IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test: 150 Questions
with Detailed Rationales
Welcome to this comprehensive IELTS Academic Reading practice test. This
resource is designed to mirror the format, question types, and challenge of the
official IELTS Academic Reading test, which is 60 minutes long and consists of 40
questions based on three long passages. The texts are taken from books, journals,
magazines, and newspapers, and are written for a non-specialist audience on
academic topics of general interest.This extended practice test provides 150
questions covering all the common question types you will encounter on the real
exam, including Multiple Choice, Identifying Information (True/False/Not Given),
Identifying Writer's Views/Claims (Yes/No/Not Given), Matching Information,
Matching Headings, Matching Features, Matching Sentence Endings, Sentence
Completion, Summary/Note/Table/Flow-chart Completion, Diagram Label
Completion, and Short-answer Questions. A detailed rationale in italics is provided
for each answer to help you understand the reasoning and improve your test-
taking technique. You should aim to complete each passage and its questions in
about 20 minutes.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the
Reading Passage below.
[The text for this passage is based on an authentic IELTS-style text about dugongs,
as found in official practice materials].
A The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, looks
rather like a cross between a rotund dolphin and a walrus. Its body, flippers and fluke
resemble those of a dolphin but it has no dorsal fin. Its head looks somewhat like that of
a walrus without the long tusks. Dugongs, along with other Sirenians, are herbivorous
mammals that spend their entire lives in the sea, and their diet consists mainly of
seagrass.
B The distribution of dugongs very closely follows that of these marine flowering plants.
As seagrasses grow rooted in the sediment, they are limited by the availability of light.
Consequently, they are found predominantly in shallow coastal waters, and so too are
, dugongs. Dugongs do not eat all species of seagrass, preferring seagrass of higher
nitrogen and lower fibre content.
C Due to their poor eyesight, dugongs often use smell to locate edible plants. They also
have a strong tactile sense, and feel their surroundings with their long sensitive bristles.
They will dig up an entire plant and then shake it to remove the sand before eating it.
They have been known to collect a pile of plants in one area before eating them. The
flexible and muscular upper lip is used to dig out the plants. When eating they ingest
the whole plant, including the roots, although when this is impossible they will feed on
just the leaves.
D A heavily grazed seagrass bed looks like a lawn mown by a drunk. Dugongs graze
apparently at random within a seagrass bed, their trails meandering in all directions
across the bottom. This is rather an inefficient means of removing seagrass that results
in numerous small tufts remaining. And this is where the dugongs derive some
advantage from their inefficiency. The species that recover most quickly from this
disturbance, spreading out vegetatively from the remaining tufts, are those that
dugongs like to eat. In addition, the new growth found in these areas tends to be
exactly what hungry dugongs like.
E Dugongs are semi-nomadic, often travelling long distances in search of food, but
staying within a certain range their entire life. Large numbers often move together from
one area to another. It is thought that these movements are caused by changes in
seagrass availability. Their memory allows them to return to specific points after long
travels.
F Recorded numbers of dugongs are generally believed to be lower than actual
numbers, due to a lack of accurate surveys. Despite this, the dugong population is
thought to be shrinking, with a worldwide decline of 20 per cent in the last 90 years.
They have disappeared from the waters of Hong Kong, Mauritius, and Taiwan, as well as
parts of Cambodia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Further disappearances are
likely. In the late 1960s, herds of up to 500 dugongs were observed off the coast of East
Africa and nearby islands. However, current populations in this area are extremely small,
numbering 50 and below, and it is thought likely they will become extinct. The eastern
side of the Red Sea is the home of large populations numbering in the hundreds, and
similar populations are thought to exist on the western side. In the 1980s, it was
estimated there could be as many as 4,000 dugongs in the Red Sea. The Persian Gulf has
the second-largest dugong population in the world, inhabiting most of the southern
coast, and the current population is believed to be around 7,500. Australia is home to
the largest population, stretching from Shark Bay in Western Australia to Moreton Bay in
with Detailed Rationales
Welcome to this comprehensive IELTS Academic Reading practice test. This
resource is designed to mirror the format, question types, and challenge of the
official IELTS Academic Reading test, which is 60 minutes long and consists of 40
questions based on three long passages. The texts are taken from books, journals,
magazines, and newspapers, and are written for a non-specialist audience on
academic topics of general interest.This extended practice test provides 150
questions covering all the common question types you will encounter on the real
exam, including Multiple Choice, Identifying Information (True/False/Not Given),
Identifying Writer's Views/Claims (Yes/No/Not Given), Matching Information,
Matching Headings, Matching Features, Matching Sentence Endings, Sentence
Completion, Summary/Note/Table/Flow-chart Completion, Diagram Label
Completion, and Short-answer Questions. A detailed rationale in italics is provided
for each answer to help you understand the reasoning and improve your test-
taking technique. You should aim to complete each passage and its questions in
about 20 minutes.
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on the
Reading Passage below.
[The text for this passage is based on an authentic IELTS-style text about dugongs,
as found in official practice materials].
A The dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, looks
rather like a cross between a rotund dolphin and a walrus. Its body, flippers and fluke
resemble those of a dolphin but it has no dorsal fin. Its head looks somewhat like that of
a walrus without the long tusks. Dugongs, along with other Sirenians, are herbivorous
mammals that spend their entire lives in the sea, and their diet consists mainly of
seagrass.
B The distribution of dugongs very closely follows that of these marine flowering plants.
As seagrasses grow rooted in the sediment, they are limited by the availability of light.
Consequently, they are found predominantly in shallow coastal waters, and so too are
, dugongs. Dugongs do not eat all species of seagrass, preferring seagrass of higher
nitrogen and lower fibre content.
C Due to their poor eyesight, dugongs often use smell to locate edible plants. They also
have a strong tactile sense, and feel their surroundings with their long sensitive bristles.
They will dig up an entire plant and then shake it to remove the sand before eating it.
They have been known to collect a pile of plants in one area before eating them. The
flexible and muscular upper lip is used to dig out the plants. When eating they ingest
the whole plant, including the roots, although when this is impossible they will feed on
just the leaves.
D A heavily grazed seagrass bed looks like a lawn mown by a drunk. Dugongs graze
apparently at random within a seagrass bed, their trails meandering in all directions
across the bottom. This is rather an inefficient means of removing seagrass that results
in numerous small tufts remaining. And this is where the dugongs derive some
advantage from their inefficiency. The species that recover most quickly from this
disturbance, spreading out vegetatively from the remaining tufts, are those that
dugongs like to eat. In addition, the new growth found in these areas tends to be
exactly what hungry dugongs like.
E Dugongs are semi-nomadic, often travelling long distances in search of food, but
staying within a certain range their entire life. Large numbers often move together from
one area to another. It is thought that these movements are caused by changes in
seagrass availability. Their memory allows them to return to specific points after long
travels.
F Recorded numbers of dugongs are generally believed to be lower than actual
numbers, due to a lack of accurate surveys. Despite this, the dugong population is
thought to be shrinking, with a worldwide decline of 20 per cent in the last 90 years.
They have disappeared from the waters of Hong Kong, Mauritius, and Taiwan, as well as
parts of Cambodia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Further disappearances are
likely. In the late 1960s, herds of up to 500 dugongs were observed off the coast of East
Africa and nearby islands. However, current populations in this area are extremely small,
numbering 50 and below, and it is thought likely they will become extinct. The eastern
side of the Red Sea is the home of large populations numbering in the hundreds, and
similar populations are thought to exist on the western side. In the 1980s, it was
estimated there could be as many as 4,000 dugongs in the Red Sea. The Persian Gulf has
the second-largest dugong population in the world, inhabiting most of the southern
coast, and the current population is believed to be around 7,500. Australia is home to
the largest population, stretching from Shark Bay in Western Australia to Moreton Bay in
