Reading 2026-09 Test 11 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

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Reading Passage 1: The History of Tea

(A) The story of tea begins in China. According to legend, in 2737 BC the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water, when some leaves from the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea. It is impossible to know whether there is any truth in this story, but tea-drinking certainly became established in China many centuries before it had even been heard of in the West. Containers for tea have been found in tombs dating from the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD), but it was under the Tang Dynasty (618–906 AD) that tea became firmly established as the national drink of China.

(B) It became such a favourite that during the late eighth century a writer called Lu Yu wrote the first book entirely about tea, the Ch’a Ching, or Tea Classic. It was shortly after this that tea was first introduced to Japan, by Japanese Buddhist monks who had travelled to China to study. Tea received almost instant imperial sponsorship and spread rapidly from the royal court and monasteries to the other sections of Japanese society.

(C) So at this stage in the history of tea, Europe was rather lagging behind. In the latter half of the sixteenth century there are the first brief mentions of tea as a drink among Europeans, mostly from Portuguese who were living in the East as traders and missionaries. But although some of these individuals may have brought back samples of tea to their native country, it was not the Portuguese who were the first to ship back tea as a commercial import.

(D) This was done by the Dutch, who in the last years of the sixteenth century began to encroach on Portuguese trading routes in the East. By the turn of the century they had established a trading post on the island of Java, and it was via Java that in 1606 the first consignment of tea was shipped from China to Holland. Tea soon became a fashionable drink among the Dutch, and from there spread to other countries in continental western Europe, but because of its high price it remained a drink for the wealthy.

(E) Britain, always a little suspicious of continental trends, had yet to become the nation of tea-drinkers that it is today. Starting in 1600, the British East India Company had a monopoly on importing goods from outside Europe, and it is likely that sailors on these ships brought tea home as gifts. The first coffee-house had been established in London in 1652, and tea was still somewhat unfamiliar to most readers, so it is fair to assume that the drink was still something of a curiosity.

(F) Gradually, it became a popular drink in coffee-houses, which were as much locations for the transaction of business as they were for relaxation or pleasure. They were, though, the preserve of middle- and upper-class men; women drank tea in their own homes, and as yet tea was still too expensive to be widespread among the working classes. In part, its high price was due to a punitive system of taxation.

(G) One unforeseen consequence of the taxation of tea was the growth of methods to avoid taxation—smuggling and adulteration. By the eighteenth century many Britons wanted to drink tea but could not afford the high prices, and their enthusiasm for the drink was matched by the enthusiasm of criminal gangs to smuggle it in. What began as a small-time illegal trade, selling a few pounds of tea to personal contacts, developed by the late eighteenth century into an astonishing organised-crime network, perhaps importing as much as seven million lb annually, compared to a legal import of five million lb!

(H) Worse for the drinkers was that taxation also encouraged the adulteration of tea, particularly of smuggled tea which was not quality-controlled through customs and excise. Leaves from other plants, or leaves which had already been brewed and then dried, were added to tea leaves. By 1784, the government realised that enough was enough, and that heavy taxation was creating more problems than it was worth. The new Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, slashed the tax from 119 per cent to 12.5 per cent. Suddenly legal tea was affordable, and smuggling stopped virtually overnight.

(I) Another great impetus to tea-drinking resulted from the end of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade with China, in 1834. Before that date, China was the country of origin of the vast majority of the tea imported to Britain, but the end of its monopoly stimulated the East India Company to consider growing tea outside China. India had always been the centre of the Company’s operations, which led to the increased cultivation of tea in India, beginning in Assam. There were a few false starts, including the destruction by cattle of one of the earliest tea nurseries, but by 1888 British tea imports from India were for the first time greater than those from China.

(J) The end of the East India Company’s monopoly on trade with China also had another result, which was more dramatic though less important in the long term: it ushered in the era of the tea clippers. While the Company had had the monopoly on trade, there was no rush to bring the tea from China to Britain, but after 1834 the tea trade became a virtual free-for-all.

(K) Individual merchants and sea-captains with their own ships raced to bring home the tea and make the most money, using fast new clippers which had sleek lines, tall masts and huge sails. In particular, there was competition between British and American merchants, leading to the famous clipper races of the 1860s. But these races soon came to an end with the opening of the Suez Canal, which made the trade routes to China viable for steamships for the first time.

1
Researchers believe the tea containers detected in ____ from the Han Dynasty were the first evidence of the use of tea.
2
Lu Yu wrote a ____ about tea before anyone else in the eighth century.
3
It was ____ from Japan who brought tea to their native country from China.
4
Tea was carried from China to Europe by the ____.
5
The British government had to cut the taxation on tea because of the serious crime of ____.
6
Tea was planted in ____ besides China in the 19th century.
7
In order to compete in shipping speed, traders used ____ for the race.
8
Tea was popular in Britain in the 16th century.
- A. TRUE
- B. FALSE
- C. NOT GIVEN
9
Tea was more fashionable than coffee in Europe in the late 16th century.
10
Tea was enjoyed by all classes in Britain in the 17th century.
11
The adulteration of tea also prompted William Pitt the Younger to reduce the tax.
12
Initial problems occurred when tea was planted outside China by the East India Company.
13
The fastest vessels were owned by America during the 19th-century clipper races.

Reading Passage 2: Should we stop eating meat?

The call for people to eat less meat to save the planet is growing louder, so if less is good, wouldn't none be better? To find out, let's imagine what would happen if the world eliminated meat, milk and eggs from its diet, then trace the effects. Last year the world consumed 289 million tonnes of meat, 700 million tonnes of milk and 1.2 billion eggs. Environmentally speaking, this came at an enormous cost.

All agriculture damages the environment. Take for example the felled forests and the common use of irrigation systems. And it may surprise you to know that agriculture creates more greenhouse gases than all methods of transport put together. Livestock farming does the most damage. In part, that is because most livestock eat grain that could be used to feed human populations, and farmers are forced to grow more than we would otherwise need to meet the demand. Altogether, if we switched to a vegan diet, meaning no meat, dairy or eggs, the land currently required for crops would drop by an estimated 21 per cent, about 3.4 million hectares, roughly the size of India.

One environmental impact that would also lessen through a reduction in animal farming would be that of the nitrogen emitted from agricultural processes, which spreads into both waterways and land. According to environmental scientist Allison Leach, if everyone eliminated dairy products and eggs, this kind of pollution would fall by 60%. Livestock production has another serious environmental impact. Global statistics are hard to come by, but in the US at least, livestock account for 55% of erosion, mostly from forests being cut down to make way for grazing land. On top of this, half of all antibiotics manufactured are fed to livestock as part of their normal diet, a practice that is leading to drug-resistant bacteria.

A meat-free world, then would be greener in many ways. However, if everyone opted to give up meat there would be significant costs too. For most of human history, livestock grazed on land that wasn't suitable for ploughing, and in doing so they converted inedible grass into edible meat and milk. Even today, a flock of sheep or goats can be the most efficient way to get food from marginal land. In a world in which over a billion people do not have enough to eat, using this land for crop production would contribute to food insecurity.

In some parts of the world today, livestock like chickens, for instance, can subsist on leftovers and whatever they find. Tara Garnett, who heads the Food Climate Research Network at the University of Surrey, points out the usefulness of these animals. By giving them your leftovers, she says, they deal with your rubbish, and you get meat. Garnett admits, though, that if this kind of approach were generally adopted, it would require a major adjustment in food preferences; people would have to get used to chicken, for example, with less fat.

Another downside to a meat-free world would be the disappearance of animal by-products. Such a world would have to replace the 11 million tonnes of leather and 2 million tonnes of wool that come annually from livestock farming and which are turned into clothing. Furthermore, even ardent vegetarians acknowledge that dairy products and meat may be a good thing in poorer countries. 'Whilst there's no doubt that considerable reduction of meat consumption would have an environmental benefit, we do have to be careful about saying it would be the best solution if the whole world went vegetarian,' says Annette Pinner, chief executive of the UK Vegetarian Society. For many of the world's poorest rural residents, an animal may represent their only realistic hope for a little extra income, and a little animal protein can make a big difference to a marginal diet.

What if we decided on a no-meat vegetarian diet, rather than a vegan diet? After all, milk and eggs are very efficient ways of producing animal calories. 'It's difficult to switch to a no-meat-but-milk diet,' says Helmut Haberl, a social ecologist. 'Dairy cows must calve every year to keep producing milk, and only half their offspring will be female. While many vegetarians see moral reasons not to kill and eat the males, there is surely no practical reason to waste so much meat.' Similar arguments apply to chickens kept for eggs.

So even though a meat-free world sounds good on paper, it is likely that a utopian future will still have some animal products in it. The real questions, then, are how much meat do we want, and how will we produce it? The answers depend on how you approach these questions. The most straightforward approach is to assume that the world will continue to want evermore meat. The United Nations' best guess is that by 2050, the world will need to more than double its production of meat, an increase that would be environmentally disastrous.

Under this scenario the goal will have to be producing the most meat at the lowest environmental cost. According to Walter Falcon, an agricultural economist, this means fewer free range cattle and sheep in green fields. 'If you're going to keep some livestock systems, I think the ones you'll want to keep are the intensive ones,' he says. Of course this does not take into account animal welfare issues, as intensive farming usually means poor living conditions and the use of growth hormones.

14
the suggestion that people may need to adapt to a different quality of meat
15
a description of the way animals were fed in the past
16
a prediction in regard to human demand for meat
17
the potential consequences of a meat-free world for textile industries
18
Complete the summary: Agriculture causes significant harm to the environment in a number of ways, including the frequent use of ____ in modern farming and the cutting down of trees. It is also responsible for the production of many greenhouse gases, more so than ____ is. However, it is livestock farming in particular that is most harmful, because cows, chickens and sheep, for example, are given vast quantities of grain which could be consumed by people instead. A meat-free diet would mean that actually less ____ could be used for crops. Far less chemical pollution, specifically in the form of ____, would also be released into the environment, especially if consumers cut out dairy and egg products as well as meat. In the US, there is clear evidence that considerable ____ is caused by the demand for grazing land, although there is no information on this from other countries.
19
It is not possible to say that a vegetarian diet is right for everyone.
- A. Allison Leach
- B. Tara Garnett
- C. Annette Pinner
- D. Helmut Haberl
- E. Walter Falcon
20
It may be economically preferable to farm animals in limited space.
21
It does not make sense to give up meat without giving up dairy products too.
22
Some animals can be fed in a way that allows waste to be recycled.

Reading Passage 3: The Causes of Linguistic Change

All living languages undergo changes of various kinds, for which there are various reasons. The changes that have caused most dispute are those in pronunciation. We have various sources of evidence for the pronunciations of earlier times, like the evidence of spellings, the treatment of words borrowed from other languages or borrowed by them, the descriptions of contemporary grammarians, and the modern pronunciations in all the languages and dialects concerned. These, combined with a knowledge of the mechanism of speech production, can often give us a very good idea of the pronunciation of an earlier age, though absolute certainty is never possible. When we study the pronunciation of a language over any period of a few generations or more, we find that it is subject to change. Moreover, there are always large-scale regularities in the changes: for example, over a period of time, all the long a sounds in a language may change into long o sounds, or all the b sounds in a certain position (for example, at the end of a word) may change into p sounds. Such regular changes are often called sound laws. There are no universal sound laws, but simply particular sound laws for one given language at one given period.

One cause of change is the influence of one language on another. We learn our mother tongue very thoroughly, and acquire a whole set of speech habits which become second nature to us. When later we learn a foreign language, we inevitably carry over some of these speech habits into it, and so do not speak it exactly like a native. Consequently, in bilingual situations the second language tends to be modified. Such modifications may not persist, of course: an isolated Polish or German immigrant to Britain will usually have grandchildren who speak English like natives because the influence of the general speech environment (playmates, school, work) is stronger than that of the home. But if a large and closely knit group of people adopt a new language, then the modifications they make in it may persist among their descendants, even if the latter no longer speak the original language that caused the changes. This can be seen in Wales, where the influence of Welsh has affected the pronunciation of English, and the very characteristic melody of Welsh English has been carried over from Welsh.

It is also possible that fashion plays a part in the process of change. It certainly plays a part in the spread of change: one person imitates another, and people with the most prestige are most likely to be imitated, so that a change that takes place in one social group may be imitated (more or less accurately) by speakers in another group. When a social group goes up or down in the world, its pronunciation will gain or lose prestige. Some of the changes in accepted English pronunciation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been shown to consist of the replacement of one style of pronunciation by another style already existing, and it is likely that such substitutions were a result of the great social changes of the period: the increased power and wealth of the middle classes, and their steady infiltration upwards into the ranks of the landed gentry probably carried elements of middle class dialect into upper class speech. However, besides spreading changes that have already taken place, fashion may actually cause changes in pronunciation. In a stratified society, the important thing about a fashion is that it is exclusive: as soon as the fashion has penetrated to a lower social group, it’s time to move on.

This can be seen in clothes: fashionable people may find it flattering to be imitated, but as soon as the new fashion has really caught on they must change to something else, to mark themselves off as different. It may be the same with language, for social groups use characteristic styles of language to mark themselves off from other groups. A group that has high prestige may find that its style of speech is being imitated by other groups, and then its members may (perhaps subconsciously) begin to change it, perhaps by exaggerating its distinguishing characteristics.

However, while interaction between different languages, and between the dialects of a single language, can explain some changes in pronunciation, it cannot explain them all.

Another cause that has been suggested is the fact that the imitation of children is imperfect: they copy their parents’ speech, but never reproduce it exactly. This seems to be true enough and it moreover seems to be true that even adults show a certain amount of random variation in their pronunciation. However, these facts cannot explain changes in pronunciation, unless it can be shown that there is some systematic trend in the failures in imitation. If they are merely random deviations they will cancel one another out and there will be no net change in the language. For some of these random variations to be selected at the expense of others, there must be further forces at work.

One such force, which is often suggested, is known as the principle of ease. We are all naturally lazy, it is argued, and so we tend to take short cuts in the movements of our speech organs, to replace movements calling for great accuracy or energy by less demanding ones, to omit sounds if they are not essential for understanding, and so on. For example, the word scant was once skamt, but the m has been changed to n under the influence of the following t. An economy of effort has thereby been achieved, because n and t are articulated in the same place (with the tip of the tongue against the teeth-ridge), whereas m is articulated elsewhere (with the two lips). The change from skamt to scant would be an example of assimilation, which is a very common kind of change. Assimilation is the changing of a sound under the influence of a neighbouring sound.

Assimilation is not the only way in which we change our pronunciation in order to reduce effort. A sound may come to be pronounced less energetically, wherever it occurs: the English r and h sounds are undoubtedly pronounced much less vigorously now than they were a thousand years ago. In some positions a sound may disappear altogether. At one time the t was pronounced in words like castle and Christmas, and the g in words like gnat and gnaw. Sometimes a whole syllable is dropped out if it occurs twice running. A modern example is temporary, which in Britain is pronounced as if it were tempory.

23
It is known that the pronunciation of language changes over time. The changes include large-scale regularities known as _____.
24
There are several possible causes for change. Firstly, there is the effect of one language on another. Secondly, there is the role of _____.
25
The speech of certain groups has prestige, and is imitated by others. It has also been suggested that some changes are introduced by _____, who are unable to imitate speech in an exact way.
26
Finally, there is a factor referred to as the _____, by which the effort necessary to produce words is reduced.
27
It is impossible to know how words used to be pronounced.
- A. TRUE
- B. FALSE
- C. NOT GIVEN
28
Some languages appear to have changed more than others.
29
Some changes in English were probably led by the middle classes.
30
Certain English sounds are difficult for all children to pronounce.
31
Scant is generally easier to pronounce than skamt.
32
The spelling of gnat is likely to change in the future.
33
The spelling of temporary no longer reflects its pronunciation.
34
the b sound changing to a p sound at the end of words
- A. large-scale change
- B. influence of one language on another
- C. minimisation of effort
- D. imitation of prestigious group
35
the melodic pronunciation of Welsh English
36
the disappearance of the t sound in Christmas

Phiếu trả lời

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Hiện đáp án

1. tombs
The answer is 'tombs' because the passage says the tea containers were found in tombs from the Han Dynasty, showing the first evidence of tea use.
2. book
The answer is 'book' because the passage states Lu Yu wrote a book about tea in the eighth century, making him the first to do so.
3. monks
The answer is 'monks' because the passage explains that monks from Japan brought tea back to their country from China.
4. Dutch
The answer is 'Dutch' because the passage mentions that the Dutch carried tea from China to Europe.
5. smuggling
The answer is 'smuggling' because the passage says the British government reduced tea taxes due to the serious crime of smuggling.
6. India
The answer is 'India' because the passage states that tea was planted in India as well as China in the 19th century.
7. clippers
The answer is 'clippers' because the passage says traders used clippers, which are fast ships, to compete in shipping speed.
8. B
The answer is B (FALSE) because the passage does not say tea was popular in Britain in the 16th century; it became popular later.
9. C
The answer is C (NOT GIVEN) because the passage does not compare the fashion of tea and coffee in Europe in the late 16th century.
10. B
The answer is B (FALSE) because the passage says tea was not enjoyed by all classes in Britain in the 17th century, only by the wealthy at first.
11. A
The answer is A (TRUE) because the passage says the adulteration of tea was one reason William Pitt the Younger reduced the tax.
12. A
The answer is A (TRUE) because the passage mentions there were initial problems when the East India Company planted tea outside China.
13. C
The answer is C (NOT GIVEN) because the passage does not say which country owned the fastest vessels during the clipper races.
14. E
The answer is E because the passage suggests people may need to adapt to a different quality of meat, which matches option E.
15. D
The answer is D because the passage describes how animals were fed in the past, which is option D.
16. H
The answer is H because the passage makes a prediction about future human demand for meat, matching option H.
17. F
The answer is F because the passage discusses what could happen to textile industries in a meat-free world, which is option F.
18. irrigation / transport / land / nitrogen / erosion
The answers are: irrigation (modern farming uses irrigation), transport (agriculture produces more greenhouse gases than transport), land (less land would be needed for crops), nitrogen (less nitrogen pollution would be released), erosion (erosion is caused by demand for grazing land in the US).
19. C
The answer is C (Annette Pinner) because she says a vegetarian diet is not right for everyone.
20. E
The answer is E (Walter Falcon) because he says it may be better economically to farm animals in limited space.
21. D
The answer is D (Helmut Haberl) because he says it does not make sense to give up meat but not dairy products.
22. B
The answer is B (Tara Garnett) because she says some animals can be fed in a way that recycles waste.
23. sound laws
The answer is 'sound laws' because the passage says large-scale regularities in pronunciation changes are called sound laws.
24. fashion
The answer is 'fashion' because the passage lists fashion as the second possible cause for language change.
25. children
The answer is 'children' because the passage suggests some changes are introduced by children who cannot imitate speech exactly.
26. principle of ease
The answer is 'principle of ease' because the passage says this factor reduces the effort needed to produce words.
27. B
The answer is B (FALSE) because the passage says it is possible to know how words used to be pronounced.
28. C
The answer is C (NOT GIVEN) because the passage does not say if some languages have changed more than others.
29. A
The answer is A (TRUE) because the passage says some changes in English were probably led by the middle classes.
30. C
The answer is C (NOT GIVEN) because the passage does not say if certain English sounds are difficult for all children to pronounce.
31. A
The answer is A (TRUE) because the passage says 'scant' is easier to pronounce than 'skamt'.
32. C
The answer is C (NOT GIVEN) because the passage does not say if the spelling of 'gnat' will change in the future.
33. A
The answer is A (TRUE) because the passage says the spelling of 'temporary' no longer matches its pronunciation.
34. A
The answer is A (large-scale change) because the b sound changing to a p sound at the end of words is a large-scale change.
35. B
The answer is B (influence of one language on another) because the melodic pronunciation of Welsh English comes from the influence of Welsh.
36. C
The answer is C (minimisation of effort) because the t sound disappears in 'Christmas' to make the word easier to say.

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Reading Passage 1: The History of Tea

Reading Passage 2: Should we stop eating meat?

Reading Passage 3: The Causes of Linguistic Change

Phiếu trả lời

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