IELTS Reading

IELTS Academic Reading practice test

A complete Academic Reading paper in the real format: three passages that get harder, 40 questions covering the official question types, and 60 minutes if you want exam conditions. Answer on the page, then check to see your score, your estimated band and an explanation for every question.

Exam conditions: 60 minutes, no dictionary. The timer is optional. Answers are checked in your browser; nothing is saved.

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The Folding Umbrella: A Compact Idea

Umbrellas have protected people from sun and rain for thousands of years, but early examples were difficult to carry. Many had a solid central pole and a canopy held open by fixed supports. They could be large and heavy, and some were designed mainly to shade a seated person rather than to travel through a crowded street. The challenge for later inventors was not simply to make a smaller canopy. They had to create a frame that could fold without becoming weak, and a covering that could be gathered neatly around it.

By the seventeenth century, portable rain umbrellas were becoming familiar in several large cities. They were still generally long objects, often reaching close to the ground when closed. Their wooden or metal ribs spread out from a central runner, a sliding ring that moved up the pole to open the canopy. A catch held the runner in place. This arrangement made the umbrella practical, but it did not solve the problem of storage: a person carrying one still needed a long space for it. In the eighteenth century, makers experimented with lighter materials, including whalebone for ribs and oiled fabric for covers. These changes reduced weight but did little to shorten the closed umbrella.

A more important change came with the development of the telescopic shaft. Instead of being one long piece, the shaft was made from sections that slid into one another. When extended, the sections formed a pole; when pushed together, they made a much shorter bundle. Early versions appeared during the nineteenth century, though they could be unreliable. The sliding parts needed to fit closely enough to stay straight but loosely enough to move. If the gaps were too wide, the shaft wobbled; if they were too narrow, dirt or slight bending could jam it. Metal tubes offered strength, while careful shaping and polishing helped the sections travel smoothly.

The shaft alone was not enough. A truly compact umbrella also needed ribs that could fold in several places. In a common design, each main rib was joined to shorter supporting links. As the runner moved down the shaft, these links pulled the ribs inward, folding the canopy into a narrow shape. Hinges had to bend in the correct direction and stop at the right point. If they folded too easily, a gust could turn the canopy inside out; if they were too stiff, opening the umbrella required excessive force. Designers tested different joint shapes and spring strengths to balance ease of use with resistance to wind.

By the late nineteenth century, folding models were being sold, but quality varied. Some had many small parts that could loosen, and their covers were not always cut to gather evenly. In the 1920s, improved manufacturing allowed makers to produce more consistent metal tubes and joints. A folding umbrella commonly used several shaft sections and a set of hinged ribs, while its fabric was sewn into triangular panels. The panels met at the top and were attached along the ribs. This pattern spread tension across the cover, helping it keep its shape when open. A small cap protected the meeting point of the fabric, and a strap helped hold the wet canopy closed after use.

Modern folding umbrellas continue to use the same basic engineering, although materials have changed. Aluminium and strong plastics can reduce weight, while flexible fibre materials may bend in wind and return to shape. Some models open with a spring when a button is pressed; others require the user to slide the runner by hand. A folding umbrella is a compromise between compactness and strength: more joints can make it shorter when closed, but each joint adds a possible point of failure. Designers therefore consider how easily the umbrella opens, how securely it locks, and whether water can drain from the folded cover. The familiar object is the result of many small decisions about movement, materials and protection, rather than a single dramatic invention.

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Questions 1–5

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? Choose TRUE if the statement agrees with the information, FALSE if the statement contradicts the information, or NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this.

1Some early umbrellas were intended to provide shade to people who were sitting down.

2Using lighter materials in the eighteenth century made closed umbrellas much shorter.

3The first telescopic shafts were invented specifically for use in folding umbrellas.

4The connecting parts of umbrella ribs had to balance flexibility with resistance to wind.

5The triangular fabric panels used in the 1920s were attached only to the umbrella's central pole.

Questions 6–9

Complete the notes. Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

6Eighteenth-century cover material: ______ fabric

7Sliding shaft design: sections fitted inside one another made a ______ shaft

81920s canopy construction: fabric was sewn into triangular ______

9After use: a strap kept the wet canopy ______

Questions 10–13

Complete the sentences. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

10When closed, a telescopic shaft becomes a shorter ______.

11The metal tubes needed a smooth finish so their sections could move ______.

12In the rib mechanism, shorter links drew the main ribs ______ as the runner moved down.

13A small cap covered the ______ point of the canopy's fabric.

0/40 answered

Rethinking the Hospital Night Shift

[A] Hospitals have always needed staff through the night, but the traditional pattern of long, fixed shifts is increasingly being questioned. A nurse who begins work in the evening may still be responsible for patients at dawn, when concentration is often at its lowest. This matters not only for staff wellbeing: a delayed response or a missed detail can affect patient care. In response, some hospitals are redesigning night work rather than simply asking employees to become more resilient. Their experiments range from adjusting shift length to changing how teams share demanding tasks. The aim is not to eliminate night work, which hospitals cannot do, but to organise it in ways that better reflect how people sleep and function.

[B] The difficulty is partly biological. During the night, the body’s internal clock encourages sleep, while artificial light and activity can make it harder to rest during the day after a shift. Researchers at a university studying hospital employees found that staff who worked several nights in a row often reported increasing tiredness, even when their scheduled hours were similar. The researchers cautioned that this was a pattern in reported experience, not proof that every worker would respond in the same way. One occupational-health specialist adds that sleep quality depends on more than shift length: commuting time, family responsibilities and the noise or brightness of a person’s daytime environment can all interfere with recovery. A schedule that appears manageable on paper may therefore be difficult in practice.

[C] One northern city’s hospital group responded by replacing a common sequence of long nights with shorter blocks of night duty, followed by a protected period away from work. Hospital managers said the change was designed to give staff a more predictable opportunity to recover, rather than to promise that they would sleep for a particular number of hours. The new pattern was developed with employees, who identified quick returns—when a worker finishes late and must return early—as a particular source of strain. Managers also tried to avoid switching staff repeatedly between days and nights within a short period. However, shorter shifts can mean more handovers, so the group introduced a standard written summary and a brief verbal check between outgoing and incoming teams. It regarded clear transfer of information as essential to making the revised timetable safe.

[D] Researchers at a teaching hospital examined whether the timing of difficult tasks could also be changed. Their review of incident reports found that some errors were more likely during the quietest part of the night, although the reports could not establish that tiredness alone caused them. In response, ward teams began planning non-urgent checks and paperwork earlier where practical, while keeping staff available for sudden changes in patients’ conditions. A senior nurse involved in the trial warned against treating every task as movable: medication, observations and urgent calls must happen when clinically required. The redesign therefore involved prioritising work, not merely transferring it to the daytime team. Staff also used a simple checklist at the start of each shift to identify patients needing closer attention, helping the team direct its limited capacity.

[E] The results have been encouraging but not conclusive. At the teaching hospital, staff surveys after the trial showed improved ratings of alertness near the end of a shift. The hospital’s safety board also recorded fewer missed routine checks in the wards using the new planning method. Yet the board noted that the trial involved a limited number of wards and took place alongside other changes to reporting procedures. It could not confidently attribute the improvement to scheduling alone. Nor did the survey measure sleep directly; workers’ impressions may not match objective measures of rest. These qualifications do not make the findings useless, but they show why hospitals should resist presenting one local experiment as a guaranteed solution. Longer studies that compare similar wards would help separate the effects of shift design from wider changes in practice.

[F] Practical obstacles can be as significant as scientific uncertainty. A smaller hospital may not have enough employees to offer shorter shifts without increasing the number of handovers or relying on overtime. Some workers prefer longer nights because they reduce the number of journeys to work, while others value a more regular pattern even if it means attending more often. A hospital in a coastal district addressed this by offering two schedule options within the same staffing framework, then reviewing preferences every few months. A workforce adviser says such flexibility is useful only if it does not leave unpopular hours concentrated among junior staff. Fairness, adequate cover and continuity of care must be considered together; otherwise a schedule that helps one group may create new pressure for another.

[G] Experts argue that redesign should be treated as an ongoing process, not a single timetable change. Hospitals can begin by collecting staff feedback and examining when incidents or missed tasks occur, then test a limited adjustment and review its effects. Measures should include staff-reported fatigue, patient-care indicators and the quality of handovers, since no single measure captures the whole picture. Workers also need practical support for daytime recovery, such as access to a quiet rest space before travelling home, although this cannot overcome every difficulty outside the workplace. Ultimately, a safer night service depends on matching staffing patterns to clinical demands while recognising human limits. The most useful design may differ between wards, but its success rests on careful evaluation and the willingness to revise it.

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Questions 14–17

Look at the following statements. Match each statement with the correct option from the list. You may use any option more than once.

14Which group warned that the results of a local trial could not be confidently credited to scheduling by itself?

15Which group found that several consecutive nights were associated with workers reporting greater tiredness?

16Which group consulted employees while introducing shorter blocks of night duty and a protected recovery period?

17Which group investigated whether moving some work to an earlier time could affect errors?

Questions 18–19

Choose TWO letters, A–E.

18–19Which TWO benefits of the redesigned schedules or work practices are mentioned? (0/2 chosen)

Questions 20–22

Complete the table. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Changes to night-shift practice

Setting	Change	Purpose or safeguard
Northern city hospital group	Shorter blocks of night duty	Protected (20) ______
Teaching hospital wards	Plan some non-urgent tasks earlier	Keep urgent care available
Coastal district hospital	Offer two schedule options	Review preferences every (21) ______
All hospitals considering redesign	Test and evaluate adjustments	Examine staff and patient-care (22) ______

20Northern city hospital group | Purpose or safeguard: Protected ______

21Coastal district hospital | Purpose or safeguard: Review preferences every ______

22All hospitals considering redesign | Purpose or safeguard: Examine staff and patient-care ______

Questions 23–26

Complete the summary using the list of words below. There are more words than gaps.

23Biological rhythms and daytime conditions can both reduce the quality of staff ______.

24Hospitals can improve the ______ of tasks, while retaining work that must occur at a clinically required time.

25Because trials have limitations, hospitals need stronger ______ before claiming that a particular change caused safer care.

26Any locally adapted roster must balance staff needs with ______ of care for patients.

0/40 answered

The Paradox of Choice

Choice is commonly treated as an unqualified good. To be able to select among alternatives seems to express both freedom and responsiveness: institutions can offer what people want, rather than imposing a single solution. Yet this intuition sits uneasily beside a familiar experience. A person faced with a crowded menu, a large range of investments or dozens of nearly identical products may feel less, not more, content. The apparent paradox has prompted two broad interpretations. One holds that abundance itself undermines satisfaction; the other argues that choice is beneficial, but that its costs depend on how alternatives are arranged and on what people expect of themselves. The distinction matters, since the first interpretation recommends limiting options, whereas the second calls for improving the conditions under which decisions are made.

The case for the first view draws on a straightforward psychological mechanism. As alternatives multiply, comparing them demands more attention, and the decision-maker must consider not only the chosen option but also the attractive features of those rejected. A selection can therefore generate regret even when it is objectively good: the unchosen alternative remains an imagined possibility, and its unknown advantages are difficult to dismiss. Moreover, people may attribute a disappointing outcome to their own judgement when they believe they had ample opportunity to choose well. On this account, an expanded menu raises both the effort of deciding and the personal responsibility attached to the result. Satisfaction may fall not because the selected item is worse, but because the chooser can more readily imagine having selected something better.

This argument is persuasive, but it can be overstated. Studies in which participants choose from extensive assortments have sometimes found lower rates of decision-making or weaker satisfaction than studies offering a modest set. Such findings appear to support a simple threshold beyond which choice becomes burdensome. However, the experiments vary in what counts as a meaningful alternative, how familiar participants are with the products and whether the decision has real consequences. A long list of similar jams, for instance, is not psychologically equivalent to a range of distinct educational paths. Nor does failure to make a selection necessarily indicate dissatisfaction: delay may reflect uncertainty, indifference or a preference to postpone a low-priority task. The evidence supports the possibility of overload, not a universal numerical limit.

A more useful account distinguishes the size of a choice set from its structure. If options differ along dimensions that are hard to compare, each additional alternative can introduce new trade-offs; if they are organised by a feature relevant to the chooser, a larger set may instead make a suitable option easier to find. Familiarity also matters. An experienced buyer may rapidly exclude irrelevant products, whereas a novice must first work out which features deserve attention. In this sense, the burden of choice is not simply a property of the menu. It emerges from an interaction between the menu and the decision-maker’s knowledge, goals and available time. A design that reduces the number of visible options may help some users, but could conceal precisely the alternative another user needs.

Expectations further complicate the relationship between choice and satisfaction. People who believe that a perfect option ought to exist may search more extensively and judge their eventual selection against an unrealistically exact standard. When the outcome is merely acceptable, they can interpret the gap between reality and possibility as a personal failure. By contrast, someone who regards decisions as compromises may stop searching once an option meets a reasonable requirement. This does not mean that expectations alone explain dissatisfaction, or that individuals can simply choose to feel content. Expectations are shaped by the language of markets and institutions, which often present customisation as a promise that every preference can be fulfilled. More choice can thus raise the standard against which choice is evaluated.

It would nevertheless be a mistake to infer that fewer options generally make people happier. Restricting alternatives can remove opportunities that matter, especially when people have unusual needs or when the available choices distribute benefits unevenly. There is also a difference between reducing complexity and reducing agency. Clear categories, informative comparisons and the ability to set priorities can lower the mental work involved without narrowing the actual range. Conversely, a supposedly helpful default may steer people towards an outcome that serves the provider more than the chooser. The relevant ethical question is therefore not merely how many options are offered, but who decides which distinctions count and whether people can reach alternatives outside the simplified display.

The paradox is best understood, then, not as evidence that freedom is intrinsically exhausting, but as a warning against treating the number of options as a sufficient measure of freedom. An abundant set can expand opportunity while also increasing comparison, responsibility and the risk of regret; which effect dominates depends on the decision, its presentation and the chooser’s aims. Institutions should not assume that adding alternatives automatically improves experience, nor should they regard withdrawal of alternatives as a cure. A more defensible aim is to make choices intelligible, to help people identify what matters to them and to allow them to stop searching without implying that a better life was always one more option away. Satisfaction may depend less on possessing the largest possible menu than on being able to make a choice whose limits are understood.

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Questions 27–30

Do the following statements agree with the views or claims of the writer? Choose YES if the statement agrees with the views of the writer, NO if the statement contradicts them, or NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this.

27The writer argues that simply increasing the number of alternatives will reliably improve people’s experience.

28According to the writer, whether a large choice set is difficult depends partly on how well it fits the decision-maker’s knowledge and aims.

29The writer maintains that research has identified one fixed number of alternatives above which people become dissatisfied.

30The writer claims that people are more satisfied when they make decisions in the morning than in the evening.

Questions 31–33

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

31Why does the writer discuss the varying results of experiments on extensive assortments?

32What does the writer imply about a chooser who continues searching for a perfect option?

33What is the writer’s main purpose in the final paragraph?

Questions 34–36

Complete each sentence with the correct ending from the list below. There are more endings than sentences.

List of endings

Aproves that there is a fixed number of options beyond which choice fails.

Braises both the effort of deciding and the chooser’s sense of responsibility for the result.

Cmakes every available option objectively worse.

Dsteers people towards an outcome that serves the provider more than the chooser.

Eis organised by a feature that is relevant to the chooser.

34According to the first interpretation, a larger set of options can reduce satisfaction because it

35The writer says a larger choice set may make a suitable option easier to find if it

36The writer suggests that a default setting is ethically questionable when it

Questions 37–40

Complete the summary. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

37In the writer’s account, the strain caused by abundant options is not determined by quantity alone. It depends partly on how options are structured and on a decision-maker’s ______, goals and available time.

38Expectations may also affect satisfaction. A person seeking a perfect option may compare a real selection with an exact ______ and interpret any shortfall as personal failure.

39Reducing complexity need not mean reducing ______: useful categories and comparisons can make a broad range easier to navigate.

40The writer’s preferred goal is to make decisions intelligible and help people identify their ______, rather than simply expanding or shrinking the menu.

0/40 answered

Test hacks

Skim first sentences first

Spend about two minutes reading the title and the first sentence of each paragraph before the questions.

Why it works: First sentences usually state the paragraph's main idea, which is exactly what heading-matching questions test.

False vs Not Given

False means the passage says the opposite. Not Given means the passage doesn't say either way. Don't use your own knowledge.

Why it works: Confusing False and Not Given is an easy trap: choosing False when the passage simply says nothing about the point.

Answers usually follow passage order

For most question types (True/False/Not Given, gap-fill, multiple choice) the answers appear in the same order as the passage.

Why it works: Once you find answer 3, answer 4 is almost always after it. You'll search a much smaller area.

Question type guides

True, False, Not Given questions

Yes, No, Not Given questions

Matching headings questions

Matching information questions

Matching features questions

Matching sentence endings

Reading multiple choice questions

Sentence completion questions

Summary completion questions

Note, table and flow-chart completion

Diagram label completion

Short-answer questions

Skimming and scanning

Practise with feedback on every answer

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