The tuatara—past and future | ielts reading passage | 2 August ielts exam | 2 august ielts reading passage | 2 August ielts exam prediction | 2 August ielts reading prediction

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READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on pages 9 and 10.

The tuatara—past and future

The New Zealand species of lizard, the tuatara, is firmly embedded in the national psyche: an icon for today which dates from the age of dinosaurs; an ancient reptile commemorated on the back of the five cent coin. New Zealanders feel an affinity with the tuatara, and accept that active conservation management is required to ensure it will be among the legacies left to future generations.

When European explorers reached New Zealand in 1769 they found two large islands, which together they called the 'mainland', and many tiny offshore islands around the coast. The naturalists who came with the explorers disregarded the tuatara, though it is improbable none were seen. Only several decades later did a tuatara specimen reach the British Museum, where it was eventually classified as just another type of lizard. One of the first scientists who realized that aspects of tuatara anatomy were odd—unchanged for tens of thousands of years—was Albert Gunther in 1876. Gunther believed the tuatara was one of the most valuable objects in zoological anatomical collections, and also noted, in passing, the reptile was likely to become extinct. From today's perspective, it is striking that Gunther expressed no concern about the probable demise of the tuatara. He and his contemporaries were products of their age, strongly influenced by Charles Darwin's theory, which had only recently been published. Their views were something like this: Extinction is a natural process. It is sad that species disappear, but that is part of nature.

There is a second important aspect of Gunther's work. He recorded, correctly, that some of the mammals introduced by Europeans were predators of the tuatara—particularly rats. But what he did not realise was that New Zealand has two species of rat, both introduced, both with an appetite for tuatara: the ship's rat came with European explorers and settlers, but the kiore rat had already been in the country for hundreds of years, brought by Polynesians from the Pacific Islands. Gunther failed to recognise the distinction, believing all rats to be a relatively recent introduction.

Little further research was conducted until Ian Crook of the NZ Wildlife Service published his findings in 1973, which can be summarised as follows. Tuatara thrive on offshore islands with no rats. Tuatara never survived on islands with ship's rats. On a few islands, small and declining populations of tuatara occur with the kiore. This should not be seen, however, as evidence that tuatara and kiore can coexist. Rather, Crook proposed, kiore probably only arrived recently on such islands, and thus the small populations represent extinctions in progress.

Throughout the 1990s, Richard Holdaway and his colleagues at Victoria University in Wellington documented the surprising discovery that kiore probably arrived about 1800 years ago, although the human population of New Zealand is thought to be no older than 800 years. How is this possible? Presumably, Holdaway argued, the kiore were brought by Polynesian explorers who visited the country but did not settle. Thereafter, the rats were agents of ecological warfare, exterminating perhaps 1000-3000 species. Thus, tuatara and many other species were already rare or extinct when permanent human inhabitants—the Maori—arrived around 1300. This hypothesis is still being debated, but the evidence continues to accumulate in its favour Conservation practice has changed dramatically since Crook's findings were published in 1973. Eradication of rats from any given environment was believed to be virtually impossible until about 1980, but since then has become routine. Enormous conservation benefits are accruing as newly rat-free offshore islands are providing sanctuaries for the country's rarest species. In 1995, for example, Nicola Nelson of the Department of Conservation established 68 tuatara on Ti Island. Since then, four more populations of tuatara have been established elsewhere under similar conditions. Today, numbers of tuatara are still a fraction of what they once were, but for the first time in 1800 years the decline has been reversed.

While the recovery of rare species is itself a good thing, the truly significant outcome of this research is that it liberates the imagination. If we can remove predatory introduced mammals from islands, why not from the mainland too? Perhaps the questions we ask should demonstrate even more visionary ambition. Can non-mammalian pests also be removed from the mainland? Our rivers, for example, are full of surrogate rats, in the form of introduced species of fish called trout. Some day more people will understand that trout have replaced a whole native fauna in our waterways, just as rats replaced tuatara on the mainland. Will such knowledge lead to the creation of mainland aquatic islands where we can once again establish those species of indigenous fish that used to live in our rivers? Similarly, can bellbirds and tuis replace birds like starlings and mynahs?

The answers to such questions are uncertain, and opposing sides will doubtless be fiercely debated. But the role of scientific knowledge in illuminating the past will be crucial. Just as we now no longer tolerate extinction, in the future we may no longer accept a mainland devoid of the biological wonders of our past such as tuatara. Conservation is thus not primarily about the past but about imagining and then creating the future we wish for our children and ourselves. For 80 million years until humans arrived, tuatara occurred throughout New Zealand—might they do so again?

Questions 27-31

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

1. What are we told about the Europeans who arrived in 1769?
   A. They thought there was only one large island.
   B. They had not come to study natural history.
   C. They had no interest in the tuatara.
   D. They sent a tuatara to the British Museum.
2. What does the writer say about Albert Gunther in paragraph 3?
   A. He believed the tuatara could fetch a high price.
   B. He was typical of his generation of scientists.
   C. He disagreed with Charles Darwin's theory.
   D. He wanted to stop the tuatara becoming extinct.
3. What did Albert Gunther think about the rats in New Zealand?
   A. They did not eat the tuatara.
   B. There was one species of rat.
   C. There had always been rats in New Zealand.
   D. They were killed by Polynesians.
4. What did Ian Crook conclude from his research?
   A. Tuatara are safe on small islands.
   B. Ship's rats kill more tuatara than kiore.
   C. Kiore cannot swim to offshore islands.
   D. Rats and tuatara cannot live together.
5. What were the findings of Richard Holdaway's research?
   A. Maori settled more recently than previously thought.
   B. The first Polynesian explorers formed permanent settlements.
   C. Ship's rats are the oldest rat species in the country.
   D. Rats caused extinctions before any humans settled.

Questions 32-35

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet, write:

• YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer
• 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. The available research supports Holdaway's theory but it has not been proved.
2. Nowadays, it is possible to totally destroy a population of rats on a small island.
3. Crook was the first person to recognize the potential of offshore islands as sanctuaries.
4. Tuatara numbers are continuing to fall.

Questions 36-40

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-H, below.
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet.

What conclusions can we draw?
The most important result of the tuatara research is that it frees our 36. ______. Should we now go further and consider reintroducing 37. ______ to our mainland rivers? For example, there are many similarities between rats and 38. ______. Perhaps our children will come to believe in the 39. ______ of species, in the same way that our generation refuses to accept 40. ______.

List of words:
A. natural evolution
B. imagination
C. indigenous plants
D. trout
E. pollution
F. possibility
G. native fish
H. extinction

 

Questions 27–31:
27. C
28. B
29. B
30. D
31. D

Questions 32–35:
32. YES
33. YES
34. NOT GIVEN
35. NO PASSWORD: CHECKIELTSONESTOPCBT

Questions 36–40:
36. B
37. G
38. D
39. F
40. H

Music: Language We All Speak | Real exam ielts reading 2025 | Actual exam ielts reading passages |

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SECTION 3

READING PASSAGE 3

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

Music: Language We All Speak

Section A:

Music is one of the human species’s relatively few universal abilities. Without formal training, any individual, from Stone Age tribesman to suburban teenager has the ability to recognize music and, in some fashion, to make it. Why this should be so is a mystery. After all, music isn’t necessary for getting through the day, and if it aids in reproduction, it does so only in highly indirect ways. Language, by contrast, is also everywhere-but for reasons that are more obvious. With language, you and the members of your tribe can organize a migration across Africa, build reed boats and cross the seas, and communicate at night even when you can’t see each other. Modern culture, in all its technological extravagance, springs directly from the human talent for manipulating symbols and syntax. Scientists have always been intrigued by the connection between music and language. Yet over the years, words and melody have acquired a vastly different status in the lab and the seminar room. While language has long been considered essential to unlocking the mechanisms of human intelligence, music is generally treated as an evolutionary frippery – mere “auditory cheesecake,” as the Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker puts it.

Section B:

But thanks to a decade-long ware of neuroscience research, that tune is changing. A flurry of recent publications suggests that language and music may equally be able to tell us who we are and where we’re from – not just emotionally, but biologically. In July, the journal Nature Neuroscience devoted a special issue to the topic. And in an article in the August 6 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, David Schwartz, Catherine Howe, and Dale Purves of Duke University argued that the sounds of music and the sounds of language are intricately connected.

To grasp the originality of this idea, it’s necessary to realize two things about how music has traditionally been understood. First, musicologists have long emphasized that while each culture stamps a special identity onto its music; music itself has some universal qualities. For example, in virtually all cultures sound is divided into some or all of the 12 intervals that make up the chromatic scale – that is, the scale represented by the keys on a piano. For centuries, observers have attributed this preference for certain combinations of tones to the mathematical properties of sound itself. Some 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras was the first to note a direct relationship between the harmoniousness of a tone combination and the physical dimensions of the object that produced it. For example, a plucked string will always play an octave lower than a similar string half its size, and a fifth lower than a similar string two-thirds its length. This link between simple ratios and harmony has influenced music theory ever since.

Section C:

This music-is-moth idea often accompanied by the notion that music formally speaking at least, exists apart from the world in which it was created. Writing recently in The New York Review of Books, pianist and critic Charles Rosen discussed the long-standing notion that while painting and sculpture reproduce at least some aspects of the natural world, and writing describes thoughts and feelings we are all familiar with, music is entirely abstracted from the world in which we live. Neither idea is right, according to David Schwartz and his colleagues. Human musical preferences are fundamentally shaped not by elegant algorithms or ration but by the messy sounds of real life, and of speech in particular – which in turn is shaped by our evolutionary heritage. “The explanation of music, like the explanation of any product of the mind, must be rooted in biology, not in numbers per se,” says Schwartz.

Schwartz, Howe, and Purves analyzed a vast selection of speech sounds from a variety of languages to reveal the underlying patterns common to all utterances. In order to focus only on the raw sound, they discarded all theories about speech and meaning and sliced sentences into random bites. Using a database of over 100,000 brief segments of speech, they noted which frequency had the greatest emphasis in each sound. The resulting set of frequencies, they discovered, corresponded closely to the chromatic scale. In short, the building blocks of music are to be found in speech.

Far from being abstract, music presents a strange analog to the patterns created by the sounds of speech. “Music, like the visual arts, is rooted in our experience of the natural world,” says Schwartz. “It emulates our sound environment in the way that visual arts emulate the visual environment.” In music we hear the echo of our basic sound-making instrument – the vocal tract. The explanation for human music is simple; still than Pythagoras’s mathematical equations. We like the sounds that are familiar to us-specifically, we like sounds that remind us of us. This brings up some chicken-or-egg evolutionary questions. It may be that music imitates speech directly, the researchers say, in which case it would seem that language evolved first. It’s also conceivable that music came first and language is in effect an Imitation of song – that in everyday speech we hit the musical notes we especially like. Alternately, it may be that music imitates the general products of the human sound-making system, which just happens to be mostly speech. “We can’t know this,” says Schwartz. “What we do know is that they both come from the same system, and it is this that shapes our preferences.”

Section D:

Schwartz’s study also casts light on the long-running question of whether animals understand or appreciate music. Despite the apparent abundance of “music” in the natural world- birdsong, whalesong, wolf howls, synchronized chimpanzee hooting previous studies have found that many laboratory animals don’t show a great affinity for the human variety of music making. Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott of Harvard argued in the July issue of Nature Neuroscience that animals don’t create or perceive music the way we do. The act that laboratory monkeys can show recognition of human tunes is evidence, they say, of shared general features of the auditory system, not any specific chimpanzee musical ability. As for birds, those most musical beasts, they generally recognize their own tunes – a narrow repertoire – but don’t generate novel melodies like we do. There are no avian Mozarts.

But what’s been played to the animals, Schwartz notes, is human music. If animals evolve preferences for sound as we do – based upon the soundscape in which they live – then their “music” would be fundamentally different from ours. In the same way our scales derive from human utterances, a cat’s idea of a good tune would derive from yowls and meows. To demonstrate that animals don’t appreciate sounds the way we do, we’d need evidence that they don’t respond to “music” constructed from their own sound environment.

Section E:

No matter how the connection between language and music is parsed, what is apparent is that our sense of music, even our love for it, is as deeply rooted in our biology and in our brains as language is. This is most obvious with babies, says Sandra Trehub at the University of Toronto, who also published a paper in the Nature Neuroscience special issue.

For babies, music and speech are on a continuum. Mothers use musical speech to “regulate infants’ emotional states.” Trehub says. Regardless of what language they speak, the voice all mothers use with babies is the same: “something between speech and song.” This kind of communication “puts the baby in a trance-like state, which may proceed to sleep or extended periods of rapture.” So if the babies of the world could understand the latest research on language and music, they probably wouldn’t be very surprised. The upshot, says Trehub, is that music may be even more of a necessity than we realize.

Questions 27-31

Reading Passage 3 has five paragraphs A-E

Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.

Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 27-31 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i Animal sometimes make music.

ii Recent research on music

iii Culture embedded in music

iv Historical theories review

v Communication in music with animals

vi Contrast between music and language

vii Questions on a biological link with human and music

viii Music is good for babies.

27 Paragraph A

28 Paragraph B

29 Paragraph C

30 Paragraph D

31 Paragraph E

Questions 32-38

Look at the following people and list of statements below.

Match each person with the correct statement.

Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 32-38 on your answer sheet.

List of Statements

A Music exists outside of the world in which it is created

B Music has a common feature though cultural influences affect

C Humans need music.

D Music priority connects to the disordered sound around.

E Discovery of mathematical musical foundation.

F Music is not treated equally well compared with language

G Humans and monkeys have similar traits in perceiving sound.

32 Steven Pinker

33 Musicologists

34 Greek philosopher Pythagoras

35 Schwartz, Howe, and Purves

36 Marc Hauser and Josh McDermott

37 Charles Rosen

38 Sandra Trehub

Questions 39-40

Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D

Write your answers in boxes 39-40 on your answer sheet.

39 Why was the study of animal’s music uncertain?

A Animals don’t have the same auditory system as humans.

B Experiments on animal’s music are limited.

C tunes are impossible for animal to make up.

D Animals don’t have spontaneous ability for the tests.

40 what is the main subject of this passage?

A Language and psychology.

B Music formation.

C Role of music in human society.

D Music experiments for animals.

ANSWER

27. vi

28. iv

29. ii

30. v

31. vii

32. F

33. B

34. E

35. D

36. G

37. A

38. C

39. B

40. C

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The graph below shows the percentage of the Australian workforce in five industries between 1962 and 2012. | Real exam ielts writing task 1 |

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📌 Task 1 Question

The graph below shows the percentage of the Australian workforce in five industries between 1962 and 2012.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

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✅ Sample Answer (Band 8–9 Level)

Introduction:
The line graph illustrates the proportion of the Australian workforce employed in five different industries — services, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and mining — over a 50-year period from 1962 to 2012.

Overview:
Overall, the services sector witnessed a consistent rise and emerged as the dominant employer by the end of the period, whereas the manufacturing and agriculture sectors experienced notable declines. The shares of construction and mining remained relatively stable throughout the timeline.

Body Paragraph 1:
In 1962, the service industry accounted for around 38% of the workforce and showed a steady upward trend, reaching nearly 61% by 2012. This consistent rise indicates a shift in the Australian economy towards a more service-based structure. Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector, which employed about 28% in 1962, declined progressively over the years to approximately 9% in 2012. Similarly, agriculture, which represented just over 25% at the beginning, followed a sharp downward trend and fell below 10% by the end of the period.

Body Paragraph 2:
In contrast, construction fluctuated slightly throughout the five decades. Starting at around 10%, it peaked slightly above this figure in 1992 before falling back to its original level by 2012. Mining had the smallest share of employment among all sectors. It began at around 2%, remained mostly unchanged, and experienced only minor fluctuations before ending the period just above its starting point.

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💡 Vocabulary & Lexical Resources Used

Advanced Vocabulary / Phrase	Meaning / Use in Context
illustrates	Describes what the graph shows (synonyms: shows, depicts, presents)
proportion / percentage / share	Used to vary vocabulary for numbers
employed in / employed by	Suitable collocations for workforce sectors
over a 50-year period / across the timeline	Highlights the full time span (1962–2012)
witnessed a consistent rise / steady upward trend	Formal ways to describe continuous increase
dominant employer / emerged as the leading sector	Used to show the sector with highest workforce share
in contrast / meanwhile / whereas / similarly	Useful for comparing sectors
experienced significant declines / sharp downward trend	Strong expressions for major reductions
remained relatively stable / fluctuated slightly	Good for sectors with little or small variation
peaked at / fell below / dropped to	Useful expressions for high or low points in data
minor fluctuations / marginal recovery	Describes small changes in data

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Online shopping has various advantages for consumers but may also have disadvantages, such as the loss of individual privacy. Do the advantages of online shopping for consumers outweigh the disadvantages? | Real exam ielts writing task 2

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🧾 Task 2 Question

Online shopping has various advantages for consumers but may also have disadvantages, such as the loss of individual privacy.
Do the advantages of online shopping for consumers outweigh the disadvantages?

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✍️ Sample Answer 

Online shopping has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its speed and convenience. Although some people worry about issues like loss of privacy, I believe the benefits for consumers clearly outweigh the drawbacks, especially when it comes to time-saving and accessibility.

One of the main advantages of online shopping is the ease it provides. Consumers can order almost anything from the comfort of their homes at any time of the day. This is especially helpful for people with busy work schedules or those living in remote areas. Moreover, online platforms offer a wide range of products and allow users to compare prices and reviews before purchasing, making it easier to make smart decisions and find better deals.

On the other hand, privacy concerns are often mentioned as a major downside. E-commerce websites often track browsing history and collect user data for marketing purposes. In some cases, this data may be shared or even leaked, which can lead to a loss of personal security. However, most websites now offer privacy controls and secure payment systems, reducing the level of risk. Additionally, many users accept these minor risks because the benefits—like convenience, discounts, and home delivery—are much more appealing.

In conclusion, while there are some valid concerns about personal privacy in the online shopping world, the advantages it offers—such as flexibility, product variety, and time efficiency—are far more significant. Therefore, for most consumers, the benefits of online shopping definitely outweigh the disadvantages.

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📚 Lexical Resource / Vocabulary

Word / Phrase	Explanation
Time-saving	Helps save time
Accessibility	Easy to reach or use
Compare prices and reviews	Check multiple options before buying
E-commerce	Electronic commerce, online buying/selling
Privacy concerns	Worries about data and personal info
Secure payment systems	Safe methods of paying online
Personal security	Safety of one’s personal data
Accept the risks	Be okay with potential problems

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Some people think that dangerous sports should be banned while others believe that people should be free to choose. Discuss both views and give your opinion. | Real exam ielts writing task 2 | Computer based test |

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✍️ Task 2 Question

Some people think that dangerous sports should be banned while others believe that people should be free to choose. Discuss both views and give your opinion.

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📄 Sample Answer 

In recent years, extreme and risky sports such as skydiving, bungee jumping, and rock climbing have gained significant popularity. While some individuals argue that such activities should be prohibited due to the dangers involved, others believe that everyone should have the freedom to choose their recreational pursuits. In this essay, I will discuss both sides before stating my own opinion.

On the one hand, opponents of dangerous sports believe that these activities pose a serious risk to participants and often put unnecessary strain on emergency services. Accidents in extreme sports can lead to life-threatening injuries or even death, especially when safety measures are ignored. Moreover, rescuing injured individuals from remote or risky locations can consume a large amount of public resources and manpower, which could otherwise be used for genuine emergencies. From this perspective, banning such sports may appear to be a logical solution to safeguard lives and reduce public burden.

On the other hand, supporters of individual freedom argue that every person has the right to choose how they live their lives, even if it involves an element of risk. Many people find these sports to be thrilling, fulfilling, and a way to push their physical and mental limits. As long as individuals are aware of the risks and proper safety protocols are followed, it is unfair for governments to restrict personal freedom. Furthermore, banning these sports could hurt tourism industries in places where adventure sports are a major attraction.

In my opinion, while safety is important, outright banning of dangerous sports would be an overreaction. Instead, governments and sport organizers should ensure strict regulations and safety standards are in place. This way, people can enjoy these activities responsibly without compromising their safety or the well-being of others.

To conclude, although dangerous sports come with considerable risks, personal freedom and responsibility should be respected. Rather than banning such sports, enforcing proper safety guidelines is a more balanced and effective approach.

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🧠 Lexical Resources & High-Level Vocabulary

Vocabulary / Phrase	Explanation / Use
Recreational pursuits	Activities done for enjoyment in one’s free time
Put unnecessary strain on emergency services	Increases pressure on healthcare and rescue teams
Life-threatening injuries	Very serious injuries that could lead to death
Public burden	Strain or responsibility placed on public services or taxpayers
Element of risk	Refers to the inherent danger involved
Push their physical and mental limits	Challenge oneself in terms of endurance and courage
Outright banning	Completely forbidding something
Enforcing proper safety guidelines	Making sure rules and safety protocols are followed
Balanced and effective approach	A reasonable and successful way to address both sides

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