IELTS Academic Reading practice test 4

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

Selling off the state's old equipment

Every year, governments around the world find themselves owning things they no longer need: lorries, generators, field kitchens, radios, aircraft parts and, in some cases, armoured vehicles. For most of the twentieth century, getting rid of old equipment was regarded as little more than an administrative afterthought. Officials responsible for buying new equipment received attention and budgets; those who had to deal with the old were expected simply to clear the space as cheaply as possible. In recent decades, however, the subject has moved from the back office to the front pages, as auditors and journalists have begun to ask how much public money quietly disappears when state property is sold. The problem is not new. After large wars, governments suddenly found themselves holding vast stocks of vehicles, clothing, tools and weapons that peacetime armies could not use. Keen to empty their warehouses quickly, they often accepted prices far below what the items could have fetched. Dealers who bought surplus lorries by the hundred could repaint them and resell them to farmers and builders. At the time, few people complained: the shortages of the post-war years meant that almost any working machine found a buyer, and governments were more concerned with reducing storage costs than with obtaining a fair return. Today the picture is rather different. Only a minority of items are now scrapped; the majority are sold, either whole or as parts. A transport aircraft that has reached the end of its service life may be stripped of its engines and instruments, which are then sold to other operators of the same model, while its body is cut up and recycled. Equipment with a possible military use is subject to export controls, so buyers must often prove where it will end up before a sale can go ahead. These rules add paperwork and delay, but they also mean that disposal has become a specialised activity rather than a matter of clearing a yard. Who should carry out this work? Many governments have handed the task to state-owned companies, on the grounds that these firms already have the technical knowledge needed to judge the condition of the equipment. A company that has maintained a fleet of vehicles for twenty years, the argument goes, is better placed than a civil servant to know which ones are worth repairing. Critics point out, however, that such an arrangement can blur responsibilities. When the same organisation maintains, values and sells equipment, it may be difficult for anyone outside to check whether the price obtained was reasonable. Valuation is indeed the heart of the problem. Unlike a used car, a twenty-year-old armoured vehicle or a mobile radar unit has no obvious market price, and the number of possible buyers may be very small. Its value depends heavily on whether it can still be kept running. If replacement parts are no longer manufactured, a vehicle may be worth little more than the metal it contains. On the other hand, if another country still operates the same model and is short of spares, the same vehicle could be worth many times as much. Paradoxically, vehicles kept in storage for decades are among the hardest to value, as nobody may have started their engines for years. Machines in daily use, by contrast, come with recent maintenance logs that show exactly what has been repaired and what has worn out. Rubber seals perish, batteries die and electronics corrode in damp sheds, and these problems often remain hidden until a buyer attempts to move the vehicle. These difficulties became clear when Helen Marsh, a public-finance auditor, led a review of the disposal records of several government departments. Her team compared the lists of stored equipment with what was actually found in depots. They discovered that some vehicles which still appeared on official lists had been dismantled years earlier, while others had been sold without any record of the price. In a few cases, items valued at almost nothing had later been resold abroad for considerable sums. Marsh is cautious about drawing dramatic conclusions. 'Most of the money lost,' she argues, 'results from careless record-keeping rather than deliberate wrongdoing, although a few cases have been passed to the police.' In her view, the main weakness is that equipment frequently passes between departments, contractors and storage sites, and each move creates an opportunity for information to be lost. Her solution is simple: each item should carry an electronic tag, so that it can be traced from the day it enters storage until the day it is sold. Reviews of this kind have encouraged several governments to change their rules. Valuations must now be carried out by independent experts with no connection to the seller. Sales above a certain value require approval from a second official, and contracts must state clearly who is responsible if the buyer later resells the equipment. Several governments now sell surplus items through public online auctions, so that anyone can see the final prices paid. Supporters argue that this openness allows journalists and taxpayers to judge for themselves whether a sale was handled properly, although the auctions cannot be used for goods covered by export controls, which are still sold through restricted channels. None of these measures is especially costly, and none requires technology beyond what is already used in commercial warehouses. What they demand is a change of attitude: an acceptance that the end of a machine's working life deserves the same care as its purchase. As armed forces and public services replace ageing fleets in the coming years, the volume of surplus equipment is likely to grow, and with it the importance of selling it well.

1. After major wars, governments often sold surplus equipment for less than it was worth.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

2. Destroying old equipment is now the most common method of disposal.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

3. State-owned companies that handle disposal make larger profits than private dealers.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

4. Equipment that has been kept in storage for many years is usually easier to value than equipment still in use.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

5. Helen Marsh believes that poor record-keeping causes more losses than deliberate dishonesty.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

6. The introduction of online auctions has led to higher sale prices.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

7. • Disposal was treated as an administrative {{7}}

8. • An old vehicle may be worth little if replacement {{8}} are no longer made

9. • Such a vehicle may be worth little more than the {{9}} it contains

10. • Some vehicles on official lists had been {{10}} years earlier

11. • Marsh recommends that each item should carry an electronic {{11}}

12. • Valuations must be carried out by {{12}} experts

13. • Online auctions let anyone see the final {{13}} paid

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

Why everyday life still feels expensive

A Across the United States, a puzzle has been occupying economists and opinion pollsters alike. The official rate of inflation, which climbed steeply a few years ago, has since fallen back to far more ordinary levels, yet when Americans are asked about their finances, many describe a household budget that seems tighter than ever. Part of the explanation lies in what the headline number actually tells us. The official figure measures the speed at which prices are changing, not how high they have become. A lower inflation rate does not mean that prices are falling; it simply means they are rising more slowly than before, and the higher level reached in earlier years remains. A family that paid noticeably more for almost everything three years ago is still paying that higher amount today, with a little extra on top. The figure is also, by necessity, a generalisation. It is built from the spending of an imagined average household, and a family that spends far more than average on rent or on driving to work will experience a rate of its own. For such a family, the published number can seem to describe someone else's life. Many households have also found that their pay has not kept pace, and prices themselves vary considerably from one region to another. Taken together, these factors explain why news of 'cooling inflation' is so often greeted with a shrug: the pace has eased, but the burden has not been lifted. B Perceptions of cost are shaped as much by habit and memory as by arithmetic. What people buy most often, rather than what costs them most over a year, tends to determine how expensive life feels. Food and fuel are bought every week, and their prices are displayed on large signs or printed on every receipt. A driver passing a filling station cannot avoid seeing the latest figure, and a shopper unpacking the weekly bags can compare this week's bill with last week's in seconds. By contrast, few people can recall what they paid for a washing machine or other household appliances, which are bought perhaps once a decade. Even a sizeable rise in the cost of such items may pass almost unnoticed. Memory works in another way, too. Many shoppers still measure today's prices against what they paid before the pandemic, so a price that has stopped rising can still feel unfair. A loaf of bread or a full tank is judged not against last month's price but against a figure fixed in the mind several years earlier, and some shoppers, even after switching to cheaper brands to keep their bills down, continue to feel that they are being overcharged. C If food and fuel dominate perceptions, housing dominates the budget itself. Unlike a weekly shop, a rent or mortgage payment cannot be trimmed by choosing a cheaper brand; for most households it is the largest single cost and the hardest to change. Moving to a smaller or cheaper home involves deposits, removal costs and often a longer journey to work, so most families simply pay whatever they are charged. Housing costs also tend to arrive in sudden steps rather than gradually. Tenants on a twelve-month lease may feel nothing for a year and then, when the lease comes up for renewal, be asked to absorb the entire increase in a single step. Owners with a fixed-rate mortgage are shielded only until the fixed period ends, at which point their monthly payment may jump sharply. In both cases, a change that has been building in the wider market for months lands on the household all at once. Underlying these pressures is a basic imbalance. Demand for homes remains strong, while supply grows only slowly, because planning and constructing new housing takes years. Rents differ greatly between cities, but in most of them the same pattern applies: there are more people looking for homes than there are homes to go round. D As elections approach, this frustration has become a political issue. Many voters say that everyday life remains too expensive, and candidates from across the spectrum have promised to make it more affordable. However sincere a promise to bring prices down may be, much of what determines them lies outside any government's direct control. The price of crude oil, and with it the price at the pump, is set on world markets that no single government controls; a conflict or a production decision on another continent can undo months of careful policy. Interest rates, the main tool for slowing price rises, are decided by a central bank that is deliberately kept independent of elected politicians, precisely so that they cannot be lowered for short-term advantage before a vote. Governments have occasionally tried more direct approaches. Price controls, imposed at various times in the past, often led to shortages, as producers had little reason to supply goods at prices set below their costs. What elected leaders can realistically offer is more modest: help with particular costs, efforts to speed up house building, or support for those on the lowest incomes. Whether voters will accept such limited promises, when the cost of living is felt every time they fill a shopping basket or open a letter about their rent, is one of the less predictable questions of the coming campaign.

14. Section A

i) The growing gap between city and rural living costs

A large fixed expense that leaves little room to adjust

How families have changed the way they shop

Why slower price rises do not feel like relief

v) The limits on what governments can do about prices

Evidence that wages have caught up with prices

The everyday purchases that shape people's sense of cost

15. Section B

i) The growing gap between city and rural living costs

A large fixed expense that leaves little room to adjust

How families have changed the way they shop

Why slower price rises do not feel like relief

v) The limits on what governments can do about prices

Evidence that wages have caught up with prices

The everyday purchases that shape people's sense of cost

16. Section C

i) The growing gap between city and rural living costs

A large fixed expense that leaves little room to adjust

How families have changed the way they shop

Why slower price rises do not feel like relief

v) The limits on what governments can do about prices

Evidence that wages have caught up with prices

The everyday purchases that shape people's sense of cost

17. Section D

i) The growing gap between city and rural living costs

A large fixed expense that leaves little room to adjust

How families have changed the way they shop

Why slower price rises do not feel like relief

v) The limits on what governments can do about prices

Evidence that wages have caught up with prices

The everyday purchases that shape people's sense of cost

18. Which TWO points does the writer make about the official inflation figure?

A) It shows how fast prices are changing rather than how high they are

B) It is based on a typical pattern of spending that may not match a particular household

C) It is published too late to reflect sudden changes in prices

D) It does not fully include the cost of services such as childcare

E) It is calculated differently from the figures used in other countries

19. Which TWO points does the writer make about the official inflation figure?

A) It shows how fast prices are changing rather than how high they are

B) It is based on a typical pattern of spending that may not match a particular household

C) It is published too late to reflect sudden changes in prices

D) It does not fully include the cost of services such as childcare

E) It is calculated differently from the figures used in other countries

20. Which TWO statements does the writer make about housing costs?

A) Rent increases have been larger in suburbs than in city centres

B) Tenants often face the whole of an increase at once when a lease is renewed

C) Landlords pass on rising insurance and maintenance costs to tenants

D) Homeowners with fixed-rate mortgages are protected only until their deal ends

E) Short-term holiday lets have reduced the number of homes available to rent

21. Which TWO statements does the writer make about housing costs?

A) Rent increases have been larger in suburbs than in city centres

B) Tenants often face the whole of an increase at once when a lease is renewed

C) Landlords pass on rising insurance and maintenance costs to tenants

D) Homeowners with fixed-rate mortgages are protected only until their deal ends

E) Short-term holiday lets have reduced the number of homes available to rent

22. According to the writer, which TWO factors limit a government's ability to bring prices down?

A) Trade agreements that limit changes to import taxes

B) The power of large supermarket chains over food prices

C) Fuel prices that are set on international markets

D) Government debt that restricts spending on subsidies

E) Interest rates that are set by an independent central bank

23. According to the writer, which TWO factors limit a government's ability to bring prices down?

A) Trade agreements that limit changes to import taxes

B) The power of large supermarket chains over food prices

C) Fuel prices that are set on international markets

D) Government debt that restricts spending on subsidies

E) Interest rates that are set by an independent central bank

24. Shoppers see the prices of groceries and {{24}} every week, both on large signs and on their receipts.

25. Few people can remember what they paid for household {{25}}, which they may buy only once in ten years.

26. Many shoppers still use the prices they paid before the {{26}} as their idea of what a fair price is.

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

Finding the way home: how separated children are traced

Every armed conflict and every major natural disaster leaves behind children who no longer know where their families are. Some become lost in the crowds at a border crossing or a railway station; others are sent ahead to safety by parents who intend to follow and then cannot; still others are found alone after a flood or an earthquake has scattered a whole district. Humanitarian agencies distinguish carefully between two groups. Separated children have lost contact with their parents or usual carers, but may still be with an aunt, a grandparent or another adult relative; unaccompanied children have no adult caring for them at all. The distinction matters because it shapes what happens next: an unaccompanied child needs immediate shelter and supervision, while a separated child may already be safe and need only to be reconnected with the rest of the family. Family tracing on a large scale took shape after the Second World War, when millions of people across Europe had been displaced and many children had no papers at all. Tracing offices kept card indexes of the missing, read out names on the radio and printed long lists in newspapers in the hope that a relative would recognise one. The work was slow and depended heavily on chance, but its central principles still guide the field: record as much as possible, as early as possible, and never assume that a family has stopped looking. The process begins with registration, usually within days of a child coming into the care of an agency. At registration a caseworker records the child's name, age and home area, together with any identifying marks, such as scars or birthmarks. The exact location where the child was found is written down as well, since families often return to search the place where they last saw a child. Older children can usually describe their village or street, but the youngest present a different challenge. A four-year-old may not know her surname, so caseworkers note whatever she can offer instead: a nickname, a song her mother sang, the shape of a bridge she crossed on the way to school. Details like these can seem trivial at the time, yet experienced staff say they have often been the only thread connecting a child to a parent. These details are then matched against tracing requests, the forms filled in by relatives who are looking for a missing child. Technology has changed the speed of this work considerably. Many displaced families now carry mobile phones, and a single message can reach relatives in several countries within minutes. Shared databases allow agencies working in different places to compare records that would once have sat in separate filing cabinets. Some volunteers have gone further, posting pictures of unaccompanied children on social media in the hope that someone will recognise them. Specialists are more cautious. 'A photograph on a public page reaches the child's grandmother, but it also reaches anyone who might want to claim a child who is not theirs,' says Adele Navarro, a family-tracing adviser with the Harbourline Child Protection Network. She does not dispute that phones and online platforms have shortened many searches; her concern is who else is watching. For this reason, most agencies share images only through closed systems, in which staff can control who sees them. Finding a possible relative is only part of the task, because a match must be confirmed before a child is handed over. When an adult comes forward, the child and the adult are interviewed separately. Each is asked about things only genuine relatives would know, such as the names of family pets or the layout of the home, and their answers must match. Documents such as birth certificates or family photographs are examined where they exist, though in many emergencies they have been lost or destroyed. DNA testing is used only when interviews and documents have failed to settle a claim, partly because it is expensive and partly because it can reveal family facts that nobody had asked about. A test might show, for instance, that a man who has raised a child is not the biological father, a finding that could damage the very family the agency is trying to rebuild. Even a confirmed relationship does not automatically mean that a child returns. Before a reunion goes ahead, a best-interests assessment is carried out, and the child's own wishes are taken into account. Staff consider whether the home is safe, whether the relative is able to care for the child, and whether the child, particularly an older one, wants to go. Reunion is not the end of the work: staff make follow-up visits in the months afterwards to see how the child is settling in. Some children have stopped using the language spoken at home, and others have grown close to the foster carers who looked after them. Parents may find that the son or daughter who returns is not quite the child they remember, and both sides can need support while they get to know one another again. Modern databases have undoubtedly made tracing faster, and few people working in the field would wish to return to card indexes and newspaper lists. Even so, the most valuable moment in the whole process remains the first one. A database can only compare the information it holds, and if a child's details are recorded hastily or incompletely, no amount of computing power will recover them. This, I would argue, is where agencies should direct their resources. An hour spent recording a child properly in the first week costs far less than the years of searching that may follow if that hour is lost.

27. A child described as 'separated' may still be looked after by an adult relative.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

28. In the years after the Second World War, radio broadcasts led to more reunions than printed lists of names.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

29. Caseworkers do not record information from very young children who cannot give their family name.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

30. Adele Navarro believes that publishing children's photographs online can help people who falsely claim to be relatives.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

31. DNA testing is preferred because it costs less than other ways of checking a claim.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

32. A judge has to approve every reunion before it can take place.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

33. The writer argues that careful early registration costs less than searching for a child years later.

TRUE) TRUE

FALSE) FALSE

NOT GIVEN) NOT GIVEN

34. When a child is first registered, a caseworker notes basic personal details and any {{34}}, such as scars or birthmarks, and also records the exact {{35}} where the child was found. These details are then compared with the forms, known as {{36}}, that relatives have filled in.

35. When a child is first registered, a caseworker notes basic personal details and any {{34}}, such as scars or birthmarks, and also records the exact {{35}} where the child was found. These details are then compared with the forms, known as {{36}}, that relatives have filled in.

36. When a child is first registered, a caseworker notes basic personal details and any {{34}}, such as scars or birthmarks, and also records the exact {{35}} where the child was found. These details are then compared with the forms, known as {{36}}, that relatives have filled in.

37. Before any reunion, the child and the adult are {{37}} separately, and each is asked about details such as the names of {{38}} or the layout of the family home. After the reunion, staff make {{39}} to see how the child is settling in. One difficulty is that some children no longer use their family's {{40}}.

38. Before any reunion, the child and the adult are {{37}} separately, and each is asked about details such as the names of {{38}} or the layout of the family home. After the reunion, staff make {{39}} to see how the child is settling in. One difficulty is that some children no longer use their family's {{40}}.

39. Before any reunion, the child and the adult are {{37}} separately, and each is asked about details such as the names of {{38}} or the layout of the family home. After the reunion, staff make {{39}} to see how the child is settling in. One difficulty is that some children no longer use their family's {{40}}.

40. Before any reunion, the child and the adult are {{37}} separately, and each is asked about details such as the names of {{38}} or the layout of the family home. After the reunion, staff make {{39}} to see how the child is settling in. One difficulty is that some children no longer use their family's {{40}}.