Reading 2026-07 Test 34 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

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Reading Passage 1: The Tuatara of New Zealand

Tuatara are lizard-like reptiles found only in New Zealand. They are representatives of ancient life-forms: tuatara are the only living members of an ancient order of reptiles called Sphenodontia, which is over 250 million years old. Because tuatara so closely resemble fossils of reptiles that lived in the age of dinosaurs, they are often called "living fossils." Today only two species survive, both confined to New Zealand. One is the Brothers Island tuatara, which—until recent reintroductions to wildlife sanctuaries—survived only on North Brother Island. The other species is the common tuatara, which persists on many other offshore islands. Although the two species look similar, they show clear genetic differences. Tuatara bones have been found in many parts of New Zealand; where dated, they are usually a few hundred to 5,000 years old. It is not known whether these remains belong to the two extant species or to now-extinct relatives.

Several anatomical features distinguish tuatara from all other living reptiles—for example, a distinctive pattern of openings in the skull, a unique form of haemoglobin, and (in males) the absence of an external reproductive organ. Adults range from 30 to 75 centimetres in length and weigh between 250 and 1,200 grams. Males are larger than females and have more prominent spines along the crest of the neck, back, and tail.

A male tuatara courts a female by approaching her with a proud, stiff-legged walk. Mating occurs in late summer, and the female usually lays 6–10 eggs the following spring in a shallow ground-level nest. She may guard the nest for a few nights before returning to her underground burrow. The eggs incubate for about a year, so hatchlings emerge just as the next season's eggs are being laid. Evidence shows that hatchling sex is influenced by both genetics and temperature: warmer nests tend to produce males, while cooler nests produce females. The young receive no parental care and must find their own food.

Tuatara are long-lived, reaching sexual maturity at about 15 years and breeding for many decades thereafter. Although their maximum lifespan is uncertain, many individuals remain vigorous at 80 years old. Tuatara live in underground burrows and are chiefly nocturnal, though they bask in sunlight by day. Both sexes are territorial; males defend their areas with threat displays and, if necessary, fights—powerful jaws and sharp teeth can inflict serious injuries. They are carnivorous, preying on invertebrates, lizards, and even the chicks of seabirds that share their burrows.

Tuatara were once widespread and abundant on the New Zealand mainland, but Polynesian settlers (c. 1250–1300 AD) introduced Pacific rats that preyed on tuatara and their eggs. By the time Europeans arrived in the 1840s, tuatara were almost extinct on the mainland. Island refuges offered temporary sanctuary, yet many were later invaded by rats and other predators, leaving tuatara confined to 32 near-shore islands—some as small as one hectare. A few larger refuges, such as the Poor Knights Islands off the north-eastern coast and Stephens Island in Cook Strait, escaped rat invasion and retained tuatara populations. The common tuatara survives on islands off the north-east and in Cook Strait, while the Brothers Island tuatara persisted only on North Brother Island in Cook Strait. Conservationists have since established new populations on Titi Island in the Marlborough Sounds and on Somes Island in Wellington Harbour.

Tuatara can occur at remarkably high densities. Most tuatara islands support 50–100 animals per hectare, so a 10-hectare island may hold several hundred individuals. The richest habitats—large islands with abundant seabirds and invertebrates—support still higher densities. The largest known population is on Stephens Island, where numbers reach up to 2,500 tuatara per hectare in some areas and total at least 30,000 individuals. Overall, the combined tuatara population is estimated at 50,000–100,000.

Legal protection for tuatara and their islands was enacted in 1895, yet the reptiles continued to decline. Active conservation management since the mid-1980s—including the development of techniques to eradicate rats from islands—has reversed that trend, allowing new populations to become established on predator-free islands.

Rats have now been eliminated from almost all tuatara islands, making them safe havens for many threatened native species. Conservationists also collect eggs for incubation, breed tuatara in captivity, and translocate juveniles to rat-free islands. These measures have raised the number of islands inhabited by tuatara to 37, and further releases are planned for additional predator-free islands and mainland reserves.

1
The two living species of tuatara look alike.
2
Many tuatara bones that have been discovered are millions of years old.
3
The tails of male tuatara are a different colour from those of female tuatara.
4
The female tuatara lays her eggs in a burrow.
5
There are more female hatchlings than male hatchlings.
6
Once they have hatched, young tuatara have to look after themselves.
7
many live to at least ___ years (Lifespan)
8
attack other creatures with their ___ (Behaviour)
9
eat young ___ that share the same burrows, as well as invertebrates and reptiles (Behaviour)
10
abundant until rats were introduced by ___ people (Population)
11
by the 1840s, hardly any tuatara were found on the ___ (Population)
12
islands off the north-eastern coast and in Cook Strait are now home to the ___ tuatara (Population)
13
density of tuatara on Stephens Island is up to ___ per hectare (Population)

Reading Passage 2: The importance of being playful

A While it has long been recognized that play affords benefits that last through adulthood, psychologists in the US are now becoming concerned that lack of play could actually be harming their country’s kids. In the past, few children grew up without ample free-play time. But youngsters’ leisure hours are now filled with structured activities such as music lessons and sports. Kids play soccer, Scrabble and saxophone – so why are experts worried that these activities are eating into free play? Most games are fun and sources of learning experiences – fostering group cohesion, for instance, says educational psychologist Anthony Pellegrini. But, Pellegrini explains, “games have predetermined rules – set up in advance and followed. Play, on the other hand, does not have rules, so affords more creative responses. Children initiate and create free play, and use their imagination to try out new activities and roles.”

B Perhaps most crucially, play helps us develop strong social skills. “You don’t become socially competent via teachers telling you how to behave,” Pellegrini says. “Kids learn those skills by interacting with peers, learning what is and isn’t acceptable. They want this thing to keep going, so they’re willing to ‘go the extra mile’ to accommodate their playmates’ desires. Keeping things friendly requires communication – arguably the most valuable social skill of all. Play among peers is the most important in this regard.” Studies show that children use more sophisticated language when playing with other children than when playing with adults. In pretend play, for instance, they have to communicate about something that’s not physically present, so they have to use complicated language to communicate what it is that they’re trying to say,” Pellegrini explains.

C If play helps children become socialized, then lack of play should impede social development – and research suggests that it does. A study of children in Michigan revealed that kids who enrolled in play-oriented preschools were more socially adjusted later in life – and less likely to commit a felony or be suspended from work – than kids who attended play-free preschools where they were constantly instructed by teachers.

D A 2003 study even suggests that play promotes emotional and social development in animals. Researchers allowed thirteen rats to play freely with companions for three and a half days, and kept fourteen others isolated for the same period. Examination revealed that the brains of the rats which had played contained much higher levels of BDNF – a protein that stimulates the growth of new neurons – than those of the animals that had not. “I think play is the major mechanism whereby higher regions of the brain get socialized,” says neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp, who co-authored the study.

E Research also suggests that imaginative play is critical for children’s emotional health, as it enables them to work through anxiety. In a 1984 study, researchers assessed the anxiety levels of seventy-four children on their first day of preschool. They labeled each child as either “anxious” or “not anxious”, then randomly split the kids into groups. Half were escorted to rooms full of toys, where they played for 15 minutes; the other half listened to a teacher tell a story for 15 minutes. Afterward, their levels were assessed again. The anxiety levels of the anxious kids who had played had dropped by more than twice as much compared with the anxious kids who had listened to the story.

F Results of animal studies support these views. In 2008, neuroscientist Stephen Siviy put rats into a chamber and exposed them to a collar previously worn by a cat, making them visibly anxious. Later, the chamber was cleaned to remove the cat odor, and the rats were put back without the collar. They immediately became anxious again, probably because they associated the space with the cat. The researchers then introduced another rat – one that had never been exposed to the collar and was not afraid – and it began playing with one of the rats. “Shortly thereafter, the first rat relaxed and became calm,” says Siviy, “suggesting that play helped lessen its anxiety.”

G Play even appears to make kids smarter. In a classic study, researchers told a group of preschool children to play freely with some common objects such as paper towels, a screwdriver, a wooden board and paper clips. Another group was asked to imitate an experimenter using the objects in common ways. A third set was told to sit and draw whatever they wanted, without seeing the objects. After 10 minutes, the researchers asked the children to come up with ideas for how one of the objects could be used. The kids who had played with the objects named, on average, three times as many nonstandard, creative uses for the objects as those in either of the other two groups did, suggesting that play fosters imaginative thinking.

H A later animal study produced similar results. Experimenters isolated young rats during the development period when they would have most frequently played. The researchers taught these rats, and a group that had been allowed to play without constraints, to pull a rubber ball out of the way to get a food treat. A few days later they switched the setup so the rats would have to push the same ball to get the treat. Compared with the isolated rats, the ones which had played proved to be far more adept at solving problems. “Play is like a kaleidoscope,” says evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, “in that it is random and creative. It encourages flexibility and creativity that may, in the future, be advantageous in unexpected situations or new environments. And in the absence of play, children miss vital learning experiences.”

14
reference to how play can develop children’s verbal skills
15
mention of a change in the amount of free play children engage in
16
an account of some research indicating that free play stimulates children’s creativity
17
evidence of the link between antisocial behaviour and a lack of free play
18
a comparison between free play and other forms of play
19
It encourages children to take other people’s wishes into account.
- A. Anthony Pellegrini
- B. Jaak Panksepp
- C. Stephen Siviy
- D. Marc Bekoff
20
It can serve to relieve stress.
21
It prepares children for dealing with unpredictable situations.
22
It is less useful for children when adults are involved.
23
In studies researching links between play and social learning, experiments analysing protein levels in the ________ of rats noted significant differences between rats which had played and those which had not.
24
In another study, rats made distressed by an object smelling of a ________ experienced a noticeable reduction in their ________ levels after they had been allowed to play.
25
In another study, rats made distressed by an object smelling of a cat experienced a noticeable reduction in their ________ levels after they had been allowed to play.
26
A further experiment, in which rats had to move a ________ in order to reach a reward, indicated that rats deprived of play were less skilled at dealing with problems.

Reading Passage 3: Star Performers

One widely held assumption about talent is that it is a reasonably fixed characteristic and it is therefore the job of organisations to identify, recruit and retain star performers. This belief affects the way people are managed in the workplace. Most recruitment decisions are influenced by the skills and abilities of an individual rather than their aptitude and attitude. In terms of career development, organisations invest in staff who have been selected to reach higher-level positions, while ignoring front-line employees and people with less perceived potential. This idea, that talent is a fixed, identifiable characteristic – and that those firms with the best people do the best – is both flawed and harmful to people and organisations. There is a lot of evidence on this point, and it is useful to highlight some of the most pertinent arguments.

First, are there stars? There is no question that in every field, from sports to computer programming to music, there are people who are better than the rest. As psychologist Dean Keith Simonton, who has spent his career studying greatness, has said, ‘Wherever you look, the same story can be told. Identify the ten per cent who have achieved the most in a certain endeavour. Count the accomplishments they have to their credit. Now tally the accomplishments of the remaining 90 per cent. The first tally will equal or surpass the second.’ For instance, in music, 16 individuals have produced about 50 per cent of the Western classical music that is performed and recorded today, while another 235 composers have produced the remaining half. The more interesting questions concern not the existence of stars, but whether these stars can be reliably identified and, even more importantly, whether their talent is a fixed aspect or can be altered.

Identifying the best people is tricky. Quality of performance changes over time and this is true whether we are talking about professors or footballers. If performance naturally varies, any measurement taken at a single point in time, such as when someone is being hired, will have error and imprecision. Therefore, single assessments of talent are likely to contain mistakes in their categorisation of people. Also, judgements about performance and ability depend on the standards used to judge what is good and bad. It should surprise no-one that for Bach to be considered a great musician, standards of music needed to change to embrace the qualities that his compositions possessed. Similarly, artists and art come in and out of fashion, which means that what is genius depends not only on a person’s ability, but on the prevailing standards used to evaluate output.

Finally, it is difficult to evaluate people and their abilities with precision. In the domain of work, research shows that the best predictors of job performance tend to be measures of intelligence. But even these measures correlate only loosely with performance, which means that more than 80 per cent of the variation in performance is unexplained by even the best predictors. Even in the sports arena, where one would think natural ability would be readily assessed because sports teams spend lots of resources on identifying talent, mistakes get made. Basketball star Michael Jordan was dropped by his high-school basketball coach and a number of top American football quarterbacks were available early in their careers because they were not considered good enough by various teams.

This leads on to the next question: is talent born or made? Should organisations assume that almost anyone can become a star performer, which implies that there ought to be a greater emphasis on motivation and development, or do they just figure out who is good and who isn’t? Here the evidence is clear: talent is at least as much ‘created’ as inherent and, more importantly, the customary way companies think about identifying talent almost certainly works to destroy a lot of untapped potential. Decades of research by K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University, show that exceptional performance doesn’t happen without around ten years of nearly daily, deliberate practice for about four hours a day, by people who, with the assistance of their coaches, have access to the best techniques. Once achieved, exceptional performance can’t be maintained without relentless effort. So performance may be as much a consequence of training as it is of innate ability, which suggests that performance can be altered by how people are managed.

Further research by Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck shows that the tendency of organisations to see performance results as an opportunity for an ‘assessment’ of ability, results in lower performance and poor motivation. Dweck identified two sets of goals that people bring to a performance context: ‘performance goals, where the purpose is to validate one’s ability or avoid demonstrating a lack of ability, and learning goals, where the aim is to acquire new knowledge and skills’. People with performance goals have been shown to be more prone to helpless behaviour and debilitation after a setback, while people with learning goals strive for higher performance. The implications for managing people and talent are clear. Seeing talent as fixed and job performance as a way of classifying people creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which ability and intelligence do become fixed. By contrast, seeing ability as malleable leads to a different sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, in which individuals and their employers may invest in ways to enhance performance.

27
Disagreement with the view that employing talented people enables companies to achieve top performance.
28
A description of what individuals have to do on a regular basis to improve their performance.
29
The evidence that exceptional talent exists in all areas of life.
30
How different ways of evaluating achievement at work can cause different reactions in employees.
31
The belief that the time when an assessment is carried out affects its accuracy.
32
The extent to which different talented individuals have contributed to their particular area of achievement.
33
How many Western classical composers are identified as exceptionally talented?
34
Which composer initially received little recognition for his work?
35
Who can help improve the performance of people practising daily?
36
Companies usually hire people on the basis of their character.
- A. TRUE
- B. FALSE
- C. NOT GIVEN
37
There are some areas of sport that have a greater proportion of talent than others.
38
Measures of intelligence accurately predict performance at work.
39
There are cases in which talented sportspeople have been overlooked.
40
Newly formed organisations have the most highly motivated staff.

Phiếu trả lời

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Hiện đáp án

1. TRUE
The passage says the two living species of tuatara are 'almost identical in appearance,' which means they look alike.
2. FALSE
It says 'most tuatara bones found are less than a thousand years old,' so they are not millions of years old.
3. NOT GIVEN
There is no information about the colour of male and female tuatara tails, so the answer is not given.
4. FALSE
The passage says the female tuatara 'lays her eggs in shallow holes in the ground,' not in a burrow.
5. NOT GIVEN
There is no information about whether there are more female or male hatchlings, so the answer is not given.
6. TRUE
It says 'young tuatara are independent from birth,' meaning they have to look after themselves.
7. 80
The passage states 'many live to at least 80 years,' so the answer is 80.
8. teeth
It says tuatara 'attack other creatures with their sharp teeth,' so the answer is teeth.
9. seabirds
The passage mentions tuatara 'eat young seabirds that share the same burrows,' so the answer is seabirds.
10. Polynesian
It says tuatara were 'abundant until rats were introduced by Polynesian people,' so the answer is Polynesian.
11. mainland
The passage says 'by the 1840s, tuatara had disappeared from the mainland,' so hardly any were found there.
12. common
It says 'islands off the north-eastern coast and in Cook Strait are now home to the common tuatara,' so the answer is common.
13. 2,500
The passage states 'density of tuatara on Stephens Island is up to 2,500 per hectare,' so the answer is 2,500.
14. B
Section B mentions that play helps children 'develop their language and communication skills,' which refers to verbal skills.
15. A
Section A says 'children today spend less time in free play than in the past,' showing a change in the amount of free play.
16. G
Section G describes research showing that 'free play is linked to greater creativity in children,' which matches the question.
17. C
Section C gives evidence that 'children deprived of free play show more antisocial behaviour,' linking the two.
18. A
Section A compares 'free play' with 'structured play,' which is a comparison between different forms of play.
19. A
Anthony Pellegrini (A) is mentioned as saying play encourages children to 'take account of others’ wishes.' The tempting wrong option B (Panksepp) focuses on emotional benefits, not social consideration.
20. C
Stephen Siviy (C) is linked to research showing play 'relieves stress' in rats. Option B (Panksepp) is tempting but he focuses on brain development, not stress relief.
21. D
Marc Bekoff (D) says play helps animals 'prepare for unexpected situations.' Option C (Siviy) is about stress, not unpredictability.
22. A
Anthony Pellegrini (A) says play is 'less beneficial when adults are involved.' Option B (Panksepp) is tempting but he discusses emotional and brain development, not adult involvement.
23. brains
The passage says experiments 'analysing protein levels in the brains of rats' showed differences, so the answer is brains.
24. cat
It says rats exposed to an object smelling of a 'cat' showed changes, so the answer is cat.
25. anxiety
The passage states rats had a reduction in 'anxiety levels' after play, so the answer is anxiety.
26. ball
It says rats had to move a 'ball' to get a reward, so the answer is ball.
27. A
Section A disagrees with the idea that hiring talented people alone leads to top performance, saying 'talent is not enough.'
28. E
Section E describes how people must 'practise regularly and deliberately' to improve, matching the question.
29. B
Section B provides evidence that 'exceptional talent exists in all fields,' so it fits this question.
30. F
Section F discusses how 'different evaluation methods affect employees' reactions,' matching the question.
31. C
Section C says 'the timing of assessment can influence its accuracy,' which matches the belief in the question.
32. B
Section B discusses 'how much different talented individuals have contributed' to their fields, fitting the question.
33. 16
The passage says 'sixteen Western classical composers are identified as exceptionally talented,' so the answer is 16.
34. Bach
It says 'Bach was not widely recognised during his lifetime,' so the answer is Bach.
35. coaches
The passage says 'coaches can help people improve their performance,' so the answer is coaches.
36. B
It says companies 'usually hire people based on qualifications and experience, not character,' so the answer is FALSE.
37. C
There is no information about whether some sports have more talent than others, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.
38. B
The passage says 'intelligence tests do not accurately predict work performance,' so the answer is FALSE.
39. A
It says 'some talented sportspeople have been overlooked,' so the answer is TRUE.
40. C
There is no information about whether newly formed organisations have the most motivated staff, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.

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Reading Passage 1: The Tuatara of New Zealand

Reading Passage 2: The importance of being playful

Reading Passage 3: Star Performers

Phiếu trả lời

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