlete Ron Clarke in the 10,000 metres at the Mexico City Olympics of 1968 is now virtually forgotten, though at the time it was headline news. Clarke was the greatest distance runner in history; he’d broken more world records than anybody else. But in front of 55,000 horrified spectators, the event went disastrously wrong. In the third lap, one runner keeled over and, with six laps to go, two more were carried away. Yet the race was being conducted at a relatively leisurely speed: the halfway time was the slowest since the Paris Olympics of 1924. With two laps to go, Clarke was in the leading pack. ‘I’d never felt better in a race,’ he says. But suddenly he too began to struggle, and as the frontrunners moved up a gear, a gap opened up. Clarke remembers nothing of his last lap, which he ran in 90 seconds. ‘Normally I would run it in 64,’ he explains. He stumbled across the line in sixth place and collapsed. He was administered oxygen and stretchered off the track.

B Mexico City is surrounded by mountains and is over 2,240 metres above sea level. That the altitude would have an impact on the Games was predicted. Clarke had raised the issue himself, but had been told by the Australian sports authorities that complaining was regarded as bad sportsmanship. As it turned out, he had good reason to do so. Clearly, the link between athletic performance and altitude needed further investigation.

C Although there were few standout performances in distance running at the Mexico Games, they marked a turning point: the start of an astonishing record of success by East Africans. While Clarke lay crumpled in a heap, runners from Kenya and Ethiopia were celebrating their gold and silver medals. The record books confirm how entrenched this pattern has become. The names of the seven fastest men in history over 5,000 metres are Bekele, Gebrselassie, Komen, Kipchoge, Sihine, Songkok and Chereno. They are all from either Kenya or Ethiopia. Between 1997 and 2011 the 10,000 metres world record was smashed five times, dropping from 26:31.32 to 26:17.53. Each time, the record was broken by a Kenyan or an Ethiopian. While there is a complex mix of economic, political, social and cultural explanations for the pre-eminence of East Africans, one factor is surely that many of these athletes have lived most of their lives in thin air.

D At high altitudes, a number of physiological alterations occur, most importantly, more red blood cells and haemoglobin are produced. This, in turn, increases the capacity of the blood to carry oxygen, which feeds the muscles and which gives an advantage to the athletes when they return to sea level. However, it is impossible to train with the same level of intensity in the mountains—aerobic capacity and cardio-respiratory function both suffer at altitude. As a result, the consensus is that the optimum approach to athletic preparation is: Live High, Train Low (LHTL). Yet that has obvious practical drawbacks. Not many people live in the mountains and those who do would prefer not to spend several hours each day driving up and down winding treacherous roads.

E That’s where the altitude tent—sometimes called the hypoxic tent—comes in. Around two decades ago, two different scientists had the same exciting thought. If they could artificially control the atmosphere within a confined space, they could simulate the effects of high altitude and save an athlete at sea-level from the time and expense of travelling to higher ground. Altitude tents have improved over the years: they’re not as hot or as noisy as the early prototypes, and are much cheaper too. They are also perfectly lawful. Five years ago, when the tents were investigated by WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency), it was ruled that they did not violate the spirit of distance running. It is now routine for athletes to sleep in them in preparation for an event.

F However, it is not the case that all new technologies gain approval. In 2008, a staggering 105 world records were broken in swimming, the vast majority achieved by competitors wearing the new Speedo LZR Racer suit. These suits use a high-tech fabric tested in Nasa’s wind tunnels, which reduces drag and improves buoyancy. The LZR was initially sanctioned by FINA, the international swimming body. But as better suits were produced by Speedo and other manufacturers, and more records were broken, they became increasingly controversial. In a 2009 ruling, FINA changed its mind, banning all suits made with this high-tech fabric.

G Going faster, higher, stronger is integral to the logic of athletics in general, and the Olympics in particular. Athletes believe they need records all the time. And the only way is through minute changes of 0.0001 of a second. But when a new technology is invented, the relevant sports authority has to consider whether to embrace or reject it. In some cases, athletes are granted permission to use the technology: in others, it is banned. But whatever the outcome, rulings should not appear arbitrary: arguments have to be examined and weighed and the rules of logic ought to apply in every case.

14
Paragraph A
- i. Early research into athletes’ physiology
- ii. A convenient method of acclimatization
- iii. The need for a rational approach
- iv. Changes in the body
- v. The athletes who break the rules
- vi. Well-founded concerns
- vii. The surprising outcome of a race
- viii. The reversal of a decision
- ix. The runners who dominate
15
Paragraph B
16
Paragraph C
17
Paragraph D
18
Paragraph E
19
Paragraph F
20
Paragraph G
21
Which TWO of the following statements about Ron Clarke are made in the passage?
- A. Clarke was not performing well immediately prior to the Mexico Games.
- B. The worries Clarke had before the Mexico Games were not taken into account.
- C. Clarke’s experiences at the Mexico Games are widely talked about today.
- D. At one stage of the Mexico Games 10,000 metres, Clarke was near the front.
- E. Clarke was the only runner at the Mexico Games who appeared to be affected by the altitude.
22
Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. For distance running, WADA concluded that the altitude tent was not contrary to the ________ of the sport. However, the LZR swimsuit, which is made from a special fabric that aids buoyancy and cuts down ________, was banned. Athletes think they have to continually set fresh ________. This is made possible by better ________ and training, as well as improved clothing and equipment.

Reading Passage 3: Insect-inspired robots

A tiny insect navigates its way across featureless salt-pans. A cockroach successfully works out how to scramble over an obstacle. The mantis shrimp scans its aquatic world through hyperspectral eyes. Using the most basic of equipment and brains tinier than a pinhead, insects constantly solve complex problems of movement, vision and navigation, processing data that would challenge a supercomputer. How they do it is driving one of the most exciting new fields of technology—biomimetics and biorobotics, the imitation of insect systems to control man-made machines. Delegates at a recent conference presented some outcomes of their work in this area.

Dr Alex Zelinsky suggested that the method by which wasps use landmarks to find their way back to the nest may one day be part of a system for navigating cars that ‘know' where to go. A research team led by Dr Zelinsky has shown that a robot can navigate its way along 50 different landmarks by recognizing them individually using a panoramic camera. ‘The inspiration came from biology, where wasps use a practice called "turn back and look" to orient themselves as they emerge from its nest. By flying to and fro, they lock in images of the nest from different angles and perspectives, so they can recognize it again,' he explained. The robot's panoramic camera logs the surrounding area and its key landmarks, which are then sorted in its computer according to how reliable they are as navigational aids. The landmarks are then scaled, from small to large, so that the robot can recognize whether it is getting closer to or further away from them. Their location is built into a map in its ‘mind’, which operates at different scales and instructs the robot whether to turn left or right at a particular mark. The technology provides a general way for a machine to navigate an unknown landscape.

For three decades, Professor Ruediger Wehner has journeyed from Switzerland to the Sahara desert where Cataglyphis, a tiny ant with a brain weighing just 0.1 mg, performs acts of navigational genius when it leaves its nest, forages for food and returns successfully. Cataglyphis uses polarised light, caused when air molecules scatter light, to orient and steer itself. Wehner's team found the ant has a set of specialized photoreceptors along the upper rim of its eyes that detect polarized light, while other receptors perform different navigational tasks. As the sun moves, the ant notes its direction each time it leaves the nest and updates its internal compass. Using other eye receptors it stores a ‘snapshot’ image of landmarks, close to the nest entrance in its eyes and compares this with what it sees as it returns. The ant also has a way of measuring distance traveled, while a ‘path integrator' periodically informs the ant of its current position relative to its point of departure. Rather than integrate all the information it receives in its brain, the ant actually performs a number of complex calculations in different organs. Like a supercomputer, the ant has many separate subroutines going on simultaneously. Using the ant's ability to steer by polarised light and to store and reuse landscape images, Wehner and colleagues have built 'Sahabot', a small vehicle that uses polarisers and a digital CCD camera to store 360° images of landmarks to the ones in its memory.

Professor Robert Michelson had a different desert challenge—to design a flying robot that can not only navigate but also stay aloft and hover in the thin atmosphere of Mars. Drawing inspiration from insect flight, he has gone beyond nature to devise a completely new concept for a flying machine. The ‘Entomopter’ is sort of double-ended dragonfly whose wings beat reciprocally. Michelson says that the flapping-wing design gives the craft unusually high lift compared with a fixed-wing flyer, enabling it to fly slowly or hover in the thin Martian air—whereas a fixed-wing craft would have to move at more than 400 km/h and could not stop to explore.

Engineer Roger Quinn and entomologist Professor Roy Ritzmann are taking their inspiration from cockroaches. According to Quinn and Ritzmann, the ability of cockroaches to run very fast over rough terrain may one day give rise to a completely new all-terrain vehicle with six legs, or maybe even wheel-like legs called 'whegs'. The key to the cockroach's remarkable cross-country performance lies partly in the fact that its legs do a lot of the ‘thinking' without having to consult the brain. Quinn and Ritzmann are drawing on cockroach skills to create robotic walkers and control strategies that capture the remarkable capacity of these insects to traverse complex terrain and navigate safely toward goals while avoiding obstacles. The team has already designed a series of robots that run on six legs or on whegs, enabling them to handle surprisingly rugged terrain.

International experts believe there are tremendous opportunities in biorobotics. However, delegates at the conference had differing visions for the future of the science. While some were concerned that the initial applications of biorobotics may be military, others, such as Dr Barbara Webb, predicted swarms of tiny cheap insect-like robots as society's cleaners and collectors. Sonja Kleinlogel hoped the study of the hyperspectral eyes of the mantis shrimp might yield remote sensors that keep watch over the environmental health of our oceans. Several delegates were concerned about the ethical implications of biorobotics, and urged that close attention be paid to this as the science and technologies develop.

23
27 positive and negative possibilities for the use of insect-inspired robots
24
28 how perceived size is used as an aid to navigation
25
29 an example of decision-making taking place in the limbs
26
30 a description of a potential aid in space exploration
27
31 the range of skills that have inspired biorobotics
28
32 how a variety of navigational methods operate at the same time
29
33 Which creatures see particularly well underwater?
30
34 In addition to a computer, what technical equipment is fitted in Dr Zelinsky's robot?
31
35 Where is the Cataglyphis ant found?
32
36 What atmospheric effect helps the Cataglyphis ant to know its direction?
33
37 Dr Alex Zelinsky
- A. a robot that makes use of light as well as stored images for navigational purposes
- B. a robot that can contribute to environmental health
- C. a robot that can move over difficult surfaces
- D. a robot that categorises information from the environment according to its usefulness
- E. a robot that can be used to clean surfaces and collect rubbish
- F. a robot that has improved on the ability of the insect on which it is based
- G. a robot that can replace soldiers in war
34
38 Professor Ruediger Wehner
35
39 Professor Robert Michelson
36
40 Roger Quinn and Professor Roy Ritzmann

Phiếu trả lời

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Hiện đáp án

1. TRUE
The passage says people often think fishing hooks are only for catching fish, but they have other uses, so people have mistaken opinions about their functions.
2. NOT GIVEN
There is no information in the passage comparing the difficulty of fishing in New Zealand and the Pacific islands.
3. FALSE
The passage explains that Māoris continued to use traditional materials for hooks after arriving in New Zealand, not new materials.
4. TRUE
It is stated that the forms of Māoris’ hooks were limited because the materials they used were limited.
5. FALSE
The passage says the Māoris’ fishing line was as good as the European one, not worse.
6. NOT GIVEN
There is no mention in the passage about Europeans being given fishing hooks as gifts from local Māoris.
7. TRUE
William Anderson noted that Māoris were already growing crops, showing they had engaged in crop growing.
8. FALSE
The passage says Māoris’ hooks worked differently from European hooks, so they do not function in the same way.
9. jewelry
After the 1700s, some valuable hooks were made into jewelry, as stated in the passage.
10. nails
After the 1800s, the passage says materials like nails and other metals made hook production more difficult.
11. collectors
After the 1900s, some collectors became interested in hooks again, according to the passage.
12. fake
After the 1900s, many hooks were fake and could be easily identified, as the passage says.
13. boats
The passage concludes that we can still find old hook designs today on boats.
14. vii
Paragraph A describes a surprising result in a race, matching 'the surprising outcome of a race.'
15. vi
Paragraph B discusses concerns about athletes, so 'well-founded concerns' is correct.
16. ix
Paragraph C talks about runners who dominate, so 'the runners who dominate' fits best.
17. iv
Paragraph D explains changes in the body, so 'changes in the body' is the right heading.
18. ii
Paragraph E describes a convenient way for athletes to get used to new conditions, matching 'a convenient method of acclimatization.'
19. viii
Paragraph F is about a decision being reversed, so 'the reversal of a decision' is correct.
20. iii
Paragraph G discusses the need for a rational approach, so 'the need for a rational approach' is the answer.
21. B / D
Option B is correct because the passage says Clarke’s worries were ignored, and D is correct because Clarke was near the front during the 10,000 metres. Option A is wrong because the passage does not say Clarke was not performing well before the Games.
22. spirit / drag / records / technology
WADA said the altitude tent was not against the spirit of the sport. The LZR swimsuit was banned because it reduced drag. Athletes want to set new records, which is possible because of better technology and training.
23. F
Section F discusses both positive and negative possibilities for using insect-inspired robots.
24. B
Section B explains how perceived size helps with navigation.
25. E
Section E gives an example of decision-making happening in the limbs.
26. D
Section D describes a possible aid for space exploration.
27. A
Section A lists the range of skills that have inspired biorobotics.
28. C
Section C explains how different navigational methods work together at the same time.
29. mantis shrimp
The passage says mantis shrimp see especially well underwater.
30. panoramic camera
The passage states Dr Zelinsky's robot is fitted with a panoramic camera in addition to a computer.
31. sahara desert
The Cataglyphis ant is found in the Sahara desert, as mentioned in the passage.
32. polarized light
Polarized light is the atmospheric effect that helps the Cataglyphis ant know its direction.
33. D
Dr Alex Zelinsky is linked to a robot that categorizes information from the environment according to its usefulness, matching option D.
34. A
Professor Ruediger Wehner is associated with a robot that uses light and stored images for navigation, which is option A.
35. F
Professor Robert Michelson developed a robot that improved on the abilities of the insect it was based on, so option F is correct.
36. C
Roger Quinn and Professor Roy Ritzmann made a robot that can move over difficult surfaces, matching option C.

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Reading Passage 1: Traditional Māori fishing hooks

Reading Passage 2: What is an unfair advantage in sport?

Reading Passage 3: Insect-inspired robots

Phiếu trả lời

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