IELTS Listening Test

Section 1 │ Question 1 -10

Questions 1-5
Complete Jake’s reservation change form below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the listening for each answer

The Sutherland Hotel

Reservation Change Form

Example Answer
Reservation Number ___EZT 486978___

Customer’s Name : Mrs. Jane (1) ________

Address : (2) ________ Richmond Rise

Birkdale, Auckland
Postcode : 0626

Date of Birth : (3) ________ 1985

Reservation Website Used : (4) ________

(5) ________ not charged by the website.

Questions 6-10
Complete Jake’s summary email confirming the change in hotel reservation.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Re: your reservation change

Dear Madam,
Thanks for your call. I have made the change you requested to your booking and I
have summarised the information below:

The two adults in the booking have not changed. Two children have been added:
Mark ((6) ________ years) + Max (eight years).
The boys will have a twin room with no (7) ________.

Original booking from Friday 22nd May – Wednesday 27th May.

New booking from Saturday 23rd May - Wednesday 27th May.

Price changes: Adult booking 1 day fewer.

Boys: Mark is charged the full rate;
Max is charged the child rate.
Old price NZ$1200; new price (8) NZ$ ________.

The booking is held by a VISA card with the last four numbers 8537.
Previous (9) ________ paid does not need to be increased.
(10) ________ is included for all guests in the booking.

Best wishes,
Jake
Section 2 │Questions 11-20
Question 11 – 15
Complete the notes below. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

KIWI FACT SHEETS

Pictures of kiwis are found on (11) _______ and ______.
The name ‘kiwi’ comes from its (12) _______.
The kiwi has poor sight but a good (13) _______.
Kiwis cannot (14) _______.
Kiwis are endangered by (15) _______.

Question 16 – 17
Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap.

Stage of Program Program involves

(16) _______ Looking at kiwi survival needs
Action Putting science into practice
(17) _______ Schools and the website

Question 18 – 20
Complete the chart below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
for each answer.

OPERATION NEST EGG

(18) _______

(19) _______

chicks returned to wild

survival rate increased from

(20) _______ to _______
Section 3 │ Questions 21-30
Question 21-26
Choose the correct letter, A, B, or C.

Talk on jobs in fashion design

21. What problem did Chantal have at the start of the talk?
A. She was unable to find an empty seat.
B. The students next to her were talking.
C. Her view of the speaker was blocked.

22. What were Hugo and Chantal surprised to hear about the job market?
A. It has become more competitive than it used to be.
B. There is more variety in it than they had realised.
C. Some areas of it are more exciting than others.

23. Hugo and Chantal agree that the speaker’s massage was
A. hard for them to follow.
B. unfair to them at times.
C. critical of the industry.

24. What do Hugo and Chantal criticise about their school careers advice?
A. when they received the advice
B. who gave the advice
C. how much advice was given

25. When discussing their future, Hugo and Chantal disagree on

A. when to choose a career in fashion.
B. Why they would like a career in fashion.
C. which is the best career in fashion.

26. How does Hugo feel about being an unpaid assistant?

A. He feels the practice is dishonest.
B. He thinks others want to change the practice.
C. He is realistic about the practice.
Question 27 and 28
Choose TWO letters, A - E.
Which TWO mistakes did the speaker admit she made in her first job?
A. trying to earn a lot of money
B. expecting to become well known
C. openly disliking her client
D. paying too much attention to how she looked
E. being dishonest to her employer

Question 29 and 30
Choose TWO letters, A - E.
Which TO pieces of retail information do Hugo and Chantal agree would be useful?
A. how much time people have to shop for clothes
B. the most popular fashion sizes
C. the best time of year for fashion buying
D. fashion designs people want but can’t buy
E. the reasons people return fashion items
Section 4 │Questions 31-40
Questions 31 – 34
Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD OR NUMBER for each
answer.

The New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)

 New Zealand’s EEZ is 5th largest in the world - covers approx. 3.9 million km².
 New Zealand’s EEZ’s depth can be up to (31) _____ metres.
 Underwater landscape of New Zealand’s EEZ includes mountains, valleys, geysers +
mudflats, Much marine life grows there.
 Fishing can damage sea life, especially with bottom trawl or dredge equipment.
Factors include: Type of seabed habitat
The (32) _____ used

Bottom-Trawling
 Possibly the most destructive fishing type. Involves large nets being dragged over
sea floor that take everything.
 The unwanted species taken, called the (33) _____, are thrown back in sea, often
dead or dying. This can be up to 90% of each trawl.
 Conservationists claim sea floor life takes a long time to recover. This is disputed by
(34) _____.

Questions 35 – 37
Choose the correct letter A, B, or C.
35. Part of New Zealand’s fisheries management program is likened to _____
A. similar initiatives on land.
B. similar initiatives that were not implemented in the past.
C. similar initiatives in other countries.

36. Most current BPA seabeds _____

A. have been damaged by previous fishing.
B. have been carefully charted by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries.
C. have never had trawlers operating there.
37. Charted hydrothermal vents _____
A. are difficult to locate for protection purposes.
B. are closed to all fishing.
C. are key targets for the fishing industry.

Questions 38 – 40
Complete the sentences below.
Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the listening for each
answer.

38. It’s claimed that more than _________ per cent of the New Zealand EEZ has never been
subject to bottom trawling.
39. Conservation critics of the New Zealand government claim that not all vulnerable
__________ are protected.
40. The work of industrial trawlers also affects the _________ of smaller communities, as
the catches of their fishermen also suffer.
Reading Passage 1

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

Some 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens beat other hominids to become the only surviving
species. Kate Ravilious reveals how we did it.
A. Today, there are over seven billion people living on Earth. No other species has
exerted as much influence over the planet as us. But turn the clock back 80,000
years and we were one of a number of species roaming the Earth. Our own
species. Homo sapiens (Latin for ’wise man'), was most successful in Africa. In
western Eurasia, the Neanderthals dominated, while Homo erectus may have
lived in Indonesia. Meanwhile, an unusual finger bone and tooth, discovered in
Denisova cave in Siberia in 2008, have led scientists to believe that yet another
human population - the Denisovans - may also have been widespread across
Asia. Somewhere along the line, these other human species died out, leaving
Homo sapiens as the sole survivor. So, what made us the winners in the battle for
survival?

B. Some 74.000 years ago, the Toba ‘supervolcano' on the Indonesian island of
Sumatra erupted. The scale of the event was so great that ash from the eruption
was flung as far as eastern India, more than 2,000 kilometres away. Oxford
archaeologist Mike Petraglia and his team have uncovered thousands of stone
tools buried underneath the Toba ash. The mix of hand axes and spear tips have
led Petraglia to speculate that Homo sapiens and Homo erectus were both living
in eastern India prior to the Toba eruption. Based on careful examination of the
tools and dating of the sediment layers where they were found. Petraglia and his
team suggest that Homo sapiens arrived in eastern India around 78.000 years
ago. migrating out of Africa and across Arabia during a favourable climate period.
After their arrival, the simple tools belonging to Homo erectus seemed to lessen
in number and eventually disappear completely. 'We think that Homo sapiens had
a more efficient hunting technology, which could have given them the edge.' says
Petraglia. 'Whether the eruption of Toba also played a role in the extinction of the
Homo erectus-like species is unclear to us.'

C. Some 45.000 years later, another fight for survival took place. This time, the
location was Europe and the protagonists were another species, the
Neanderthals. They were a highly successful species that dominated the
European landscape for 300.000 years. Yet within just a few thousand years of
the arrival of Homo sapiens, their numbers plummeted. They eventually
disappeared from the landscape around 30.000 years ago. with their last known
refuge being southern Iberia, including Gibraltar. Initially. Homo sapiens and
Neanderthals lived alongside each other and had no reason to compete. But then
Europe’s climate swung into a cold, inhospitable, dry phase. ‘Neanderthal and
Homo sapiens populations had to retreat to refugia (pockets of habitable land).
This heightened competition between the two groups,’ explains Chris Stringer,
anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London.

D. Both species were strong and stockier than the average human today, but
Neanderthals were particularly robust. ‘Their skeletons show that they had broad
 shoulders and thick necks,' says Stringer. ‘Homo sapiens, on the other hand, had
longer forearms, which undoubtedly enabled them to throw a spear from some
distance, with less danger and using relatively little energy,’ explains Stringer. This
long-range ability may have given Homo sapiens an advantage in hunting. When
it came to keeping warm. Homo sapiens had another skill: weaving and sewing.
Archaeologists have uncovered simple needles fashioned from ivory and bone
alongside Homo sapiens, dating as far back as 35,000 years ago. ‘Using this
technology, we could use animal skins to make ourselves tents, warm clothes and
fur boots,’ says Stringer. In contrast. Neanderthals never seemed to master
sewing skills, instead relying on pinning skins together with thorns.

E. A thirst for exploration provided Homo sapiens with another significant advantage
over Neanderthals. Objects such as shell beads and flint tools, discovered many
miles from their source, show that our ancestors travelled over large distances, in
order to barter and exchange useful materials, and share ideas and knowledge.
By contrast. Neanderthals tended to keep themselves to themselves, living in
small groups. They misdirected their energies by only gathering resources from
their immediate surroundings and perhaps failing to discover new technologies
outside their territory.

F. Some of these differences in behaviour may have emerged because the two
species thought in different ways. By comparing skull shapes, archaeologists have
shown that Homo sapiens had a more developed temporal lobe - the regions at
the side of the brain, associated with listening, language and long-term memory.
'We think that Homo sapiens had a significantly more complex language than
Neanderthals and were able to comprehend and discuss concepts such as the
distant past and future.' says Stringer. Penny Spikins, an archaeologist at the
University of York, has recently suggested that Homo sapiens may also have had
a greater diversity of brain types than Neanderthals. ‘Our research indicates that
high-precision tools, new hunting technologies and the development of symbolic
communication may all have come about because they were willing to include
people with "different" minds and specialised roles in their society,’ she explains.
'We see similar kinds of injuries on male and female Neanderthal skeletons,
implying there was no such division of labour,' says Spikins.

G. Thus by around 30,000 years ago. many talents and traits were well established
in Homo sapiens societies but still absent from Neanderthal communities. Stringer
thinks that the Neanderthals were just living in the wrong place at the wrong time.
'They had to compete with Homo sapiens during a phase of very unstable climate
across Europe. During each rapid climate fluctuation, they may have suffered
greater losses of people than Homo sapiens, and thus were slowly worn down,’
he says. ‘If the climate had remained stable throughout, they might still be here.’
Questions 1-5
The reading passage has seven paragraphs, A – G.
Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter.
1. mention of the part played by ill fortune in the downfall of Neanderthal society
2. reference to items that were once used for trade
3. reference to the final geographical location of Neanderthals
4. a comparison of a range of physical features of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens
5. mention of evidence for the existence of a previously unknown human species

Questions 6-9
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
6. Analysis of stone tools and _______ has enabled Petraglia’s team to put forward an
arrival date for Homo sapiens in eastern India.
7. Homo sapiens used both _______ and _______ to make sewing implements.
8. The territorial nature of Neanderthals may have limited their ability to acquire
resources and _______.
9. Archaeologists examined _______ in order to get an insight into Neanderthal and Homo
sapiens' capacity for language and thought.

Questions 10-13
Look at the following statements and the list of researchers, A-C, below.
Match each statement with the correct researcher.

List of Researchers

A. Chris Stringer
B. Mike Petraglia
C. Penny Spikins
10. Environmental conditions restricted the areas where Homo sapiens and
Neanderthals could live.
11. No evidence can be found to suggest that Neanderthal communities allocated tasks
to different members.
12. Scientists cannot be sure whether a sudden natural disaster contributed to the loss
of a human species.
13. Homo sapiens may have been able to plan ahead.
Reading Passage 2

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

A. Water is the giver and at the same time, the taker of life. It covers most of the
surface of the planet we live on and features large in the development of the
human race. On present predictions, it is an element that is set to assume even
greater significance.

B. Throughout history, water has had a huge impact on our lives. Humankind has
always had a rather ambiguous relationship with water. On the one hand,
receiving enormous benefit from it, not just as a drinking source, but as a provider
of food and a means whereby to travel and to trade. But forced to live close to
water in order to survive and to develop, the relationship has not always been
peaceful or beneficial. In fact, it has been quite the contrary. What has essentially
been a necessity for survival has turned out in many instances to have a very
destructive and life-threatening side.

C. Through the ages, great floods alternated with long periods of drought have
assaulted people and their environment, hampering their fragile fight for survival.
The dramatic changes to the environment that are now a feature of our daily news
are not exactly new: fields that were once lush and fertile are now barren; lakes
and rivers that were once teeming with life are now long gone; savannah has been
turned to desert. What perhaps is new is our naive wonder when faced with the
forces of nature.

D. Today, we are more aware of climatic changes around the world. Floods in far-
flung places are instant hews for the whole world. Perhaps these events make us
feel better as we face the destruction of our own property by floods and other
natural disasters.

E. In 2002, many parts of Europe suffered severe flood damage running into billions
of euros. Properties across the continent collapsed into the sea as waves pounded
the coastline wreaking havoc with sea defences. But it was not just the seas. Rivers
swollen by heavy rains and by the effects of deforestation carried large volumes
of water that wrecked many communities.

F. Building stronger and more sophisticated river defences against flooding is the
expensive short-term answer. There are simpler ways. Planting trees in highland
areas, not just in Europe but in places like the Himalayas, to protect people living
in low-lying regions like the Ganges Delta, is a cheaper and more attractive
solution. Progress is already being made in convincing countries that the emission
 of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is causing considerable damage to
the environment. But more effort is needed in this direction.

G. And the future? If we are to believe the forecasts, it is predicted that two-thirds of
the world population will be without fresh water by 2025. But for a growing
number of regions of the world, the future is already with us. While some areas
are devastated by flooding, scarcity of water in many other places is causing
conflict. The state of Texas in the United States of America is suffering a shortage
of water with the Rio Grande failing to reach the Gulf of Mexico for the first time
in 50 years in the spring of 2002, pitting region against region as they vie for water
sources. With many parts of the globe running dry through drought and increased
water consumption, there is now talk of water being the new oil.

H. Other doom-laden estimates suggest that, while tropical areas will become drier
and uninhabitable, coastal regions and some low-lying islands will in all
probability be submerged by the sea as the polar ice caps melt. Popular exotic
destinations now visited by countless tourists will become no-go areas. Today's
holiday hotspots of southern Europe and elsewhere will literally become hotspots
- too hot to live in or visit. With the current erratic behaviour of the weather, it is
difficult not to subscribe to such despair.

I. Some might say that this despondency is ill-founded, but we have had ample
proof that there is something not quite right with the climate. Many parts of the
world have experienced devastating flooding. As the seasons revolve, the focus of
the destruction moves from one continent to another. The impact on the
environment is alarming and the cost to life depressing. It is a picture to which we
will need to become accustomed.
Questions 14 - 21
Reading Passage 2 above has nine paragraphs labelled A-I.
Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B – I from the list of headings below.
Example Answer
Paragraph A _____vii____

List of Headings
i. Humans' relationship with water
ii. Far-flung flooding
iii. The scarcity of water
iv. Should we be despondent? Or realistic?
v. Water, the provider of food
vi. Environmental change has always been with us
vii. What is water?
viii. A pessimistic view of the future
ix. How to solve flooding
x. Rivers and seas cause damage
xi. Flooding in the future
xii. The destructive force of water in former times
xiii. Disasters caused by the climate make us feel better

14. Paragraph B
15. Paragraph C
16. Paragraph D
17. Paragraph E
18. Paragraph F
19. Paragraph G
20. Paragraph H
21. Paragraph I
Questions 22 – 26
Choose the correct letter A – D.
22. The writer believes that water
A. is gradually becoming of greater importance.
B. is something we will need more than anything else.
C. will have even greater importance in our lives in the future.
D. will have little impact on our lives in future.

23. The writer suggests that

A. our surprise at the environmental change brought about by nature is something
new.
B. we are in awe of the news we read and see on TV every day.
C. we should not be in awe of the news we read and see on TV every day.
D. change to the environment leaves us speechless.

24. According to the text, planting trees

A. is not an answer to the problem of flooding in all regions.
B. is a less expensive answer to flooding than building river defences.
C. has to be co-ordinated internationally.
D. is more expensive than building sea and river defences.

25. By 2025, it is projected that

A. fresh water will only be available to half of the world population.
B. at least half the world population will have fresh water.
C. the majority of the world population will have fresh water.
D. one-third of the world population will have fresh water.

26. According to the writer,

A. the general despondency about environmental changes is ill-founded.
B. people are now more used to environmental damage than they have been in the
past.
C. people will need to get used to climate changes that cause environmental
damage.
D. people do not need to get used to environmental damage.
Reading Passage 3

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

Swiss engineer Robert Maillart built some of the greatest bridges of the 20th century.
His designs elegantly solved a basic engineering problem: how to support enormous
weights using a slender arch.
A. Just as railway bridges were the great structural symbols of the 19th century, highway bridges
became the engineering emblems of the 20th century. The invention of the automobile created
an irresistible demand for paved roads and vehicular bridges throughout the developed world.
The type of bridge needed for cars and trucks, however, is fundamentally different from that
needed for locomotives. Most highway bridges carry lighter loads than railway bridges do, and
their roadways can be sharply curved or steeply sloping. To meet these needs, many turn-of-
the-century bridge designers began working with a new building material: reinforced concrete,
which has steel bars embedded in it. And the master of this new material was Swiss structural
engineer, Robert Maillart.

B. Early in his career, Maillart developed a unique method for designing bridges, buildings and
other concrete structures. He rejected the complex mathematical analysis of loads and
stresses that was being enthusiastically adopted by most of his contemporaries. At the same
time, he also eschewed the decorative approach taken by many bridge builders of his time.
He resisted imitating architectural styles and adding design elements solely for ornamentation.
Maillart’s method was a form of creative intuition. He had a knack for conceiving new shapes
to solve classic engineering problems. And because he worked in a highly competitive field,
one of his goals was economy - he won design and construction contracts because his
structures were reasonably priced, often less costly than all his rivals’ proposals.

C. Maillart’s first important bridge was built in the small Swiss town of Zuoz. The local officials
had initially wanted a steel bridge to span the 30-metre-wide Inn River, but Maillart argued
that he could build a more elegant bridge made of reinforced concrete for about the same
cost. His crucial innovation was incorporating the bridge’s arch and roadway into a form called
the hollow-box arch, which would substantially reduce the bridge’s expense by minimising the
amount of concrete needed. In a conventional arch bridge, the weight of the roadway is
transferred by columns to the arch, which must be relatively thick. In Maillart’s design, though,
the roadway and arch were connected by three vertical walls, forming two hollow
boxes running under the roadway. The big advantage of this design was that because the
arch would not have to bear the load alone, it could be much thinner - as little as one-third as
thick as the arch in the conventional bridge.

D. His first masterpiece, however, was the 1905 Tavanasa Bridge over the Rhine River in the
Swiss Alps. In this design, Maillart removed the parts of the vertical walls which were not
essential because they carried no load. This produced a slender, lighter-looking form, which
perfectly met the bridge’s structural requirements. But the Tavanasa Bridge gained little
favourable publicity in Switzerland; on the contrary, it aroused strong aesthetic objections from
public officials who were more comfortable with old-fashioned stone-faced bridges. Maillart,
who had founded his own construction firm in 1902, was unable to win any more bridge
projects, so he shifted his focus to designing buildings, water tanks and other structures made
of reinforced concrete and did not resume his work on concrete bridges until the early 1920s.

E. His most important breakthrough during this period was the development of the deck-stiffened
arch, the first example of which was the Flienglibach Bridge, built in 1923. An arch bridge is
somewhat like an inverted cable. A cable curves downward when a weight is hung from it, an
arch bridge curves upward to support the roadway and the compression in the arch balances
 the dead load of the traffic. For aesthetic reasons, Maillart wanted a thinner arch and his
solution was to connect the arch to the roadway with transverse walls. In this way, Maillart
justified making the arch as thin as he could reasonably build it. His analysis accurately
predicted the behaviour of the bridge but the leading authorities of Swiss engineering would
argue against his methods for the next quarter of a century.

F. Over the next 10 years, Maillart concentrated on refining the visual appearance of the deck-
stiffened arch. His best-known structure is the Salginatobel Bridge, completed in 1930. He
won the competition for the contract because his design was the least expensive of the 19
submitted - the bridge and road were built for only 700,000 Swiss francs, equivalent to some
$3.5 million today. Salginatobel was also Maillart’s longest span, at 90 metres and it had the
most dramatic setting of all his structures, vaulting 80 metres above the ravine of the Salgina
brook. In 1991 it became the first concrete bridge to be designated an international historic
landmark.

G. Before his death in 1940, Maillart completed other remarkable bridges and continued to refine
his designs. However, architects often recognised the high quality of Maillart’s structures
before his fellow engineers did and in 1947 the architectural section of the Museum of Modern
Art in New York City devoted a major exhibition entirely to his works. In contrast, very few
American structural engineers at that time had even heard of Maillart. In the following years,
however, engineers realised that Maillart’s bridges were more than just aesthetically pleasing
- they were technically unsurpassed. Maillart’s hollow-box arch became the dominant design
form for medium and long- span concrete bridges in the US. In Switzerland, professors finally
began to teach Maillart’s ideas, which then influenced a new generation of designers.

Questions 27 – 33
Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs A-G. From the list of headings below, choose the
most suitable heading for each paragraph.

List of headings
i. Bridge-makers look elsewhere
ii. The long-term impact
iii. Early brilliance passes unrecognised
iv. Further refinements meet persistent objections
v. Different in all respects
vi. Outdated methods retain popularity
vii. The basis of a new design is born
viii. Transport developments spark a major change
ix. Frustration at never getting the design right
x. A celebrated achievement

27. Paragraph A
28. Paragraph B
29. Paragraph C
30. Paragraph D
31. Paragraph E
32. Paragraph F
33. Paragraph G
Questions 34 – 36
Complete the labels on the diagrams below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the
reading passage.

Questions 37 – 40
Complete each of the following statements with the best ending (A-G) below. Write the
appropriate letters A-G on your answer sheet.
37. Maillart designed the hollow-box arch in order to _______
38. Following the construction of the Tavanasa Bridge, Maillart failed to _______
39. The transverse walls of the Flienglibach Bridge allowed Maillart to _______
40. Of all his bridges, the Salginatobel enabled Maillart to _______

A. improve the appearance of his bridges.

B. prove that local people were wrong.
C. capitalise on the spectacular terrain.
D. recognise his technical skills.
E. win more building commissions.
F. find work in Switzerland.
G. reduce the amount of raw material required.
IELTS Writing Task 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The graphs below show the global emission by industry sectors in 2020.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make
comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.

IELTS Writing Task 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Sexual education should be mandatory in high schools.
To what extent to you agree or disagree?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own
knowledge or experience
You should write at least 250 words.