Band 8+ Academic Reading Practice Test 3: Answers & Explanations

All 40 answers below, each with the exact line of the passage that proves it and the reason the tempting wrong option was tempting. If you have not sat the test yet, do that first — a key read before the attempt teaches nothing.

Passage 1: The Disappearance of Silence

13 marks

Answer key and explanations for passage 1
Q	Answer	Evidence in the passage	Why, and the trap
1	FALSE	“There is no such thing as a silent place on the inhabited surface of the earth”	The opening sentence denies this outright; the question the field asks instead is how long noise is absent.Trap: Opposite Meaning
2	TRUE	“two places with identical averages can differ entirely in whether an animal can hear an approaching predator”	This is exactly the shortcoming of averages that the paragraph is describing.
3	TRUE	“decline near roads at distances where the noise is barely noticeable to a walking human”	The comparison with human perception is made explicitly.
4	NOT GIVEN	“playing recorded traffic through speakers in undisturbed forest with no road present”	The design and the result are described, but the passage never says how many forests or how many times it was run.Trap: Outside Text
5	FALSE	“survive adjustment for the usual confounders in several large cohorts, though not in all of them”	"Though not in all of them" contradicts "every cohort" directly.Trap: Extreme Language
6	Paragraph D	“an experiment that separated noise from the other effects of a road”	Paragraph D: the phantom road played recorded traffic in forest "with no road present".
7	Paragraph B	“the reason a single averaged figure is inadequate”	Paragraph B: decibel averages describe loudness and say "nothing about its structure".
8	Paragraph F	“an observation about who has the least access to quiet”	Paragraph F: those with least quiet are "the people with least money".
9	Paragraph A	“the specific measure that researchers in this field prefer”	Paragraph A: the longest daylight interval with no human-generated sound audible.
10	interval	“the length of the longest interval, during daylight, in which no human-generated sound is audible”	One word; the passage separates it from "during daylight" with commas.
11	frequencies	“Birds in noisy environments sing at higher frequencies”	One word; keep the plural.
12	phantom road	“Researchers built what they called a phantom road”	Two words, at the limit.
13	peak	“Regulation has concentrated on peak levels because they are enforceable”	One word; "concentrated on" is paraphrased as "focused on" but the gap word is unchanged.

Passage 2: What Grows in the Dark

13 marks

Answer key and explanations for passage 2
Q	Answer	Evidence in the passage	Why, and the trap
Paragraph A	i — A real finding and what became of it	“Beneath most forests lies a network of fungal filaments connecting different trees.”	A genuine discovery, and "a useful case study in how a result travels".
Paragraph B	ii — The part of the biology nobody disputes	“The underlying biology is not in dispute.”	Nutrients for sugars, present in most plant species — explicitly "not in dispute".
Paragraph C	iii — What a tracer does and does not prove	“The contested part concerns what the connection does at forest level.”	Labelled carbon appears, but "a tracer that arrives somewhere does not establish who sent it or why".
Paragraph D	iv — How little the strongest claims rest on	“The strongest claims rest on a small number of studies.”	Single sites, samples in the low tens, and a review finding weaker support than citation implies.
Paragraph E	v — The fungus as an interested party	“There is also a theoretical problem the popular account passes over.”	Selection acts on the fungus too, which is placed to extract from both trees.
Paragraph F	vi — Why the distinction matters for policy	“The reason to insist on the distinction is practical.”	Policy citing a shaky mechanism when better-evidenced arguments exist.
20	sugars	“receiving sugars in exchange”	One word; keep the plural as the passage has it.
21	budget	“the quantities are small relative to a tree's budget”	One word, lifted unchanged.
22	review	“a systematic review that revisited the literature”	One word completing the term.
23	marketplace	“Models in which the network is a marketplace”	One word from paragraph E.
24	B — They attribute deliberate provisioning that the evidence does not support.	“very little of that description survives contact with the evidence”	The popular account has mature trees "deliberately feed their offspring", and little of it survives the evidence. A: How widespread the association is belongs to the undisputed biology of paragraph B. C: The popular account asserts the connection; the writer accepts the connection and disputes its interpretation. D: Labelling is the evidence the writer examines, not the flaw in the popular account.
25	C — It does not establish who sent the carbon or for what purpose.	“A tracer that arrives somewhere does not establish who sent it or why.”	The last sentence of paragraph C states it in those terms. A: The technique is not criticised; what is questioned is the inference drawn from it. B: The passage says the direction "is not consistently from large to small" — not that it always runs the other way. D: Species composition of neighbours is never mentioned.
26	B — Better-evidenced arguments are available, so the policy need not rest on it.	“those arguments have better foundations available”	Carbon storage, dead-wood species and microclimate are named as better-evidenced foundations. A: The writer calls it "a good policy" — the objection is to the mechanism cited for it. C: The whole argument is about using better evidence, not less. D: The passage lists several well-evidenced reasons mature trees matter.

Passage 3: The Case Against Nostalgia in Urban Design

14 marks

Answer key and explanations for passage 3
Q	Answer	Evidence in the passage	Why, and the trap
27	YES	“it is not a fabrication: such places existed and some of them still do”	The writer grants the accuracy of the picture before objecting to the use made of it.
28	NO	“the picture is used as evidence for a causal claim it cannot support”	That causal claim is precisely what the writer rejects; paragraph B attributes the social life to poverty, immobility and constraint.Trap: Partial Truth
29	YES	“These are measurable, repeatable and modest, and they are what the evidence actually supports”	Pavement width, frontages, distance and traffic speed are listed as demonstrable effects.
30	NO	“they were preserved disproportionately where they were already desirable”	Paragraph E is an account of selection bias: what survives is not representative of what was built.Trap: Partial Truth
31	NO	“What should replace nostalgia is not novelty, which fails in the same way for the opposite reason.”	Novelty is rejected in the same sentence that rejects nostalgia.Trap: Opposite Meaning
32	YES	“That position is harder to illustrate, which is a genuine political disadvantage”	The writer concedes the disadvantage while still recommending the position.
33	traffic speed	“traffic speed determines whether a street is usable by anyone under about twelve”	Two words, taken directly from the list in paragraph C.
34	a selection effect (also accepted: selection effect)	“There is also a selection effect in what survives to be admired.”	Three words at most, naming the effect.
35	a quarter (also accepted: quarter, one quarter)	“streets that work when a quarter of the population is over seventy”	Two words; the passage writes the fraction in words.
36	forecloses (also accepted: foreclose)	“The strongest objection to nostalgia is that it forecloses.”	One word, and the whole of the writer's strongest objection.
37	there was nowhere else for them to go.	“Neighbours in the streets of the past knew one another partly because”	Paragraph B: "Neighbours knew one another partly because there was nowhere else to go."
38	producing exactly the outcomes the picture was invoked against.	“A development can display every traditional visual signal while”	Paragraph D: such a development "satisfies the picture, and it produces the outcomes the picture was invoked against".
39	were generally the ones that had not worked.	“The historic districts that were demolished”	Paragraph E: "the districts that were cleared were generally the ones that had failed".
40	specific about outcomes and indifferent to style.	“The position the writer ultimately recommends is”	Paragraph G: specific about outcomes, "agnostic about the style that delivers them".

Convert your score out of 40

Count your correct answers across all three passages. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so an unanswered question and a wrong guess score the same.

IELTS Academic Reading raw score to band score
Band	Correct (of 40)
9.0	39–40
8.5	37–38
8.0	35–36
7.5	33–34
7.0	30–32
6.5	27–29
6.0	23–26
5.5	19–22
5.0	15–18
4.5	11–14
4.0	7–10
3.5	0–6

Academic conversion. General Training Reading is stricter: band 7 needs 34 correct there against 30 here. Both tables are on the Reading band calculator.

Band 8+ Academic Reading Practice Test 3: Answers & Explanations

Passage 1: The Disappearance of Silence

Passage 2: What Grows in the Dark

Passage 3: The Case Against Nostalgia in Urban Design

Convert your score out of 40

Turn the wrong answers into a band