Reading 2026-03 Test 6 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

基于考生回忆重建 — 非官方 IELTS 资料。音频和原文均为练习用途的重现版本。

Reading Passage 1 - How the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was laid

On August 16, 1858, the first telegraphic message crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Travelling along a recently laid cable, the message from Britain's Queen Victoria to US President James Buchanan took just 16 hours. Prior to this, communication across the Atlantic would have been by ship - and taken around 10 days.

People had been communicating via overland telegraph since 1844 and messages had been passing between Britain and France since 1850 when the first submarine cable was laid in the English Channel. But the attempt to span the Atlantic Ocean was the most daring attempt yet - and was the talk of the age, the 19th-century equivalent of the Apollo space mission. The idea that one could seemingly cheat time and space was inspiring and it changed the way people thought about the world and their place in it.

The driving force behind the trans-Atlantic telegraph cable was an American businessman called Cyrus Field. In 1856, he and Englishmen John Watkins Brett and Charles Tilson Bright formed the Atlantic Telegraph company. They raised £350,000 mostly from businessmen in London, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. They also secured £14,000 annually from the British government plus the loan of ships and a similar amount from the US government.

Getting the cable made proved to be difficult. The distance between the west coast of Ireland and Newfoundland is over 3,700km, and Field was unable to find a company that was capable of supplying the required cable in the desired time frame. As a result, two companies were engaged to fulfil the order. The cable had a core of seven copper wires down which the signal would pass. These were insulated with several layers of gutta-percha (a natural plastic made from tree sap) and then armoured with iron wire. When it was complete, the weight of the cable proved too great for any single ship. It was therefore loaded onto two: the British ship, HMS Agamemnon and the American ship, USS Niagara.

The first attempt to lay the cable began on August 5 1857 with both ships departing from the west coast of Ireland, near Ballycarbery Castle. The venture did not go according to plan. The cable snapped on the first day, but was recovered from the bottom and repaired. A few days later, mid-Atlantic, the cable snapped again, this time in water 3km deep. It was lost and the expedition abandoned.

The next summer in 1858 they tried again. On this expedition, the two great ships met mid-Atlantic, each carrying half the cable. The two ends were joined together and the ships sailed away from each other. The cable broke three times and each time they were forced to start again. On July 29, with little hope of success, the cable was joined for the fourth time and the ships sailed for home. This time they succeeded. The cable was landed in Newfoundland on August 4 and in Ireland the following day. And a week or so later Queen Victoria sent that first trans-Atlantic message to President Buchanan.

The celebrations were tremendous. One US newspaper proclaimed:

New York has seldom seen a more complete holiday than that on September 1 1858, in celebration of the successful laying of the Atlantic cable. The enthusiasm of an entire nation was expressed in this jubilee of its metropolis, and the era of a closer connection with Europe was well ushered in by a day of genuine rejoicing and gaiety.

Celebrations were, however, short-lived: the cable performed badly and failed after just three weeks. The project was put on hold, but the concept had been proved possible. By 1865, further research had been carried out into the problems which had plagued the earlier cables. In addition, cables had been successfully laid in the Mediterranean and in the Persian Gulf. The cables that were used were better engineered, with thicker cores and better insulation allowing faster transmission speeds.

In 1865, Field incorporated a second company to raise enough funds to try again. He chartered the largest ship in the world at the time, the SS Great Eastern, which could carry the entire Atlantic cable. Huge salt-water tanks and other state-of-the-art machinery were fitted to ensure it remained in mint condition during its journey. All went well until, in heavy winds 1000km off the coast of Newfoundland, the cable rubbed on the side of the ship, snapped and plunged to the deep ocean floor.

Not one to quit, Field vowed to return the following year. This final 1866 expedition proved to be successful and the cable was put into commercial service on July 28. One month later, the 1865 cable was brought to the surface and repaired, providing a second Atlantic telegraph link. The service had obvious and immediate impact. People in government were able to respond more swiftly to evolving situations. News travelled more quickly, which boosted trade on both sides of the Atlantic. It also had a profound effect on things such as family life and cultural ties. For example, it was no longer so difficult for immigrants in America to keep in touch with their families back home.

The roller-coaster of cable-laying highs and lows between 1857 and 1866 caught the imaginations of a generation the way the space race did in the 20th century. There was immense public interest in the endeavour and in telegraphy more generally. At the time, telegraphic science was reported widely in the newspapers and the fortunes of the telegraph companies were followed closely. Discussions of the pitfalls and solutions to spanning the Atlantic with cable became everyday topics of conversation, and endless articles in the newspapers ensured that the project stayed in people's thoughts.

Questions 1-6: True/False/Not Given

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? Write: TRUE - if the statement agrees with the information; FALSE - if the statement contradicts the information; NOT GIVEN - if there is no information on this.

1
Field failed to find a company that could produce all of the cable needed by the specified date.
2
HMS Agamemnon and USS Niagara set sail from different locations on August 5, 1857.
3
On the 1858 expedition, the cable broke three times because of a manufacturing fault.
4
The newspaper quoted in the passage disapproved of the enthusiasm that met the 1858 expedition.
5
Many articles appeared in the press between 1857 and 1866 about the science behind the telegraph.
6
Between 1857 and 1866, people talked about the problems related to the telegraph project on a regular basis.

Questions 7-13: Note Completion

Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

The history of the trans-Atlantic telegraph

The first attempts to lay cable:

the Atlantic Telegraph company was set up by Field, Brett and Bright in 1856

7. the central wires of the cable were made of _________

8. the cable was put onto two ships due to its _________

the 1857 attempt failed

the cable was successfully laid in 1858

Events between 1858 and 1866:

celebrations were brief since problems emerged

9. further research led to the cable's thickness and _________ being improved

10. Field set up another company to get the _________ for another attempt

the strong winds experienced by the SS Great Eastern led to the cable being lost

the 1866 expedition was successful

The changes the trans-Atlantic telegraph brought about:

11. members of the _________ could react more quickly to events

12. news could be relayed faster, thus improving _________

13. it became easier for US _________ to maintain contact with their families

Reading Passage 2 - The Gender Gap in New Zealand's High School Examination Results

Results from New Zealand's new national examinations for secondary schools are giving that country some cause for concern.

A The issue is the difference in pass rates between the sexes: at each level of the examination and across all school types, the difference is about 10 percentage points. Girls are doing better in every subject, and those in girls-only schools are taking top honours. The results are not a surprise: high school girls have been outperforming boys academically for more than a decade. It is an international phenomenon, and within Australia, it was the subject of much debate and controversy. Within New Zealand back in the 1980s, there was a concerted campaign, called 'Girls Can Do Anything,' which was aimed at lifting girls' participation rates, achievement levels, and aspirations. This was so successful that the pendulum has now swung to the other extreme. Views differ on how worried people should be. After all, for much of history, girls were excluded from any form of education, and this new phenomenon could be seen as a temporary over-correction before the balance is righted.

B However, the New Zealand State Ministry of Education says it is taking the issue seriously. It is working with a reference group on boys' education, which has been set up, and it has commissioned an Australian academic to report on interventions that have been found to work for boys, drawing particularly on Australia's experience. But some, such as former prison manager Celia Lashlie, the author of a book for parents of teenage boys, believe there is still resistance within the Education Ministry towards doing anything about the problem.

C Education Ministry learning policy manager Steve Benson says that the National Certificate in Educational Achievement, or NCEA, as New Zealand's high school exams are called, is useful to employers and to universities because it provides a fine-grained picture of pupils' performance in every aspect of a subject, rather than just a pass or fail in an overall area. In most parts of the curriculum, for example in maths, there isn't really a gender gap. But literacy is a different matter. Even boys who are good at writing tend not to write so much. There's actually a quantity issue.

D The discrepancy in reading and writing skills between males and females shows up as early as preschool, and the most significant difference is clear by the time these children enter high school. Not being good at literacy was not such a problem in the old days when many students left school for manual jobs after Year 11. But nowadays, many more stay on to higher education, and almost all jobs require literacy skills. Roger Moses, the headmaster of Wellington College, says that the written content of NCEA papers is more demanding than the previous system of secondary school qualifications in New Zealand, even in subjects such as statistics and accounting.

E New Zealand 15-year-olds do better in international reading tests, but beneath this average lies a wide variance, with New Zealand European girls most represented at the top and New Zealand Pacific Island boys at the bottom. Yet some European girls drop out, and some Pacific Island boys excel. In other words, the range in performance within each gender group is much greater than the gender differences. Ethnic differences, and differences in socio-economic status, may be more significant than the simple boy/girl explanation.

F This makes the Education Ministry nervous about pushing solutions that emphasize stereotyped gender differences, rather than looking at underachievement as a whole. Rob Burroughs, principal of Linwood High School in Christchurch, agrees. For three years, his school ran separate boys' classes to try to address the disparity in performance, before abandoning them. The research showed that the boys did better in their own class than in the co-educational environment. But when he looked at which teachers they had, and how well those teachers' other classes did, it became clear that the difference was, instead, to do with the quality of instruction.

G At Onslow College, Dr. Stuart Martin would do away with the NCEA Level 1 exam if he could. He says that in Year 11, aged 15, boys are simply not mature enough to cope. They tend to think that just passing is enough, and that it's not necessary to work hard for a Merit or an Excellence grade. Often they are busy with other activities and part-time jobs. Boys' competitive instinct tends to come out later in their schooling years, especially if there is money attached or other tangible rewards. By 17, boys are catching up academically with the girls, and by the end of Year 13, boys are again winning the top prizes.

Questions 14-16: Summary Completion

Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

High school assessment in New Zealand

New Zealanders are worried at the outcomes of their high school assessment system, because the 14 _________ of girls are higher than those of boys by 10%. A gender gap has been apparent for over a 15 _________. This situation is not unique to New Zealand, and has been noticed in 16 _________ also.

Questions 17-20: Paragraph Matching

Reading Passage has eight paragraphs, A-H. Which paragraph contains the following information?

17
An advantage of New Zealand's secondary school tests.
18
A mention of current government initiatives to boost male achievement.
19
When gender difference in literacy skills first becomes evident.
20
Findings that relate academic achievement to race.

Questions 21-26: Matching People to Statements

Look at the following people (Questions 21-26) and the list of statements below. Match each person with the correct statement, A-H.

List of Statements:

A. Boys gain lower marks on NCEA if they attend an all-boys' school.

B. Boys are disadvantaged by girls tending to take over at school.

C. Good teaching is more important than whether classrooms are single-sex or mixed.

D. Mathematical skills were not so important in the past.

E. The difference in achievement between school boys and girls is only evident in some subjects.

F. Older boys are more motivated to study than younger boys.

G. The NCEA exams have higher literacy standards than past exams did.

H. The New Zealand government is reluctant to take action on behalf of boys.

21
Celia Lashlie
22
Steve Benson
23
Roger Moses
24
Rob Burroughs
25
Stuart Martin
26
Paul Baker

Reading Passage 3 - Looking for Inspirations

People have speculated their creativity for centuries. Initially they link creative activities have a connection with intelligence. This has lured many research studies.

In the early 1970s, creativity was still seen as a type of intelligence. But when more subtle tests of IQ and creativity skills were developed in the 1970s, particularly by the father of creativity testing, Paul Torrance, it became clear that the link was not so simple. Creative people are intelligent, in terms of IQ tests at least, but only averagely or just above. While it depends on the discipline, in general beyond a certain level IQ does not help boost creativity.

Because of the difficulty of studying the actual process, most early attempts to study creativity concentrated on personality. According to creativity specialist Mark Runco, the 'creative personality' tends to place a high value on aesthetic qualities and to have broad interests, providing lots of resources to draw on and knowledge to recombine into novel solutions. Creative people have an attraction to complexity and an ability to handle conflict. They are also usually highly self-motivated, perhaps even a little obsessive, when it comes to chase after their ambitions.

But there may be a price to pay for having a creative personality. A link has been made between creativity and mental illness. Psychiatrist Kay Redfield, who herself has suffered from bipolar disorder, found that established artists are significantly more likely to have mood disorders. But she suggests that a change of mood state might be the key to triggering a creative event, rather than the negative mood itself.

Jordan Peterson, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, says that the brains of creative people seem more open to incoming stimuli than less creative types.

One of the first studies of the creative brain at work was by Colin Martindale. Back in 1978, he used a network of scalp electrodes to record the pattern of brain waves when people made up stories. Creativity has two stages: inspiration and elaboration, each characterized by very different states of mind. He found that while people were dreaming up their stories, their brains were surprisingly quiet. The dominant activity was alpha waves, indicating a very low level of cortical arousal: a relaxed state, as though the conscious mind was quiet while the brain was making connections behind the scenes. It's the same sort of brain activity as in some stages of sleep, dreaming or rest, which could explain why sleep and relaxation can help people be creative. However, in the story-telling stage, the alpha wave dropped off and the brain became busier, revealing increased cortical arousal. Strikingly, it was the people who showed the biggest difference in brain activity between the inspiration and development stages who produced the most creative storyline.

Guy Claxton said 'it is like a less creative person cannot shift gear, creativity requires different kinds of thinking. Very creative people move between these states intuitively.' Creativity is about mental flexibility: perhaps not a two-step process, but a toggling between two states.

Creativity also has a clear link with social interaction. Vera John-Steiner says that to be really creative you need strong social networks and trusting relationships, not just active neural networks. One vital characteristic of highly creative person is that they have at least one other person in their life that doesn't think they are completely nuts.

Questions 27-32: Matching People to Opinions/Deeds

Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-F) with opinions or deeds below.

List of People

A. Paul Torrance

B. Mark Runco

C. Kay Redfield

D. Jordan Peterson

E. Guy Claxton

F. Vera John-Steiner

27
Creative people have the ability to work with numerous data at the same time.
28
Creative people have the ability to let their different brain parts to work together.
29
Creative people may suffer from mental disorder.
30
Creative peoples' IQ ability is on average or above.
31
Creative people participate in social interaction.
32
Creative people persist to achieve their dreams.

Questions 33-36: Summary Completion

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

But what of the creative act itself? In 1978, Colin Martindale made records of the pattern of brain waves as people made up stories by applying a system constituted of many 33 _________. The two phases of creativity, such as 34 _________ were found. However, experiment proved the signal of 35 _________ activity went down and the brain became busier revealing increased cortical arousal, when these people who were in the laidback state were required to produce their stories. Strikingly, it was found that person who was perceived to have the greatest 36 _________ in brain activity between the 2 stages, produced storylines with highest level of creativity.

Questions 37-40: True/False/Not Given

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage? TRUE if the statement is true; FALSE if the statement is false; NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage.

37
High IQ guarantees better creative ability in one person that who achieves an average score in an IQ test.
38
Creative people have disadvantages.
39
A creative person does not necessarily suffer more mental illness.
40
The current society put more emphasis on individuals' language proficiency.

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显示答案

1. TRUE
This is correct because the passage says Field was 'unable to find a company that was capable of supplying the required cable in the desired time frame,' so he had to use two companies.
2. FALSE
This is false because both ships departed from the same place: 'both ships departing from the west coast of Ireland, near Ballycarbery Castle.'
3. NOT GIVEN
Not given; the passage says the cable broke several times but does not say it was due to a manufacturing fault.
4. FALSE
False; the newspaper quoted in the passage described the celebrations as enthusiastic and positive, not disapproving: 'The enthusiasm of an entire nation was expressed in this jubilee...'
5. TRUE
True; the passage says 'endless articles in the newspapers ensured that the project stayed in people's thoughts,' showing many articles appeared about telegraph science.
6. TRUE
True; the passage says 'Discussions of the pitfalls and solutions...became everyday topics of conversation,' meaning people talked about the problems regularly.
7. copper
The answer is 'copper' because the passage says 'The cable had a core of seven copper wires down which the signal would pass.'
8. weight
The answer is 'weight' because the passage says 'the weight of the cable proved too great for any single ship. It was therefore loaded onto two.'
9. insulation
The answer is 'insulation' because the passage says 'better engineered, with thicker cores and better insulation allowing faster transmission speeds.'
10. funds
The answer is 'funds' because the passage says 'Field incorporated a second company to raise enough funds to try again.'
11. government
The answer is 'government' because the passage says 'People in government were able to respond more swiftly to evolving situations.'
12. trade
The answer is 'trade' because the passage says 'News travelled more quickly, which boosted trade on both sides of the Atlantic.'
13. immigrants
The answer is 'immigrants' because the passage says 'it was no longer so difficult for immigrants in America to keep in touch with their families back home.'
14. Points
The answer is 'Points' because the passage says 'the difference is about 10 percentage points. Girls are doing better in every subject.'
15. decade
The answer is 'decade' because the passage says 'high school girls have been outperforming boys academically for more than a decade.'
16. Australia
The answer is 'Australia' because the passage says 'it was the subject of much debate and controversy' in Australia, showing the situation is not unique to New Zealand.
17. C
C is correct because the passage says NCEA 'provides a fine-grained picture of pupils' performance in every aspect of a subject, rather than just a pass or fail.' The tempting wrong option A fails because it does not mention this detailed feedback.
18. B
B is correct because it mentions the Ministry of Education 'is working with a reference group on boys' education' and has 'commissioned an Australian academic to report on interventions.'
19. D
D is correct because it says 'The discrepancy in reading and writing skills between males and females shows up as early as preschool.'
20. H
H is correct because it says 'New Zealand European girls most represented at the top and New Zealand Pacific Island boys at the bottom,' relating achievement to race.
21. H
H is correct because it mentions 'Celia Lashlie, the author of a book for parents of teenage boys, believe there is still resistance within the Education Ministry towards doing anything about the problem.'
22. E
E is correct because Steve Benson is quoted about the NCEA and gender gap, especially in literacy: 'In most parts of the curriculum...there isn't really a gender gap. But literacy is a different matter.'
23. G
G is correct because Roger Moses says 'the written content of NCEA papers is more demanding than the previous system...even in subjects such as statistics and accounting.'
24. C
C is correct because Rob Burroughs says the difference in boys' performance was due to 'the quality of instruction,' not just gender.
25. F
F is correct because Stuart Martin says boys are 'not mature enough to cope' at age 15 and would do away with the NCEA Level 1 exam if he could.
26. B
B is correct because Paul Baker is not mentioned in the passage, so this is a distractor.
27. D
D is correct because the passage says creative people 'have broad interests, providing lots of resources to draw on and knowledge to recombine into novel solutions,' meaning they can work with many data at once.
28. E
E is correct because the passage describes how creative people have 'different states of mind' and 'move between these states intuitively,' showing their brain parts work together.
29. C
C is correct because the passage says 'A link has been made between creativity and mental illness...artists are significantly more likely to have mood disorders.'
30. A
A is correct because the passage says 'Creative people are intelligent, in terms of IQ tests at least, but only averagely or just above.'
31. F
F is correct because the passage says 'to be really creative you need strong social networks and trusting relationships.'
32. B
B is correct because the passage says creative people are 'highly self-motivated, perhaps even a little obsessive, when it comes to chase after their ambitions.'
33. scalp electrodes
The answer is 'scalp electrodes' because the passage says 'he used a network of scalp electrodes to record the pattern of brain waves.'
34. inspiration
The answer is 'inspiration' because the passage says 'Creativity has two stages: inspiration and elaboration.'
35. alpha wave
The answer is 'alpha wave' because the passage says 'The dominant activity was alpha waves, indicating a very low level of cortical arousal.'
36. difference
The answer is 'difference' because the passage says 'it was the people who showed the biggest difference in brain activity...who produced the most creative storyline.'
37. FALSE
False; the passage says 'in general beyond a certain level IQ does not help boost creativity,' so high IQ does not guarantee better creative ability.
38. TRUE
True; the passage says 'there may be a price to pay for having a creative personality' and links creativity to mental illness.
39. TRUE
True; the passage says 'a change of mood state might be the key to triggering a creative event, rather than the negative mood itself,' so not all creative people suffer more mental illness.
40. NOT GIVEN
Not given; the passage does not say whether society now puts more emphasis on language proficiency.

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