IELTS Academic Reading - Test 5

Q 1/40

IELTS Academic Reading Test

Time: 60 minutes

READING PASSAGE 1

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

The Development of Writing Systems

A The emergence of writing represents one of humanity's most significant intellectual achievements, fundamentally transforming how societies preserve knowledge, conduct commerce, and govern themselves. While spoken language evolved over hundreds of thousands of years through gradual biological and cultural processes, writing systems developed relatively recently—within the past five thousand years—and spread through deliberate invention, adaptation, and borrowing rather than innate linguistic capacity. Understanding how different civilizations independently created or adopted writing illuminates broader patterns in human cognitive development and cultural exchange.

B The earliest known writing system emerged in ancient Mesopotamia around 3400 BCE among the Sumerians, who developed cuneiform script to meet practical administrative needs. Initially, these marks impressed into clay tablets served purely accounting functions, tracking agricultural produce, livestock, and trade goods. The symbols began as pictographs—simplified drawings representing physical objects—but gradually evolved toward increasingly abstract signs that could represent sounds rather than things. This phonetic principle proved revolutionary, allowing scribes to record any spoken word by combining sound symbols, thus transcending the limitations of picture-based communication.

C Egyptian hieroglyphics developed independently around 3200 BCE, though some scholars suggest possible influence from Mesopotamian writing. Unlike cuneiform's evolution from practical record-keeping, Egyptian writing emerged closely connected to religious and royal contexts, appearing first on ceremonial objects and tomb inscriptions. The system combined logographic elements (symbols representing whole words) with phonetic signs, creating a flexible but complex script that required years of specialized training to master. This complexity contributed to writing remaining the exclusive province of a professional scribal class throughout ancient Egyptian civilization.

D Chinese writing originated around 1200 BCE during the Shang Dynasty, primarily for divination purposes. Oracle bones—turtle shells and animal bones used for fortune-telling—bear the earliest Chinese characters, which scribes carved before heating the bones to produce cracks interpreted as divine messages. Chinese script developed as a logographic system where each character represents a morpheme or meaningful unit, requiring learners to memorize thousands of distinct symbols. Despite this demanding learning curve, the system offered one crucial advantage: speakers of mutually unintelligible Chinese dialects could communicate through shared written characters, facilitating administration across China's vast and linguistically diverse territory.

E The Phoenicians, a Mediterranean trading civilization flourishing around 1050 BCE, developed what would become the ancestor of most modern alphabets. Their innovation was radical simplification: rather than hundreds of logograms or syllabic signs, the Phoenician alphabet consisted of approximately two dozen consonant symbols. This economy made literacy accessible to merchants and ordinary citizens rather than exclusively trained scribes. The Greek adaptation of Phoenician script around 800 BCE proved equally consequential, as Greeks added symbols for vowels—sounds the Semitic Phoenician system left unmarked—creating the first true alphabet where each symbol represents a single phoneme.

F The spread of alphabetic writing followed trade routes, military conquests, and religious missions. The Greek alphabet gave rise to Etruscan and subsequently Latin scripts, which Roman expansion carried throughout Europe. Meanwhile, Aramaic—another Phoenician derivative—spread across the Near East and Central Asia, eventually evolving into Arabic, Hebrew, and numerous South and Southeast Asian scripts. This pattern of adaptation rather than independent invention characterized most writing system development, as societies borrowed and modified existing scripts to suit their languages rather than creating entirely new systems.

G Several factors influenced whether civilizations developed or adopted writing. Urbanization and administrative complexity created practical needs for record-keeping that oral traditions could not satisfy. Trade relationships exposed societies to literate neighbors whose scripts could be borrowed or adapted. Religious traditions sometimes drove literacy, as sacred texts demanded preservation and dissemination. Conversely, some complex societies—including the Inca Empire with its sophisticated quipu recording system—managed extensive bureaucratic functions without developing true writing, demonstrating that literacy was not inevitable for advanced civilization.

H Modern scholarship continues debating fundamental questions about writing's origins and nature. Did writing truly originate independently in multiple locations, or did the concept diffuse from a single source? What cognitive capacities enabled humans to develop systems mapping spoken language onto visual symbols? How did writing reshape human thought and social organization? These inquiries connect linguistics, archaeology, cognitive science, and anthropology in ongoing investigation of one of humanity's defining innovations.

Questions 1-5

Reading Passage 1 has eight paragraphs, A-H.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-H, in the space provided.

  1. Evidence that complex societies could function without writing {{ANSWER:1}}
  2. An explanation of how writing enabled communication across language barriers {{ANSWER:2}}
  3. A description of the transition from representing objects to representing sounds {{ANSWER:3}}
  4. Information about factors that motivated societies to develop literacy {{ANSWER:4}}
  5. Details about a writing system primarily used for religious purposes initially {{ANSWER:5}}

Questions 6-9

Complete the sentences below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

  1. The first Sumerian writing consisted of {{ANSWER:6}} that depicted physical objects.

  2. Egyptian writing remained controlled by a {{ANSWER:7}} throughout the civilization's history.

  3. Chinese characters were first found on {{ANSWER:8}} used in fortune-telling practices.

  4. The Phoenician alphabet's simplicity made literacy accessible to {{ANSWER:9}} and ordinary citizens.

Questions 10-13

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

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

  1. Cuneiform and hieroglyphics definitely developed completely independently of each other. {{ANSWER:10}}

  2. The Greek alphabet was the first writing system to include symbols for vowel sounds. {{ANSWER:11}}

  3. Most writing systems throughout history were created through original invention rather than adaptation. {{ANSWER:12}}

  4. Scholars have reached consensus on whether writing originated in one location or multiple locations. {{ANSWER:13}}

READING PASSAGE 2

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

Biophilic Design: Reconnecting Architecture with Nature

A Modern urban dwellers spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors, increasingly disconnected from the natural environments in which human beings evolved over millions of years. This separation carries documented consequences for physical health, psychological wellbeing, and cognitive performance. Biophilic design represents an architectural and interior design approach that seeks to address this nature deficit by incorporating natural elements, patterns, and processes into built environments. The approach draws on evolutionary psychology, environmental science, and traditional design wisdom to create spaces that satisfy innate human affinities for the natural world.

B The theoretical foundation for biophilic design rests on the biophilia hypothesis, proposed by biologist Edward O. Wilson in 1984. Wilson argued that human beings possess an inherent tendency to seek connections with nature and other living systems, a predisposition shaped by evolutionary adaptation to natural environments. Subsequent research has substantiated aspects of this hypothesis, demonstrating measurable benefits from nature exposure including stress reduction, accelerated healing, improved mood, and enhanced cognitive function. Hospital patients with views of trees, for instance, have been shown to recover faster and require less pain medication than those facing brick walls.

C Biophilic design translates these insights into practical architectural strategies organized around three categories. Direct nature experiences involve incorporating actual natural elements into buildings—living plants, water features, natural light, and ventilation. Indirect nature experiences use representations, images, and natural materials to evoke nature where living elements prove impractical—wood surfaces, nature photography, organic patterns in textiles and wallcoverings. Space and place experiences draw on spatial configurations that humans find instinctively appealing, including prospect and refuge settings (open views with protected alcoves), transitional spaces between indoors and outdoors, and connections to local ecological and cultural contexts.

D Implementation varies substantially across building types and budgets. Living walls—vertical surfaces covered with growing plants—have become signature features in corporate headquarters, airports, and shopping centers seeking to project environmental consciousness while genuinely improving air quality and occupant satisfaction. Atrium designs that flood interior spaces with daylight reduce energy costs while combating seasonal affective disorders common among workers in artificially lit environments. Even modest interventions like strategically positioned potted plants or nature-themed artwork can produce measurable improvements in workplace productivity and employee retention.

E Healthcare facilities have emerged as particularly intensive adopters of biophilic principles, given robust evidence linking nature exposure to patient outcomes. Healing gardens provide restorative environments for patients, families, and staff, while careful attention to natural light, views, and materials extends biophilic benefits throughout clinical spaces. Research indicates that such features can reduce patient anxiety and pain perception, shorten hospital stays, and decrease staff burnout—outcomes that translate directly into improved care quality and institutional cost savings. Some hospitals report significant decreases in patient requests for pain medication after implementing biophilic design elements.

F Educational environments similarly benefit from biophilic interventions. Studies demonstrate that students in classrooms with natural light, views of vegetation, and indoor plants show improved concentration, test scores, and attendance compared to those in conventional settings. The effects appear particularly pronounced for students with attention disorders, suggesting that nature exposure may support cognitive regulation through mechanisms distinct from conventional educational interventions. Universities and school districts increasingly incorporate biophilic features into new construction and renovation projects, recognizing both student performance benefits and competitive advantages in attracting enrollees.

G Critics raise several challenges to biophilic design adoption. Initial costs for living walls, sophisticated daylighting systems, and water features exceed conventional construction budgets, requiring developers and institutional decision-makers to weigh upfront investments against longer-term benefits that prove difficult to quantify precisely. Maintenance demands for living elements require ongoing expertise and expense that building managers may resist. Some skeptics question whether manufactured nature experiences deliver benefits comparable to actual outdoor exposure, suggesting that biophilic design might substitute superficially for more fundamental changes in how people live and work.

H Proponents counter that biophilic design need not replace outdoor nature access but rather complements and extends it, acknowledging practical constraints on how much time urban residents can spend in natural settings. They emphasize that biophilic elements span a wide spectrum of cost and complexity, from expensive living walls to simple indoor plants, artwork, and material choices accessible to any budget. Advocates also note growing evidence that even indirect nature experiences activate beneficial psychological and physiological responses, suggesting that representations of nature carry genuine value beyond mere aesthetic preference.

I The trajectory of biophilic design points toward integration with broader movements in sustainable architecture and wellness-focused building certification. Standards like WELL Building Certification now incorporate biophilic elements alongside air quality, lighting, and fitness amenities in evaluating how buildings support human health. As climate change intensifies interest in how people relate to natural systems, and as research continues documenting specific mechanisms through which nature exposure benefits human beings, biophilic principles seem likely to move from architectural specialty to mainstream practice.

Questions 14-18

Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A-I.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-I, in the space provided.

  1. Examples of how biophilic design benefits medical institutions financially {{ANSWER:14}}

  2. The percentage of time urban residents typically spend inside buildings {{ANSWER:15}}

  3. An argument that biophilic design works alongside rather than replacing outdoor experiences {{ANSWER:16}}

  4. Evidence that nature-related design particularly helps certain student populations {{ANSWER:17}}

  5. Categories used to organize biophilic design strategies {{ANSWER:18}}

Questions 19-22

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Biophilic design is based on the biophilia hypothesis developed by Edward O. Wilson, which suggests humans have an evolutionary tendency to connect with nature. Research supports this, showing that hospital patients with nature views recover faster and need less {{ANSWER:19}}. Buildings implement these ideas through various means: living walls improve air quality, atrium designs help combat {{ANSWER:20}} common in artificially lit workplaces, and even simple additions like {{ANSWER:21}} can improve workplace productivity. The approach is becoming integrated with sustainable architecture and building standards like {{ANSWER:22}}, which evaluates buildings based on how they support occupant health.

Questions 23-26

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 2?

Write:

  • YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
  • TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
  • NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
  • NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

  1. Living walls are the most effective type of biophilic design intervention. {{ANSWER:23}}

  2. Biophilic design features can reduce the amount of pain relief medication patients need. {{ANSWER:24}}

  3. The benefits of biophilic design are limited to expensive, complex installations. {{ANSWER:25}}

  4. Biophilic design will become standard practice in architecture in the future. {{ANSWER:26}}

READING PASSAGE 3

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

The Science of Collective Memory

A Memory is typically conceived as an individual phenomenon—personal recollections stored within individual brains and accessible only to their owners. Yet human memory operates within profoundly social contexts that shape what gets remembered, how it gets remembered, and how memories change over time. Collective memory refers to the shared representations of the past that emerge through social interaction and become embedded in cultural practices, institutions, and artifacts. Understanding collective memory requires moving beyond purely cognitive models to examine the social processes through which groups construct and maintain shared understandings of their histories.

B The concept of collective memory traces primarily to sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, whose work in the early twentieth century challenged individualistic assumptions about remembering. Halbwachs argued that even ostensibly personal memories depend upon social frameworks—the categories, narratives, and reference points provided by group membership—for their formation and maintenance. Without ongoing social reinforcement, he suggested, memories fade and become inaccessible. This social dimension of memory proved controversial among psychologists who emphasized biological and cognitive mechanisms, but contemporary research increasingly supports Halbwachs' insights about social influences on remembering.

C Collective memories emerge through communicative processes that both transmit and transform shared representations. Conversations about the past, commemorative rituals, educational curricula, museum exhibits, and media representations all contribute to shaping what communities remember and forget. These processes are selective: certain events become focal points for collective memory while others disappear from public consciousness. The selection often reflects present concerns rather than purely historical significance—communities tend to remember pasts that resonate with current identities, values, and political circumstances.

D Memory scholars distinguish several mechanisms through which collective memories develop and persist. Generational transmission occurs as older members share recollections with younger generations who incorporate them into their own understanding of the past. Institutional frameworks like archives, monuments, and official histories preserve particular versions of events that shape subsequent collective memory. Media representations—from newspapers to films to social media—circulate and reinforce specific images and narratives while marginalizing alternatives. Each mechanism introduces possibilities for memory to shift as it passes through different social contexts.

E The relationship between collective memory and historical accuracy presents complex challenges. Collective memories frequently diverge from documented historical records, emphasizing certain aspects of events while minimizing or distorting others. These divergences do not necessarily reflect deliberate falsification; rather, the social processes that shape collective memory naturally filter and transform information in ways that serve community functions. Memories that reinforce group identity, provide moral lessons, or support political positions tend to persist and spread more readily than those lacking such social utility.

F Research on flashbulb memories—vivid personal recollections of how one learned about significant public events—illustrates the interplay between individual and collective remembering. Studies of memories for events like the September 11 attacks reveal that people report highly confident and detailed recollections that nonetheless change substantially over time and often incorporate errors. The confidence people feel in these memories appears to stem partly from their social significance and repeated discussion rather than from actual accuracy. Public events become woven into personal narratives, with individual memories shaped by collective frameworks for understanding the events' meaning.

G Political dimensions of collective memory have attracted particular scholarly attention. States actively manage collective memory through control of educational content, establishment of commemorative practices, and construction of monuments and memorials. These official memory projects often contest with alternative memories preserved in marginalized communities whose experiences diverge from dominant narratives. Transitional justice processes following political transitions must navigate these contested memories, often through truth commissions, memorial projects, and revised historical education that attempts to acknowledge previously suppressed perspectives.

H Digital technologies are transforming collective memory in ways scholars are only beginning to understand. The internet enables unprecedented preservation and accessibility of historical information while simultaneously facilitating rapid circulation of misinformation. Social media platforms create new spaces for memory work where individuals contribute to constructing shared narratives, though algorithmic curation may fragment collective memory along political and cultural lines. The digital permanence of online content exists in tension with the traditional processes of gradual forgetting that allow societies to move beyond divisive pasts.

I Neuroscientific research has begun examining how social factors influence memory at biological levels. Studies demonstrate that discussing events with others reshapes not just what people report remembering but the underlying memory traces themselves. Memories become synchronized across individuals who share experiences or discuss them together, creating genuinely shared representations stored in multiple brains. This synchronization appears to involve some of the same neural mechanisms involved in forming individual memories, suggesting that collective memory may be more than metaphor—it may reflect fundamental aspects of how social beings remember.

J The study of collective memory carries implications extending beyond academic inquiry. Understanding how communities remember—and forget—informs practical challenges from post-conflict reconciliation to public health communication to combating misinformation. Societies cannot simply choose what to remember; collective memory emerges from complex processes not fully under conscious control. Yet awareness of these processes may enable more thoughtful engagement with the shared pasts that shape contemporary identities and politics, recognizing both the social construction of memory and its genuine power to influence how groups understand themselves and their world.

Questions 27-31

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

  1. According to Paragraph B, Halbwachs' view of memory was controversial because:

    A    it ignored the role of biological processes in remembering

    B    psychologists emphasized individual rather than social mechanisms

    C    his theories could not be tested experimentally

    D    he rejected all previous research on memory

{{ANSWER:27}}

  1. The passage suggests that collective memories are selective primarily because:

    A    human memory capacity is naturally limited

    B    historical records are often incomplete

    C    they tend to reflect current community concerns

    D    older generations cannot remember everything

{{ANSWER:28}}

  1. What does the passage indicate about flashbulb memories?

    A    They are more accurate than ordinary memories

    B    They remain completely stable over time

    C    People feel confident about them despite changes and errors

    D    They only form for events of personal significance

{{ANSWER:29}}

  1. According to the passage, how do states influence collective memory?

    A    By conducting scientific research on memory

    B    Through education, commemoration, and monuments

    C    By preventing any alternative memories from developing

    D    Through mandatory memory training programs

{{ANSWER:30}}

  1. What challenge related to digital technologies does the passage identify?

    A    The internet has made historical information less accessible

    B    Social media has eliminated collective memory entirely

    C    Digital preservation conflicts with beneficial processes of forgetting

    D    Only younger generations can participate in digital memory work

{{ANSWER:31}}

Questions 32-36

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Collective memory develops through various mechanisms. {{ANSWER:32}} involves older people sharing their recollections with younger community members. {{ANSWER:33}} such as archives and monuments preserve official versions of the past. Media shapes memory by spreading certain narratives while pushing aside {{ANSWER:34}}. When collective memories differ from historical records, this usually results from natural social processes rather than {{ANSWER:35}}. Recent neuroscience research suggests collective memory may be more than metaphorical, as discussions cause memories to become {{ANSWER:36}} across individuals who share experiences.

Questions 37-40

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?

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

  1. Halbwachs believed that memories can persist indefinitely without any social support. {{ANSWER:37}}

  2. Truth commissions are one method used to address contested memories after political changes. {{ANSWER:38}}

  3. Algorithmic curation on social media platforms may cause fragmentation of collective memory. {{ANSWER:39}}

  4. Societies can completely control what they collectively remember if they make conscious efforts. {{ANSWER:40}}

Answered: 0/40(40 remaining)
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