IELTS Reading Passages with Answers and Explanations
Browse IELTS reading passages with full answer keys, per-question explanations, and exam-style practice links.
- A unique golden textile
A rare textile made from the silk of more than a million wild spiders has gone on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. To produce the golden cloth, 70 people spent four years collecting...
- The conquest of malaria in Italy
The word ‘malaria’ means ‘bad air’ in Italian, and this terrible disease marked the life of the people of that country for thousands of years. Yet by 1962, Italy was officially declared malaria-free, and it has remain...
- IQ Scores
Studies from numerous countries suggest that IQ scores have been rising fast since at least the 1950s - enough to mean that someone with an IQ classed as average at that time could be labelled as having low intelligen...
- Tunnelling under the Thames
At the beginning of the 19th century, the port of London was the busiest in the world. Cargoes that had travelled thousands of miles and survived all the hazards of the sea were unloaded on the banks of the Thames, on...
- The History of the Chicken
Chicken is the universal food of our era, crossing cultural boundaries with ease. With its mild taste and uniform texture, chicken presents a blank canvas for the national flavours of almost any cuisine. However, unti...
- 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...
- The Fascinating World of Attine Ants
Leaf-cutting ants and their fungus 'farm' are a marvel of nature and perhaps the best-known example of symbiosis - the mutual dependence of two species. Ants cultivate a mushroom-like fungus in 'farms'. Both the ants...
- 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 history of the pencil
Pencils have existed for millennia. It is known that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all used small pieces of metal as writing instruments, and that 14th-century European artists made pale grey drawings with...
- 200 Years of Australian Landscapes at the Royal Academy in London
For the casual viewer, the exhibition of landscapes, *Australia*, selected by the Royal Academy of Art, will be a spectacular guide through Australian art history. Included in the exhibition are a range of artists and...
- The Burgess Shale fossils
Some discoveries are so unusual it takes decades and sometimes even centuries to understand their full significance. One such discovery is the fossil bed known as the Burgess Shale, which contains a record of bizarre...
- Flower Power
Why do people give flowers? To offer condolence to those who are grieving. To express gratitude. To ask for forgiveness. There is something undeniably powerful about giving flowers; in fact, few objects provoke such a...
- Science and filmmaking
Every year the film academy in the USA celebrates the outstanding achievements of the year in a ceremony known as the Oscars. An increasingly important component of the ceremony is the presentation of the Scientific a...
- 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...
- 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?...
- Back to wild
The Przewalski Horse is the last wild horse. The horse is named after the Russian colonel Nikolai Przewalski (the name is of Polish origin and "Przewalski" is the Polish spelling). He was the explorer and naturalist w...
- Practical Learning in the Classroom
The way we think about architecture in schools has come a long way. Once, studying architecture in the art class meant learning to appreciate great buildings art-history style, through slide presentations. In recent y...
- 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 Origins of Weather Forecasting
The world's first public weather forecast appeared in The Times newspaper over 150 years ago: the beginning of a service that gives everyone something to comment on. The pioneering forecast on August 1, 1861, was intr...
- The Power of Smell
Dog noses are renowned for sensitivity to smells, while human noses are thought to be poor by comparison, yet that might be a misconception. According to recent studies, our noses are in fact acutely sensitive instrum...
- New Technology in New Zealand's Health Service
At some time in their lives, nearly all New Zealanders will have to attend an after-hours clinic following an emergency or accident. On entering the consulting room, the patient is faced with a barrage of questions. T...
- Improving Patient Safety
One of the most prominent design issues in pharmacy is that of drug packages and the patient information leaflets (PILs) included in them. Many pharmacists are concerned that current designs are 'accidents waiting to...
- The Development of the Silk Industry
When silk was first discovered in China over 4,500 years ago, it was reserved exclusively for the use of the emperor, his close relations and the very highest of his dignitaries. Within the palace, the emperor is beli...
- Traditional Māori Fishing Hooks
The discovery of ancient fishing hooks in New Zealand has revealed that the Maori people were remarkably skilled at crafting highly effective tools for catching fish. These hooks, often made from organic materials suc...
- Why don't we sleep?
Fifty-six million prescriptions for sleeping medication were handed out by doctors in America last year. Yet remarkably little is being done to understand insomnia's root causes. Socially and economically, the undertr...
- Intelligent behavior in birds
For centuries, many scholars maintained that humans were the only intelligent organism on Earth. Many traits were considered to be exclusively human examples of acumen - for example, language, tool use, deception, awa...
- Caral: an ancient South American city
Huge earth and rock mounds rise out of the desert of the Supe Valley near the coast of Peru in South America. These immense mounds appear simply to be part of the geographical landscape in this arid region squeezed be...
- The New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy
In a career spanning some fifty years, Margaret Mahy has come to occupy a unique place in New Zealand writing with innovative fiction and original characterisation. In our solidly realist tradition, the linguistic fir...
- The art of deception
Forty years ago, the research psychologist Dr Paul Ekman was addressing a group of young psychiatrists in training when he was asked a question, the answer to which has kept him busy ever since. Suppose the group want...
- How to be Happy
A psychiatrist Tony Fernando was walking down the street when he saw a group of young homeless men sitting on the footpath. As Fernando handed out gifts of food, he tried to video the men’s reactions in his mind, reco...