IELTS Reading Passages with Answers and Explanations
Browse IELTS reading passages with full answer keys, per-question explanations, and exam-style practice links.
- 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,'...
- Traditional Farming in Zambia's Luapula Province
By tradition, land in Luapula Province is not owned by individuals but, as in many other parts of Africa, is allocated by the headman or headwoman of a village to people of either sex according to need. Since land is...
- Coins the first form of money
Few people pay much attention to coins; we take them for granted. Since the advent of paper currency and the abandonment of a monetary system based on intrinsic of actual value, they have been demoted to the status of...
- New Understanding of Giraffes in the Wild
Even as the tallest animals on Earth, giraffes can be easy to overlook. Despite being a favorite in zoos, until recently almost nobody studied giraffes in the wild. 'When I first became interested in giraffes in 2008...
- Andrew Carnegie: industrialist and philanthropist
The Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who was the leader of the American steel industry from 1873 to 1901, donated large sums of his fortune to educational, cultural, and scienti...
- Coins - the first form of money
Few people pay much attention to coins; we take them for granted. Since the advent of paper currency and the abandonment of a monetary system based on intrinsic of actual value, they have been demoted to the status of...
- The mystery of Easter Island
The giant stone statues of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean have perplexed archaeologists ever since European explorers first witnessed them three centuries ago. Jacob Roggeveen, the Dutch seaman who gave the island...
- Translating: a key to international understanding?
The term 'translation' is used for all cases where the meaning of expressions in one language (the 'source' language) is turned into the meaning in another (the target language), whether the medium is spoken, written,...
- Healthy buildings, productive people
Have you felt tired at your desk lately? According to new research, some often overlooked environmental factors within buildings - the degree or type of ventilation, airborne contaminants, lighting and noise levels, f...
- Creating a Better Grapefruit
There is a reason why grapefruit juice is served in little glasses. Most people don't want to drink more than a few ounces at a time. This is because a natural chemical compound found in grapefruit, naringin, has a bi...
- Growing more for less
For farmers, working out the optimal amount of seed, fertiliser, pesticide and water to scatter on a field can make, or break, the subsequent harvest. Regular laboratory analyses of soil and plant samples from various...
- How do plants talk to each other?
In 1983, plant scientists Jack Schultz and Ian Baldwin reported that the leaves of young maple trees increased their defense systems when exposed to maples that had been damaged by plant-eating (herbivorous) insects....
- The Pyramid of Cestius
Though Rome draws tourists from around the world to its many impressive sites, one notable monument there has never attracted nearly as much interest: The Pyramid of Cestius. But why would there be a pyramid in Italy?...
- All in the family
We can choose our friends, the saying goes, but we cannot choose our family of origin. Our parents provide the genetic material and make powerful early role models, but even more influential in determining what kind o...