Reading 2026-05 Test 8 — 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 — Wild Foods of Australia

Over 120 years ago, the English botanist J. D. Hooker, writing of Australian edible plants, suggested that many of them were ‘eatable but not worth eating’. Nevertheless, the Australian flora, together with the fauna, supported the Aboriginal people well before the arrival of Europeans. The Aborigines were not farmers and were wholly dependent for life on the wild products around them. They learned to eat, often after treatment, a wide variety of plants.

The conquering Europeans displaced the Aborigines, killing many, driving others from their traditional tribal lands, and eventually settling many of the tribal remnants on government reserves, where flour and beef replaced nardoo and wallaby as staple foods. And so, gradually, the vast store of knowledge, accumulated over thousands of years, fell into disuse. Much was lost.

However, a few European men took an intelligent and even respectful interest in the people who were being displaced. Explorers, missionaries, botanists, naturalists, and government officials observed, recorded, and, fortunately in some cases, published. Today, we can draw on these publications to form the main basis of our knowledge of the edible, natural products of Australia. The picture is no doubt mostly incomplete. We can only speculate on the number of edible plants on which no observation was recorded.

Not all our information on the subject comes from the Aborigines. Times were hard in the early days of European settlement, and traditional foods were often in short supply or impossibly expensive for a pioneer trying to establish a farm in the bush. And so necessity led to experimentation, just as it must have done for the Aborigines, and experimentation led to some lucky results. So far as is known, the Aborigines made no use of Leptospermum or Dodonaea as food plants, yet the early settlers found that one could be used as a substitute for tea and the other for hops. These plants are not closely related to the species they replaced, so their use was not based on botanical observation. Probably some experiments had fewer happy endings; L. J. Webb has used the expression eat, die, and learn in connection with the Aboriginal experimentation, but it was the successful attempts that became widely known. It is possible that the edibility of some native plants used by the Aborigines was discovered independently by the European settlers or their descendants.

Explorers making long expeditions found it impossible to carry sufficient food for the whole journey and were forced to rely on, in part, on food that they could find on the way. Still another source of information comes from the practice in other countries. There are many species from northern Australia which occur also in Southeast Asia, where they are used for food.

In general, those Aborigines living in the dry inland areas were largely dependent for their vegetable foods on seeds such as those of grasses, acacias, and eucalypts. They ground these seeds between flat stones to make coarse flour. Tribes on the coast, and particularly those in the vicinity of coastal rainforests, had a more varied vegetable diet with a higher proportion of fruits and tubers. Some of the coastal plants, even if they had grown inland, probably would have been unavailable as food since they required prolonged washing or soaking to render them non-poisonous; many of the inland tribes could not obtain water in the quantities necessary for such treatment. There was also considerable variation in the edible plants available to Aborigines in different latitudes. In general, the people who lived in the moist tropical areas enjoyed a much greater variety, than those in the southern part of Australia.

With all the hundreds of plant species used for food by the Australian Aborigines, it is perhaps surprising that only one, the Queensland nut, has entered into commercial cultivation as a food plant. The reason for this probably does not lie with an intrinsic lack of potential in Australian flora, but rather with the lack of exploitation of this potential. In Europe and Asia, for example, the main food plants have had the benefit of many centuries of selection and hybridization, which has led to the production of forms vastly superior to those in the wild. Before the Europeans came, the Aborigines practiced no agriculture and so there was no opportunity for such improvement; either deliberate or unconscious, in the quality of the edible plants.

Since 1788, there has, of course, been an opportunity for the selection of Australian food plants which might have led to the production of varieties that were worth cultivating. But Australian plants have probably ‘missed the bus’. Food plants from other regions were already so far in advance after a long tradition of cultivation that it seemed hardly worth starting work on Australian species. Undoubtedly, the native raspberry, for example, could, with suitable selection and breeding programs, be made to yield a high-class fruit; but Australians already enjoy good raspberries from other areas of the world and unless some dedicated amateur plant breeder takes up the task, the Australian raspberries are likely to remain unimproved.

And so, today, as the choice of which food plants to cultivate in Australia has been largely decided, and as there is little chance of being lost for long periods in the bush. Our interest in the subject of Australian food plants tends to relate to natural history rather than to practical necessity.

Questions 1–7: YES/NO/NOT GIVEN

Do the following statements reflect the claims of the writer in the reading passage? In boxes 1–7 write: YES if the statement reflects the writer's claims; NO if the statement contradicts the writer; NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage.

1
Most of the pre-European Aboriginal knowledge of wild foods has been recovered.
2
There were few food plants unknown to pre-European Aborigines.
3
Europeans learned all of what they knew of edible wild plants from Aborigines.
4
Dodonaea is an example of a plant used for food by both pre-European Aborigines and European settlers.
5
Some Australian food plants are botanically related to plants outside Australia.
6
Pre-European Aboriginal tribes closer to the coast had access to a greater variety of food plants than tribes further inland.
7
Some species of coastal food plants were also found inland.

Questions 8–10: Multiple Choice

Choose the appropriate letters (A–D) and write them in boxes 8–10 on your answer sheet.

8
Wallaby meat
- A. was regularly eaten by Aborigines before European settlement.
- B. was given by Aborigines in exchange for foods such as flour.
- C. was a staple food on government reserves.
- D. was produced on farms before European settlement.
9
Experimentation with wild plants
- A. depended largely on botanical observation.
- B. was unavoidable for early settlers in all parts of Australia.
- C. led Aborigines to adopt Leptospermum as a food plant.
- D. sometimes had unfortunate results for Aborigines.
10
Wild plant used by Aborigines
- A. was limited to dry regions.
- B. was restricted to seed.
- C. sometimes required the use of tools.
- D. was more prevalent in the southern part of Australia.

Questions 11–13: Summary Completion

Complete the partial summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 11–13 on your answer sheet.

Despite the large numbers of wild plants that could be used for food, only one, the 11 _________ is being grown as a cash crop. Other edible plants in Australia, however much potential they have for cultivation, had not gone through the lengthy process of 12 _________ that would allow their exploitation, because Aborigines were not farmers. Thus species such as the 13 _________, which would be an agricultural success had it not had to compete with established European varieties at the time of European settlement, are of no commercial value.

Reading Passage 2 — Orientation of Birds

A. For many of us, the way birds are able to orientate is both astounding and difficult to appreciate fully. For instance, the annual migration of the golden plover of the Pacific takes it from Alaska to Hawaii on a flight of well over 3000 kilometres, and if it were to deviate by only one degree, it would miss the island on which it nests.

B. The first systematic studies on orientation in birds were made possible by the ‘homing instinct’ exhibited by so many species. Birds are caught at a time when they show an attachment to their territory, especially during the nesting season. They are taken to some spot, released, and the percentage of returns is recorded. The distance can be varied, and the direction, as well as the method of transporting them, and then the influence of climatic and other factors on their ability to find their way home can be studied. These experiments have shown a wide variation in ability to home, and three types of homing behaviour have been identified.

C. In the first type, birds methodically explore the area in which they are released until they pick up some familiar feature, and then they quickly find their way back to the nest. Such birds possess a highly developed visual memory, as experiments with pigeons have shown. Domestic pigeons have been trained to peck at a certain point on an aerial photograph, with a system of rewards, and four years later the birds were still able to respond to this training when placed on the aerial photograph. Birds’ eyes have a power of resolution two to three times greater than ours, enabling them to pick up very fine details. If a bird uses only this type of homing behaviour, however, it can only succeed if the point of release is not too far away. If the birds are transported 800 kilometres from their nest, it is only by good fortune that they find their way back as a result of long exploratory flights. Usually, the area known to a bird is its feeding territory. Released within this area, the birds soon make their return; release them outside it and far fewer return. However, if a bird is released for a second time in the same place, its visual memory comes into play, and the bird, no longer requiring tedious exploratory flights, will return much more quickly.

D. The second type of homing behaviour is shown by birds that are capable of choosing their flight direction and holding to it for the rest of their journey. How do they decide what direction to take? They appear to choose their normal migration direction even if they are released in a different place from their usual starting point. If, for example, birds which normally fly to the north-east to reach latitude 45 degrees north are released at that latitude, they will immediately start flying north-east anyway. So if they’re released further to the west, they’ll maintain the correct direction, but fly west of their destination, and so fail to arrive.

E. The third type of homing behaviour shows the highest degree of orientation. Released at one point, the birds immediately take stock of it, compare its position with that of the nest, decide on the direction and fly off. This happens even if the birds are in a country right off their migration routes, where they have never been before. In one example, a laysan albatross returned to its nesting area on Midway Island in the middle of the Pacific, having flown over 5000 kilometres from the west coastal of the USA in just over ten days. This is a perfect example of the third type of homing, for the albatross clearly couldn’t rely on any landmarks over the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

F. The percentage of successful birds varies greatly, being highest in those species with a strong migratory behaviour. Thus the lesser black-backed gull is more migratory than the herring gull and more often reaches ‘home’. Great migrants such as the swift have the highest percentage of returns. In one case, seven out of nine alpine swifts were recaptured at their nests after being displaced some 1400 kilometres; one made the journey in three days.

G. What part does heredity play in all this? Two research studies suggest that instinctive, i.e. genetically inherited, behaviour patterns play a part in navigation. The first was carried out by Ernst Schuz and it is highly significant. Schuz caught first year European storks and released them later, after the departure of the adult storks at a time when they normally make their south-west autumn migration to Africa. The recaptures showed that, in spite of the fact that there were no adults to guide them, the birds unanimously headed south-west. This was a most striking finding, for it showed that the birds had an innate and unlearned attraction for the African wintering area that they have occupied for thousands of years.

H. The case of starlings is a little different. These birds have a great aptitude for homing, but this behaviour differs in the different age groups. Birds that were shifted to the south-east of their normal migration route split into two lots. The adults, in full possession of their gift for orientation, found their wintering area by modifying their direction by 90 degrees, whereas the juveniles sought their winter quarters to the south-east of their real position.

Questions 14–18: Summary Completion

Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 14–18 on your answer sheet.

Types of homing behaviour

First type:

14. Birds rely on their sophisticated _________. However, they are generally most successful if they are released within their feeding territory.

Second type:

Birds select their accustomed 15 _________, no matter where they are released. As a result, they may miss their 16 _________.

Third type:

Birds orientate correctly, even when they are released in an unfamiliar place and have no 17 _________ to make use of. One bird with this type of skill is the 18 _________.

Questions 19–22: Paragraph Matching

Reading Passage has eight paragraphs, A–H. Write the correct letter, A–H, in boxes 19–22 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.

19
the effects of distance on some birds’ ability to find their nests
20
a methodology for testing the general ability of birds to find their nests
21
one aspect of physical ability in humans and birds
22
how some birds’ migration was delayed for experimental purposes

Questions 23–26: Matching

Look at the following types of birds (Questions 23–26) and the list of points which the author wishes to illustrate below. Match each bird with the point which it illustrates, A–G. Write the correct letter, A–G, in boxes 23–26 on your answer sheet.

List of points which the author wishes to illustrate

A. an ability to orientate without previous training

B. the speed at which birds can fly

C. the ability to remember things seen previously

D. the effect of age on homing ability

E. the strength required to fly a great distance

F. a high success rate in finding nests

G. the importance of seasonal cues for migrating birds

23
domestic pigeon
24
alpine swift
25
European stork
26
starling

Reading Passage 3 — Marketing And Mind Control

How marketing and advertising appeal to the associative nature of the brain

While there had been a long tradition of giving rings as a commitment to marry, the custom of giving diamond engagement rings was in large part manufactured by one of the most effective marketing campaigns in history. In the early 1900s, diamond sales were declining, posing a serious problem for the company that essentially had control over the diamond market. In 1938, this company hired an advertising agency which proposed reshaping social attitudes toward diamonds. As well as magazines showing film stars draped in diamonds, the agency arranged for movies to incorporate diamond engagement rings into their plots. The campaign culminated with the slogan: "A diamond is forever." At the time, the approach was unique. Rather than pushing a brand, the objective was to promote diamonds as the symbol of everlasting love. This was achieved by exploiting the associative nature of the brain: associating neurons activated by the concept of "love" with neurons that encoded the concept of "diamonds." By 1941, diamond sales had increased by 55%.

Advertising comes in many forms, from blatant neon signs to subtly embedded products in movies. In each case, the goal is to mould our habits, desires and opinions. Our visual system is targeted by an avalanche of information on the internet, street posters, and billboards and in movie theatres. Our auditory system submits to catchy radio jingles and telemarketers. More surreptitiously, our olfactory system is targeted by variations of vanilla and citrus perfumes aimed at enticing us to linger in a retail outlet. It is difficult to measure how effective these campaigns are, but as in the "A diamond is forever" campaign, they can be so successful that they change the fabric of our culture. In the case of bottled water, we are swayed by advertising into paying for something that we can obtain for free. Most people cannot distinguish bottled from tap water, much less between brands of bottled water, which is why you rarely hear of a bottled water company proposing a blind taste test.

So why is marketing such an effective mind-control technique? It is interesting to consider whether other animals exhibit anything analogous to humans' susceptibility to advertising. If we provide a lab rat with two types of cereal, it will consume approximately the same amount of each. However, if we put that rat with another rat that spent its day eating just one type, when faced with a choice, our rat will now show a preference for the same type as the other rat was eating. Psychologists call this "socially transmitted food preference."

What many regard as the first documented examples of cultural learning in primates started with a clever monkey that lived in a colony of Japanese monkeys on the island of Koshima. She began taking her dirt-covered sweet potatoes to the river to wash them before eating them. Upon seeing this, a few other open-minded monkeys picked up on the idea. Potato washing then spread from monkey to monkey and, over the course of a few years, most monkeys were eating clean potatoes. Humans are clearly not the only animals to engage in imitation and social learning.

Learning by observation can be an extraordinarily valuable brain feature; this is how we learn to communicate and perform motor skills as well as deal with many everyday problems. For example, a newcomer struggling to purchase tickets and navigate the subway system in a foreign city may step back to learn from the people nearby. Humans and other primates exhibit multiple forms of imitative learning and this is called cultural transmission.

A component of advertising relies on the marketer's ability to tap into the brain's propensity for imitation. Anybody who has watched TV knows advertisements are disproportionately populated with attractive, successful-looking individuals. If we are going to imitate someone, we are more inclined to imitate those who appear to be popular and successful.

Although not all researchers are convinced by the findings, a number of studies indicate that some animals also imitate dominant members of their group. Primatologist Frans de Waal provides anecdotal evidence of preferential imitation among chimpanzees. He noted that in one particular group the dominant male was hurt and was limping as a result. Soon, other chimps in the group were limping too. This would have been unlikely if a non-dominant male had been limping.

Imitation is undoubtedly an invaluable ability, but often our propensity to imitate generalises indiscriminately, leading to poor decisions. When athlete Dick Fosbury revolutionised the high jump by jumping over the bar backward in 1968, imitators obviously copied his jumping style, not his brand of sports shoes. However, today, sports people appear in advertisements asking us to buy the laptops or sports drinks that they promote. Rationally, we know these people's success did not depend on these products, so it seems our propensity to purchase products relates more to neural programs that evolved to encourage imitation of those further up the social ladder. Today, companies engage in stealth marketing campaigns in which people are paid to frequent bars or websites to covertly promote certain products. Companies also perform studies in which they track the eye movements of people viewing displays, and carefully craft names, packages and jingles associated with their products.

While we may like to believe that manipulation on a grand scale would not be possible, that's not to say that advertising is innately harmful. To the contrary, the marketing of products or ideas is essential to human culture. The point is that we should ensure our choices reflect our actual goals and desires, and we must distinguish between the dissemination of information which is for our own good, and our manipulation for the benefit of companies.

Questions 27–31: Multiple Choice

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Write the correct letter in boxes 27–31 on your answer sheet.

27
According to the writer, which marketing technique attempts to make consumers stay in a shop for longer?
- A. playing appealing music
- B. emitting pleasant scents
- C. displaying attractive posters
- D. making in-store announcements
28
The writer mentions bottled water in order to show that
- A. consumers buy it because of the fact that it is marketed.
- B. people purchase it despite the fact that it has no taste.
- C. marketers need not do taste tests when a campaign is effective.
- D. tests prove that people cannot differentiate it from tap water.
29
According to the writer, socially transmitted food preference occurs when
- A. only dominant members of an animal group influence what others eat.
- B. the same types of animals naturally prefer the same types of food.
- C. animals are influenced by what any other animals of the same species eat.
- D. a food type is more desirable because an animal views that food as useful.
30
According to the writer, how is learning by observation and imitation a useful feature of the brain?
- A. it helps people overcome challenges.
- B. positive models can influence social behaviour.
- C. it can give an advantage when communicating with others.
- D. cultural norms and relationships can be understood more easily.
31
According to the writer, how does television advertising exploit the human tendency to imitate others?
- A. It shows buying behaviour that marketers want to encourage in viewers.
- B. It features people who have a desirable image.
- C. It shows older people whom teenagers admire.
- D. It features successful people endorsing products responsible for their success.

Questions 32–36: YES/NO/NOT GIVEN

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 32–36 on your answer sheet, write YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer; NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer; NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.

32
The diamond campaign worked by making a connection in people's minds between diamonds and luxury.
33
People are more aware of visual marketing than auditory marketing.
34
The campaign advertising diamonds had a positive influence on the economy.
35
There is still some uncertainty about whether animals copy the behaviour of the most powerful animals among them.
36
Consumers make a logical connection between celebrities' achievements and the products they endorse.

Questions 37–40: Sentence Completion (Matching Endings)

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–G, below. Write the correct letter, A–G, in boxes 37–40 on your answer sheet.

A. people imitated behaviour that was linked with success.

B. younger animals of a certain species are more likely to imitate each other.

C. an animal would imitate another that had higher status.

D. imitation of popular sportspeople has occurred for many decades.

E. products are marketed to potential consumers who are unaware that marketing is occurring.

F. animals can develop new habits by observation.

G. incentives are provided for consumers who behave in a certain way.

37
The behaviour of the monkeys on the island of Koshima showed that
38
Primatologist Frans de Waal found that
39
Dick Fosbury is mentioned in order to show that
40
A feature of some modern marketing campaigns is that

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显示答案

1. NO
The passage says that 'the vast store of knowledge, accumulated over thousands of years, fell into disuse. Much was lost,' so most knowledge has not been recovered.
2. NOT GIVEN
The passage says we can only speculate on the number of edible plants not recorded, but does not say if there were few or many unknown to Aborigines, so the answer is not given.
3. NO
It says 'not all our information... comes from the Aborigines' and gives examples of settlers discovering uses for plants independently, so Europeans did not learn everything from Aborigines.
4. NO
It states that 'Aborigines made no use of Leptospermum or Dodonaea as food plants, yet the early settlers found' uses for them, so Dodonaea was not used by both groups.
5. YES
The passage mentions that 'there are many species from northern Australia which occur also in Southeast Asia,' showing some are related to plants outside Australia.
6. YES
It says 'tribes on the coast... had a more varied vegetable diet with a higher proportion of fruits and tubers' than inland tribes, so coastal tribes had more variety.
7. NOT GIVEN
The passage says some coastal plants would have been unavailable inland due to water needs, but does not say if the species themselves were found inland, so not given.
8. A
It says 'the Aborigines were... dependent for life on the wild products around them' and mentions wallaby as a staple food before Europeans, so A is correct. B, C, and D are not supported.
9. D
The passage says 'eat, die, and learn' about Aboriginal experimentation, meaning sometimes it had bad results. The other options are not supported.
10. C
It says 'they ground these seeds between flat stones to make coarse flour,' showing tools were sometimes used. The other options are not correct.
11. queensland nut
The passage says 'only one, the Queensland nut, has entered into commercial cultivation as a food plant,' so the answer is 'queensland nut.'
12. selection
It says 'the main food plants have had the benefit of many centuries of selection and hybridization,' so the missing word is 'selection.'
13. native raspberry
It says 'the native raspberry... could, with suitable selection and breeding programs, be made to yield a high-class fruit,' so the answer is 'native raspberry.'
14. visual memory
It says 'birds possess a highly developed visual memory, as experiments with pigeons have shown,' so the answer is 'visual memory.'
15. migration direction
It says 'they appear to choose their normal migration direction even if they are released in a different place,' so the answer is 'migration direction.'
16. destination
It says 'they’ll maintain the correct direction, but fly west of their destination, and so fail to arrive,' so the answer is 'destination.'
17. landmarks
It says 'the albatross clearly couldn’t rely on any landmarks over the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean,' so the answer is 'landmarks.'
18. laysan albatross
It says 'a laysan albatross returned to its nesting area... having flown over 5000 kilometres,' so the answer is 'laysan albatross.'
19. C
Section C discusses how distance affects birds' ability to find their nests, mentioning that if birds are transported 800 km away, few return.
20. B
Section B describes the methodology for testing birds' homing ability, including capturing, releasing, and recording returns.
21. C
Section C compares birds' and humans' visual abilities, saying birds' eyes have greater resolution, which is a physical ability.
22. G
Section G describes how storks' migration was delayed for experiments, with young storks released after adults had left.
23. C
Section C mentions experiments with domestic pigeons and their visual memory.
24. F
Section F says 'seven out of nine alpine swifts were recaptured at their nests after being displaced some 1400 kilometres.'
25. A
Section A describes the migration of the golden plover, but Section G discusses European storks and their migration direction, so the answer is A.
26. D
Section D discusses starlings and how adults and juveniles behave differently when displaced.
27. B
The passage says 'our olfactory system is targeted by variations of vanilla and citrus perfumes aimed at enticing us to linger in a retail outlet,' so B is correct.
28. A
The passage says 'we are swayed by advertising into paying for something that we can obtain for free,' showing people buy bottled water because of marketing (A). The other options are less directly supported.
29. C
The passage describes how a rat will prefer the food another rat has eaten, showing animals are influenced by what any other animals of the same species eat (C).
30. A
It says 'learning by observation can be an extraordinarily valuable brain feature' and gives the example of a newcomer learning to use the subway, showing it helps overcome challenges (A).
31. B
It says advertisements are 'populated with attractive, successful-looking individuals,' so TV ads exploit imitation by featuring people with a desirable image (B).
32. NO
The passage says the campaign associated diamonds with 'everlasting love,' not luxury, so the answer is NO.
33. NOT GIVEN
The passage does not compare awareness of visual and auditory marketing, so NOT GIVEN.
34. NOT GIVEN
The passage does not mention the campaign's effect on the economy, so NOT GIVEN.
35. YES
It says 'not all researchers are convinced by the findings' about animals imitating dominant members, so there is still uncertainty (YES).
36. NO
It says 'rationally, we know these people's success did not depend on these products,' so consumers do not make a logical connection (NO).
37. F
The monkeys on Koshima showed that cultural learning can spread through a group, which matches F.
38. C
Frans de Waal found that other chimps imitated a dominant male's limp, which matches C.
39. A
Dick Fosbury is mentioned to show that people imitate useful actions, not irrelevant details, which matches A.
40. E
The passage says companies now use stealth marketing, where people are paid to promote products secretly, which matches E.

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