ielts_trainer_2_academic_six_practice_tests

22 C: ‘Eventually, the biofuel industry could well
develop into a very diverse one [= the industry will
develop in a variety of ways], with no one crop or
process dominating the market, according to Green.
“The amount of fuel we need to move away from
petroleum is massive, so there’s plenty of space
for all technologies [= we need lots of different
technologies/processes],” he says.’
23 B: We are told that Burton thinks the smart
way forward is to select ‘the right crop for land
not usually used for agriculture’. She wants to
experiment with ‘tough plants that grow on land
too dry or salty [= tough environmental conditions]
for conventional crops’.
24 corn: The writer says that ‘. . . farmers in the US
opted out of soy [= they decided not to plant soy
anymore] in favour of corn [= they decided to plant
corn instead] as a biofuel crop’. She then explains
that soy prices increased, so Brazilian farmers
planted soy – which required land to be deforested.
25 Biodiversity: ‘But while deforestation [= when
forests are cleared] can certainly lead to economic
benefit for farmers, it also puts biodiversity at risk
[= biodiversity is threatened].’
26 fertiliser: ‘Then, once a biofuel crop has been
planted on deforested land, farmers need to
ensure that it [= their crop] grows as well as it can.
That means applying [= using] large quantities of
fertiliser, and while this helps the plants to shoot
up, there is also the possibility it will lead to the
contamination [= the pollution] of local rivers.’
READing PASSAge 3
Questions 27–40
27 YES: We are told that ‘Built around 3,500 years ago
entirely from earth, it [= the monument] consists of
six semi-circular ridges and five mounds.’
28 NOT giVEN: The first paragraph tells us that ‘a
remarkable monument’ was built at Poverty
Point in the US and describes its appearance: ‘six
semi-circular ridges and five mounds’. However,
no information is provided that tells us whether
similar monuments were built elsewhere in the US,
and so we cannot know whether the Poverty Point
monument was the first of its kind.
29 NO: The writer says that ‘They [= the huntergatherer
groups living at Poverty Point] may have
looked to elders [= older members] for guidance,
but these [= the elders] would not have exerted a
commanding influence [= not had great power] over
their small groups.’
30 NOT giVEN: We are only told that ‘Archaeologists
have been excavating Poverty Point for more than
a century.’ This doesn’t contain any information
about whether their excavations included Mound A
or not. The sentence ‘However, the truly remarkable
nature of Mound A only emerged a few years
ago’ refers to Tristram Kidder’s discovery of the
coloured earth inside the mound. Perhaps other
archaeologists had done other kinds of excavation
work on this mound – but from the information the
writer provides, we can’t be sure.
31 YES: The writer explains that ‘They [= Kidder and
his team] saw for the first time [= they revealed
something that was previously unknown] that it
consisted of neat layers of differently coloured
earth.’
32 YES: The writer tells us that ‘It rains a lot around
Poverty Point, and we know that fluctuations
[= changes] in temperature and increased flooding
eventually led to its abandonment [= people
moving away from Poverty Point].’
33 B: In the third paragraph, the writer tells us that an
enormous quantity of earth was needed to build
Mound A – that it would take 32,000 truckloads if
the same mound was built today. She mentions the
lack of machinery to support the point that a huge
number of people (approximately 3,000) would
have been required to build a mound of this size.
Distraction A We can assume that the builders had
some knowledge of how to build a mound in layers,
but we are only told that they used baskets to carry
the earth. The writer doesn’t mention anything
about technical or special engineering methods;
C We can assume that moving earth from other
locations to Poverty Point was a challenge, but the
writer does not specifically say that they chose the
wrong place to build their monument; D Kidder
estimates that it would have taken 30–90 days to
build the mound. While this is remarkable, the
writer does not suggest she thinks it is impossible.
Her only question is ‘Why would people choose to
do this?’
34 C: In the fourth paragraph, we are told that through
statue making, the groups living on Easter Island
had ‘peaceful interactions’ and that they shared
information. Because of this, ‘daily existence
became less of a challenge’ and they no longer
needed to work together.
Distraction A The writer explains that the ‘prevailing
idea’ [= the most common and accepted belief]
was that the Easter Islanders had used logs [= trees
which had been cut down] to transport their statues.
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