IELTS Reading Passages with Answers and Explanations
Browse IELTS reading passages with full answer keys, per-question explanations, and exam-style practice links.
- LIFE ON MARS?
When scientists began observing Mars with their first primitive telescopes, they assumed from the start that the planet was peopled. The 18th-century astronomer William Herschel, noting the seasons and atmosphere of M...
- Farmers
The chain of stores known as Farmers began one hundred years ago as a mail order company. Today the Farmers chain employs 3,500 staff across 58 branches making it the most venerable institution of its type in New Zeal...
- Herbal Medicine
There is an age-old practice of harvesting plants and herbs in their natural environment for use as medicines. And today there is huge potential for New Zealand to develop a herb industry based on the excellent growin...
- Western Immigration of Canada
By the mid-1870s Canada wanted an immigrant population of agricultural settlers established in the West. No urban centres existed on the prairies in the 1870s, and rural settlement was the focus of the federal governm...
- A mechanical friend for children
The development of robots that interact socially with people and assist them in everyday life has been an elusive goal of modern science. Despite impressive advances in the mechanical aspects of this problem, producin...
- Steam across the water
During the 1600s, very early in the development of steam engines, inventive spirits like the Frenchman Denis Papin dreamed of - and experimented with - boats driven by steam, rather than by the wind or human effort, b...
- Game theory
According to game theory, our chances of success in negotiations are based on the choices of others. Computer models have been developed to work out how events will unfold as people and organizations act in what they...
- Multi-tasking and the brain
Do you think you're a master of multi-tasking? Think again. Unless you are one of the three percent of super-taskers in the population, research shows that your brain is incapable of paying close attention to more tha...
- Seeing the colour of sounds, hearing the colour of numbers
What is the colour of five? What is the sound of blue? To most of us such questions are either meaningless or suitable only for poetry. But for some people these are questions to which very precise answers can be give...
- The Whale Goes to Court
In 1818 a whale became the subject of a controversial court case in New York City. The case involved an old law requiring those who sold fish oil to pay a fee in order to have their barrels inspected by city officials...
- A study of introvert and extrovert characters
We are often labelled as introverts or extroverts, and humans do seem to have biological propensities to behave in certain ways; some of us are naturally more talkative and sociable while others prefer more time alone...
- The Dunedin Study in New Zealand
The New Zealand city of Dunedin in the early 1970s can easily be made to sound idyllic. There was next to no unemployment and people left their doors unlocked at night. New Zealand was then the ninth richest country i...
- REMOVING UNWANTED NOISE
A noisy restaurant, a busy road, or a windy day are all situations that can be intensely frustrating for the hearing impaired when trying to understand what other people are saying. Some 10 million people in the UK su...
- Candles
One of the earliest forms of portable illumination, candles have served vital functions for humankind throughout history, a fact chronicled through the use of candles or candle-like objects in virtually every society....
- Optimism and Health
Medical studies are concluding that optimists really do have something to be cheerful about. If you have a positive outlook, the likelihood is that you will lead a longer life. Coincidental links between Optimism and...
- Practical Learning in the Classroom
The way we think about architecture in schools has come along way. Once, studying architecture in the art class meant learning to appreciate great buildings art- history style, through slide presentations. In recent y...
- The peopling of Patagonia
The human settlement of the southern extremity of the Americas has always fascinated pre-historians. Viewed from a global perspective, this was the last major continental land mass to be reached by human beings. The e...
- Jethro Tull (1674-1741) - Inventor of The Seed Drill
Jethro Tull was a major pioneer in the modernizing of agriculture. He was born in 1674 in Berkshire, southern England, into a family of land-owning gentry. He studied first at Oxford University and then at the Inns of...
- Australia's cane toad problem
In the north of Australia there are many sugar cane plantations, which early in the 20th century were being damaged by a particular pest. This was a species of beetle whose larvae, the infant form of the beetle, live...
- The Baobabs of Madagascar
The island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean is the best place in the world to see baobabs. These spectacular trees, with their massive trunks and distinctive horizontal root-like branches, can live over 800 years. Of...
- The psychology of new product adoption
An American philosopher once said, "If a man can ... make a better mousetrap than his neighbor... the world will make a beaten path to his door." If only marketing innovation was that simple. In today's marketplace, c...
- Seaweed
Seaweed, a common plant that grows in the sea, has been an important food, fuel, and fertilizer since prehistoric times. For example, it has supplemented the diet of sheep in the Orkneys, islands off the coast of Scot...
- Speaking of Nothing
Some workers are happier in their jobs than others, but it's not only to do with the work itself. For example, security guards, truck drivers and salespeople: year after year, these jobs appear on lists of the unhappi...
- Ancient Rome: archaeologists are trying to understand more about the early history of the city
From ancient times to the present, historians have asked the question: How and why did an ordinary little town in central Italy grow so much bigger than any other in the ancient Mediterranean and come to control such...
- Babies cry in their mother tongue
It is already known that human foetuses become attentive listeners in the final trimester of pregnancy. 'The mother's voice in particular is sensed early on,' explains Professor Amelia Finlayson of the Institute for H...
- Child's Play in Medieval England
'Play up! Play up! And play the game!' The ringing chorus of Sir Henry Newbolt's celebrated cricket poem Vitaï Lampada (1908) sums up views about play in 19th- and early 20th-century Britain. Children's play was impor...
- The history of the Celtic language
In November 1897, in a field near the village of Coligny in eastern France, a local inhabitant unearthed two strange objects. One was an imposing statue of Mars, the Roman god of war. The other was an ancient bronze t...
- Changes to the Soviet Union's working week
The Soviet Union's first Five Year Plan was intended to turn the weak and undeveloped country into a powerful, modern, industrial nation. Following its introduction in 1928, production of coal, iron and steel increase...
- Sir Francis Ronalds 1788-1873
Francis Ronalds was born in London in 1788, the second of eleven children. When he was nineteen his father died, and as the eldest son, the young Ronalds had to assume the responsibility of running the family's cheese...
- The origins of tennis
The game of tennis has a very long history. It is officially still known as 'lawn tennis,' partly because it was originally only played on grass, and also to distinguish it from the older game known as 'real tennis,'...