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IELTS READING PRACTICE TEST 1

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

SWEET TROUB L E
Problems in the Australian sugar industry
The Australian town of Mossman in the state of Queensland sits in a tropical landscape
between the rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. Eco-tourism is important there;more than
80% of Douglas Shire, of which Mossman is the administrative centre, is protected by
World Heritage listing. But for most of the town’s history, forest and reef have been largely
irrelevant; since the sugar mill was built in 1894, the town has relied on sugarcane. Now
Mossman is holding its breath. For two years the mill used by all the farms has been close to
bankruptcy. It is at the centre of the economic shocks that have shaken Australia’s sugar
industry, and for lifetime farmers and a long list of cane industry workers a way of life will
dissappear if the mill closes. Mossman has roughly 160 growers, who now produce less than
one million of the nation’s annual can harverst of 30-40 million tonnes. But it is a
microcosm of the industry. All across Australia, the can-growing business is being squeezed
between the princers of economics and the environment.
The ten-year average return to sugar growers throughout the 1990s was about $350 a tonne.
In early 2004, sugar prices plummeted, resulting in a 25-year-low average price for
Australian sugar of about $232 a tonne. Although figures vary widely across farms and
regions, that was about what it cost to grow a tonne of sugar in Australia. To forestall social
and economic disater, the Government offered more than $400 million to encourage growers
to leave the industry. By the end of the year, 21 farmers had taken up the offer to leave, but
another 1,000 are thought to be seriously considering it, allowing those remaining to buy the
vacated land and improve their economied of scale.
Fourth-generation Mossman grower Bill Phillips-Turner is one who plans to fight on. “ The
consequences of losing the mill would be catastrophic,” Bill says. “Sugar has a big
economic multiplier effect: for every dollar generated from sugar, an additional $7 is
generated in the wider community. Because of limited options around here, most people now
employed by the industry would have to leave the area to find work.” The farmer-
shareholders have so far saved the mill by accepting substantial cuts to can payments, but
this has come at a big cost to everyone. As chairman of the board of the mill, Bill has
presided over some tough and unpopular decisions; the hardest was slashing the mill
workforce. Assets were sold and maintenance costs cut. The board has also worked hard to
find new ways of doing business. Ethanol production, where sugar is used to produce fuel,
has potential, and co-generation, using cane waste to generate electric power, is another
possiblily. However, the most radical but preferred alternative is to create a future for the
mill as a food factory, turning out quality sugar-based foods.

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In addition to the economic struggle, there is the environmental one. The suger indutry has
the reputation of being environmentally damaging, but it has some surprising supporters.
Douglas Shire mayor, Mike Berwick, is a well-known environmentalist, and might be
expected to be anti-cane. “There’s no question of the past damage it’s done to the reef
through chemical and nutrient run-off”, he says. “But there’s a formula for sustainable cane
production and Mossman has nearly reached it.” Another surprise endorsement for can
comes from the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency’s sugar liaison officer, Karen
Benn. “I’m less worried about the effect of cane on the environment than I am about other
agriculture,” she says. 'There are good growers everywhere, but at Mossman they seem to
have taken up the challenges faster.’ For example, sediment run-off, previously one of the
main environmental problems caused by cane growing, is now nothing like it once was,
according to Dr Brian Roberts, co-ordinator of the Douglas Shire Water Quality
Improvement Program. 'North Queensland used to hold the record for soil loss/ he says.
'Now ... cane country is accumulating soil.'
However, these improvements have been achieved at a great cost to growers. Now in his
60s, Tom Watters has spent a lifetime on the same farm. Fourteen years ago, he was alerted
to the effect his cane could be having on Mackay Creek, the narrow waterway that receives
all his run-off, and so Tom planted a 5,000- tree buffer along the edge of the creek, built up
the edges of the creek with rocks to prevent erosion, and began exploring farming methods
that cause minimal soil disturbance. However, none of these costly initiatives has helped him
get better cane prices. Another cane grower, Doug Crees, comments that 'Economically, it
[cane growing] doesn't make much sense. But there's more to life than money.' It’s this
addiction to the way of life that keeps many cane farmers growing an under-performing
crop. 'It's a good lifestyle,' Doug says. '1 spend eight months working on the farm and four
months looking after our kids while my wife works in town. I've been looking at alternative
crops, like forestry and cocoa, and it turns out that working away from the farm is the best
diversification we could do. However, I still don't want to do that.'
It is difficult to see how anyone can deal satisfactorily with the passing of a way of life.
Cane farmers have been part of eastern Queensland for more than a century, but despite the
efforts they have put into fighting the good environmental fight, there is no guarantee that
the new way of life evolving there will include cane.
Questions 1-4

Look at the following statements (Questions 1-4) and the list of people below.

Match each statement with the correct person, A-F

Write the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

1 Mossman cane farming practices are close to an environmentally friendly model.

2 Financial return is not the only important factor for cane growers.

3 Cane sugar may not harm the environment as much as other crops do.

4 The local population would decline if the sugar-processing plant closed.

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List of people

A Bill Phillips – Turner

B Mike Berwick

C Karen Benn

D Brain Roberts

E Tom Watters

F Doug Crees

Questions 5-8

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet.

5 In the first paragraph, the writer says that the town is holding its breath' because

A it has environmental problems. C most of its people have left the

town.
B its tourism business is
threatened. D a key processing plant rray shut
down.
6 According to the writer, cane growers who refuse the government offer are expected to

A expand their farms. C find jobs in other industries.

B sell their land at a low price D seek financial help from banks.

7 Which of the following did Bill Phillips-Turner find most difficult to do?

A sell mill property C lower mill workers' wages

B reduce spending on upkeep D cut the number of mill staff

8 Cane grower Doug Crees says that he

A would prefer to grow cocoa. C wants his family to live together.

B wants to remain on his farm. D will look for part-time work in

town.

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Questions 9-13

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

9 In 2004. the cost of producing sugar in Australia was similar to the selling price

10 Farmers who accepted the Government offer have mostly moved to the city

11 Fuel production is regarded as the most desirable alternative business for the sugar

mill.

12 Tom Watters reduced his use of pesticides.

13 Environmentally friendly farming practices have been profitable for Tom Watters.

READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading
Passage 2.

It was that summer, scientists now realise, when global warming at last made itself
unmistakably felt People in the Northern Hemisphere knew that summer 2003 was
remarkable. Britain had record high temperatures; Europe had out-of-control forest fires,
great rivers drying to a trickle and thousands of heat-related deaths. But how remarkable that
summer was is only now becoming clear.

June, July and August were the warmest three months recorded in western and central
Europe. And they were the warmest by a very long way. Like Britain, Portugal, Germany
and Switzerland had record national highs. Over a great rectangular block stretching from
west of Paris to northern Italy, taking in Switzerland and southern Germany, the average
temperature for the summer months was 3 78 °C higher than the long-term norm, says the
University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, one of the world’s
leading institutions for monitoring and analysing temperature records That might not seem a
lot until you are aware of the usual pattern. But then you realise it is enormous. There is
nothing like this in previous data It is considered so exceptional that Professor Phil Jones,
the unit’s director, says openly - in a way that few scientists have done - that 2003's extreme
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temperatures may be directly attributed to global warming caused by human actions, rather
than natural climate variations

Meteorologists have hitherto contented themselves with the formula that recent high
temperatures are ‘consistent with predictions' of climate change. For the great block of the
map in question, the unit has reliable temperature records dating back to 1781. Using as a
baseline the average summer temperature between 1961 and 1990, departures from the
temperature norm, 'anomalies’, can easily be plotted.

Over the past 200 years, there have been at least half a dozen excess temperature anomalies
approaching, or even exceeding, 2 °C. But there has been nothing remotely like that year,
when the anomaly was nearly 4 °C. ‘That is quite remarkable.1 Professor Jones says. 'It’s
very unusual in a statistical sense. If this series had a normal statistical distribution you
wouldn’t get this number. The return period (i.e. how often it could be expected to recur)
would be something like one in 1,000 years. If we look at an excess above the average of
nearly 4 °C, then perhaps nearly 3 °C of that is natural variability, because we’ve seen that in
past summers. But the final degree of it is likely to be due to global warming, caused by
human action.

That year's summer had in a sense been one that climate scientists had long been anticipating
Until then, the warming had been manifesting itself mainly in winters that were less cold
rather than in summers that were much hotter. Last week, the UN predicted that winters
were warming so quickly that some of Europe's lower-level ski resorts will die out.

But sooner or later the unprecedented hot summer was bound to come - and that year it did
Over a large swathe of the western part of the European continent, records were broken in all
three months It wasn't only monthly averages, but daily extremes and the lengths of spells
above thresholds National records were set in at least four countries

One of the most dramatic features of the summer was the hot nights, especially in the first
half of August The high night-time temperatures were related to the 15 000 extra deaths in
France during August, compared with previous years They gradually increased during the
first 12 days of the month peaking at about 2,000 a day on August 12 and 13 and severely
overloading the medical services Then they dropped dramatically after August 14 when
minimum temperatures fell by about 5 °C The elderly were most affected - their death rate
rose 70 per cent.

For Britain, the year as a whole is likely to be the warmest recorded But despite the
temperature record on August 10. the summer itself - defined as the June. July and August
period - comes behind 1976 and 1995. when there were longer periods of intense heat At the
moment, the year is likely to be the third-hottest in the global temperature record (which
goes back to 1856), behind 1998 and 2002. But when the records for October, November
and December are collated, it might move into second place. The ten hottest years in the
record have occurred since 1990.

Professor Jones is in no doubt about the astonishing nature of that year s European summer.
The temperatures recorded that year were out of all proportion to the previous record,’ he
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says. ‘It was the warmest summer in the last 500 years and probably way beyond that. It was
enormously exceptional.’

His colleagues at the Tyndall Centre are planning a study of it 'It was a summer that had not
been experienced before, either in terms of the temperature extremes that were reached, or
the range and diversity of the effects of the extreme heat.' says the centre's executive
director, Professor Mike Hulme. 'It will certainly have left its mark on a number of countries
as to how they think and plan for climate change, much as the 2000 floods revolutionised the
way the Government is thinking about flooding in the UK The 2003 heatwave will have
similar repercussions across Europe.'

Questions 14- 19

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

14 In 2003, the average temperature for June to August in parts of Europe was almost 4°C
higher than usual.

15 According to Phil Jones, the impact people have on the planet was one reason for
2003's record summer

16 Temperatures are recorded twice daily in major cities

17 Professor Phil Jones believes that the exceptional summer temperatures are within
normal variation.

18 Before 2003, global warming generally caused milder winter months, not warmer
summers.

19 New ski resorts are being built at higher altitudes in some countries.

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Questions 20 and 21

Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR NUMBERS from the passage for
each answer. Write your answers in boxes 20 and 21 on your answer sheet.

20 In Britain, which TWO years had hotter summers than the one under discussion?

21 Apart from the extreme summer of 2003, what other natural event has affected the way
Britain is planning for the future?

Questions 22 - 25

Complete the summary below.

Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 22-25 on your answer sheet.

The three warmest years since global temperature records began in 22………………..have
been 1998, 2002 and 2003. It is significant that the warmest ten years have all been after
23……………….. . Recorded temperatures n Europe in summer 2003 were the highest for
at least 24……………….. years and had serious consequences. For example, in August
alone, thousands of people died in 25……………….. .

Question 26

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

Write the correct letter in box 26 on your answer sheet.

Which of the following is the most suitable title for Reading Passage 2?

A The Causes of Global Warmirg

B The Effects of Extreme Heat

C The History of Temperature Recording

D The Year of European Heat

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READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading
Passage 3.

Improving Patient Safety

How improved drug packaging could provide some answers to patient safety issues

Packaging

One of the most prominent design issut's in pharmacy is that of drug packiiKes «ind the
patient information leaflets (PILs) included in them Many pharmacists are concerned that
current designs are ‘accidents w«itinK to happen’. The UK government shares this concern
and, 111 2003, thr National Patient Safety Agency created a new role, appointing Colum
Lowe, who has 14 years’ experience as u designer in the private sector, us head of design
and human factors.

Packaging design in the pharmaceutical industry is handled by either in-house teams or

external design agencies. For packaging design of over-the-counter medicines, which do not
have to be dispensed by a pharmacist but can be bought directly from a sales assistant,
characteristics such as attractiveness and distinguishability are important and so these are
usually commissioned from an external design team. The marketing team prepares the initial
brief and the designers come up with six or seven designs. Two or three of these are then
tested on a consumer group. In contrast, most designs for prescription-only products are
created in-house. In some cases, this may simply involve the company’s design team
applying the house design and then handing it over to design engineers rather than testing
the design on a consumer group. Clearly this process cannot adequately address the needs of
the wide variety of patients using medication.

Design considerations

In her book Information Design for Patient Safety, Thea Swayne highlighted a multitude of
design problems. For example, drugs that look or sound alike can lead to confusion, small
type sizes and even the Rlarc on silver foil packaging can lead to names or instructions being
misrrfid. One such example is a drug that was accidentally injected into a patient through the
spine (inlrathecally) rather than through the veins (intravenously). Investigations following
this tragpdy attributed some blame to the poor choice of typescript used on the drug
container, Furthermore, according to Swayne, real situations in which medicines are used
include a parent giving a cough medicine to a child in the middle of the night: packaging
should be designed for moments such as these rather than for the ideal world of a hospital.

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Safety and compliance

Child protection is another area that gives designers opportunities to improve safety.
According to the Child Accident Prevention Trust, 70% of children admitted to hospital with
suspected poisoning have swallowed medicines, and although child- resistant lids have
helped, they arc not yet fully effective. There is scope for improving what is currently
available, according to Richard Mawle, a freelance product designer who feels it is not just
children who are blocked by child-proof closures. ‘Many child- resistant packs are based on
strength but older people may have the same level of strength as a child,' he explained, and
suggested that better dcsjgns could rely on cognitive skills (e.g. removing the lid using a
three- step process).

Mawle also worked on a project which involved applying his skills to packaging and PILs.
Commenting on the information presented, he said: There can be an awful lot of junk at the
beginning of PILs. For example, why are company details towards the beginning of a leaflet
when what might be more vital for the patient is that the medicine should not be taken with
alcohol?’

Design principles and guidelines

Most designers work according to basic principles; for example, certain print styles are
known to be more difficult to read than others. Look-alike boxes present the potential for
errors and an obvious solution would be to use colours to highlight a larger dosage of a drug.
However, according to Thea Swayne, designating a colour to a particular dosage is not
recommended because this could lead to the user not reading the text on a box.

Design features can provide the basis for lengthy debates. One argument is that if all
packaging was white with black lettering, people would have no choice but to read every
box carefully. The problem is that trials of drug packaging are few - common signage
studies concern road traffic signs and visual display units. Although some designers take
results from such studies into account, proving that a particular feature is beneficial can be
difficult. For example, current UK legislation requires packaging to include the name of the
medicine in Braille, but, according to Karel van der Waarde, a design consultant to the
pharmaceutical industry, ‘it is not known how much visually impaired patients will benefit
nor how much the reading of visually able patients will be impaired'. Van der Waardc is
sceptical about current legislation and says that many regulatory authorities do not have the
resources to handle packaging information properly. They do not look at the use of
packaging in a practical context - they only see one box at a time and not several together as
pharmacists would do,’ he said.

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Innovation

On a positive note, a recent innovation exhibition revealed several new designs. ‘The popper'
aims to help arthritis sufferers remove tablets from blister packs, and ‘Pluspoint’ is an
adrenaline auto-injector (a device that allows diabetics to inject themselves) aimed at
overcoming the fact that many patients do not carry their medication due to its prohibitive
size. The aim of good design is to try to make things more user-friendly as well as safer. The
guidelines in Information Design for Patient Safety are not intended to be legally binding.
Rather, the book’s purpose is to create a basic design standard and to stimulate innovation.
The challenge for the pharmaceutical industry is to adopt such a standard.

Questions 27-32

Look at the following statements Questions 27-32 and the list of people or groups below.

Match each statement with the correct person or group A, B, C or D.

Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

27 The elderly would benefit from drug containers that do not require force to open
them.

28 Adapting packaging for the blind may disadvantage people who can see.

29 Specially designed containers have not been able to eliminate drugs being
swallowed accidentally.

30 Designers have to consider how drugs are used in the home.

31 Governing bodies need to compare different drug containers rather than studying
individual ones.

32 Information provided with medicine is not listed in the right order.

List of People or Groups

A Thea Swayne

B The Child Accident Prevention Trust

C Richard Mawle

D Karel van der Waarde

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Questions 33-37

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-G, below.

Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.

Packaging design in the pharmaceutical industry

Over-the-counter drugs

First, a proposal is written by the 33………… .Then several designs are produced by

the 34………… .Finally, selected designs are shown to 35………… .

Prescription-only drugs

The 36………… create the design. The design is then passed to 37………… .

A consumers B design engineers C external design team

D in-house design team E marketing team F pharmaceutical industry

G pharmacists

Questions 38 - 40

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

Write the correct letter in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

38 In the accident mentioned in the passage, what was the 'design consideration’ that

caused a drug to be given incorrectly?

A a printing error C an incorrect label

B the style of print D the shape of the bottle

39 What do some people say about the use of only black and white as a design feature?

A Consumers would dislike this option.

B Drug containers would all look too similar

C People would pay more attention to label information.

D Partially sighted people would find these colours more helpful.

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40 Why does the writer refer to 'the popper' and Pluspoint ?

A to show that progress is being made in pharmaceutical packaging design

B to give an example of pharmaceutical design problems that can cause accidents

C to prove that a lot of work still needs to be done to improve pharmaceutical packaging
design

D to point out that patients need to be more informed about pharmaceutical products

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