Reading 2026-05 Test 71 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

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Reading Passage 1: Ambergris

Classify the following information as referring to A ambergris only B amber only C both ambergris and amber D neither ambergris nor amber Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet. Complete the sentences below with NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage. Write your answers in boxes 7-9 on your answer sheet. Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 10-13 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

Ambergris was used to perfume cosmetics in the days of ancient Mesopotamia and almost every civilization on the earth has a brush with ambergris. Before 1,000 AD, the Chinese names ambergris as ‘lung sien hiang’, ‘dragon’s spittle perfume’, as they think that it was produced from the drooling of dragons sleeping on rocks at the edge of a sea. The Arabs knew ambergris as anbar, believing that it is produced from springs near sea. It also gets its name from here. For centuries, this substance has also been used as a flavouring for food.

During the Middle Ages, Europeans used ambergris as a remedy for headaches, colds, epilepsy, and other ailments. In the 1851 whaling novel Moby-Dick, Herman Melville claimed that ambergris was ‘largely used in perfumery’. But nobody ever knew where it really came from. Experts were still guessing its origin thousands of years later, until the long ages of guesswork ended in the 1720’s, when Nantucket whalers found gobs of the costly material inside the stomachs of sperm whales. Industrial whaling quickly burgeoned. By 20th century ambergris is mainly recovered from inside the carcasses of sperm whales.

Through countless ages, people have found pieces of ambergris on sandy beaches. It was named grew amber to distinguish it from golden amber, another rare treasure. Both of them were among the most sought-after substances in the world, almost as valuable as gold. (Ambergris sells for roughly $20 a gram, slightly less than gold at $30 a gram.) Amber floats in salt water, and in old times the origin of both these substances was mysterious. But it turned out that amber and ambergris have little in common. Amber is a fossilized resin from trees that was quite familiar to Europeans long before the discovery of the New World, and prized as jewelry. Although considered a gem, amber is a hard, transparent, wholly-organic material derived from the resin of extinct species of trees, mainly pines.

To the earliest Western chroniclers, ambergris was variously thought to come from the same bituminous sea founts as amber, from the sperm of fishes or whales, from the droppings of strange sea birds (probably because of confusion over the included beaks of squid) or from the large hives of bees living near the sea. Marco Polo was the first Western chronicler who correctly attributed ambergris to sperm whales and its vomit.

As sperm whales navigate in the oceans, they often dive down to 2km or more below the sea level to prey on squid, most famously the Giant Squid. It’s commonly accepted that ambergris forms in the whale’s gut or intestines as the creature attempts to ‘deal’ with squid beaks. Sperm whales are rather partial to squid, but seemingly struggle to digest the hard, sharp, parrot-like beaks. It is thought their stomach juices become hyper-active trying to process the irritants, and eventually hard, resinous lumps are formed around the beaks, and then expelled from their inwards by vomiting. When a whale initially vomits up ambergris, it is soft and has a terrible smell. Some marine biologists compare it to the unpleasant smell of cow dung. But after floating on the salty ocean for about a decade, the substance hardens with air and sun into a smooth, waxy, usually rounded piece of nostril heaven. The dung smell is gone, replaced by a sweet, smooth, musky and pleasant earthy aroma.

Since ambergris is derived from animals, naturally a question of ethics arises, and in the case of ambergris, it is very important to consider. Sperm whales are an endangered species, whose populations started to decline as far back as the 19th century due to the high demand for their highly emollient oil, and today their stocks still have not recovered. During the 1970’s, the Save the Whales movement brought the plight of whales to international recognition. Many people now believe that whales are ‘saved’. This couldn’t be further from the truth. All around the world, whaling still exists. Many countries continue to hunt whales, in spite of international treaties to protect them. Many marine researchers are concerned that even the trade in naturally found ambergris can be harmful by creating further incentives to hunt whales for his valuable substance.

One of the forms ambergris is used today is as a valuable fixative in perfumes to enhance and prolong the scent. But nowadays, since ambergris is rare and expensive, and big fragrance suppliers that make most of the fragrances on the market today do not deal in it for reasons of cost, availability and murky legal issues, most perfumeries prefer to add a chemical derivative which mimics the properties of ambergris. As a fragrance consumer, you can assume that there is no natural ambergris in your perfume bottle, unless the company advertises this fact and unless you own vintage fragrances created before the 1980s. If you are wondering if you have been wearing a perfume with this legendary ingredient, you may want to review your scent collection. Here are a few of some of the top ambergris containing perfumes: Givenchy Amarige, Chanel No. 5, and Gucci Guilty.

1
being expensive
- A. ambergris only
- B. amber only
- C. both ambergris and amber
- D. neither ambergris nor amber
2
adds flavor to food
3
used as currency
4
being see-through
5
referred to by Herman Melville
6
produces sweet smell
7
Sperm whales can’t digest the .................. of the squids.
8
Sperm whales drive the irritants out of their intestines by .................. .
9
The vomit of sperm whale gradually .................. on contact of air before having pleasant smell.
10
Most ambergris comes from the dead whales today.
11
Ambergris is becoming more expensive than before.
12
Ambergris is still a popular ingredient in perfume production today.
13
New uses of ambergris have been discovered recently.

Reading Passage 2: Ancient Chinese Chariots

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet, write YES if the statement agrees with the information NO if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR NUMBERS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 18-23 on your answer sheet. Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty, according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC. Archaeological work at the Ruins of Yin (near modern-day Anyang), which has been identified as the last Shang capital, uncovered eleven major Yin royal tombs and the foundations of palaces and ritual sites, containing weapons of war and remains from both animal and human sacrifices.

The Tomb of Fu Hao is an archaeological site at Yinxu, the ruins of the ancient Shang Dynasty’s capital Yin, within the modern city of Anyang in Henan Province, China. Discovered in 1976, it was identified as the final resting place of the queen and military general Fu Hao. The artefacts unearthed within the grave included jade objects, bone objects, bronze objects etc. These grave goods are confirmed by the oracle texts, which constitute almost all of the first hand written record we possess of the Shang Dynasty. Below the corpse was a small pit holding the remains of six sacrificial dogs and along the edge lay the skeletons of human slaves, evidence of human sacrifice.

The Terracotta Army was discovered on 29 March 1974 to the east of Xi’an in Shanxi. The terracotta soldiers were accidentally discovered when a group of local farmers was digging a well during a drought around 1.6 km (1 mile) east of the Qin Emperor’s tomb around at Mount Li (Lishan), a region riddled with underground springs and watercourses. Experts currently place the entire number of soldiers at 8,000 – with 130 chariots (130 cm long), 530 horses and 150 cavalry horses helping to ward off any dangers in the afterlife. In contrast, the burial of Tutankhamun yielded six complete but dismantled chariots of unparalleled richness and sophistication. Each was designed for two people (90 cm long) and had its axle sawn through to enable it to be brought along the narrow corridor into the tomb.

Excavation of ancient Chinese chariots has confirmed the descriptions of them in the earliest texts. Wheels were constructed from a variety of woods: elm provided the hub, rose-wood the spokes and oak the felloes. The hub was drilled through to form an empty space into which the tempered axle was fitted, the whole being covered with leather to retain lubricating oil. Though the number of spokes varied, a wheel by the fourth century BC usually had eighteen to thirty-two of them. Records show how elaborate was the testing of each completed wheel: floatation and weighing were regarded as the best measures of balance, but even empty spaces in the assembly were checked with millet grains. One outstanding constructional asset of the ancient Chinese wheel was dishing. Dishing refers to the dish-like shape of an advanced wooden wheel, which looks rather like a flat cone. One occasion they chose to strengthen a dished wheel with a pair of struts running from rim to rim on each of the hub. As these extra supports were inserted separately into the felloes, they would have added even greater strength to the wheel. Leather wrapped up the edge of the wheel aimed to retain bronze.

Within a millennium, however, Chinese chariot-makers had developed a vehicle with shafts, the precursor of the true carriage or cart. This design did not make its appearance in Europe until the end of the Roman Empire. Because the shafts curved upwards, and the harness pressed against a horse’s shoulders, not his neck, the shaft chariot was incredibly efficient. The halberd was also part of a chariot standard weaponry. This halberd usually measured well over 3 metres in length, which meant that a chariot warrior wielding it sideways could strike down the charioteer in a passing chariot. The speed of the chariot which was tested on the sand was quite fast. At speed these passes were very dangerous for the crews of both chariots.

The advantages offered by the new chariots were not entirely missed. They could see how there were literally the Warring States, whose conflicts lasted down the Qin unification of China. Qin Shi Huang was buried in the most opulent tomb complex ever constructed in China, a sprawling, city-size collection of underground caverns containing everything the emperor would need for the afterlife. Even a collection of terracotta armies called Terra-Cotta Warriors was buried in it. The ancient Chinese, along with many cultures including ancient Egyptians, believed that items and even people buried with a person could be taken with him to the afterlife.

Labelled line diagram of an ancient Chinese horse-drawn chariot showing its parts in English + Chinese (pinyin): Yoke, Shaft, Horizontal drawbar, Carriage, Crossbar, Side board, Spoke, Axle, Wheel hub, Bronze axle cap — the figure that Q18-23 (note-completion about the hub, axle, spokes, wheel shape, struts, and wheel edge) directly refer to.

14
When Tomb of Fu Hao was discovered, the written records of the grave goods proved to be accurate.
15
Human skeletons in Anyang tomb were identified as soldiers who were killed in the war.
16
The Terracotta Army was discovered by people who lived nearby by chance.
17
The size of the King Tutankhamun’s tomb is bigger than that of Qin Emperor’s tomb.
18
The hub is made of wood from the tree of .................. .
19
The room through the hub was to put tempered axle, which is wrapped up by leather, aiming to retain .................. .
20
The number of spokes varies from .................. .
21
The shape of wheel resembles a .................. .
22
Two .................. was used to strengthen the wheel.
23
The edge of the wheel was wrapped up by leather aiming to retain .................. .
24
What body part of the horse was released from pressure to the horse shoulder after the appearance of the shafts?
25
What kind of road surface did the researchers measure the speed of the chariot on?
26
What part of the afterlife palace was the Emperor Qin Shi Huang buried in?

Reading Passage 3: Soviet’s New Working Week

Reading Passage 3 has nine paragraphs, A-I. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the correct number i-xii in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet. Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet. Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

A “There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm”. With these words, Stalin expressed the dynamic self-confidence of the Soviet Union’s five-year plan: weak and backward Russia was to turn overnight into a powerful modern industrial country. Between 1928 and 1932, production of coal, iron and steel increased at a fantastic rate, and new industrial cities sprang up, along with the world’s biggest dam. Everyone’s life was affected, as collectivized farming drove millions from the land to swell the industrial proletariat. Private enterprise disappeared in city and country, leaving the State supreme under the dictatorship of Stalin. Unlimited enthusiasm was the mood of the day, with the Communists believing that iron will and hard-working manpower alone would bring about a new world.

B Enthusiasm spread to time itself, in the desire to make the state a huge efficient machine, where not a moment would be wasted, especially in the workplace. Lenin had already been intrigued by the ideas of the American Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), whose time-motion studies had discovered ways of stream-lining effort so that every worker could produce the maximum. The Bolsheviks were also great admirers of Henry Ford’s assembly line mass production and of his Fordson tractors that were imported by the thousands. The engineers who came with them to train their users helped spread what became a real cult of Ford. Emulating and surpassing such capitalist models formed part of the training of the new Soviet Man, a heroic figure whose unlimited capacity for work would benefit everyone in the dynamic new society. All this culminated in the Plan, which has been characterized as the triumph of the machine, where workers would become supremely efficient robot-like creatures.

C Yet this was Communism whose goals had always included improving the lives of the proletariat. One major step in that direction was the sudden announcement in 1927 that reduced the working day from eight to seven hours. In January 1929, all industries were ordered to adopt the shorter day by the end of the Plan. Workers were also to have an extra hour off on the eve of Sundays and holidays. Typically though, the state took away more than it gave, for this was part of a scheme to increase production by establishing a three-shift system. This meant that factories were open day and night and that many had to work at highly undesirable hours.

D Hardly had that policy been announced, though, than Yuri Larin, who had been a close associate of Lenin and architect of his radical economic policy, came up with an idea for even greater efficiency. Workers were free and plants were closed on Sundays. Why not abolish that wasted day by instituting a continuous work week so that the machines could operate to their full capacity every day of the week? When Larin presented his idea to the Congress of Soviet in May 1929, no one paid much attention. Soon after, though, he got the ear of Stalin, who approved. Suddenly, in June, the Soviet press was filled with articles praising the new scheme. In August, the Council of Peoples’ Commissars ordered that the continuous work week be brought into immediate effect, during the height of enthusiasm for the Plan, whose goals the new schedule seemed guaranteed to forward.

E The idea seemed simple enough, but turned out to be very complicated in practice. Obviously, the workers couldn’t be made to work seven days a week, nor should their total work hours be increased. The solution was ingenious: a new five-day week would have the workers on the job for four days, with the fifth day free; holidays would be reduced from ten to five, and extra hour off on the eve of rest days would be abolished. Staggering the rest-days between groups of workers meant that each worker could spend the same number of hours on the job, but the factories would be working a full 360 days a year instead of 300. The 360 divided neatly into 72 five-day weeks. Workers in each establishment (at first factories, then stores and offices) were divided into five groups, each assigned a colour which appeared on the new Uninterrupted Work Week calendars distributed all over the country. Colour-coding was a valuable mnemonic device, since workers might have trouble remembering what their day off was going to be, for it would change every week. A glance at the colour on the calendar would reveal the free day, and allow workers to plan their activities. This system, however, did not apply to construction or seasonal occupations, which followed a six-day week, or to factories or mines which had to close regularly for maintenance: they also had a six-day week, whether interrupted (with the same day off for everyone) or continuous. In all cases, though, Sunday was treated like any other day.

F Official propaganda touted the material and cultural benefits of the new scheme. Workers would get more rest; production and employment would increase (for more workers would be needed to keep the factories running continuously); the standard of living would improve. Leisure time would be more rationally employed, for cultural activities (theatre, clubs, sports) would no longer have to be crammed into a weekend, but could flourish every day, with their facilities far less crowded. Shopping would be easier for the same reasons. Ignorance and superstition, as represented by organized religion, would suffer a mortal blow, since 80 per cent of the workers would be on the job on any given Sunday. The only objection concerned the family, where normally more than one member was working: well, the Soviets insisted, the narrow family was far less important than the vast common good and besides, arrangements could be made for husband and wife to share a common schedule. In fact, the regime had long wanted to weaken or sideline the two greatest potential threats to its total dominance: organized religion and the nuclear family. Religion succumbed, but the family, as even Stalin finally had to admit, proved much more resistant.

G The continuous work week, hailed as a Utopia where time itself was conquered and the sluggish Sunday abolished forever, spread like an epidemic. According to official figures, 63 per cent of industrial workers were so employed by April 1930; in June, all industry was ordered to convert during the next year. The fad reached its peak in October when it affected 73 per cent of workers. In fact, many managers simply claimed that their factories had gone over to the new week, without actually applying it. Conforming to the demands of the Plan was important; practical matters could wait. By then, though, problems were becoming obvious. Most serious (though never officially admitted), the workers hated it. Coordination of family schedules was virtually impossible and usually ignored, so husbands and wives only saw each other before or after work; rest days were empty without any loved ones to share them – even friends were likely to be on a different schedule. Confusion reigned: the new plan was introduced haphazardly, with some factories operating five-, six- and seven-day weeks at the same time, and the workers often not getting their rest days at all.

H The Soviet government might have ignored all that (It didn’t depend on public approval), but the new week was far from having the vaunted effect on production. With the complicated rotation system, the work teams necessarily found themselves doing different kinds of work in successive weeks. Machines, no longer consistently in the hands of people who knew how to tend them, were often poorly maintained or even broken. Workers lost a sense of responsibility for the special tasks they had normally performed.

I As a result, the new week started to lose ground. Stalin’s speech of June 1931, which criticized the ‘depersonalised labor’ it’s too hasty application had brought, marked the beginning of the end. In November, the government ordered the widespread adoption of the six-day week, which had its own calendar, with regular breaks on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, and 30th, with Sunday usually as a working day. By July 1935, only 26 per cent of workers still followed the continuous schedule, and the six-day week was soon on its way out. Finally, in 1940, as part of the general reversion to more traditional methods, both the continuous five-day week and the novel six-day week were abandoned, and Sunday returned as the universal day of rest. A bold but typically ill-conceived experiment was at an end.

27
Paragraph A
- i. Benefits of the new scheme and its resistance
- ii. Making use of the once wasted weekends
- iii. Cutting work hours for better efficiency
- iv. Optimism of the great future
- v. Negative effects on production itself
- vi. Soviet Union’s five-year plan
- vii. The abolishment of the new work-week scheme
- viii. The Ford model
- ix. Reaction from factory workers and their families
- x. Establishing a three-shift system
- xii. Foreign inspiration
28
Paragraph B
29
Paragraph D
30
Paragraph E
31
Paragraph F
32
Paragraph G
33
Paragraph H
34
Paragraph I
35
According to paragraph A, Soviet’s five-year plan was a success because
- A. Bolsheviks built a strong fortress.
- B. Russia was weak and backward.
- C. industrial production increased.
- D. Stalin was confident about Soviet’s potential.
36
Daily working hours were cut from eight to seven to
- A. improve the lives of all people.
- B. boost industrial productivity.
- C. get rid of undesirable work hours.
- D. change the already establish three-shift work system.
37
Many factory managers claimed to have complied with the demands of the new work week because
- A. they were pressurized by the state to do so.
- B. they believed there would not be any practical problems.
- C. they were able to apply it.
- D. workers hated the new plan.
38
Whose idea of continuous work week did Stalin approve and helped to implement?
39
What method was used to help workers to remember the rotation of their off days?
40
What was the most resistant force to the new work week scheme?

Phiếu trả lời

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Hiện đáp án

1. C
Both ambergris and amber are described as being expensive, so the answer is C.
2. A
Only ambergris is said to add flavor to food, so the answer is A. Amber is not mentioned as adding flavor.
3. D
Neither ambergris nor amber was used as currency, so the answer is D.
4. B
Amber is described as being see-through, so the answer is B. Ambergris is not see-through.
5. A
Herman Melville referred to ambergris, so the answer is A. Amber is not mentioned in relation to Melville.
6. A
Ambergris produces a sweet smell, so the answer is A. Amber is not described as having a sweet smell.
7. beaks
Sperm whales can’t digest the beaks of the squids, as stated in the passage.
8. vomiting
Sperm whales drive the irritants out of their intestines by vomiting.
9. hardens
The vomit of sperm whale gradually hardens on contact with air before it has a pleasant smell.
10. TRUE
It is stated that most ambergris comes from dead whales today, so the answer is TRUE.
11. NOT GIVEN
There is no information about whether ambergris is becoming more expensive than before, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.
12. FALSE
Ambergris is no longer a popular ingredient in perfume production today, so the answer is FALSE.
13. NOT GIVEN
There is no mention of new uses of ambergris being discovered recently, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.
14. YES
The written records of the grave goods in the Tomb of Fu Hao matched what was found, so the answer is YES.
15. FALSE
The human skeletons in the Anyang tomb were not identified as soldiers killed in war, so the answer is FALSE.
16. YES
The Terracotta Army was discovered by local people by chance, so the answer is YES.
17. NOT GIVEN
There is no information comparing the size of King Tutankhamun’s tomb and Qin Emperor’s tomb, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.
18. elm
The hub is made of wood from the elm tree.
19. lubricating oil
The room through the hub was to put a tempered axle wrapped in leather to retain lubricating oil.
20. 18 to 32
The number of spokes varies from 18 to 32.
21. dish/flat cone
The shape of the wheel resembles a dish or flat cone.
22. struts
Two struts were used to strengthen the wheel.
23. bronze
The edge of the wheel was wrapped in leather to retain bronze.
24. neck
The neck of the horse was released from pressure after the appearance of the shafts.
25. sand
Researchers measured the speed of the chariot on sand.
26. tomb complex
Emperor Qin Shi Huang was buried in the tomb complex, which is part of the afterlife palace.
27. iv
Paragraph A is about optimism for the great future, so the answer is iv.
28. xii
Paragraph B discusses foreign inspiration, so the answer is xii.
29. ii
Paragraph D is about making use of the once wasted weekends, so the answer is ii.
30. x
Paragraph E is about establishing a three-shift system, so the answer is x.
31. i
Paragraph F is about the benefits of the new scheme and its resistance, so the answer is i.
32. ix
Paragraph G is about the reaction from factory workers and their families, so the answer is ix.
33. v
Paragraph H is about the negative effects on production itself, so the answer is v.
34. vii
Paragraph I is about the abolishment of the new work-week scheme, so the answer is vii.
35. C
Industrial production increased, which is why the five-year plan was seen as a success, so the answer is C. The other options do not directly relate to the measure of success.
36. B
Daily working hours were cut to boost industrial productivity, so the answer is B. The other options are not the main reason given.
37. A
Many factory managers claimed to have complied because they were pressurized by the state, so the answer is A. The other options do not match the reason given.
38. Yuri Larin
Stalin approved and helped implement Yuri Larin’s idea of a continuous work week.
39. color-coding / colour-coding
Color-coding was used to help workers remember the rotation of their off days.
40. family
Family was the most resistant force to the new work week scheme.

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Reading Passage 1: Ambergris

Reading Passage 2: Ancient Chinese Chariots

Reading Passage 3: Soviet’s New Working Week

Phiếu trả lời

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