Reading 2026-02 Test 38 — IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test with Answers

基于考生回忆投稿及材料收集整理 — 非官方 IELTS 资料。

Reading Passage 1: The Clipper Races: an era of competition between cargo ships

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British East India Company had the monopoly on trade with China and India. This meant that because no rival could legally import tea or other goods from these countries at this time, the company was rarely in a hurry to transport its merchandise. Instead, its priority was to minimise costs by carrying as much as possible on each ship. This meant that its ships – known as East Indiamen – were enormous, strong and very slow.

By 1800, the average East Indiaman could carry 1,200 tons of merchandise. The trading pattern for China tea usually meant the East Indiamen set sail from Britain in January, sailed round the Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost tip of Africa, and arrived in China in September. There they would load up that year’s tea harvest, set off again and, depending on the wind and weather, aim to arrive back by the following September, so even with favourable sailing conditions, the round trip lasted almost two years, and if anything went wrong it could take a lot longer.

However, by 1834 the company had lost its trading monopolies, and tea had become a freely traded item. Having no more use for its great ships, the company sold them off, and many were bought by merchants or their captains, who continued to plough the seas between Britain and China. But now that tea could be traded freely, a few smart sailors began to realise that whoever brought each new harvest of tea to Britain first stood to make the most money.

This was partly because if you were home first, you could sell your shipment of tea before your competitors even arrived, and partly because consumers in Britain in the nineteenth century believed that the fresher and earlier-picked the tea, the better the resulting drink. Tea traders now needed faster, sleeker ships to bring their precious cargo back. Nevertheless, in Britain this idea only caught on slowly, and while the 1840s saw a few faster ships launched, for the time being many merchants remained satisfied with the slow but reliable East Indiamen.

In fact it was the Americans who pioneered the first clipper ships. These vessels were fast and slender, with a narrow hull that was deeper at the back than at the front, and masses of sails on tall masts. They earned their name from the way that they ‘clipped off’ journey time. British merchants resolved to build their own clippers to rival the Americans, and the first British tea clipper, Stornaway, was built in Aberdeen in 1850. More tea clippers were designed and built in Britain throughout the 1850s and 1860s; they had a narrower beam than their American equivalents, making them less powerful during storms but faster in calmer weather.

There was a great spirit of competition between the British and American ships plying the tea trade, but to begin with the Americans had the edge. Then in 1851 a British shipowner, Richard Green, built the aptly named clipper Challenger with the stated intention of beating the American ships. Loaded with tea, Challenger left China for London in 1852 at the same time as the American clipper Challenge, a much larger, older ship already greatly admired for its speed. Large sums were bet on which would complete the journey first. In the event, the British ship beat its rival to London by two days, amid much jubilation. From then on, such international races grew in popularity.

After 1855, American participation in the British tea trade gradually stopped. But even without the Anglo-American rivalry, the competitive spirit continued. It was really ignited when new ports were opened up for trade in China. These included Foochow, which was much closer to the tea-producing areas than Canton, the port used previously. As a result, tea could be loaded on board earlier and fresher, and the clippers could set off in late May or early June – sometimes not even taking time to fill out the official paperwork – racing back to Britain whatever the difficulties.

They sped down through the South China Sea and into the Indian Ocean, then raced to get round the southernmost tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope. Then it was north across the vast Atlantic, past the Azores, through the English Channel and into the estuary of the River Thames. Once there, they would be towed by tugs up the river and into the docks. The cargo of the winning ship could earn a premium of up to sixpence per pound – and so the captain and crew were rewarded by the owners of the cargo. But the races were about more than just money: the crews, about 40 men on each clipper, were expert sailors, proud of their ships, and they delighted in competing against each other. Without their enthusiasm, the races would never have happened, since getting home as fast as possible required the crew to be totally dedicated and to sacrifice much of their rest for the duration of the race.

1
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the British East India Company faced a lot of competition.
2
Before 1800, cargo size was the most important consideration for the East India Company.
3
At best, voyages of the East Indiamen to China and back took nearly two years to complete.
4
Before 1834, voyages to and from China were considered to be highly dangerous.
5
After 1834, the ships which had served the East India Company stopped being used for commercial purposes.
6
In the nineteenth century, British drinkers preferred tea made from mature leaves to that made from younger leaves.
7
The ships were remarkable for the number of ________ they had.
8
The performance of British tea clippers was particularly affected when there were ________ at sea.
9
It was in a ship called ________ that the British first competed successfully against the Americans.
10
Competition increased when additional Chinese trading ________ were established.
11
Merchants were occasionally in such a hurry that they failed to complete the ________ before leaving China.
12
At the end of their journey, the ships needed the help of ________.
13
The crews were motivated by both ________ and their enthusiasm for the competition.

Reading Passage 2: Birds Migration

A. Birds have many unique design features that enable them to perform such amazing feats of endurance. They are equipped with lightweight, hollow bones, intricately designed feathers providing both lift and thrust for rapid flight, navigation systems superior to any that man has developed, and an ingenious heat conserving design that, among other things, concentrates all blood circulation beneath layers of warm, waterproof plumage, leaving them fit to face life in the harshest of climates. Their respiratory systems have to perform efficiently during sustained flights at altitude, so they have a system of extracting oxygen from their lungs that far exceeds that of any other animal. During the later stages of the summer breeding season, when food is plentiful their bodies are able to accumulate considerable layers of fat, in order to provide sufficient energy for their long migratory flights.

B. The fundamental reason that birds migrate is to find adequate food during the winter months when it is in short supply. This particularly applies to birds that breed in the temperate and Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, where food is abundant during the short growing season. Many species can tolerate cold temperatures if food is plentiful, but when food is not available they must migrate. However, intriguing questions remain.

C. One puzzling fact is that many birds journey much further than would be necessary just to find food and good weather. Nobody knows, for instance, why British swallows, which could presumably survive equally well if they spent the winter in equatorial Africa, instead fly several thousands of miles further to their preferred winter home in South Africa Cape Province. Another mystery involves the huge migrations performed by arctic terns and mud flat-feeding shorebirds that breed close to Polar Regions. In general, the further north a migrant species breeds, the farther south it spends the winter. For arctic terns this necessitates an annual round trip of 25,000 miles. Yet, en route to their final destination in far-flung southern latitudes, all these individuals overfly other areas of seemingly suitable habitat spanning two hemispheres. While we may not fully understand birds' reasons for going to particular places, we can marvel at their feats.

D. One of the greatest mysteries is how young birds know how to find the traditional wintering areas without parental guidance. Very few adults migrate with juveniles in tow, and youngsters may even have little or no inkling of their parents' appearance. A familiar example is that of the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in another species nest and never encounters its young again. It is mind boggling to consider that, once raised by its host species, the young cuckoo makes its own way to ancestral wintering grounds in the tropics before returning single-handed to northern Europe the next season to seek out a mate among its own kind. The obvious implication is that it inherits from its parents an inbuilt route map and direction-finding capability, as well as a mental image of what another cuckoo looks like. Yet nobody has the slightest idea as to how this is possible.

E. Mounting evidence has confirmed that birds use the positions of the sun and stars to obtain compass directions. They seem also to be able to detect the earth's magnetic field, probably due to having minute crystals of magnetite in the region of their brains. However, true navigation also requires an awareness of position and time, especially when lost. Experiments have shown that after being taken thousands of miles over an unfamiliar landmass, birds are still capable of returning rapidly to nest sites. Such phenomenal powers are the product of computing a number of sophisticated cues, including an inborn map of the night sky and the pull of the earth's magnetic field. How the birds use their 'instruments’ remains unknown, but one thing is clear: they see the world with a superior sensory perception to ours. Most small birds migrate at night and take their direction from the position of the setting sun. However, as well as seeing the sun go down, they also seem to see the plane of polarized light caused by it, which calibrates their compass. Traveling at night provides other benefits. Daytime predators are avoided and the danger of dehydration due to flying for long periods in warm, sunlit skies is reduced. Furthermore, at night the air is generally cool and less turbulent and so conducive to sustained, stable flight.

F. Nevertheless, all journeys involve considerable risk, and part of the skill in arriving safely is setting off at the right time. This means accurate weather forecasting, and utilizing favorable winds. Birds are adept at both, and, in laboratory tests, some have been shown to detect the minute difference in barometric pressure between the floor and ceiling of a room. Often birds react to weather changes before there is any visible sign of them. Lapwings, which feed on grassland, flee west from the Netherlands to the British Isles, France and Spain at the onset of a cold snap. When the ground surface freezes the birds could starve. Yet they return to Holland ahead of a thaw, their arrival linked to a pressure change presaging an improvement in the weather.

G. In one instance a Welsh Manx shearwater carried to America and released was back in its burrow on Skokholm Island, off the Pembrokeshire coast, one day before a letter announcing its release! Conversely, each autumn a small number of North American birds are blown across the Atlantic by fast-moving westerly tail winds. Not only do they arrive safely in Europe, but, based on ringing evidence, some make it back to North America the following spring, after probably spending the winter with European migrants in sunny African climes.

14
Paragraph A
- i. The best moment to migrate
- ii. The unexplained rejection of closer feeding ground
- iii. The influence of weather on the migration route
- iv. Physical characteristics that allow birds to migrate
- v. The main reason why birds migrate
- vi. The best wintering grounds for birds
- vii. Research findings on how birds migrate
- viii. Successful migration despite trouble of wind
- ix. Contrast between long-distance migration and short-distance migration
- x. Mysterious migration despite lack of teaching
15
Paragraph B
16
Paragraph C
17
Paragraph D
18
Paragraph E
19
Paragraph F
20
Paragraph G
21
Which TWO of the following statements are true of bird migration?
- A. Birds often fly further than they need to.
- B. Birds traveling in family groups are safe.
- C. Birds flying at night need less water.
- D. Birds have much sharper eye-sight than humans.
- E. Only shorebirds are resistant to strong winds.
22
It is a great mystery that young birds like cuckoos can find their wintering grounds without ___________.
23
Evidence shows birds can tell directions like a ___________ by observing the sun and the stars.
24
One advantage for birds flying at night is that they can avoid contact with ___________.
25
Laboratory tests show that birds can detect weather without ___________ signs.

Reading Passage 3: The hazards of multitasking

Doing more than one thing at once – is it always a good idea?

You arrive at the office, review your to-do list and start to feel a headache coming on. You resolve to tackle the items as quickly as possible. While you return calls, you sort e-mail and other letters. You begin keying in slides for tomorrow’s presentation. Then your manager comes in wanting an immediate update on sales figures. You have just opened the spreadsheet when a very important customer calls. With the receiver held between your shoulder and your ear, you continue adding up the sales totals until, 15 minutes later, you finally manage, politely, to get rid of the client. You’ve been multitasking again.

You may believe that anyone who wants to get ahead today should master the art of multitasking. However, a recent study by the Families and Work Institute in New York City has found that 45 per cent of US workers believe that they are asked or expected to work on too many tasks at once. Managers may be surprised to learn that they are actually wasting their workers’ time. As it turns out, the human brain cannot really master the computer’s art of crunching data in the background while moving between process windows. Instead, a growing number of studies show that trying to juggle jobs rather than completing them sequentially can take longer and leave workers with a reduced ability to perform each task. In addition, the stress associated with multitasking may contribute to short-term memory difficulties. The combination results in inefficiency, careless thinking and mistakes – not to mention the possible dangers of divided attention for drivers, air-traffic controllers and others who handle machinery.

How can a time-management strategy that has become part of the common wisdom actually be so wrong? Exploring that question requires a closer look at an area of consciousness research that examines how the brain focuses attention. One of the modern foundations of current knowledge of multitasking was laid in 1935, when the American psychologist John Ridley Stroop reported that processing information from one task could cause interference with another. Stroop noticed that when study participants were asked to name the colour of a word – such as ‘green’ – printed in a different colour – red, for example – they experienced difficulty saying the name of the colour. This phenomenon is thought to occur when two tasks get tangled: the brain must suppress one that has been learned so well that it has become automatic (reading) to attend to a second task that requires concentration (naming the colour).

During the past couple of decades, psychologists have probed more deeply into the nature and limitations of multitasking. Psychologist and brain-researcher Ernst Pöppel, of the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, believes that it is impossible to carry out two or three different tasks simultaneously with the same degree of concentration. He says that seemingly simultaneous awareness and processing of information actually take place in ‘three-second windows’.

In these three-second segments, the brain takes in, as a block, all the data about the environment streaming in from the sensory systems; subsequent events are processed in the next window. So a person can concentrate on a conversation for three seconds, then for three seconds on a crying child, and three seconds on a computer screen. While one subject at a time occupies the foreground of consciousness, the others stay in the background until they, in turn, are given access to the central processor.

Another experiment by psychologist David E. Meyer, of the University of Michigan, quantified just how much time we can lose when we shuttle between tasks. The researchers asked test participants to write a report and check their e-mail at the same time. Those individuals who constantly jumped back and forth between the two tasks took about one and a half times as long to finish as those who completed one job before turning to the other. Each switchover from one task to another meant re-thinking and thus involved additional neural resources. In effect, the brain needs time to shut off the rules for one task and to turn on the rules for another. ‘Multitasking saves time only when it is a matter of relaxed, routine tasks,’ Meyer says. It also takes the brain longer to adapt when switching rapidly back to an interrupted task rather than waiting longer before switching back.

By its nature multitasking is stressful, and the area in the brain most involved with multitasking is also most affected by the resulting stress. Located behind the forehead, the prefrontal cortex – which neuroscientists call the ‘executive’ part of the brain – helps us to assess tasks, prioritise them and assign mental resources. It also ‘marks’ the spot at which a task has been interrupted, so that we can return to it later. This stress can also affect brain cells in another region, the hippocampus, which is important for forming new memories; damage in that area also makes it difficult for a person to acquire new skills. Psychiatrists Edward Hallowell and John Ratey, of Harvard University, say that multitasking can bring about a brain condition that causes sufferers to constantly seek new information while having difficulties concentrating on its content. All in all, it may be wise to let the e-mail wait while you work on your presentation. You will save time and perform each task better.

26
27 Less attention will be paid to each task when more than one task is attempted at the same time.
- A. John Ridley Stroop
- B. Ernst Pöppel
- C. David E. Meyer
- D. Edward Hallowell & John Ratey
27
28 Repeated changes of task mean that the brain will take a while to adjust.
28
29 Using the skills required for one task may make performing another one more difficult.
29
30 When multitasking, the brain can only focus on single tasks for very short periods.
30
31 Multitasking can lead to a medical problem.
31
32 What is suggested about the worker in the opening paragraph?
- A. Anxiety deprived him of sleep the previous night.
- B. He feels overwhelmed by his workload.
- C. His manager has expressed disapproval.
- D. He finds his work dull and uninteresting.
32
33 Drivers and air-traffic controllers are mentioned in the passage because they
- A. need to perform several tasks at once.
- B. are unable to maintain concentration.
- C. use their time efficiently.
- D. cannot afford to make mistakes.
33
34 In John Ridley Stroop’s experiment, participants found it difficult to
- A. tell one colour from another.
- B. match up pairs of similar colours.
- C. read out the name of one colour printed in another colour.
- D. decide what colour looks appropriate for a particular word.
34
35 The area most affected is the prefrontal cortex, which is found to the rear of the ________.
35
36 It is the part of the brain which judges tasks, then puts them in order of importance and allocates ________; it also enables a worker to resume a task which has been put to one side.
36
37 If any ________ in the hippocampus are affected, people may have problems with storing new memories, as well as learning new skills.
37
38 If any cells in the hippocampus are affected, people may have problems with storing ________, as well as learning new skills.
38
39 If any cells in the hippocampus are affected, people may have problems with storing new memories, as well as learning ________.
39
40 The main aim of this passage is to
- A. describe areas where multitasking is useful.
- B. challenge widely held opinions on multitasking.
- C. show the physical damage that multitasking can cause.
- D. call for better psychological experiments on multitasking.

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1. FALSE
The passage says the British East India Company had a monopoly and did not face much competition, so the answer is FALSE.
2. TRUE
It is stated that before 1800, the main concern was how much cargo the ships could carry, making this TRUE.
3. TRUE
The passage mentions that the round trip to China and back could take almost two years, so this is TRUE.
4. NOT GIVEN
There is no information about the danger of the voyages before 1834, so the answer is NOT GIVEN.
5. FALSE
The passage explains that after 1834, the ships were sold and used for other commercial purposes, so this is FALSE.
6. FALSE
It is mentioned that British drinkers preferred tea made from young leaves, not mature leaves, so this is FALSE.
7. sails
The passage highlights that the ships were remarkable for the number of sails they had.
8. storms
It is stated that storms at sea particularly affected the performance of British tea clippers.
9. Challenger
The Challenger is named as the first British ship to beat the Americans in competition.
10. ports
Competition increased when more Chinese trading ports were opened, as stated in the passage.
11. paperwork
The passage says merchants sometimes left China in such a hurry that they did not finish the paperwork.
12. tugs
At the end of their journey, the ships needed tugs to help them, according to the passage.
13. money
Crews were motivated by both money and their excitement for the competition, as stated in the passage.
14. iv
Paragraph A discusses the physical features that help birds migrate, so option iv is correct.
15. v
Paragraph B explains the main reason why birds migrate, making option v correct.
16. ii
Paragraph C talks about birds ignoring closer feeding grounds, so option ii is correct.
17. x
Paragraph D describes how birds migrate without being taught, so option x is correct.
18. vii
Paragraph E presents research findings on how birds migrate, so option vii is correct.
19. i
Paragraph F discusses the best moment for birds to migrate, so option i is correct.
20. viii
Paragraph G describes birds succeeding in migration despite wind problems, so option viii is correct.
21. A / C
A is correct because the passage says birds sometimes fly farther than needed; C is correct because flying at night means birds lose less water. B is tempting but not correct because family groups are not always safe.
22. parental guidance
The passage says it is mysterious that young birds like cuckoos can find their wintering grounds without parental guidance.
23. compass
Evidence shows birds can tell directions like a compass by watching the sun and stars.
24. predators
One advantage for birds flying at night is they can avoid predators.
25. visible
Laboratory tests show birds can detect weather without visible signs.
26. B
B is correct because Ernst Pöppel found that attention drops when more than one task is done at the same time.
27. C
C is correct because David E. Meyer found that switching tasks makes the brain take time to adjust.
28. A
A is correct because John Ridley Stroop showed that using skills for one task can make another task harder.
29. B
B is correct because Ernst Pöppel found the brain can only focus on one task for short periods when multitasking.
30. D
D is correct because Edward Hallowell & John Ratey say multitasking can cause medical problems.
31. B
B is correct because the worker feels overwhelmed by his workload, as described in the opening paragraph.
32. D
D is correct because drivers and air-traffic controllers are mentioned as people who cannot afford to make mistakes.
33. C
C is correct because participants had trouble reading the name of one colour printed in another colour in Stroop’s experiment.
34. forehead
The prefrontal cortex is found to the rear of the forehead, as stated in the passage.
35. mental resources
This part of the brain judges tasks, puts them in order, and allocates mental resources.
36. cells
If any cells in the hippocampus are affected, people may have problems with storing new memories and learning new skills.
37. new memories
If any cells in the hippocampus are affected, people may have problems with storing new memories.
38. new skills
If any cells in the hippocampus are affected, people may have problems with learning new skills.
39. B
B is correct because the passage challenges the common belief that multitasking is good, showing it is not as effective as people think.

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