IELTS Reading Sample (General) #10
Reading Tip: MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
A useful strategy is to use the key words in the question stem - or synonyms of them - to help you identify the correct part of the text. Read the sentence or sentences carefully. Think of your own answer to the question and see which of the options matches it the closest.
Remember that all the options will be mentioned in the text in some way but only one will completely answer the question.
Questions 1-2
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
1What do pluralists believe?
2What circumstance helped astronomers to study Mars in the late 19th century?
Questions 3-8
Look at the following lists of astronomers and thinkers (Questions 3-8) and ideas about Mars (A-I).
Match each astronomer with the idea or ideas he expressed.
NB There are more ideas than astronomers and thinkers, so you will not need to use them all.
3Schiapareili
4Perrotin
5Proctor
6Flammarion
7Green
8Lowell
Reading Tip: TRUE, FALSE, NOT GIVEN
Skim read the text quickly before looking at the questions. This will give you a general idea of the structure of the text which will help you locate information quickly and avoid wasting time looking in the wrong part of the text.
Not Given statements are often based on information you might expect to be in the text but isn't, and often use words that do appear in the text itself. Read each statement and the relevant part of the text very carefully before deciding whether the ideas are given or not. Make sure you are clear who is being referred to in the text.
Questions 9-14
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 9-14 on your answer sheet, write
YESif the statement agrees with the writer's claims
NOif the statement contradicts the writer's claims
NOT GIVENif there is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
9Discussion about whether there is life on Mars forms part of a long tradition.
10The belief that life existed on Mars was encouraged by a translation error.
11The limitations of 19th century technology encouraged the idea that there were canals on Mars.
12All Lowell's statements about Mars were based on what he was able to see.
13Lowell's investigations of Mars aroused little interest outside the scientific community.
14Lowell's theory about how canals on Mars were used may have been inspired by fashionable ideas of the time.