IELTS Practice Test (Computer-Based)

Questions 1–6

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? Choose TRUE if the statement agrees with the information, FALSE if the statement contradicts the information, NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this.

1Drais’s machine was moved forward by the rider’s feet on the ground.

TRUEFALSENOT GIVEN

2Drais was a professional engineer.

TRUEFALSENOT GIVEN

3Boneshakers were mainly sold in England.

TRUEFALSENOT GIVEN

4On a boneshaker, a larger front wheel meant a higher speed.

TRUEFALSENOT GIVEN

5The penny-farthing was popular with people of all ages.

TRUEFALSENOT GIVEN

6Dunlop first designed his tyre for a racing bicycle.

TRUEFALSENOT GIVEN

Questions 7–13

Complete the notes below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Key stages in bicycle history

1817: Drais may have been influenced by a shortage of

1860s: boneshakers had tyres and were uncomfortable

1870s: the penny-farthing used solid tyres

1885: the safety bicycle used a to drive the rear wheel

1890s: cycling helped the campaign for women’s rights and led to more practical

Today: cities with separate have more cyclists

bicycles make hilly routes easier

Questions 14–18

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A–G. Which paragraph contains the following information? You may use any letter more than once.

Paragraphs

14a technique that was found by chance

15a criticism of the way success is measured

16an explanation of why corals turn white

17the benefits reefs give to people

18the view that restoration alone is not enough

Questions 19–23

Complete the sentences below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Corals get most of their food from algae through .

In coral gardening, fragments grow in underwater before being moved to the reef.

Micro-fragmentation uses pieces of only one or two .

Mass spawning takes place a few nights after a .

Some teams choose corals that survived earlier to breed tougher populations.

Questions 24–26

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

24What happens to bleached corals?

AThey die immediately.BThey may starve if temperatures stay high.CThey grow new algae within days.DThey move to deeper water.

25Coral fragments in nurseries are often attached to

Ametal cages.Bold ships.Cstructures made of plastic pipes.Dnatural rocks.

26Most scientists think reef restoration

Ais too expensive to continue.Bcan fully replace emission cuts.Ccan buy time until conditions improve.Dshould focus only on Australia.

Questions 27–31

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

27What happened after the 1954 demonstration?

AAutomatic translation was achieved soon afterwards.BEarly systems failed with ambiguous sentences.CIBM stopped working on computers.DThe government increased funding.

28Statistical translation systems worked by

Afollowing grammar rules written by linguists.Bcalculating likely matches between texts.Cimitating the human brain.Dtranslating one word at a time from a dictionary.

29The Canadian parliament is mentioned because its records

Awere the first to be translated by machine.Bare available in two languages.Ccontain many legal terms.Dwere used to test human translators.

30What is the main advantage of neural machine translation?

AIt processes whole sentences at once.BIt needs very little data.CIt works equally well for all languages.DIt never makes mistakes.

31According to the passage, literary translation

Ais now mostly done by machines.Bis the area least affected so far.Cis better paid than post-editing.Dhas disappeared as a profession.

Questions 32–36

Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer? Choose YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer, NO if the statement contradicts the views of the writer, NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.

32It would be wrong to believe that human translators are no longer needed.

YESNONOT GIVEN

33Machine translation is most dangerous when the system is uncertain.

YESNONOT GIVEN

34Yoruba will soon have enough data to train good systems.

YESNONOT GIVEN

35Machine translation has made everyday communication easier for many people.

YESNONOT GIVEN

36Language can be treated simply as a code.

YESNONOT GIVEN

Questions 37–40

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–F.

Endings

Abecause there is not enough digital text in those languages.

Bafter a critical government report.

Cbecause the work is often less rewarding.

Dby using statistics instead of rules.

Ebecause computers became cheaper.

Fwhen humans and machines work together.

37Funding for machine translation fell in the 1960s

38Speakers of some major languages get worse results

39Many translators dislike post-editing

40The writer believes the best translations are produced

Reading Test 2 (Academic) – Full test

The Bicycle: Two Centuries of Change

Rebuilding the Reef

Lost and Found in Translation

Questions 1–6

Questions 7–13

Key stages in bicycle history

Questions 14–18

Questions 19–23

Questions 24–26

Questions 27–31

Questions 32–36

Questions 37–40