Test 4 answer key with extra explanations

Reading
Reading Passage 1
Questions 1–13

1 The correct answer is FALSE: According to the first paragraph of the text, ‘insect pests are
destroying’ the rice in farmers’ paddy fields. It is the farmers who are clearing forests to create
more fields.

2 The correct answer is FALSE: The first paragraph says that ‘not all species are suffering. In
fact, some of the island’s insectivorous bats are currently thriving [doing well]’.

3 The correct answer is NOT GIVEN: The text says that Rocha is based in Cambridge, and has
carried out a study in Madagascar, but we are not told whether or not he is also studying bats
in other parts of the world.

4 The correct answer is TRUE: The fourth paragraph says that ‘several species of indigenous
bats are taking advantage of habitat modification to hunt insects swarming above the
country’s rice fields’. By hunting the insects, they are useful to farmers.

5 The correct answer is NOT GIVEN: The text names four species of bats that are indigenous
to Madagascar, but does not say which of these is most common.

6 The correct answer is TRUE: The text says that ‘bats are preying (feeding) on rice pests’ and
gives examples of two of these pests, ‘the paddy swarming caterpillar and grass webworm’.

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© Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2022
7 The correct answer is ‘droppings’: In the seventh paragraph, the text says that Rocha and
his team used ‘DNA barcoding techniques to analyse droppings collected from bats’.

8 The correct answer is ‘coffee’: At the end of the seventh paragraph, the writer lists several
pests that the bats feed on, together with the crops affected by these pests. The next crop
mentioned after rice is coffee, which is preyed on by the black twig borer.

9 The correct answer is ‘mosquitoes’: The text says that as well as eating crop pests, the bats
eat other harmful insects – mosquitoes and blackflies.

10 The correct answer is ‘protein’: The text says that bats may be a ‘crucial source of protein
for local people’.

11 The correct answer is ‘unclean’: When the bats roost (shelter) in buildings, they are not
welcomed by local people ‘because they make [the buildings] unclean’.

12 The correct answer is ‘culture’: Because they are ‘associated with sacred caves and the
ancestors’, the bats are ‘very significant in the culture of the people’.

13 The correct answer is ‘houses’: Rocha hopes that farmers can install ‘bat houses’.

IELTS 17 Academic, Test 4 answer key with extra explanations, Reading 2

14 The correct answer is E: According to this section, one way of doing research into the
relationship between economic growth and education is to study the ‘lives of different people
with the same level of wealth over a period of time’.

15 The correct answer is A: The second sentence mentions various sources that the team
used to compile the database, including court records, guild ledgers and parish registers.

16 The correct answer is D: This section describes how Juliana Schweickherdt ‘was reprimanded
(scolded)’ for doing jobs reserved for male guild members, but continued to do this.

17 The correct answer is F: Ogilvie says that ‘German-speaking central Europe is an excellent
laboratory for testing theories of economic growth’, meaning that the area is particularly
suitable for this.

18 The correct answer is C: The second sentence gives various examples of ‘the belongings of
women and men’ including badger skins, Bibles and sewing machines.

19 The correct answer is ‘descendants’: In Section D, Ogilvie is quoted as saying that ‘We
can follow the same people – and their descendants – across 300 years of educational and
economic change’.

20 The correct answer is ‘sermon’: The two young women ‘were chastised (reprimanded) in
1707 for reading books in church instead of listening to the sermon’.

21 The correct answer is ‘fine’: Juliana Schweickherdt ‘was summoned before the guild court
and told to pay a fine’, when she refused to stop doing work ‘reserved for male guild members’.

22 T
 he correct answer is ‘innovation’: At the end of Section D, we are told that the guilds ‘held
back even the simplest industrial innovation’.

IELTS 17 Academic, Test 4 answer key with extra explanations, Reading 3

B is correct: The text says that in this period Germany ‘had excellent literacy rates’.
E is correct: The text says that the economy of England ‘grew fast and it was the first
country to industrialise’. Ogilvie adds, ‘there is plenty of evidence that [economic] growth
increases education’.
A is incorrect as the text refers to ‘Modern cross-country analyses’ carried out on the
relationship between education (high literacy rates) and economic growth (improved
earnings), meaning that research has been carried out in this area.
C is incorrect as the text says that researchers have ‘struggled (found it difficult) to find
evidence that education causes economic growth’.
D is incorrect as the text says that in this period ‘England had only mediocre literacy rates’
but despite this, ‘its economy grew fast and it was the first country to industrialise’.

25 and 26 The correct answers are B and D (in either order):

B is correct: The text says that the guilds ‘blocked labour migration (the movement of
people into an area to get work)’.
D is correct: The text says that the guilds had ‘monopolies (exclusive control over certain
trades)’, and that they ‘legislated (took legal action)’ against anything that threatened this
control.
A is incorrect as although education and the use that can be made of it is discussed in this
section, there is nothing specifically about young people or about help given by the guilds.
C is incorrect as although literacy and book ownership are mentioned in this section, there
is no reference to the guilds keeping records.
E is incorrect as the ‘merchant associations’ were not the same thing as the guilds, and we
do not know whether the merchants themselves were wealthy or not.

IELTS 17 Academic, Test 4 answer key with extra explanations, Reading 4

27 The correct answer is D: In this paragraph, the writer refers to two examples of blindfold
chess, one in the thirteenth century and one in 1947.

28 The correct answer is E: This paragraph summarises how players develop the various skills
required for (involved in) playing blindfold chess, by training the memory.

29 The correct answer is F: Rissman says that when tested, Gareyev did not seem to be
‘supremely gifted (specially good)’ at anything apart from playing chess.

30 The correct answer is B: Researchers at UCLA are interested in knowing how people like
Gareyev can perform in the way that they do.

31 The correct answer is H: The final paragraph quotes Gareyev’s explanation of what is most
important for him about what he does – not winning but finding something he can ‘fully
dedicate’ himself to.

32 The correct answer is E: The writer says, ‘the ends of games are taxing … as exhaustion
sets in’.

33 The correct answer is FALSE: The first paragraph says that Gareyev will be blindfolded, but
his challengers will ‘play the games as normal’ – that is, not blindfolded.

34 The correct answer is NOT GIVEN: According to the first paragraph, Gareyev ‘gets his
kicks’ from BASE jumping (he finds it exciting), but we are not told whether he has entered or
won competitions in this sport.

35 The correct answer is NOT GIVEN: The second paragraph tells us that research into blindfold
chess players is being carried out in UCLA, but not that UCLA is the first institution to do this.

36 The correct answer is TRUE: The text says that the ability to play chess with your eyes
closed is ‘not a far reach (not a very difficult task)’ for good players.

37 The correct answer is ‘memory’: According to Paragraph F, the first thing the scientists did
was to make Gareyev do ‘some standard memory tests’.

38 The correct answer is ‘numbers’: One of the tests involved repeating numbers ‘both
forwards and backwards’.

39 The correct answer is ‘communication’: According to the text, the scans of Gareyev’s brain
showed ‘much greater than average communication’ between certain parts of his brain – the
network that ‘helps you to allocate attention’.

40 T
 he correct answer is ‘visual’: In Paragraph G, the text says that Gareyev’s ‘visual network’
is more closely connected to other areas of the brain than usual.

IELTS 17 Academic, Test 4 answer key with extra explanations, Reading 5