IELTS Mock Test 2020

September
Reading Practice Test 1

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2. Use your mobile device to scan the QR code attached

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

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Hello Happiness!
Ask 100 people what would make them happy, and a sizeable majority would
say “winning the lottery.” Yet, if they won a vast fortune, within a year they
would be back to their previous level of happiness. The fact is that money has
many uses, but more money does not mean more happiness. Surveys carried
out in recent years by leading psychologists and sociologists all confirm that
while individuals may increase their material wealth during the course of their
lifetime, this has no bearing on their well-being. And what is true for individuals
can be applied on a larger scale to the world population. Statistically, wealthier
nations do not achieve higher scores on the happiness-ometer than developing
or underdeveloped nations. Once the basic criteria of adequate shelter and
nutrition are satisfied, increased wealth plays no significant role. So why the
obsession with getting rich? The answer, say researchers, is simple. Call it
jealousy, competitiveness, or just keeping up with the Joneses, however well
we are doing, there is always someone else who is doing better. Just as we
acquire a new $25,000 car, our neighbour parks his brand spanking new
$40,000 set of wheels in his drive, causing us much consternation, but fuelling
us with new aspirations in the process. And so the cycle continues. Money, or
material wealth, may be a prime mover, but it is not the foundation of our well-
being.

If money isn’t the key to happiness, then what is? In all 44 countries surveyed
by a prominent research centre, family life provided the greatest source of
satisfaction. Married people live on average three years longer and enjoy
greater physical and psychological health than the unmarried and, surprisingly,
couples in a cohabitational relationship. Having a family enhances well-being,
and spending more time with one’s family helps even more. Social interaction
among families, neighbourhoods, workplaces, communities and religious
groups correlates strongly with subjective well-being. In fact, the degree of
individuals’ social connections is the best benchmark of their happiness.

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Friendship is another major factor. Indeed, to return to the dollar-equals-
happiness equation, in one survey, having a friend converted into $50,000
worth of happiness, and confirms the well-known phenomenon that loneliness
can lead to depression. Work is another area central to well-being, and certain
features correlate highly with happiness. These include autonomy over how,
where, and at what pace work is done, trust between employer and employee,
fair treatment, and active participation in the making of decisions.
Occupationally, happiness tends to be more common among professionals and
managers, that is, people who are in control of the work they do, rather than
subservient to their bosses, inequality implies less control for those who are in
the weaker position, although there are more risks of losing their privileges for
those in the stronger position.

Control of one’s life in general is also key. Happiness is clearly correlated with
the presence of favourable events such as promotion or marriage, and the
absence of troubles or bad luck such as accidents, being laid off or conflicts.
These events on their own signal the success or failure to reach one’s goals,
and therefore the control one has. On a national level, the more that
governments recognise individual preferences, the happier their citizens will
be. Choice, and citizens’ belief that they can affect the political process,
increase subjective well-being. Furthermore, evidence exists for an association
between unhappiness and poor health: people from underdeveloped countries
are among the unhappiest in the world, and their life expectancy has been
falling steadily. People are more satisfied in societies which minimally restrict
their freedom of action, in other words, where they are in control rather than
being controlled. Happy people are characterised by the belief that they are
able to control their situation, whereas unhappy people tend to believe that
they are a victim of fate. Happy people are also more psychologically resilient,
assertive and open to experience.

But how good is the evidence for this alternative viewpoint then - that
happiness, and not financial status, contributes to good health, and long life? A
study of nuns, spanning seven decades, supports this theory. Autobiographies
written by the nuns in their early 1920s were scored for positive and negative
emotions. Nuns expressing the most positive emotions lived on average ten
years longer than those expressing the least positive emotions. Happy people,
it seems, are much less likely to fall ill and die than unhappy people.

But what must we do to be happy? Experts cite the old maxim “be happy with
what you’ve got.” Look around you, they say, and identify the positive factors
in your life. Concentrating on the negative aspects of one’s life is a no-no, and
so is worrying. Worrying is a negative thinking habit that is nearly always about
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something that lies in the future. It stems, apparently, from our cave dwelling
days, when we had to think on a day-to-day basis about how and where to find
food and warmth, for example. But in the modern world, worrying simply
undermines our ability to enjoy life in the present. More often than not, the
things we worry about never come to pass anyway. Just as important is not to
dwell on the past - past mistakes, bad experiences, missed opportunities and
so on.

What else can we do? Well, engage in a loving relationship with another adult,
and work hard to sustain it. Try to plan frequent interactions with your family,
friends and neighbours (in that order). Make sure you’re not working so hard
that you’ve no time left for personal relationships and leisure. If you are, leave
your job voluntarily to become self-employed, but don’t get sacked — that’s
more damaging to well-being than the loss of a spouse, and its effects last
longer. In your spare time, join a club, volunteer for community service, or take
up religion.

If none of the above works, then vote for a political party with the same agenda
as the King of Bhutan, who announced that his nation’s objective is national
happiness.

Choose THREE letters A - H.

Circle the correct letters, A - H, below.

NB Your answers may be given in any order.

Which THREE of the following statements are true, according to the text?

A Money can bring misery.

B Wealthier nations place more emphasis on happiness than

poorer ones.

C Securing a place to live is a basic human need.

D The desire for social status is global phenomenon.

E An unmarried couple living together are less likely to be happy

than a married couple.

F The less responsibility one has, the happier one is.

G Involvement in policy making can increase well-being.

H Our prehistoric ancestors were happier than we are.

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

Write the correct letter, A - I in the spaces below.

A episode

B interaction

C cooperation

D control

E number

F level

G course

H conflict

I limit

Money can buy you just about anything, but not. it seems, happiness. Whether on
a personal or national 4 , your bank balance won't make you
happier. Once the basic criteria of a roof over your head and food on the table
have been met, money ceases to play a part. One of the most important factors in
achieving happiness is the extent of our social 5 - our
relationships with family, friends, colleagues anti so on. Equally important is the
amount of 6 we have, either in our personal life, working life, or
even in our ability to influence the political 7 that our country
embarks on.

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading

Passage 1?

In spaces 8-13 below 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

8 People from underdeveloped nations try to attain the

same standard of living as those from developed nations.

9 Seeing what others have makes people want to have it

too.

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10
The larger the family is, the happier the parents will
probably be.

11
One’s attitude to life has no influence on one’s health.

12
Instinct can be a barrier to happiness.

13
Family and friends rank equally as sources of
happiness.

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

One Who Hopes

A

Language lovers, just like music lovers, enjoy variety. For the latter there's
Mozart, The Rolling Stones and Beyonce. For the former there's English,
French, Swahili, Urdu... the list is endless. But what about those poor
overworked students who find learning difficult, confusing languages a drudge?
Wouldn't it put a smile on their faces if there were just one simple, easy-to-
learn tongue that would cut their study time by years? Well, of course, it exists.
It's called Esperanto, and it's been around for more than 120 years. Esperanto
is the most widely spoken artificially constructed international language. The
name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L.
Zamenhof first published his Unua Libro in 1887. The phrase itself means 'one
who hopes'. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language as a
universal second language to promote peace and international understanding.

Zamenhof, after ten years of developing his brainchild from the late 1870s to
the early 1880s, had the first Esperanto grammar published in Warsaw in July
1887. The number of speakers grew rapidly over the next few decades, at first
primarily in the Russian empire and Eastern Europe, then in Western Europe
and the Americas, China, and Japan. In the early years, speakers of Esperanto
kept in contact primarily through correspondence and periodicals, but since
1905 world congresses have been held on five continents every year except
during the two World Wars. Latest estimates for the numbers of Esperanto
speakers are around 2 million. Put in percentage terms, that's about 0.03% of
the world's population - no staggering figure, comparatively speaking. One
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reason is that Esperanto has no official status in any country, but it is an
optional subject on the curriculum of several state education systems. It is
widely estimated that it can be learned in anywhere between a quarter to a
twentieth of the time required for other languages.

As a constructed language, Esperanto is not genealogically related to any

ethnic language. Whilst it is described as 'a language lexically predominantly
Romanic', the phonology, grammar, vocabulary, and semantics are based on
the western Indo-European languages. For those of us who are not naturally
predisposed to tucking languages under our belts, it is an easy language to
learn. It has 5 vowels and 23 consonants. It has one simple way of conjugating
all of its verbs. Words are often made from many other roots, making the
number of words which one must memorise much smaller. The language is
phonetic, and the rules of pronunciation are very simple, so that everyone
knows how to pronounce a written word and vice-versa, and word order follows
a standard, logical pattern. Through prefixing and suffixing, Esperanto makes it
easy to identify words as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, direct objects and
so on, by means of easy-to-spot endings. All this makes for easy language
learning. What's more, several research studies demonstrate that studying
Esperanto before another foreign language speeds up and improves the
learning of the other language. This is presumably because learning
subsequent foreign languages is easier than learning one's first, while the use
of a grammatically simple and culturally flexible language like Esperanto
softens the blow of learning one's first foreign language. In one study, a group
of European high school students studied Esperanto for one year, then French
for three years, and ended up with a significantly better command of French
than a control group who had studied French for all four years.

Needless to say, the language has Its critics. Some point to the Eastern
European features of the language as being harsh and difficult to pronounce,
and argue that Esperanto has an artificial feel to it, without the flow of a
natural tongue, and that by nature of its artificiality, it is impossible to become
emotionally involved with the language. Others cite its lack of cultural history,
indigenous literature - "no one has ever written a novel straight into Esperanto"
- together with its minimal vocabulary and its inability to express all the
necessary philosophical, emotional and psychological concepts.

The champions of Esperanto - Esperantists - disagree. They claim that it is a

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language in which a great body of world literature has appeared in translation:
in poetry, novels, literary journals, and, to rebut the accusation that it is not a
'real' language, point out that it is frequently used at international meetings
which draw hundreds and thousands of participants. Moreover, on an
international scale, it is most useful - and fair - for neutral communication. That
means that communication through Esperanto does not give advantages to the
members of any particular people or culture, but provides an ethos of equality
of rights, tolerance and true internationalism.

Esperantists further claim that Esperanto has the potential - were it universally
taught for a year or two throughout the world - to empower ordinary people to
communicate effectively worldwide on a scale that far exceeds that which is
attainable today by only the most linguistically brilliant among us. It offers the
opportunity to improve communication in business, diplomacy, scholarship and
other fields so that those who speak many different native languages will be
able to participate fluently in international conferences and chat comfortably
with each other after the formal presentations are made. Nowadays that
privilege is often restricted to native speakers of English and those who have
special talents and opportunities for learning English as a foreign language.

What Esperanto does offer in concrete terms is the potential of saving billions
of dollars which are now being spent on translators and interpreters, billions
which would be freed up to serve the purposes of governments and
organisations that spend so much of their resources to change words from one
language into the words of others. Take, for example, the enormously costly
conferences, meetings and documentation involved in the European Union
parliamentary and administrative procedures - all funded, essentially, by tax
payers. And instead of the World Health Organisation, and all NGOs for that
matter, devoting enormous sums to provide interpreters and translations, they
would be able to devote those huge amounts of money to improving the health
of stricken populations throughout the world.

Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A - G.

Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B - G from the list of headings
below.

Write the correct number i - ix in spaces 14-19 below.

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 i A non-exclusive language

ii Fewer languages, more results

iii Language is personal

iv What’s fashionable in language

v From the written word to the spoken word

vi A real language

vii Harmony through language

viii The mechanics of a language

ix Lost in translation

Example

Paragraph A vii

14
Paragraph B

15
Paragraph C

16
Paragraph D

17
Paragraph E

18
Paragraph F

19
Paragraph G

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

20 What advantage is there to learning Esperanto as one’s first foreign

language?

A Its pronunciation rules follow those of most European languages.

B There are no grammar rules to learn.

C It can make the learning of other foreign languages less

complicated.

D Its verbs are not conjugated.

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21 What do its critics say of Esperanto?

A It is only used in artificial situations.

B It requires emotional involvement.

C It cannot translate works of literature.

D It lacks depth of expression.

22 How could Esperanto help on a global level?

A It would eliminate the need for conferences.

B More aid money would reach those who need it.

C The world population would be speaking only one language.

D More funds could be made available for learning foreign

languages.

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading

Passage 2?

In spaces 23-26 below, write

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

23
Supporters of Esperanto say it gives everyone an
equal voice.

24
Esperanto is the only artificially-constructed language.

25
Esperanto can be learned as part of a self-study
course.

26
Esperanto can be used equally in formal and casual
situations.

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

LONG-TERM FORECAST: HOT AND DRY

A

Melting land ice in the Arctic is set to cause a global rise in sea levels, leading
to disastrous effects for both man and wildlife. Many species worldwide are
threatened with extinction, and low-lying islands and land masses will
disappear entirely. But the havoc wreaked by the effect of greenhouse gases
won’t be confined to just too much water, but the absence of it, as well. In
other words, desertification. A decrease in the total amount of rainfall in arid
and semi-arid areas could increase the total area of drylands worldwide, and
thus the total amount of land potentially at risk from desertification.

Desertification is officially recognised as land degradation in arid, semi-arid and

dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations
and human activities. This degradation of formerly productive land is a
complex process. It involves multiple causes, and it proceeds at varying rates
in different climates. Desertification may intensify a general climatic trend, or
initiate a change in local climate, both leading towards greater aridity. The
more arid conditions associated with desertification accelerate the depletion of
vegetation and soils. Land degradation occurs all over the world, but it is only
referred to as desertification when it takes place in drylands. This is because
these areas are especially prone to more permanent damage as different areas
of degraded land spread and merge together to form desert-like conditions.

Global warming brought about by increasing greenhouse gas levels in the

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atmosphere is expected to increase the variability of weather conditions and
extreme events. Many dryland areas face increasingly low and erratic rainfalls,
coupled with soil erosion by wind and the drying-up of water resources through
increased regional temperatures. Deforestation can also reduce rainfall in
certain areas, increasing the threat of desertification. It is not yet possible,
despite sophisticated technology, to identify with an acceptable degree of
reliability those parts of the Earth where desertification will occur. Existing
drylands, which cover over 40% of the total land area of the world, most
significantly in Africa and Asia, will probably be most at risk from climate
change. These areas already experience low rainfall, and any that falls is
usually in the form of short, erratic, high-intensity storms. In addition, such
areas also suffer from land degradation due to over-cultivation, overgrazing,
deforestation and poor irrigation practices.

It is a misconception that droughts cause desertification. Droughts are

common in arid and semi-arid lands. Well-managed lands can recover from
drought when the rains return. Continued land abuse during droughts,
however, increases land degradation. Nor does desertification occur in linear,
easily definable patterns. Deserts advance erratically, forming patches on their
borders. Areas far from natural deserts can degrade quickly to barren soil,
rock, or sand through poor land management. The presence of a nearby desert
has no direct relationship to desertification. Unfortunately, an area undergoing
desertification is brought to public attention only after the process is well
underway. Often little or no data are available to indicate the previous state of
the ecosystem or the rate of degradation. Scientists still question whether
desertification, as a process of global change, is permanent or how and when it
can be halted or reversed.

But desertification will not be limited to the drylands of Africa and Asia.
According to the environmental organisation Greenpeace, the Mediterranean
will suffer substantially, too. If current trends in emissions of greenhouse gases
continue, global temperatures are expected to rise faster over the next century
than over any time during the last 10,000 years. Significant uncertainties
surround predictions of regional climate changes, but it is likely that the
Mediterranean region will also warm significantly, increasing the frequency and
severity of droughts across the region. As the world warms, global sea levels
will rise as oceans expand and glaciers melt. Around much of the
Mediterranean basin, sea levels could rise by close to 1m by 2100. As a result,
some low-lying coastal areas would be lost through flooding or erosion, while
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rivers and coastal aquifers would become more salty. The worst affected areas
will be the Nile Delta, Venice in Italy and Thessaloniki in Greece, two major
cities where local subsidence means that sea levels could rise by at least one-
and-a-half times as much as elsewhere.

The consequences of all this, says Greenpeace, are far-reaching, and the
picture is a gloomy one. Livestock production would suffer due to a
deterioration in the quality of rangeland. Yields of grains and other crops could
decrease substantially across the Mediterranean region due to increased
frequency of drought. Crop production would be further threatened by
increases in competition for water and the prevalence of pests and diseases
and land loss through desertification and sea-level rise. The combination of
heat and pollution would lead to an upsurge in respiratory illness among urban
populations, while extreme weather events could increase death and injury
rates. Water shortages and damaged infrastructure would increase the risk of
cholera and dysentery, while higher temperatures would increase the incidence
of infectious diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever. Serious social
disruption could occur as millions are forced from their homelands as a result of
desertification, poor harvests and sea-level rise, while international disputes
over shared water resources could turn into conflict.

Future climate change could critically undermine efforts for sustainable

development in the Mediterranean region through its impacts on the
environment and social and economic well-being. While in many respects
climate change exacerbates existing problems instead of creating new ones,
the sheer magnitude of the potential problem means it cannot be ignored.
There is some scope for adaptation, but the fact that many measures would be
beneficial irrespective of climate change suggests that radical changes in our
policies and practices will be needed. It is also vital that developed countries
meet their obligations to assist adaptation in developing countries through
access to know-how and financial assistance. Ultimately, however, the long-
term sustainability of the Mediterranean region requires keeping climate
change within tolerable bounds. Current understanding of safe limits points to
the need for prompt international agreement - and action - to make the drastic
cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases required to stabilise atmospheric
concentrations of these gases.

Complete the flow-chart below.

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Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

27

28

29

30

31

32

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Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs, A - G.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A - G in spaces 33 - 36 below.

33
Human intervention is a potential solution to potential
disaster.

34
The rate of climate change is set to accelerate
dramatically.

35
There is seldom enough information available in some
areas to track how fast the effects of climate change have happened in
the past.

36
Desertification is attributable to a number of factors.

Complete the summary with the list of words A - I below.

Write the correct letter A - I in spaces 37-40 below.

Climate change may have catastrophic effects on the human and animal world. As
glaciers melt, sea levels will rise, causing extensive flooding and land
37 38
. Another consequence of global warming is
39
, which affects areas known as . These areas are subject to
irregular weather patterns, but also suffer from human intervention or neglect,
40
such as inadequate or inefficient systems.

A irrigation

B cooling

C drylands

D cause

E loss

F abuse

G desertification

H deserts

I emission

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 Solution:

1-3 C,E,G 4 F

5 B 6 D

7 G 8 NOT GIVEN

9 TRUE 10 NOT GIVEN

11 FALSE 12 TRUE

13 FALSE 14 v

15 viii 16 iii

17 vi 18 i

19 ii 20 C

21 D 22 B

23 YES 24 NO

25 NOT GIVEN 26 YES

27 varying rates 28 intensify

29 initiate 30 aridity

31 vegetation 32 soils

33 G 34 E

35 D 36 B

37 E 38 G

39 C 40 A

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