IELTS Practice Tests Plus Volume 3

Published on: 14 Dec 2017
Tests taken: 548,280

Answer Keys:

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Part 1: Question 1 - 13

1 TRUE
2 FALSE
3 TRUE
4 TRUE
5 NOT GIVEN
6 (a) share scheme
7 Roland/ Roland group/ the Roland group

8 (a) trade fair
9 jazz
10 1998
11 education
12 technology
13 branches

Part 2: Question 14 - 26

14 iii
15 vi
16 ix
17 iv
18 ii
19 vii

20 21 C,E
22 23 A,C
24 regular wage
25 steam power
26 picturesque

Part 3: Question 27 - 40

27 NOT GIVEN
28 YES
29 NOT GIVEN
30 NO
31 YES
32 C
33 E

34 F
35 A
36 I
37 B
38 C
39 A
40 B

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How to Crack Section 4 of IELTS Listening

In the previous article, we discussed how to crack IELTS Listening Section 3. In this article, we will look at the next section in IELTS...

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22 Jan 2018

Review & Explanations:

READING PASSAGE 1

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

Geoff Brash

Geoff Brash, who died in 2010, was a gregarious Australian businessman and philanthropist who encouraged the young to reach their potential.

Born in Melbourne to Elsa and Alfred Brash, he was educated at Scotch College. His sister, Barbara, became a renowned artist and printmaker. His father, Alfred, ran the Brash retail music business that had been founded in 1862 by his grandfather, the German immigrant Marcus Brasch, specialising in pianos. It carried the slogan ‘A home is not a home without a piano.’

In his young days, Brash enjoyed the good life, playing golf and sailing, and spending some months travelling through Europe, having a leisurely holiday. He worked for a time at Myer department stores before joining the family business in 1949, where he quickly began to put his stamp on things. In one of his first management decisions, he diverged from his father’s sense of frugal aesthetics by re-carpeting the old man’s office while he was away. After initially complaining of his extravagance, his father grew to accept the change and gave his son increasing responsibility in the business.

After World War II (1939-1945), Brash’s had begun to focus on white goods, such as washing machines and refrigerators, as the consumer boom took hold. However, while his father was content with the business he had built, the younger Brash viewed expansion as vital. When Geoff Brash took over as managing director in 1957, the company had two stores, but after floating it on the stock exchange the following year, he expanded rapidly and opened suburban stores, as well as buying into familiar music industry names such as Allans, Palings and Suttons. Eventually, 170 stores traded across the continent under the Brash’s banner.

Geoff Brash learned from his father’s focus on customer service. Alfred Brash had also been a pioneer in introducing a share scheme for his staff, and his son retained and expanded the plan following the float.

Geoff Brash was optimistic and outward looking. As a result, he was a pioneer in both accessing and selling new technology, and developing overseas relationships. He sourced and sold electric guitars, organs, and a range of other modern instruments, as well as state-of-the-art audio and video equipment. He developed a relationship with Taro Kakehashi, the founder of Japan’s Roland group, which led to a joint venture that brought electronic musical devices to Australia.

In 1965, Brash and his wife attended a trade fair in Guangzhou, the first of its kind in China; they were one of the first Western business people allowed into the country following Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. He returned there many times, helping advise the Chinese in establishing a high quality piano factory in Beijing; he became the factory’s agent in Australia. Brash also took leading jazz musicians Don Burrows and James Morrison to China, on a trip that reintroduced jazz to many Chinese musicians.

He stood down as Executive Chairman of Brash’s in 1988, but under the new management debt became a problem, and in 1994 the banks called in administrators. The company was sold to Singaporean interests and continued to trade until 1998, when it again went into administration. The Brash name then disappeared from the retail world. Brash was greatly disappointed by the collapse and the eventual disappearance of the company he had run for so long. But it was not long before he invested in a restructured Allan’s music business.

Brash was a committed philanthropist who, in the mid-1980s, established the Brash Foundation, which eventually morphed, with other partners, into the Soundhouse Music Alliance. This was a not-for-profit organisation overseeing and promoting multimedia music making and education for teachers and students. The Soundhouse offers teachers and young people the opportunity to get exposure to the latest music technology, and to use this to compose and record their own music, either alone or in collaboration. The organisation has now also established branches in New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland, as well as numerous sites around Australia.

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on the following pages.

Early occupations around the river Thames

In her pioneering survey, Sources of London English, Laura Wright has listed the variety of medieval workers who took their livings from the river Thames. The baillies of Queenhithe and Billingsgate acted as customs officers. There were conservators, who were responsible for maintaining the embankments and the weirs, and there were the garthmen who worked in the fish garths (enclosures). Then there were galleymen and lightermen and shoutmen, called after the names of their boats, and there were hookers who were named after the manner in which they caught their fish. The searcher patrolled the Thames in search of illegal fish weirs, and the tideman worked on its banks and foreshores whenever the tide permitted him to do so.

All of these occupations persisted for many centuries, as did those jobs that depended upon the trade of the river. Yet, it was not easy work for any of the workers. They carried most goods upon their backs, since the rough surfaces of the quays and nearby streets were not suitable for wagons or large carts; the merchandise characteristically arrived in barrels which could be rolled from the ship along each quay. If the burden was too great to be carried by a single man, then the goods were slung on poles resting on the shoulders of two men. It was a slow and expensive method of business.

However, up to the eighteenth century, river work was seen in a generally favourable light. For Langland, writing in the fourteenth century, the labourers working on river merchandise were relatively prosperous. And the porters of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were, if anything, aristocrats of labour, enjoying high status. However, in the years from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century, there was a marked change in attitude. This was in part because the working river was within the region of the East End of London, which in this period acquired an unenviable reputation. By now, dockside labour was considered to be the most disreputable, and certainly the least desirable form of work.

It could be said that the first industrial community in England grew up around the Thames. With the host of river workers themselves, as well as the vast assembly of ancillary trades such as tavern-keepers and laundresses, food-sellers and street-hawkers, shopkeepers and marine store dealers - there was a workforce of many thousands congregated in a relatively small area. There were more varieties of business to be observed by the riverside than ,in any other part of the city. As a result, with the possible exception of the area known as Seven Dials, the East End was also the most intensively inhabited region of London.

It was a world apart, with its own language and its own laws. From the sailors in the opium dens of Limehouse to the smugglers on the malarial flats of the estuary, the workers of the river were not part of any civilised society. The alien world of the river had entered them. That alienation was also expressed in the slang of the docks, which essentially amounted to backslang, or the reversal of ordinary words. This backslang also helped in the formulation of Cockney rhyming slang, so that the vocabulary of Londoners was directly'affected by the life of the Thames.

The reports in the nineteenth-century press reveal a heterogeneous world of dock labour, in which the crowds of casuals waiting for work at the dock gates at 7.45 a.m. include penniless refugees, bankrupts, old soldiers, broken-down gentlemen, discharged servants, and ex-convicts. There were some 400-500 permanent workers who earned a regular wage and who were considered to be the patricians of dockside labour. However, there were some 2,500 casual workers who were hired by the shift. The work for which they competed fiercely had become ever more unpleasant. Steam power could not be used for the cranes, for example, because of the danger of fire. So the cranes were powered by treadmills. Six to eight men entered a wooden cylinder and, laying hold of ropes, would tread the wheel round. They could lift nearly 20 tonnes to an average height of 27 feet (8.2 metres), forty times in an hour. This was part of the life of the river unknown to those who were intent upon its more picturesque aspects.

READING PASSAGE 3

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

Video game research

1. Although video games were first developed for adults, they are no longer exclusively reserved for the grown ups in the home. In 2006, Rideout and Hamel reported that as many as 29 percent of preschool children (children between two and six years old) in the United States had played console video games, and 18 percent had played hand-held ones. Given young children’s insatiable eagerness to learn, coupled with the fact that they are clearly surrounded by these media, we predict that preschoolers will both continue and increasingly begin to adopt video games for personal enjoyment. Although the majority of gaming equipment is still designed for a much older target audience, once a game system enters the household it is potentially available for all family members, including the youngest. Portable systems have done a particularly good job of penetrating the younger market.

2. Research in the video game market is typically done at two stages: some time close to the end of the product cycle, in order to get feedback from consumers, so that a marketing strategy can be developed; and at the very end of the product cycle to ‘fix bugs’ in the game. While both of those types of research are important, and may be appropriate for dealing with adult consumers, neither of them aids in designing better games, especially when it comes to designing for an audience that may have particular needs, such as preschoolers or senior citizens. Instead, exploratory and formative research has to be undertaken in order to truly understand those audiences, their abilities, their perspective, and their needs.

3. In the spring of 2007, our preschool-game production team at Nickelodeon had a hunch that the Nintendo DS - with its new features, such as the microphone, small size and portability, and its relatively low price point - was a ripe gaming platform for preschoolers. There were a few games on the market at the time which had characters that appealed to the younger set, but our game producers did not think that the game mechanics or design were appropriate for preschoolers. What exactly preschoolers could do with the system, however, was a bit of a mystery. So we set about doing a study to answer the query: What could we expect preschoolers to be capable of in the context of hand-held game play, and how might the child development literature inform us as we proceeded with the creation of a new outlet for this age group?

Our context in this case was the United States, although the games that resulted were also released in other regions, due to the broad international reach of the characters. In order to design the best possible DS product for a preschool audience we were fully committed to the ideals of a ‘user-centered approach’, which assumes that users will be at least considered, but ideally consulted during the development process. After all, when it comes to introducing a new interactive product to the child market, and particularly such a young age group within it, we believe it is crucial to assess the range of physical and cognitive abilities associated with their specific developmental stage.

4. Revelle and Medoff (2002) review some of the basic reasons why home entertainment systems, computers, and other electronic gaming devices, are often difficult for preschoolers to use. In addition to their still developing motor skills (which make manipulating a controller with small buttons difficult), many of the major stumbling blocks are cognitive. Though preschoolers are learning to think symbolically, and understand that pictures can stand for real-life objects, the vast majority are still unable to read and write. Thus, using text-based menu selections is not viable. Mapping is yet another obstacle since preschoolers may be unable to understand that there is a direct link between how the controller is used and the activities that appear before them on screen. Though this aspect is changing, in traditional mapping systems real life movements do not usually translate into game-based activity.

5. Over the course of our study, we gained many insights into how preschoolers interact with various platforms, including the DS. For instance, all instructions for preschoolers need to be in voice-over, and include visual representations, and this has been one of the most difficult areas for us to negotiate with respect to game design on the DS. Because the game cartridges have very limited memory capacity, particularly in comparison to console or computer games, the ability to capture large amounts of voice-over data via sound files or visual representations of instructions becomes limited. Text instructions take up minimal memory, so they are preferable from a technological perspective. Figuring out ways to maximise sound and graphics files, while retaining the clear visual and verbal cues that we know are critical for our youngest players, is a constant give and take. Another of our findings indicated that preschoolers may use either a stylus, or their fingers, or both although they are not very accurate with either. One of the very interesting aspects of the DS is that the interface, which is designed to respond to stylus interactions, can also effectively be used with the tip of the finger. This is particularly noteworthy in the context of preschoolers for two reasons. Firstly, as they have trouble with fine motor skills and their hand-eye coordination is still in development, they are less exact with their stylus movements; and secondly, their fingers are so small that they mimic the stylus very effectively, and therefore by using their fingers they can often be more accurate in their game interactions.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q1: The Brash business originally sold pianos.	His father, Alfred, ran the Brash retail music business that had been founded in 1862 by his grandfather, the German immigrant Marcus Brash, specializing in pianos.
Note: It is stated that business by Brash’s grandfather was specialized in pianos. We should notice that ‘specializing in pianos’ in this case is equivalent to ‘sold pianos’. The given statement is correct information, therefore, the answer is TRUE

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q2: Geoff Brash’s first job was with his grandfather’s company.	He worked for a time at Myer department stores before joining the family business in 1949
Note: The first sentence of paragraph 3 mentions the Brash’s young days, so that the pronoun ‘he’ in the second sentence refers to Geoff Brash. It is stated that ‘He worked for a time at Myer department stores before joining the family business’, which means Brash’s first job was not with his family, hence, the answer is obviously FALSE.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q3: Alfred Brash thought that his son wasted money.	After initially complaining of his extravagance, his father grew to accept the change and gave his son increasing responsibility in the business.
Note: We should know the meaning of the word ‘extravagance’. It is similar to ‘waste money’. In the text, ‘his father’ refers to Geoff Brash’s father, Alfred Brash. It is stated that Alfred Brash complained of Geoff Brash’s extravagance, which means Alfred Brash thought his son wasted money. Therefore, the answer for this question is TRUE.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q4: By the time Geoff Brash took control, the Brash business was selling some electrical products.	After World War II (1939-1945), Brash’s had begun to focus on white goods, such as washing machines and refrigerators, as the consumer boom took hold. However, while his father was content with the business he had built, the younger Brash viewed expansion as vital. When Geoff Brash took over as managing director in 1957, the company had two stores,
Note: We should notice these phrases: ‘white goods’ are equivalent to ‘electrical products’; ‘took over as managing director’ is similar to ‘took control’. The third sentence of paragraph 4 refers that Geoff Brash took over as managing director in 1957. Therefore, what is mentioned in the beginning of paragraph 4 refers to what the Brash business sold before Geoff Brash took control. It is stated that Brash’s had begun to focus on white goods. ‘Focus on’ in this case means ‘sell’. The given statement is consistent with the information found in the passage; hence, the answer is TRUE.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q6: Which arrangement did Alfred Brash set up for his employees?	Alfred Brash had also been a pioneer in introducing a share scheme for his staff, and his son retained and expanded the plan following the float.
Note: The answer should be a noun. We should focus on the similar words: ‘staff’ is equivalent to ‘employees’; ‘introduce’ in this case means ‘set up’. It is mentioned that Alfred Brash introduced a share scheme for his staff, which means the arrangement Alfred Brash set up for his employees was share scheme. Hence, SHARE SCHEME is the answer.

NEW

IELTS Practice Tests Plus Volume 3

Part 1: Question 1 - 13

Part 2: Question 14 - 26

Part 3: Question 27 - 40

How to Crack Section 4 of IELTS Listening

Questions 1-5

Questions 6-10

Questions 11-13

Soundhouse Music Alliance

Questions 14-19

Questions 20-21

Questions 22-23

Questions 24-26

Questions 27-31

Questions 32-36

Problems for preschool users of video games

Questions 37-40

READING PASSAGE 1

Geoff Brash

READING PASSAGE 2

Early occupations around the river Thames

READING PASSAGE 3

Video game research

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TRUE	if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE	if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN	If there is no information on this

Key Words in Question
Q5: Geoff Brash had ambitions to open Brash stores in other countries.
Note: There is no information in the text that refers to Brash’s ambitions to open stores in other countries. Therefore, the answer is NOT GIVEN.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q7: Which Japanese company did Geoff Brash collaborate with?	He developed a relationship with Taro Kakehashi, the founder of Japan’s Roland group
Note: After scanning, we can locate the information in the last sentence of paragraph 6. We should notice some keywords here. ‘Develop a relationship with’ is equivalent to ‘collaborate with’. It is mentioned in the text that Brash developed a relationship with the founder of Japan’s Ronald group. Therefore, ROLAND GROUP is the answer.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q8: What type of event in China marked the beginning of Geoff Brash’s relationship with that country?	In 1965, Brash and his wife attended a trade fair in Guangzhou, the first of its kind in China; they were one of the first Western business people allowed into the country following Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.
Note: The answer can be found in paragraph 7. We can conclude from the first sentence of this paragraph that the event which Brash and his wife attended in Guangzhou marked the beginning of Brash’s relationship with China. Therefore, the answer is TRADE FAIR.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q12: Allows opportunities for using up-to-date	The Soundhouse offers teachers and young people the opportunity to get exposure to the latest music technology
Note: ‘Up-to-date’ is an adjective, so we need a noun here. We should notice the way words are paraphrased: ‘offers the opportunity to get exposure to’ is similar to ‘allows opportunities for using’, ‘up-to-date’ has the same meaning as ‘latest’. Since we can use only one word for the answer, we choose TECHNOLOGY to fill in the blank.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q13: Has … in several countries.	The organisation has now also established branches in New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland, as well as numerous sites around Australia.
Note: The organization in this last sentence refers to the Soundhouse. It is stated that the organization has established branches in New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland, as well as numerous sites around Australia. These are ‘several countries’ mentioned in the question. Therefore, the answer is BRANCHES.

	List of Headings
i	A mixture of languages and nationalities
ii	The creation of an exclusive identity
iii	The duties involved in various occupations
iv	An unprecedented population density
v	Imports and exports transported by river
vi	Transporting heavy loads manually
vii	Temporary work for large numbers of people
viii	Hazards associated with riverside work
ix	The changing status of riverside occupations

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q20: Answer: C, E (in either order) Occupations were specialized.	In her pioneering survey, Sources of London English, Laura Wright has listed the variety of medieval workers who took their livings from the river Thames. The baillies of Queenhithe and Billingsgate acted as customs officers. There were conservators, who were responsible for maintaining the embankments and the weirs, and there were the garthmen who worked in the fish garths (enclosures). Then there were galleymen and lightermen and shoutmen, called after the names of their boats, and there were hookers who were named after the manner in which they caught their fish. The searcher patrolled the Thames in search of illegal fish weirs, and the tideman worked on its banks and foreshores whenever the tide permitted him to do so.
Note: The answer can be found in paragraph A. ‘The variety of medieval workers’ are listed in the text and how the occupations were specialized is also mentioned. Therefore, the answer is statement C.
Q21: Answer: C, E (in either order) Physical strength was required.	They carried most goods upon their backs, since the rough surfaces of the quays and nearby streets were not suitable for wagons or large carts;
Note: It is stated that workers ‘carried most goods upon their back’, which means they have to use ‘physical strength’. ‘The rough surfaces of the quays and nearby streets were not suitable for wagons or large carts’ is the explanation why ‘physical strength’ was required. Hence, statement E is the answer.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q22: Answer: A OR C (IN EITHER ORDER) A. The area was very crowded.	As a result, with the possible exception of the area known as Seven Dials, the East End was also the most intensively inhabited region of London.
Note: The answer can be found in the last sentence of paragraph D. ‘Intensively inhabited’ is equivalent to ‘very crowded’. The region mentioned here is the river Thames. Therefore, A is the answer.
Q23: Answer: A OR C (IN EITHER ORDER) C. Casual work was in great demand.	The reports in the nineteenth-century press reveal a heterogeneous world of dock labour, in which the crowds of casuals waiting for work at the dock gates at 7.45 a.m. include penniless refugees, bankrupts, old soldiers, broken-down gentlemen, discharged servants, and ex-convicts…. However, there were some 2,500 casual workers who were hired by the shift.
Note: The answer can be found in paragraph F. Due to key phrases ‘the crowds of casuals waiting for work at the dock gates’ and ‘there were some 2,500 casual workers who were hired by the shift’, we can conclude that ‘casual work was in great demand’. So, C is the answer.

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

A	actions
B	buttons
C	cognitive skills
D	concentration
E	fingers
F	pictures
G	sounds
H	spoken instructions
I	written menus

Key Words in Question
Q29: Parents in the US who own gaming equipment generally allow their children to play with it.
Note: There is no information in the text referring to this. Hence, the answer is NOT GIVEN.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q32: Preschool children find many electronic games difficult, because neither their motor skills nor their […] are sufficiently developed.	In addition to their still developing motor skills (which make manipulating a controller with small buttons difficult), many of the major stumbling blocks are cognitive.
Note: We need a noun to fill in the blank. The two ‘still developing’ skills which are the ‘major stumbling blocks’ for children mentioned in the text are motor skills and cognitive skills. This piece of information can be understood by knowing how words are paraphrased. We should notice that ‘still developing’ are similar to not ‘sufficiently developed’; ‘major stumbling blocks’ is equivalent to obstacle (which makes children find many electronic games difficult). The ‘motor skills’ is already mentioned in the question; therefore, C - COGNITIVE SKILLS is the answer.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q33: Certain types of control are hard for these children to manipulate, for example, […] can be more effective than styluses.	Firstly, as they have trouble with fine motor skills and their hand-eye coordination is still in development, they are less exact with their stylus movements; and secondly, their fingers are so small that they mimic the stylus very effectively, and therefore by using their fingers they can often be more accurate in their game interactions.
Note: The answer for this question can be found in the last sentence of the passage. It is mentioned that children ‘are less exactly with their stylus movements’ and ‘by using their fingers they can often be more accurate’. Therefore, we can conclude that fingers can be more effective than styluses, and E - FINGERS is the answer.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q34: Also, although they already have the ability to relate […] to real-world objects,	Though preschoolers are learning to think symbolically, and understand that pictures can stand for real-life objects, the vast majority are still unable to read and write.
Note: It is referred in the text that preschoolers understand that ‘pictures can stand for real-life objects’, which is similar to they can ‘relate pictures to real-world objects’. Hence, the answer is F - PICTURES.

Key Words in Question	Similar Words in the Passage
Q35: preschool children are largely unable to understand the connection between their own […] and the movements they can see on the screen.	Mapping is yet another obstacle since preschoolers may be unable to understand that there is a direct link between how the controller is used and the activities that appear before them on screen.
Note: We should notice that ‘a direct link between’ has the same meaning as ‘the connection between’. ‘How the controller is used and the activities that appear them on the screen’ is similar to ‘their own action and the movements they can see on the screen’. Thus, A - ACTION is the answer.

IELTS Practice Tests Plus Volume 3

Part 1: Question 1 - 13

Part 2: Question 14 - 26

Part 3: Question 27 - 40

Share your score

How to Crack Section 4 of IELTS Listening

Questions 1-5

Questions 6-10

Questions 11-13

Soundhouse Music Alliance

Questions 14-19

Questions 20-21

Questions 22-23

Questions 24-26

Questions 27-31

Questions 32-36

Problems for preschool users of video games

Questions 37-40

READING PASSAGE 1

Geoff Brash

READING PASSAGE 2

Early occupations around the river Thames

READING PASSAGE 3

Video game research

Comments:

About us

Our mission