Cambridge IELTS Academic 17 Reading Test 4 Answers with Explanation / IELTS Academic Reading: Bats to the rescue , Does education fuel economic growth? ,Timur Gareyev – blindfold chess champion

READING PASSAGE 1

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

Bats to the rescue

Question	Answer	Keywords	Location	Text
Q1	False	Madagascar's forests, destroyed, insects	Paragraph 1	"Madagascar’s forests are being converted to agricultural land at a rate of one percent every year... And a key reason for this destruction is that insect pests are destroying vast quantities of what is grown by local subsistence farmers, leading them to clear forest to create new paddy fields."
Q2	False	Loss of habitat, insectivorous bats, Madagascar	Paragraph 1	"In fact, some of the island’s insectivorous bats are currently thriving and this has important implications for farmers and conservationists alike."
Q3	Not Given	Ricardo Rocha, studies, bats	-	-
Q4	True	Habitat modification, indigenous bats, useful to farmers	Paragraph 3, Paragraph 4	"Bats comprise roughly one-fifth of all mammal species in Madagascar... Co-leading an international team of scientists, Rocha found that several species of indigenous bats are taking advantage of habitat modification to hunt insects swarming above the country’s rice fields."
Q5	Not Given	Malagasy mouse-eared bat, common, indigenous bats, Madagascar	-	-
Q6	True	Bats, feed, paddy swarming caterpillars, grass webworms	Paragraph 4	"We found that six species of bat are preying on rice pests, including the paddy swarming caterpillar and grass webworm."
Q7	droppings	-	Paragraph 7	"They next used DNA barcoding techniques to analyse droppings collected from bats at the different sites."
Q8	coffee	-	Paragraph 8	"The bats were consuming pests of other crops, including the black twig borer (which infests coffee plants), the sugarcane cicada, the macadamia nut-borer, and the sober tabby (a pest of citrus fruit)."
Q9	mosquitoes	-	Paragraph 10	"Rocha and his team found evidence that Malagasy bats feed not just on crop pests but also on mosquitoes – carriers of malaria, Rift Valley fever virus and elephantiasis – as well as blackflies, which spread river blindness."
Q10	protein	-	Paragraph 11	"Rocha points out that the relationship is complicated. When food is scarce, bats become a crucial source of protein for local people."
Q11	unclean	-	Paragraph 11	"And as well as roosting in trees, the bats sometimes roost in buildings, but are not welcomed there because they make them unclean."
Q12	culture	-	Paragraph 11	"At the same time, however, they are associated with sacred caves and the ancestors, so they can be viewed as beings between worlds, which makes them very significant in the culture of the people."
Q13	houses	-	Paragraph 11	"Rocha says, ‘With the right help, we hope that farmers can promote this mutually beneficial relationship by installing bat houses.’"

READING PASSAGE 2

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

Does education fuel economic growth?

Question	Answer	Keywords	Location	Text
Q14	research to focus on individuals with a fairly consistent income	need, research, individuals, consistent income	paragraph E, lines 2-5	"This involves following the lives of different people with the same level of wealth over a period of time. If wealth is constant(consistent income), it is possible to discover(to focus) whether education was, for example, linked to the cultivation of new crops, or to the adoption of industrial innovations like sewing machines."
Q15	sources the database has been compiled from	examples, sources, database	paragraph A, lines 3-6	"It includes court records, guild ledgers, parish registers, village censuses, tax lists and – the most recent addition – 9,000 handwritten inventories listing over a million personal possessions belonging to ordinary women and men across three centuries."
Q16	one individual's refusal to obey an order	account, individual, refusal, obey, order	paragraph D, lines 3-6	"The database also reveals the case of Juliana Schweickherdt, a 50-year-old spinster living in the small Black Forest community of Wildberg, reprimanded in 1752 by the local weavers’ guild for ‘weaving cloth and combing wool, counter to the guild ordinance(community regulations)."
Q17	region suited for research on the link between education and economic growth	reference, region, research, education, economic growth	paragraph F	"German-speaking central Europe" and "the relationship(=link) between education and economic growth is far from straightforward(=not easy to understand)."
Q18	items included in a list of personal possessions	examples, list, personal possessions	paragraph C, lines 2-6	"From badger skins to Bibles, sewing machines to scarlet bodices – the villagers’ entire worldly goods are included. Inventories of agricultural equipment and craft tools reveal economic activities; ownership of books and education-related objects like pens and slates suggests how people learned."
Q19	descendants	database, compiled, descendants	paragraph D	"The database that Ogilvie and her team have compiled" and "descendants – across 300 years"
Q20	sermon	Ana Regina and Magdalena Riethmiillerin, reprimanded, reading books in church	paragraph D	"Ana Regina and Magdalena Riethmiillerin, who were chastised in 1707 for reading books in church instead of listening to the sermon."
Q21	fine	Juliana Schweickherdt, guild reprimand, weaving cloth and combing wool	paragraph D	"she was summoned before the guild court and told (to pay a fine=as a punishment)."
Q22	skills	guilds, prevent, skilled people from working	paragraph D	"Cases like this illustrate how the guilds could prevent even the simplest industrial innovation, prevented people from using their skills."
Q23	B,E (B: Literacy rates in Germany between 1600 and 1900 were very good; E: Economic growth can help to improve literacy rates.)	literacy rates, Germany, good, economic growth	Section B, F	"Between 1600 and 1900, Germany and Scandinavia had excellent literacy rates" (Section B) and "even though there is plenty of evidence that growth increases education" (Section F)

Question	Answer	Keywords	Location	Text
Q25	B,D (B: Guilds were opposed to people moving to an area for work; D: Guilds opposed practices that threatened their control over a trade.)	guilds, opposed, people moving, control over trade	Section F	"In villages throughout the region, guilds blocked labour migration" (Section F) and "local guilds and merchant associations were extremely powerful and legislated against anything that undermined their monopolies" (Section F)
Q26	B,D (B: Guilds blocked labour migration; D: Guilds legislated against practices that threatened their monopolies.)	guilds, blocked, labour migration, legislated against, monopolies	Section F	"In villages throughout the region, guilds blocked labour migration" (Section F) and "local guilds and merchant associations were extremely powerful and legislated against anything that undermined their monopolies" (Section F)

READING PASSAGE 3

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

Timur Gareyev – blindfold chess champion

Question	Answer	Keywords	Location	Text
Q27	D	earlier examples, blindfold chess	Paragraph D (line 1)	"blindfold chess seems to call for superhuman skill. But displays of the feat go back centuries."
Q28	E	blindfold chess involves	Paragraph E (lines 2-4)	"The nature of the game is to run through possible moves in the mind to see how they play out. From this, regular players develop a memory for the patterns the pieces make, the defences and attacks."
Q29	F	Gareyev's skill, limited to chess	Paragraph F	"We didn't find anything other than playing chess that he seems to be supremely gifted at."
Q30	H	Gareyev's skill, interest to scientists	Paragraph B	"But Gareyev's prowess has drawn interest from beyond the chess-playing community. In the hope of understanding how he and others like him can perform such mental feats, researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) called him in for tests."
Q31	B	Gareyev's priorities	Paragraph H	"The most important part of blindfold chess for me is that I have found the one thing that I can fully dedicate myself to."
Q32	E	last part of a game, difficult	Paragraph E	"But the ends of games are taxing too, as exhaustion sets in. When Gareyev is tired, his recall can get patchy. He sometimes makes moves based on only a fragmented memory of the pieces' positions."
Q33	FALSE	forthcoming games, participants blindfolded	Paragraph A	"While his challengers will play the games as normal, Gareyev himself will be blindfolded."
Q34	NOT GIVEN	Gareyev, won competitions in BASE jumping	Paragraph A	No information provided about Gareyev winning competitions in BASE jumping.
Q35	NOT GIVEN	UCLA, first university to research blindfold chess players	Paragraph B	No information provided about UCLA being the first university to research blindfold chess players.
Q36	TRUE	Good chess players, able to play blindfold chess	Paragraph B	"The ability to play a game of chess with your eyes closed is not a far reach for most accomplished players."
Q37	Memory	-	Paragraph F (line 1)	"The researchers started by testing Gareyev's memory."
Q38	Numbers	-	Paragraph F (lines 2-3)	"For example, he was required to recall a string of numbers in order and also in reverse order."
Q39	Communication	-	Paragraph F (lines 9-10)	"Although his performance was normal, scans showed an unusual amount of communication within the areas of Gareyev's brain that are concerned with..."
Q40	Visual	-	Paragraph G (lines 3-4)	"Initial results suggest that the areas of his brain that process visual images – such as chess boards – may have stronger links to other brain regions, and so be more powerful than normal."