IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 92 With Answers

IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 92 With Answers

Reading Passage 1  

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

Green Wave Washes Over Mainstream Shopping

Research in Britain has shown that green consumers’ continue to flourish as a significant group amongst shoppers. This suggests that politicians who claim environmentalism is yesterday’s issue may be seriously misjudging the public mood.

A 

Report from Mintel, the market research organisation, says that despite the recession and financial pressures, more people than ever want to buy environmentally friendly products and a ‘green wave’ has swept through consumerism, taking in people previously untouched by environmental concerns. The recently published report also predicts that the process will repeat itself with ‘ethical’ concerns, involving issues such as fair trade with the Third World and the social record of businesses. Companies will have to be more honest and open in response to this mood.

Mintel’s survey, based on nearly 1,000 consumers, found that the proportion who look for green products and have prepared to pay more for them has climbed from 53 percent in 1990 to around 60 per cent in 1994. On average, they will pay 13 percent more for such products, although this percentage is higher among women, managerial and professional groups and those aged 35
to 44.

B

Between 1990 and 1994 the proportion of consumers claiming to be unaware of or unconcerned about green issues fell from 18 to 10 percent but the number of green spenders among older people and manual workers has risen substantially. Regions such as Scotland have also caught up with the south of England in their environmental concerns. According to Mintel, the image of green consumerism as associated in the past with the more eccentric members of society has virtually disappeared.

The consumer research manager for Mintel, Angela Hughes, said it had become firmly established as a mainstream market. She explained that as far as the average person is concerned environmentalism has not gone off the boil’. In fact, it has spread across a much wider range of consumer groups, ages and occupations.

Mintel’s 1994 survey found that 13 percent of consumers are ‘very dark green’, nearly always buying environmentally friendly products, 28 per cent are ‘dark green’, trying ‘as far as possible’ to buy such products, and 21 percent are ‘pale green’ – tending to buy green products if they see them. Another 26 per cent are ‘armchair greens’; they said they care about environmental issues but their concern does not affect their spending habits. Only 10 percent say they do not care about green issues.

C

Four in ten people are ‘ethical spenders’, buying goods which do not, for example, involve dealings with oppressive regimes. This figure is the same as in 1990, although the number of ‘armchair ethicals’ has risen from 28 to 35 percent and only 22 percent say they are unconcerned now, against 30 per cent in 1990. Hughes claims that in the twenty-first century, consumers will be encouraged to think more about the entire history of the products and services they buy, including the policies of the companies that provide them and that this will require a greater degree of honesty with consumers.   

D

Among green consumers, animal testing is the top issue – 48 percent said they would be deterred from buying a product it if had been tested on animals -followed by concerns regarding irresponsible selling, the ozone layer, river and sea pollution, forest destruction, recycling and factory farming. However, concern for specific issues is lower than in 1990, suggesting that many consumers feel that Government and business have taken on the environmental agenda.

Questions 1-6

IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 92 With Answers

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer of Reading Passage 40?
In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet write

     YES                if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
     NO                 if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
     NOT GIVEN    if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1. The research findings report commercial rather than political trends.
2. Being financially better off has made shoppers more sensitive to buying ‘green’.
3. The majority of shoppers are prepared to pay more for the benefit of the environment according to the research findings.
4. Consumers’ green shopping habits are influenced by Mintel’s findings.
5. Mintel have limited their investigation to professional and managerial groups.
6. Mintel undertakes market surveys on an annual basis.

Questions 7-9

Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 7-9 on your answer sheet.

7 Politicians may have ‘misjudged the public mood’ because …
   A. they have pre-occupied with the recession and financial problems.
   B. there is more widespread interest in the environment agenda than they anticipated.
   C. consumer spending has increased significantly as a result of ‘green’ pressure.
   D. shoppers are displeased with government policies on a range of issues.

8  What is Mintel?
   A. an environmentalist group
   B. a business survey organisation
   C. an academic research team
   D. a political organisation

9 A consumer expressing concern for environmental issues without actively supporting such principles is…..
   A. an ‘ethical spender’.
   B. a ‘very dark green’ spender.
   C. an ‘armchair green’.
   D. a ‘pale green’ spender.

Questions 10-13

IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 92 With Answers

Complete the summary using words from the box below. Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet. NB There are more answers than spaces, so you will not use them all.

The Mintel report suggests that in future companies will be forced to practise greater …… (10) …… in their dealings because of the increased awareness amongst…… (11)…… of ethical issues. This prediction is supported by the growth in the number of …… (12)…… identified in the most recent survey published. As a consequence, it is felt that companies will have to think more carefully about their …… (13)…….

Reading Passage 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.

Cleaning up the Thames

A

The River Thames, which was biologically “dead” as recently as the 1960s, is now the cleanest metropolitan river in the world, according to the Thames Water Company. The company says that thanks to major investment in better sewage treatment in London and the Thames Valley, the river that flows through the United Kingdom capital and the Thames Estuary into the North Sea is cleaner now than it has been for 130 years. The Fisheries Department, who are responsible for monitoring fish levels in the River Thames, has reported that the river has again become the home to 115 species of fish including sea bass, flounder, salmon, smelt, and shad. Recently, a porpoise spotted cavorting in the river near central London.

B

But things were not always so rosy. In the 1950s, sewer outflows and industrial effluent had killed the river. It starved of oxygen and could no longer support aquatic life. Until the early 1970s, if you fell into the Thames you would have had to be rushed to the hospital to get your stomach pumped. A clean-up operation began in the 1960s. Several Parliamentary Committees and Royal Commissions had set up, and, over time, legislation has been introduced that put the onus on polluters-effluent-producing premises and businesses to dispose of waste responsibly. In 1964 the Greater London Council (GLC) began work on greatly enlarged sewage works, which had completed in 1974.

C

The Thames clean up is not over, though. It is still going on, and it involves many disparate arms of government and a wide range of non-government stakeholder groups, all representing a necessary aspect of the task. In London’s case, the urban and non-urban London boroughs that flank the river’s course each has its own reasons for keeping “their” river nice. And if their own reasons do not hold out a sufficiently attractive carrot, the government also wields a compelling stick. The 2000 Local Government Act requires each local borough to “prepare a community strategy for promoting or improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area.” And if your area includes a stretch of river, that means a sustainable river development strategy.

D

Further legislation aimed at improving and sustaining the river’s viability has been proposed. There is now legislation that protects the River Thames, either specifically or as part of a general environmental clause, in the Local Government Act, the London Acts, and the law that created the post of the mayor of London. And these are only the tip of an iceberg that includes industrial, public health and environmental protection regulations. The result is a wide range of bodies officially charged, in one way or another, with maintaining the Thames as a public amenity. For example, Transport for London – the agency responsible for transport in the capital – plays a role in regulating river use and river users.

They now are responsible for controlling the effluents and rubbish coming from craft using the Thames. This is done by officers on official vessels regularly inspecting craft and doing spot checks. Another example is how Thames Water (TW) has now been charged to reduce the amount of litter that finds its way into the tidal river and its tributaries. TW ’s environment and quality manager, Dr. Peter Spillett, said: “This project will build on our investment which has dramatically improved the water quality of the river.

E

“London should not be spoiled by litter which belongs in the bin not the river.”  Thousands of tons of rubbish end up in the river each year, from badly stored waste, people throwing litter off boats, and rubbish in the street being blown or washed into the river. Once litter hits the water it becomes too heavy to be blown away again and therefore the rivers act as a sink in the system.

While the Port of London already collects up to 3,000 tons of solid waste from the tideway every year, Thames Water now plans to introduce a new device to capture more rubbish floating down the river. It consists of a huge cage that sits in the flow of water and gathers the passing rubbish. Moored just offshore in front of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, south-east London, the device has expected to capture up to 20 tons of floating litter each year.If washed out to sea, this rubbish can kill marine mammals, fish and birds. This machine, known as the Rubbish Muncher, is hoped to be the first of many, as the TW is now looking for sponsors to pay for more cages elsewhere along the Thames.

F

Monitoring of the cleanliness of the River Thames in the past was the responsibility of a welter of agencies – British Waterways, Port of London Authority, the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Commission, Thames Water – as well as academic departments and national and local environment groups. If something was not right, someone was bound to call foul and hold somebody to account, whether it was the local authority, an individual polluter or any of the many public and private sector bodies that bore a share of the responsibility for maintaining the River Thames as a public amenity. Although they will all still have their part to play, there is now a central department in the Environment Agency, which has the remit of monitoring the Thames. This centralisation of accountability will, it is hoped, lead to more efficient control and enforcement.

 Reading Passage 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-41 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

TOURISM

A 

Tourism, holidaymaking and travel are these days more significant social phenomena than most commentators have considered. On the face of it, there could not be a more trivial subject for a book. And indeed since social scientists have had considerable difficulty explaining weightier topics, such as work or politics, it might be thought that they would have great difficulties in accounting for more trivial phenomena such as holidaymaking. However, there are interesting parallels with the study of deviance. This involves the investigation of bizarre and idiosyncratic social practices which happen to be defined as deviant in some societies but not necessarily in others. The assumption is that the investigation of deviance can reveal interesting and significant aspects of normal societies. It could be said that a similar analysis can be applied to tourism.

B 

Tourism is a leisure activity which presupposes its opposite, namely regulated and organised work. It is one manifestation of how work and leisure are organised as separate and regulated spheres of social practice in modern societies. Indeed acting as a tourist is one of the defining characteristics of being ‘modern’ and the popular concept of tourism is that it is organised within particular places and occurs for regularised periods of time. Tourist relationships arise from a movement of people to, and their stay in, various destinations. This necessarily involves some movement, that is the journey, and a period of stay in a new place or places. ‘The journey and the stay’ are by definition outside the normal places of residence and work and are of a short term and temporary nature and there is a clear intention to return ‘home’ within a relatively short period of time.

C 

A substantial proportion of the population of modern societies engages in such tourist practices new socialised forms of provision have developed in order to cope with the mass character of the gazes of tourists as opposed to the individual character of travel. Places are chosen to be visited and be gazed upon because there is an anticipation especially through daydreaming and fantasy of intense pleasures, either on a different scale or involving different senses from those customarily encountered. Such anticipation is constructed and sustained through a variety of non-tourist practices such as films, TV literature, magazines records and videos which construct and reinforce this daydreaming.

D 

Tourists tend to visit features of landscape and townscape which separate them off from everyday experience. Such aspects have viewed because they have taken to be in some sense out of the ordinary. The viewing of these tourist sights often involves different forms of social patterning with a much greater sensitivity to visual elements of landscape or townscape than has normally found in everyday life. People linger over these sights in a way that they would not normally do in their home environment and the vision is objectified or captured through photographs postcards films and so on which enable the memory to be endlessly reproduced and recaptured.

E 

One of the earliest dissertations on the subject of tourism is Boorstins analysis of the pseudo-event (1964) where he argues that contemporary. Americans cannot experience reality directly but thrive on pseudo-events. Isolated from the host environment and the local people the mass tourist travels in guided groups and finds pleasure in inauthentic contrived attractions gullibly enjoying the pseudo-events and disregarding the real world outside. Over time the images generated of different tourist sights come to constitute a closed self-perpetuating system of illusions which provide the tourist with the basis for selecting and evaluating potential places to visit. Such visits have made says Boorstin, within the environmental bubble of the familiar American style hotel which insulates the tourist from the strangeness of the host environment.

F 

To service the burgeoning tourist industry, an array of professionals has developed who attempt to reproduce ever-new objects for the tourist to look at. These objects or places are located in a complex and changing hierarchy. This depends upon the interplay between, on the one hand, competition between interests involved in the provision of such objects and, on the other hand changing class, gender, and generational distinctions of taste within the potential population of visitors.

It has been said that to be a tourist is one of the characteristics of the modern experience. Not to go away is like not possessing a car or a nice house. Travel- a marker of status in modern societies and is also thought to be necessary for good health. The role of the professional, therefore, is to cater for the needs and tastes of the tourists in accordance with their class and overall expectations.

Questions 28-32

IELTS Academic Reading Practice Test 92 With Answers

Raiding Passage 35 has 6 paragraphs (A-F).
Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below Write the appropriate numbers (i-ix) in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings i     The politics of tourism ii    The cost of tourism iii   Justifying the study of tourism iv   Tourism contrasted with travel v    The essence of modern tourism vi   Tourism versus leisure vii  The artificiality of modern tourism viii The role of modern tour guides ix   Creating an alternative to the everyday experience

28.   Paragraph  A
29.   Paragraph  B
30.   Paragraph  C

Example                                                               Answer   Paragraph D                                                              ix

31.   Paragraph  E
32.   Paragraph  F

Questions 33-37
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 35? In boxes 33-37 write :

         YES                if the statement agrees with the writer
         NO                 if the statement contradicts the writer
         NOT GIVEN  if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

33.  Tourism is a trivial subject.
34.  An analysis of deviance can act as a model for the analysis of tourism.
35.  Tourists usually choose to travel overseas.
36.  Tourists focus more on places they visit than those at home.
37.  Tour operators try to cheat tourists.

Questions 38-41

Chose one phrase (A-H) from the list of phrases to complete each key point below. Write the
appropriate letters (A-H) in boxes 38-41 on your answer sheet.


NB There are more phrases A-H than sentences so you will not use them all. You may use any phrase more than once.

38.  Our concept of tourism arises from …….
39.  The media can be used to enhance …….
40.  People view tourist landscapes in a different way from …….
41.  Group tours encourage participants to look at …….

List of Phrases A  local people and their environment. B  the expectations of tourists. C  the phenomena of holidaymaking. D  the distinction we make between holidays. work and leisure. E  the individual character of travel. F  places seen in everyday life. G  photographs which recapture our H  sights designed specially for tourists.

Answer Key

Academic Reading Test 91