IELTS Academic Reading practice test 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 to 13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

Made to measure: the long journey of a tunnel boring machine

On the edge of Altenweiler, a small town in the south-west of Germany, stands a factory hall so long that staff cycle from one end to the other. Inside, Keller-Brandt, a family-owned engineering firm now run by the founder's granddaughter, builds some of the largest moving machines on Earth: tunnel boring machines, which can be longer than two football pitches and dig their way through hills, under cities and beneath riverbeds. Although the company's name is little known outside the construction industry, its products can be found working on metro lines, water pipelines and railways around the world. In fact, the business is above all an exporter: only around one machine in seven ever works in Germany itself. The firm did not begin with such ambitions. When it was founded in 1953, the company repaired drilling equipment for local coal mines, and it was not until 1978 that its first tunnel boring machine left the workshop. That first machine was modest by today's standards, with a diameter of under four metres, but the experience gained from years of mending mining tools proved valuable. As the coal industry declined in the region during the 1980s and 1990s, tunnelling became the core of the business, and the workforce grew from a few dozen to more than two thousand. At first sight, a tunnel boring machine resembles a giant metal tube lying on its side, with the digging done at the front. Its rotating cutterhead is fitted with dozens of hardened steel discs, which crush the rock as the head turns. Powerful hydraulic cylinders push the whole machine forward, a few centimetres at a time, by pressing against the finished section of tunnel behind it. Behind the cutterhead, a robotic arm places curved concrete segments to form a ring that lines the tunnel. In this way the machine builds the tunnel wall as it goes, so that the ground never stands unsupported for long. The broken rock, which tunnellers call spoil, is carried back through the machine on a conveyor belt. From there it goes up to the surface, where it is often reused as fill for roads or landscaping. According to the company's engineers, no two machines are identical, because each is designed for the geology of a particular route. Some routes call for a machine that grinds through granite; others need one that holds up soft, wet clay with pressurised slurry. The difference matters enormously. In hard rock, the challenge is to keep the cutting tools from wearing out too quickly, while in soft ground the greater danger is that the earth in front of the machine will collapse or that water will flood in. Before design work begins, engineers study survey data from boreholes drilled along the planned line, and then adjust the cutterhead, the power of the motors and much else accordingly. Building a machine typically takes around a year. It is then fully assembled in the hall and tested, turning its cutterhead in the air, before being taken apart again into hundreds of parts. These are taken by rail from Altenweiler to Bremerhaven on the North Sea coast and loaded onto a cargo ship. Every part, including the main bearing, which alone can weigh over 100 tonnes, travels together on the same cargo ship. Shipping everything at once means that nothing is left waiting on a distant quayside for a missing component. One recent delivery shows how complicated the final stage of this journey can be. In Port Hallam, a city on Australia's south-east coast, a new freight rail tunnel is being dug beneath the river that divides the city, so that goods trains will no longer have to cross the busy central bridge. Ideally, the parts would have been lifted off the ship close to the construction site. However, the harbour at Port Hallam is too shallow for large cargo ships, so the parts were unloaded at Merrigan, a deep-water port 60 kilometres up the coast, and brought to the site by road. The heaviest loads moved at night, with police escorts. Once reassembled, the machine was given a name, as is the custom in the tunnelling industry. It is called Margaret. The name was chosen in a vote by pupils at nearby primary schools. It honours Margaret Dunn, a midwife who worked in the district for forty years. The machine does not cross the world alone. A team of about a dozen Keller-Brandt technicians travels with the machine to assemble it on site and train the local crew who will operate it. For many of the Australian workers, it is their first experience of this kind of equipment, and learning to steer a machine weighing several thousand tonnes along a line that must be accurate to within a few centimetres takes careful preparation. The training covers everything from replacing worn cutting tools to reading the hundreds of sensors that report on pressure, temperature and the position of the cutterhead. A tunnel boring machine cannot turn around and drive back out the way it came. At the end of a drive, the cutterhead usually breaks through into a prepared shaft, and the machine is dismantled there. Yet this is rarely the end of its working life. Once a tunnel is finished, a machine is often refurbished at the factory and sent to work on another project. Worn parts are replaced, the cutterhead may be rebuilt for different ground, and the machine begins another long journey, sometimes to a different continent. For a company that started out mending other people's mining tools, there is a certain logic in giving its own machines a second life.

1. Keller-Brandt sells most of its tunnel boring machines to customers outside Germany.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

2. Keller-Brandt has made tunnel boring machines ever since the company was founded.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

3. Keller-Brandt builds more machines for hard rock than for soft ground.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

4. The heaviest component of a machine is transported separately from the rest.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

5. Local people chose the name of the machine used in Port Hallam.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

6. The technicians sent from Germany remain in Australia until the tunnelling is completed.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

7. • the rotating cutterhead carries hardened steel {{7}} that break up the rock

8. • the tunnel is lined with concrete {{8}} as the machine moves forward

9. • broken rock, called {{9}}, is carried back on a conveyor belt

10. • each machine is designed to suit the {{10}} of its route

11. • the machine's parts were unloaded at the port of {{11}}

12. • the machine's name honours a former local {{12}}

13. • machines may be {{13}} and sent to another site

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14 to 26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

A desert stone and the early history of Mars

A In 2024, a private collector crossing a stony plain in the western Sahara noticed a fist-sized black stone lying among the pebbles. Dark stones stand out clearly against pale desert ground, and this one had the glossy, slightly bubbled skin that experienced meteorite hunters learn to recognise. The collector later sold it to the Ashworth Museum of Natural History so that researchers could study it, and it has since been catalogued as Tarsel 001. The stone is thought to have been thrown off the surface of Mars when an asteroid struck the planet, and to have drifted through space for millions of years before it was finally captured by Earth's gravity. Proving that a rock comes from Mars, however, takes far more than a striking appearance. The team that examined Tarsel 001, led by Dr Leila Haddad, a planetary geologist at the Westbourne Institute for Planetary Science, began with the dark outer layer, known as the fusion crust. This forms when the surface of a falling stone melts as it rushes through Earth's atmosphere, so it reveals how the stone arrived but tells us nothing about where its journey began; every meteorite has one. The minerals inside looked more promising, since they closely resemble those that rovers have recorded on the Martian surface. Yet similar minerals also occur in meteorites that come from asteroids, and on its own this resemblance proved nothing. What finally convinced the team was the gas. Tiny pockets of glass inside the stone hold traces of an atmosphere whose mixture of gases matches, almost exactly, the air that spacecraft have measured on the surface of Mars. A second test looked at oxygen. Oxygen comes in slightly different forms, and the balance between them in Tarsel 001 is unlike that of any rock formed on Earth or the Moon, but identical to the balance already recorded in other Martian meteorites. With two independent lines of evidence pointing in the same direction, Dr Haddad's group was confident that the stone had come from Mars. B Knowing where the stone came from was only the first step; the team also wanted to know when it had formed. The clock inside the rock is a set of zircon crystals, each smaller than a grain of sand. When they formed, they took in a little uranium, which slowly turns into lead at a rate physicists have measured with great precision. By comparing how much of each element remains in a crystal, researchers can calculate how much time has passed since it grew. To be sure, crystals were sent to two laboratories on different continents, neither of which saw the other's figures. Both arrived at 4.1 billion years, give or take a few million. Other dating techniques were of limited use here. Scientists can measure how long a meteorite was exposed to radiation in space, but for Tarsel 001 this reveals only the length of its voyage, a few million years, rather than the moment when the rock itself took shape. The age of a planetary surface seen from orbit is often estimated by counting its craters, since older ground has collected more of them, yet this method cannot be applied to a stone whose home region is unknown. The zircon result sits comfortably within the range suggested by earlier studies of ancient Martian rocks, and it places Tarsel 001 in a period when Mars may still have had water. C Tarsel 001 is not one uniform rock but a collection of older fragments that were broken apart and later cemented together, and each piece preserves something of the conditions in which it formed. Running through several of the fragments are thin veins of carbonate, a type of mineral that forms only where water seeps through rock. Other fragments began as lava, cooling quickly after an eruption, which tells us that volcanoes were active at the time. Tiny grains of magnetite, a mineral rich in iron, lined up with a magnetic field as they formed, although Mars today has no such field. 'Each fragment is like a page torn from a different chapter of the same book,' says Dr Haddad. Taken together, these features describe a young planet very different from the cold, dry world that rovers explore today: one where water moved through the ground, volcanoes erupted and a magnetic field surrounded the planet. D Even so, Dr Haddad is careful not to claim too much. A few thousand years on the desert surface, with occasional rain and fierce daytime heat, may have created some of the carbonate the team found, so only minerals sealed deep inside the stone can be fully trusted. There is also no way of knowing which crater the stone was blasted out of, which means it may describe one small corner of early Mars rather than the planet as a whole. To protect the rest of the meteorite, the museum allowed only a small slice to be cut from it, although that slice turned out to be enough for every test the team wanted to run. In time, missions designed to bring back samples from known locations on Mars could help to settle such questions, because each rock would then be linked to the exact place where it formed.

14. Section A

i) Signs of a planet that was once wetter and more active

Why deserts are good places to search for meteorites

Reasons for treating the conclusions with care

Working out how old a rock is

v) Confirming that a stone came from another planet

Plans to collect material directly from Mars

A journey through space lasting millions of years

15. Section B

i) Signs of a planet that was once wetter and more active

Why deserts are good places to search for meteorites

Reasons for treating the conclusions with care

Working out how old a rock is

v) Confirming that a stone came from another planet

Plans to collect material directly from Mars

A journey through space lasting millions of years

16. Section C

i) Signs of a planet that was once wetter and more active

Why deserts are good places to search for meteorites

Reasons for treating the conclusions with care

Working out how old a rock is

v) Confirming that a stone came from another planet

Plans to collect material directly from Mars

A journey through space lasting millions of years

17. Section D

i) Signs of a planet that was once wetter and more active

Why deserts are good places to search for meteorites

Reasons for treating the conclusions with care

Working out how old a rock is

v) Confirming that a stone came from another planet

Plans to collect material directly from Mars

A journey through space lasting millions of years

18. Which TWO pieces of evidence showed that the meteorite came from Mars?

A) the gases trapped inside it

B) the dark crust on its outer surface

C) the similarity of its minerals to those recorded by Mars rovers

D) the balance of different forms of oxygen in it

E) the strength of its magnetism

19. Which TWO pieces of evidence showed that the meteorite came from Mars?

A) the gases trapped inside it

B) the dark crust on its outer surface

C) the similarity of its minerals to those recorded by Mars rovers

D) the balance of different forms of oxygen in it

E) the strength of its magnetism

20. Which TWO things allowed the scientists to give a reliable age for the rock?

A) the length of time it had been exposed to radiation in space

B) the steady change of one element into another

C) a comparison with rocks brought back from the Moon

D) the number of craters in the region where it began

E) separate checks that produced the same result

21. Which TWO things allowed the scientists to give a reliable age for the rock?

A) the length of time it had been exposed to radiation in space

B) the steady change of one element into another

C) a comparison with rocks brought back from the Moon

D) the number of craters in the region where it began

E) separate checks that produced the same result

22. Which TWO problems with the research does the writer mention?

A) Desert weather may have changed some of the minerals

B) Too little of the rock was available for testing

C) The part of Mars that the rock came from cannot be identified

D) The new age disagrees with earlier estimates for Martian rocks

E) The collector would not let other scientists examine the rock

23. Which TWO problems with the research does the writer mention?

A) Desert weather may have changed some of the minerals

B) Too little of the rock was available for testing

C) The part of Mars that the rock came from cannot be identified

D) The new age disagrees with earlier estimates for Martian rocks

E) The collector would not let other scientists examine the rock

24. • Narrow {{24}} of carbonate minerals inside the rock suggest that water once moved through it.

25. • Some of the fragments began as {{25}}, which shows that volcanoes were active at the time.

26. • The planet's former magnetic field is recorded in tiny grains of {{26}} inside the rock.

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27 to 40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Inside the occupied building

Shortly after seven o'clock one wet Tuesday morning, staff arriving at the administration block of Northgate University found the main entrance blocked by a wall of stacked desks, filing cabinets and sofas dragged from the student common room. Behind the barricade, around forty students had spent the night in sleeping bags. By mid-morning they had hung a banner from a first-floor window and posted a list of demands online. Scenes of this kind have become a familiar part of university life in Britain, and they raise questions about why students choose this form of protest, how institutions respond, and what, if anything, such occupations achieve. Occupation is far from the only tool available to student campaigners, and it is rarely their first. Petitions, open letters and street marches are cheaper and carry less personal risk. Dr Helen Marsh, a social historian at Westbury College who has written widely on student protest, sees the difference between these methods as one of location rather than scale. A march is seen by thousands, but by evening the street is clear and the institution it criticised carries on as before. An occupation, by contrast, sits inside the institution and does not go home at the end of the day. Its force, Marsh argues, lies less in how many people take part than in where they are standing: forty students in the corridor outside the vice-chancellor's office can command more attention than several thousand on the high street. Where to stand, however, is a delicate decision. Groups that shut lecture theatres quickly find that classmates who might have signed their petition now resent them, which is why many occupations target administrative buildings instead. Finance offices, senate rooms and the corridors where senior managers work are favoured because blocking them disrupts the people the protesters hold responsible while leaving teaching largely untouched. Once inside, occupiers must organise themselves with surprising care. Most groups hold a general meeting every evening, at which decisions are taken by a show of hands, and they draw up rotas for cooking, cleaning and keeping watch at the door. Sympathetic lecturers sometimes give talks in the occupied space, and supporters outside bring food, blankets and phone chargers. Yet enthusiasm is hard to sustain over time. Few occupations that last beyond a few weeks survive the approach of examinations, when participants drift back to the library. Administrators faced with a blocked entrance have no comfortable options. A police removal ends an occupation within hours, but it tends to bring hundreds of previously indifferent students to the next rally, and pictures of classmates being carried out appear in the local press by the following morning. Waiting is the alternative, and it is the approach many senior managers now prefer, though it carries costs of its own: meetings are moved elsewhere, staff work from home, and the dispute dominates campus conversation for weeks. The patient strategy relies on fatigue: cold nights and broken sleep thin the numbers far more reliably than any warning letter. Neither side, though, usually wants a stand-off to drag on indefinitely. Increasingly, universities appoint an independent mediator, often a retired academic, to carry proposals between the occupied building and senior management. Talks of this kind can take several days, and the final agreement is often a modest document. Before they leave, protesters want to be sure that they will not be punished for taking part, and most settlements include a guarantee that no participant will face disciplinary action. What occupiers usually win is procedural: a student seat on the finance committee, say, rather than the reversal of the fee rise that brought them out in the first place. Marsh does not regard such procedural gains as defeats. A seat at the table, she notes, gives students access to papers and discussions that were previously closed to them, and it remains in place long after the people who fought for it have graduated. Not everyone accepts that occupations are legitimate. Critics contend that a blockade overrides the rights of the many students who simply want to attend classes. Even when teaching rooms stay open, they say, closed offices delay everything from bursary payments to visa letters, and those affected had no say in the decision to occupy. Supporters reply that arrangements now taken for granted, such as voting rights for students on university councils, were first demanded from occupied buildings. Both sides, in other words, can point to real consequences for students who never set foot inside the occupied building. Whatever one's view, the barricade of desks at Northgate is unlikely to be the last.

27. A street march usually makes a protest visible for only a short time.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

28. Helen Marsh believes that the influence of an occupation depends mainly on how many students take part.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

29. Groups that block teaching rooms risk losing the support of other students.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

30. Long occupations often lose participants as examinations approach.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

31. Most universities have a written policy explaining how staff should deal with an occupation.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

32. Using the police to remove protesters usually reduces support for their cause.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

33. Helen Marsh considers procedural gains to be more valuable than the protesters' original demands.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

34. • Police action ends an occupation quickly, but images of students being carried out reach the {{34}} by the next day.

35. • The alternative is patience, a strategy that depends on {{35}}: occupiers are worn down by the cold and by lack of sleep.

36. • A growing number of institutions use a neutral {{36}}, frequently a former academic, to carry offers back and forth.

37. • Before leaving, occupiers usually receive an assurance that nobody involved will be subject to {{37}}.

38. • Instead of a reversal of the fee increase, protesters typically gain representation on the {{38}}.

39. Opponents claim that blockades harm ordinary students whose only wish is to {{39}}.

40. Defenders point out that {{40}} for students on governing bodies, now regarded as normal, were originally demanded during occupations.