IELT

SFocusin

g o

n

Philip Gould Michael Clutterbuck

Second edition

AcademicPractice Tests

v

Contents

How to use this book vii

Acknowledgments viii

Listening 1What is in the listening module? 2

Question types 3

Tips for doing the Listening Test 3

Listening Test 1 4

Listening Test 2 10

Listening Test 3 18

Listening Test 4 24

Listening answer sheet 31

Reading 33What is in the reading module? 34

Question types 35

Tips for doing the Reading Test 36

Reading Test 1 37

Reading Test 2 47

Reading Test 3 58

Reading Test 4 69

Reading answer sheet 79

Writing 81What is in the writing module? 82

Tips for doing the Writing Test 83

Writing Test 1 86

Writing Test 2 88

Writing Test 3 90

Writing Test 4 92

Speaking 95What is in the speaking module? 96

Tips for doing the Speaking Test 97

Sample speaking tests 99

Speaking Test 1 114

Speaking Test 2 116

Speaking Test 3 118

Speaking Test 4 120

Speaking Test 5 122

Speaking Test 6 124

Transcripts 127Listening Test 1 128

Listening Test 2 134

Listening Test 3 141

Listening Test 4 148

Answer key 155Listening 156

Reading 158

Writing 164

Speaking 168

vii

How to use this book

There are no magic formulas or secret keys that guarantee a good score in the IELTS test. The best way to prepare for the exam is to gradually improve your overall English listening, reading, writing and speaking abilities.

It is useful to train for the kinds of texts and questions you will face in an IELTS exam. Focusing on IELTS: Academic Practice Tests contains complete Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking practice tests for you to try out. Each test in this book is identical in format to the Academic IELTS tests themselves. You should work through these under test conditions, which means working in a room where you won’t be disturbed and only spending an hour on each Reading and Writing Test. There are sample answer sheets at the end of the Listening and Reading units for you to photocopy and use each time you do a practice Listening or Reading Test. This book also contains three recorded Speaking Tests for you to listen to. You can read the transcripts of these Speaking Tests along with an analysis of each of the three candidates’ performances. At the back of the book, there are transcripts for the Listening Tests and an answer key for the Listening and Reading Tests. There are sample answers for the Writing Tests.

You can use this book individually as an independent study guide to prepare for the Academic IELTS test or as practice materials for an IELTS preparation course with a teacher.

You may also want to work more intensively on the skills needed in the different sections of the test. For this reason Focusing on IELTS: Academic Practice Tests has been written to accompany Focusing on IELTS: Reading and Writing Skills by Jeremy Lindeck, Jannette Greenwood and Kerry O’Sullivan (Macmillan 2011) and Focusing on IELTS: Listening and Speaking Skills by Steven Thurlow and Kerry O’Sullivan (Macmillan 2011). These two books thoroughly examine the skills you need and teach useful strategies to help you perform well in the test.

Focusing on IELTS Academic Practice Tests4

Listening Test 1TIME ALLOWED: APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES, PLUS 10 MINUTES TO TRANSFER ANSWERS

NUMBER OF QUESTIONS: 40

This test has been written to simulate the IELTS test in its style, format, level of difficulty, question types and length. You should do this test under IELTS test conditions. This means playing the recording only once without pausing or stopping.

InstructionsYou will hear four different recordings and you will have to answer questions on what you hear.

There will be time for you to read the instructions and questions before the recording is played. You will also have the opportunity to check your answers.

The recording will be played ONCE only.

The test is in four sections. Write your answers on the question sheet as you listen. At the end of Section 4 you have 10 minutes to transfer your answers onto the answer sheet, which is on page 31. When you finish, check the answer key at the back of the book.

Now turn to Section 1 on the next page.

CD 1 • Track 1

L

ISTENING

Listening 5

SECTION 1 Questions 1–10Questions 1–5

Complete the notes below.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Change of addressCustomer number: Example: ……………...…………………………...…..

Name: 1 ……………...…………………………...……………..

Date of birth: 2 ……………...…………………………...……………..

New address: 18 King Street, 3 ………...………………...….………

New telephone number: 4 ……………...…………………………...……………..

Billing period: 5 ……………...…………………………...……………..

Questions 6–10

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

6 The contract the customer has now is

A Economy Saver.

B Flexible Bundle.

C Home Plus.

7 The contract the customer will have in the future is

A Economy Saver.

B Home Plus.

C Three-In-One.

8 There are no limits on Internet downloads in the period from

A 10 pm to 6 am.

B 1 am to 6 am.

C 11 pm to 2 am.

9 Most of the phone calls this customer makes are

A to friends.

B to relatives.

C for work.

10 Overall, the customer finds that the service of the telephone company is

A satisfactory.

B excellent.

C very good.

CD 1 • Track 2

L

ISTENING

5062 7840

Reading 37

Reading Test 1ALL ANSWERS MUST BE WRITTEN ON THE ANSWER SHEET.

The test is divided as follows:

Reading Passage 1 Questions 1 to 13

Reading Passage 2 Questions 14 to 27

Reading Passage 3 Questions 28 to 40

Start at the beginning of the test and work through it. You should answer all the questions. If you cannot do a particular question leave it and go on to the next one. You can return to it later.

TIME ALLOWED: 60 MINUTES

NUMBER OF QUESTIONS: 40

Focusing on IELTS Academic Practice Tests48

READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 1–13.

A The farms of the future may be built right in the centre of your city. Suburban sprawl, combined with the vast economies of scale in operation in agriculture, have typically driven food production far from populated centres, with an increase in the cost of transport and risk of spoilage en route. However, the days of market gardens on the edges of urban areas supplying fresh food straight to your table may soon be over; mass city-centre farming may soon replace them. A visionary microbiologist and environmental lecturer, Dickson Despommier from Columbia University in New York, sees our future cities populated by a new kind of market garden. The creator of this radical ‘vertical farming’ idea describes the evolution of the concept from an older project involving rooftop gardening in Manhattan. While that was interesting, it couldn’t be sustained on a mass scale. But it planted the seed of another idea. Looking at greenhouse projects in New York, the resulting concept was large-scale, indoor, urban agriculture in skyscrapers.

B Following this, Despommier set up laboratory projects aimed at different design challenges and attracted a wide range of enthusiastic collaborators and contributors. He believes this vertical farming method could be a solution to some of the world’s most pressing issues. The world population is expected to grow by three billion to 8.6 billion over the next half century. By then, some 80 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities, and they will need to eat. At the same time, conventional farm and grazing land takes up an enormous amount of space, with over one-third of the world’s surface currently used for agriculture. Despommier figures that in the next five decades an area of new arable land roughly the size of Brazil will be required to feed the world’s growing population – land that simply doesn’t exist.

C Despommier’s concept relies on using green methods of architecture and materials to build skyscrapers that house, grow and produce crops. New materials and technologies such as cheaper reflectors, which reflect sunlight where it’s needed, more efficient solar panels for energy and system-wide recycling are integral to the plan. One unusual feature is the use of a type of shellfish to filter water. These can clean urban sewage to a state suitable for irrigation.

D ‘Outside, one acre (0.4 of a hectare) of land means one crop a year,’ says Despommier. ‘Indoors, you can grow one crop every three months. You can get four crops a year.’ He suggests that 150 such buildings could feed the entire city of New York for a year. Indoor crops require less pesticide and are less subject to the problems in nature, such as drought. Some academics say that a single skyscraper farm covering 1.3 hectares could produce enough food to feed 35,000 people for a year – the same as a 420-hectare farm. Each floor of the design would be rigged up with hydroponic watering systems and

Vines in the sky

Reading 49

Questions 1–6

Reading Passage 1 has six sections, A–F.Which section contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A–F, in boxes 1–6 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

1 doubts about the feasibility of the project

2 the idea of moving market gardens from the outskirts to inner-city areas

3 how the system would avoid current agricultural problems

4 a previous program that was not practical for widespread use

5 sources of financial assistance to the proposal

6 a method of dealing with waste matter

artificial lighting, and solar panels to provide electricity. However, vertical farming is not without its challenges. One is light – artificial lighting uses a great deal of electricity and generates considerable heat. Another is cost, with some A$93 million per building for construction and A$5.5 million a year for operation.

E Among experts, opinions vary on whether the project can succeed. Creating conditions suitable for growth is a serious challenge, and some think the crop yield would be too low to make economic sense. ‘My biggest reservation is that the basic premise is flawed. We already know how to increase food production from existing land resources, particularly in areas with surplus land such as sub-Saharan Africa. It’s just that we do it incredibly badly at the moment,’ says Rob Brook, a rural development researcher at the University of Wales in Bangor. ‘This is a rich person’s pipe dream.’

F Yet there is strong support elsewhere. Luc Mougeout, an advocate of urban agriculture at Canada’s International Development Research Centre, says the vertical farm is not only possible, but will happen within this generation. ‘It would collect at one site a diversity of elements already at work in some form or another around the world,’ he says. Despommier has the backing of his university as well as venture capitalists from the Middle East, China and the Netherlands.

If the vertical farming vision becomes a reality, we could find ourselves once again enjoying fresh fruit and vegetables sourced from just around the corner, except these might come from the 45th floor.

Focusing on IELTS Academic Practice Tests90

Writing Test 3Writing Task 1You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The diagram below shows how electricity is generated by using hot water from underground.

Summarise the information in the diagram to explain how the system works.

Write at least 150 words.

4 Power station generates electricity

5 Electricity sent to national grid

6 Cool water pumped back down

3 Heat exchanger extracts heat to run power station

Generating electricity using geothermal energy

Starting point of cycle

1 Hot underground water

2 Hot water pumped up

Layer of hot rock

Layer of hot rock

Focusing on IELTS Academic Practice Tests118

Speaking Test 3When you listen to the recording, after you hear each question you should press ‘pause’ and answer the question before going on to the next question.

Part 1 Introduction and interview

Hello. Could you tell me your full name, please?

And can I see your passport?

Thank you. Now, in the first part of the test, I’m going to ask you some questions about yourself.

Let’s talk about where you live.

What made you choose the place where you live now?

How long have you lived there?

Would you say it’s a good area for families to live in?

Would it be a better area to live if there were fewer people than now?

Next, let’s talk about how people pay for things they buy.

How do you prefer to pay for things that you buy, in cash or by card?

When you pay cash for something, do you usually check the change that you are given?

What is the most common way of paying for things in your country?

When you go to another country, do you have problems using a different currency?

Now I’d like to talk about getting up early in the morning.

Did you like to get up early in the morning when you were a child?

What are some advantages of getting up early?

Do you feel different at the beginning of the day than at the end of the day?

What do you think is the best time to get up in the morning?

Part 2 Individual long turn

Now we come to the second part of the Speaking Test. I’m going to give you a card about a topic and I’d like you to talk about it for one to two minutes. Before you start, you can have one minute to think about what you are going to say. If you want to, you can make some notes. Do you understand? Here’s some paper and a pencil for making notes and here’s your topic.

I’d like you to describe a website you have used.

CD 3 • Track 7

S

PEAKING