IELTS General Training Reading Practice Test 1
Community centre notices, an extract from a staff handbook, and a longer article on what schools got wrong about handwriting.
Free, no sign-up. Written in the Cambridge style — same structure, same mark split, same trap patterns — with original passages. Answer a passage, mark it, and read why each wrong option was tempting. The full answer key is on its own page — open it after you finish, not before.
Riverside Community Centre — Autumn Noticeboard
Passage 1 of 3 · 13 marks
SWIMMING POOL: AUTUMN TIMETABLE. The main pool is open from 6.30am on weekdays and from 8am at weekends. Lane swimming has priority before 9am and after 8pm, and the shallow end is reserved for lessons between 4pm and 6pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The pool closes for maintenance on the first Monday of each month. Members may bring one guest per visit at a reduced rate; guests must be signed in at reception and cannot use the gym.
HALL HIRE. The main hall seats one hundred and twenty and is available from 9am to 10pm. Bookings are confirmed only when the deposit has been received, and the deposit is returned within ten working days provided the hall is left clear. Regular bookings of eight weeks or more receive a fifteen per cent reduction. The hall has no kitchen of its own; the adjoining kitchen is booked separately and cannot be added on the day.
AUTUMN CLASSES. Beginners' pottery runs on Wednesday evenings for eight weeks and is already full, with a waiting list held at reception. Conversational Spanish has places remaining and assumes no previous study. The Thursday morning art class has moved to Studio 2 because of building work. Payment for a full term is required in advance, and single sessions are not sold for any class except yoga.
VOLUNTEERING. The centre is looking for volunteers to help with the Saturday lunch club and with the garden. Lunch club volunteers must be available from 11am to 2pm and will be asked to complete a food hygiene course, which the centre pays for. Garden volunteers set their own hours. All volunteers working with the lunch club require a background check, which takes about three weeks to process.
PARKING AND ACCESS. The car park has thirty spaces, including four accessible bays nearest the main entrance. Spaces cannot be reserved. The barrier accepts the membership card only between 6am and 11pm; outside those hours the side gate on Mill Lane must be used. Cyclists will find covered racks behind the sports hall. The centre is a ten-minute walk from Riverside station, and the number 14 bus stops directly outside.
MEMBERSHIP AND CANCELLATION. Monthly membership may be cancelled with one month's written notice, and notice by telephone is not accepted. Annual members who cancel before the halfway point of their year receive a partial refund, calculated from the date the notice is received rather than the date it is sent. Membership may be frozen for up to three months in a year for medical reasons, on production of a letter from a doctor.
Which notice contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A–F. You may use any letter once only.
how money is returned when a yearly agreement is ended early
the condition for getting a deposit back after an event
a course that must be completed before taking on one particular role
the times at which people swimming lengths are given priority
what to do when arriving outside normal hours
the only activity that can be paid for one session at a time
“The main pool opens at the same time every day of the week.”
“Hall bookings that run for eight weeks or more are given a discount.”
“The pottery course will run again in the spring.”
“Parking spaces at the centre can be booked in advance.”
Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the notices for each answer.
No more than 3 words from the passage
How long does a background check take to process?
Which road has the gate to be used outside barrier hours?
For what reason may a membership be frozen?
Marks all 40 questions at once and converts the total on the official table. Unanswered questions count as wrong, as they do on test day.
About this test
How many questions are in IELTS General Training Reading Practice Test 1?
40, across three passages, split 13 + 13 + 14 exactly as the real Academic Reading paper is. You have 60 minutes for all three with no extra transfer time.
Do I need an account to take this test?
No. Read the passages, answer, and get each passage marked without signing in. A free account adds saved history and per-question-type band tracking.
Where are the answers?
On a separate page — the answer key for this test lists every correct answer, the exact line of the passage that proves it, and the trap behind each wrong option.
Is this a Cambridge IELTS test?
It is written in the Cambridge style, not taken from a Cambridge volume: the same three-passage structure, the same 13 + 13 + 14 mark split, the same passage lengths and register, and question types drawn from the same eleven with the same trap patterns. Original texts built to that specification — nobody can legally hand you a scanned past paper.