Đề thi thử IELTS Academic số 3: IELTS Academic Mock Test 3

Listening (30 phút)

Part 1

Questions 1-10. Complete the form below. Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

1. Eastgate Tool Library: membership form. Name: Martin ____
2. Address: Flat 3, 18 ____ Road
3. Type of membership: ____
4. Fee (resident's rate): £____
5. First item to borrow: a ____
6. Collection day: ____
7. Deposit for large items: £____
8. Bring: bank card and proof of ____
9. Safety induction is held in the ____
10. Heard about the library from: a ____

Part 2

Questions 11-15: choose the correct answer. Questions 16-20: what does the speaker say about each street? Choose the correct letter, A-F.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

1. Why was the Street Tree Guardians scheme started?
   • The council had reduced its spending on trees.
   • Residents complained about leaves on the pavement.
   • Many young trees died in their first summer.
2. How many trees have been adopted so far?
   • about one thousand
   • more than twelve hundred
   • two thousand
3. What does the speaker say about watering?
   • A large amount once a week is better than a little every day.
   • Trees should only be watered in the evening.
   • Water should be poured close to the trunk.
4. Guardians are asked not to
   • remove weeds around the tree.
   • spread mulch over the soil.
   • attach things to the trunk.
5. What is the main purpose of the app?
   • to report damage to trees
   • to record each watering
   • to contact other guardians
6. Harbour Lane
   • The trees need extra water because of reflected heat.
   • A group of children looks after the trees.
   • The trees are a species not found elsewhere in the city.
   • Several trees will be replaced next year.
   • Guardians share equipment that they bought together.
   • Trees have been damaged by vehicles.
7. Mill Street
   • The trees need extra water because of reflected heat.
   • A group of children looks after the trees.
   • The trees are a species not found elsewhere in the city.
   • Several trees will be replaced next year.
   • Guardians share equipment that they bought together.
   • Trees have been damaged by vehicles.
8. Oakfield Avenue
   • The trees need extra water because of reflected heat.
   • A group of children looks after the trees.
   • The trees are a species not found elsewhere in the city.
   • Several trees will be replaced next year.
   • Guardians share equipment that they bought together.
   • Trees have been damaged by vehicles.
9. Station Road
   • The trees need extra water because of reflected heat.
   • A group of children looks after the trees.
   • The trees are a species not found elsewhere in the city.
   • Several trees will be replaced next year.
   • Guardians share equipment that they bought together.
   • Trees have been damaged by vehicles.
10. Kingsway
    • The trees need extra water because of reflected heat.
    • A group of children looks after the trees.
    • The trees are a species not found elsewhere in the city.
    • Several trees will be replaced next year.
    • Guardians share equipment that they bought together.
    • Trees have been damaged by vehicles.

Part 3

Questions 21-25: choose the correct answer. Questions 26-30: complete the sentences. Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

1. Why did the students choose this topic?
   • Their tutor recommended it.
   • A café manager asked them to do it.
   • They wanted a project with a practical outcome.
2. What caused the problem with the first batch?
   • The room was too cold.
   • The coffee grounds were too wet.
   • The bags were left open.
3. What does Dr Shaw say about the harvest figure?
   • It should be given per kilogram of grounds.
   • It seems unusually high.
   • It should be compared with published studies.
4. What surprised Kofi most?
   • how little waste one café produces
   • the effect of adding cardboard
   • how quickly the spawn arrived
5. What will the students change in the next stage?
   • the supplier of the spawn
   • the temperature of the room
   • the size of the bags
6. Coffee grounds must be used within ____ hours of collection.
7. The ____ department will lend the students a laboratory balance.
8. Dr Shaw wants the report to include a section on ____.
9. The used material will go to the campus ____ to be made into compost.
10. The students will present their work at the department ____ in March.

Part 4

Questions 31-40. Complete the notes below. Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

1. Before the railways: each town set its clocks by the position of the ____.
2. A town in the west could be several ____ behind a town in the east.
3. Different local times made railway ____ confusing and trains less safe.
4. Time signals were sent to station clocks by ____.
5. Some public clocks had two minute ____.
6. Many critics saw the issue as one of local ____.
7. In 1883 the United States was divided into ____ main time zones.
8. In 1884 delegates agreed on a ____ meridian through Greenwich.
9. Today the most accurate time comes from ____ clocks.
10. Financial ____ record trades to millionths of a second.

Reading (60 phút)

Passage 1

Read the passage, then answer Questions 1-13. Questions 1-7: do the statements agree with the information in the passage? Choose TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN. Questions 8-13: complete the notes. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

The living jar: what makes a sourdough starter work

A sourdough starter looks unremarkable: a jar of flour and water with the texture of thick paint and a faintly sour smell. Yet it is one of the oldest examples of people managing a community of microorganisms. The jar is colonised by wild yeasts and bacteria, and the baker keeps them alive by "feeding" the mixture with fresh flour and water every day or two. A spoonful of the active starter is then mixed into a dough, where the microbes go on working until the bread is baked. Until commercial baker's yeast became widely available in the nineteenth century, almost all risen bread in Europe depended on cultures of this kind. Over the past two decades, home bakers have rediscovered the method in large numbers, and scientists have followed them into the kitchen.

For a long time, bakers believed that the character of a starter came from the air around it. Certain cities were said to produce a sourdough that could not be copied anywhere else, because their local microbes were unique. Recent research has been unkind to this idea. When one large survey gathered several hundred starters from home bakers in more than a dozen countries and identified the microbes in each, geography explained surprisingly little of the variation. Starters from the same city could be very different, while starters from opposite sides of the world could be remarkably alike. The strongest influences turned out to be the flour that was used and the habits of the baker, such as how often the starter was fed and whether it was kept in a warm or a cool place.

Inside the jar, bacteria vastly outnumber yeasts, typically by around a hundred to one. The two groups do different jobs. Lactic acid bacteria produce lactic and acetic acids, which give the bread its sour flavour. Yeasts, though fewer in number, produce most of the carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise. The acids have a second, less obvious effect: they lower the pH of the mixture, creating conditions in which moulds and harmful bacteria struggle to survive. This is why a well-fed starter can sit on a kitchen shelf for years without spoiling, while a bowl of plain flour paste left out for the same length of time would quickly go bad.

Where do the microbes come from in the first place? Much of the answer is the flour itself, which carries yeasts and bacteria picked up in the field and the mill. But bakers may also contribute. A small study that compared the skin of bakers with that of people who did not bake found that the bakers' hands carried some of the same bacteria as their starters, and in greater numbers. What has not been established is the direction of travel. The bakers' hands may be seeding the starter, or years of handling dough may simply have left the starter's microbes living on the hands.

Temperature gives the baker a degree of control. In warm conditions, around thirty degrees Celsius, the bacteria tend to produce more lactic acid, giving a mild, creamy flavour that some compare to yoghurt. In cooler conditions, more acetic acid is produced, and the bread has a sharper taste, closer to vinegar. Many bakers use this deliberately, leaving shaped dough in a refrigerator overnight to develop a stronger sourness, or keeping it warm when they want a gentler loaf.

Once established, a starter is surprisingly stable. Its community tends to resist newcomers, so a few stray microbes from a new bag of flour rarely take over. Getting to that point, however, takes time, usually around two weeks of regular feeding, and the early stages can mislead beginners. In the first few days a new starter often bubbles vigorously, which looks like a sign of success. In fact, much of this activity comes from bacteria that are poorly suited to bread. As the mixture becomes more acidic, these early arrivals die off and the bubbling slows or stops for a day or two. Many beginners throw the jar away at this point, convinced that the starter has died, when it is actually in the middle of a normal transition.

Sourdough is often promoted as healthier than ordinary bread. The long fermentation does break down some compounds in flour that certain people find hard to digest, and the bread tends to cause a slower rise in blood sugar. However, the evidence that this makes a meaningful difference to people with digestive complaints is mixed, and doctors stress that sourdough made from wheat still contains gluten.

Finally, there is the romance of the heritage starter. Some bakeries advertise cultures said to be more than a century old. Given what is now known, such claims deserve a gentle shrug. If a starter is moved to a new kitchen and fed with a different flour, its community will gradually shift to suit its new conditions. What keeps a starter healthy is not its age but the care it receives every day.

1. Before commercial yeast was widely available, most risen bread in Europe was made with wild cultures.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
2. The survey found that starters from the same city were almost identical.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
3. The type of flour had a strong influence on the microbes in a starter.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
4. There are usually more yeasts than bacteria in a starter.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
5. Home bakers usually feed their starters less often than professional bakers do.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
6. Research has shown that bakers' hands are the main source of the bacteria in their starters.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
7. Most professional bakeries now use sourdough starters.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
8. The role of the microbes. Bacteria produce acids which give the bread its sour ____.
9. The acids lower the pH, so that ____ and harmful bacteria cannot easily survive.
10. Yeasts produce most of the ____ that makes the dough rise.
11. Effect of temperature. Warm conditions: a mild flavour, compared by some to ____.
12. Cool conditions: a sharper taste, more like ____.
13. A new starter. When the early bubbling stops, beginners often wrongly believe the starter has ____.

Passage 2

Read the passage, then answer Questions 14-26. Questions 14-18: choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-F. Questions 19-22: which paragraph, A-F, contains the information? Questions 23-26: choose the correct answer.

Designing for the ear

A. For most of the twentieth century, city authorities treated sound as a single problem: noise. The standard approach was to measure it in decibels, set a legal maximum, and reduce whatever exceeded that limit. Concrete barriers went up along motorways, new homes near airports were fitted with double glazing, and night flights were restricted. These measures brought real benefits to millions of people, and they remain important. Yet they rested on a narrow assumption that few people questioned at the time: that the ideal sound environment for a city was simply a quiet one, and that every sound was, at best, a necessary evil.

B. In the 1990s a small group of acoustic researchers began to challenge this view. When they asked people to rate public spaces, the results did not match the decibel readings. In one series of surveys, two parks with almost exactly the same measured sound level received very different scores. The park that people preferred was not the quieter of the two. It was the one where the background hum of traffic was mixed with birdsong, children playing and the sound of running water. In the other park, the only thing people could hear was the distant drone of a motorway, and they described it as dull and slightly unsettling. Loudness, in other words, was only part of the story. What mattered just as much was where a sound came from and whether it seemed to belong in that place.

C. This line of research became known as soundscape studies, and it needed new methods. One of the most widely used is the soundwalk. A group of residents or regular visitors follows a planned route through an area, stopping at fixed points for a few minutes to listen. At each stop they rate what they hear on a set of scales, for example from pleasant to annoying, or from eventful to uneventful, and note the sounds they notice most. Because the participants know the area, they often point out sounds that a visiting expert would miss, such as a market that is only noisy on certain mornings or a bell that residents have come to love. Their judgements are then combined with recordings and measurements taken at the same moments. In 2014 the International Organization for Standardization published the first part of a standard describing what a soundscape is and how it should be studied, a sign that the approach had moved from the margins into mainstream practice.

D. The ideas have since been tested in real places. Planners in one northern European city faced constant complaints about a public square next to a busy ring road. Building a barrier high enough to block the traffic would have cut the square off from the surrounding streets. Instead, they installed a low wall of water jets along the side facing the road. The jets produce a broad, splashing sound that partly masks the traffic and draws attention away from it. After the change, the number of complaints fell sharply and more people used the square at lunchtime, even though the measured sound level had actually risen slightly because of the water itself.

E. Not everyone is convinced. Critics warn that masking can become a cosmetic solution, making an unhealthy environment feel acceptable without changing it. Long-term exposure to traffic noise has been linked to disturbed sleep, raised stress hormones and a higher risk of heart disease, and these effects appear whether or not people consciously notice the noise. A fountain that makes a square feel more relaxing does nothing to reduce the traffic that causes the harm. There are practical objections too: water features need energy and constant maintenance, and in cities that face regular droughts, using water for sound can be hard to justify. Some residents who live right beside a fountain also report that its constant splashing, charming at first, becomes tiresome after a few months.

F. Supporters accept many of these points, and the most thoughtful of them describe soundscape design as an addition to noise control rather than a replacement for it. Their greatest hope is that sound will be considered at the very beginning of a project, rather than treated as a problem to be fixed once a building is finished. New software allows architects to simulate how a proposed street or courtyard will sound before anything is built, and some cities now publish detailed sound maps alongside their planning documents. At the same time, existing quiet places still need protection. European rules already require member states to identify and preserve quiet areas in large cities, and many researchers argue that this duty deserves as much attention as the creation of new, pleasant sounds.

1. Paragraph B
   • Concerns that a pleasant sound may hide a real danger
   • Bringing sound into the earliest stage of planning
   • The rising cost of reducing traffic noise
   • Why the volume of sound is not the whole story
   • Adding sound to make a place feel calmer
   • A method that relies on local listeners
2. Paragraph C
   • Concerns that a pleasant sound may hide a real danger
   • Bringing sound into the earliest stage of planning
   • The rising cost of reducing traffic noise
   • Why the volume of sound is not the whole story
   • Adding sound to make a place feel calmer
   • A method that relies on local listeners
3. Paragraph D
   • Concerns that a pleasant sound may hide a real danger
   • Bringing sound into the earliest stage of planning
   • The rising cost of reducing traffic noise
   • Why the volume of sound is not the whole story
   • Adding sound to make a place feel calmer
   • A method that relies on local listeners
4. Paragraph E
   • Concerns that a pleasant sound may hide a real danger
   • Bringing sound into the earliest stage of planning
   • The rising cost of reducing traffic noise
   • Why the volume of sound is not the whole story
   • Adding sound to make a place feel calmer
   • A method that relies on local listeners
5. Paragraph F
   • Concerns that a pleasant sound may hide a real danger
   • Bringing sound into the earliest stage of planning
   • The rising cost of reducing traffic noise
   • Why the volume of sound is not the whole story
   • Adding sound to make a place feel calmer
   • A method that relies on local listeners
6. a reference to an international document on how soundscapes should be studied
   • A
   • B
   • C
   • D
   • E
   • F
7. an example of a design change that led to fewer complaints
   • A
   • B
   • C
   • D
   • E
   • F
8. a mention of health problems linked to long-term noise exposure
   • A
   • B
   • C
   • D
   • E
   • F
9. a description of the traditional way of dealing with urban sound
   • A
   • B
   • C
   • D
   • E
   • F
10. According to paragraph B, people preferred one park because
    • its measured sound level was lower.
    • its sounds seemed to suit the place.
    • it was further from the motorway.
    • it had fewer visitors.
11. During a soundwalk, participants
    • measure sound levels with special equipment.
    • suggest ways to redesign the route.
    • rate what they hear at fixed points.
    • record sounds on their phones.
12. What happened after the water jets were installed?
    • The square became too crowded at lunchtime.
    • The measured sound level fell sharply.
    • The jets were turned off at night.
    • People complained less, although the sound level rose slightly.
13. What is the writer's overall view of soundscape design?
    • It is useful but should add to noise control, not replace it.
    • It has made noise limits unnecessary.
    • Water features are the best way to apply it.
    • Computer simulations will soon replace soundwalks.

Passage 3

Read the passage, then answer Questions 27-40. Questions 27-31: do the statements agree with the claims of the writer? Choose YES, NO or NOT GIVEN. Questions 32-35: choose the correct answer. Questions 36-40: complete the summary. Write ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

The economics of fixing things

In the middle of the last century, a family in a wealthy country whose radio stopped working would usually take it to a repair shop on the high street. A technician would open the case, find the faulty valve or wire, and return the radio a few days later for a modest fee. Today, the same family is far more likely to throw away a broken toaster and buy a new one, often for less than the cost of an hour of a technician's time. It is tempting to blame this change on greedy manufacturers or on lazy consumers who cannot be bothered to look for a repair shop. Both explanations contain a grain of truth, but neither is the main cause. The main cause is far more ordinary: relative prices.

Over several decades, automation and global supply chains have reduced the cost of manufacturing goods dramatically. A factory can now turn out millions of identical kettles at a cost per unit that would have seemed impossible in 1960. Over the same period, the cost of skilled labour in rich countries has risen steadily. Repair, unlike manufacture, is extremely hard to automate. Every broken machine is broken in its own way, and a technician must first work out what is wrong before fixing it, a process that cannot be sped up by building a bigger factory. Economists have long observed that services of this kind become steadily more expensive compared with manufactured goods. As a result, the price of fixing an object has risen relative to the price of replacing it, and repair has declined even for products that are, in principle, easy to fix.

Design has made matters worse. Many modern devices have batteries that are glued rather than screwed into place, cases held together with unusual screws that require special tools, and software that detects when a part has been replaced and reduces the device's functions unless the part has been approved by the manufacturer. Manufacturers argue that these choices make devices thinner, more resistant to water and more secure. Some of these claims are reasonable: a phone that survives being dropped in a puddle is genuinely useful. But the overall effect is to shut independent repairers out of the market, which allows the official repair service to charge whatever it likes.

Lawmakers have begun to respond. Since 2021, France has required some electronic goods to display a repairability score out of ten, based on factors such as how easily the product can be taken apart and how long spare parts will be available. In 2024 the European Union adopted rules obliging manufacturers to offer repairs for certain household products even after the warranty has expired. Early experience in France suggests that some manufacturers have changed their designs to improve their scores, and that a high score has become a selling point for certain phones. Yet the score has weaknesses. It is partly based on information supplied by the manufacturers themselves, and a high mark for the availability of spare parts says nothing about what those parts cost. A replacement screen that costs nearly as much as a new phone is available in theory but of little use in practice.

In my view, rules on parts and manuals are necessary but not sufficient. As long as an hour of skilled work costs more than a new appliance, repair will remain an activity mainly for enthusiasts, however many manuals are published. The more promising experiments are those that tackle the cost of labour directly. In 2017 Sweden cut the tax on some repairs, including repairs to bicycles, clothing and shoes. Austria has offered households vouchers covering half the cost of repairing electrical goods, up to a limit. These measures address the very problem that rules on parts and manuals leave untouched, and they deserve to be studied far more widely.

It should also be admitted that repair is not always the greener choice. For products whose environmental impact comes mainly from the energy they use, such as a very old refrigerator or washing machine, replacing the machine with an efficient new model may reduce total emissions over its lifetime. For smartphones and laptops, the picture is reversed: most of their impact comes from manufacture, so every extra year of use is a clear gain. Slogans that tell us always to repair are therefore unhelpful. Policy should concentrate on the products where a longer life brings the greatest benefit.

Finally, there is the question of skills. In many countries the repair workforce is ageing, and few young people are training to replace it. Community repair cafés, where volunteers fix household items for free, have spread widely since the first one opened in Amsterdam in 2009. The number of items they fix is small compared with the mountains of goods thrown away each year, and it would be wrong to expect them to solve the problem of waste. Their real value lies elsewhere: in keeping practical skills alive and in reminding people that broken does not have to mean finished. The decline of repair was produced by economics, and only by changing the economics will it be reversed.

1. The main reason people replace broken goods is that they are too lazy to find a repair shop.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
2. Repair work is difficult to automate.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
3. Some of the manufacturers' arguments for their design choices are justified.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
4. The French repairability score has led to lower prices for spare parts.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
5. Repair cafés fix enough items to make a significant difference to the amount of waste.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
6. According to the writer, repair has declined even for products that are easy to fix because
   • spare parts have become hard to find.
   • fixing has become expensive compared with replacing.
   • people prefer the newest designs.
   • most repair shops have closed.
7. The writer mentions a replacement screen in order to show that
   • the French score is based on false information.
   • phones are now more difficult to open.
   • a part may be available but not affordable.
   • manufacturers no longer make spare parts.
8. What does the writer say about the Swedish and Austrian measures?
   • They are too expensive for most governments.
   • They mainly benefit manufacturers.
   • They have only been used for bicycles and clothing.
   • They deal with a problem that rules on parts do not.
9. According to the writer, replacing an item may be better than repairing it when
   • the item uses a lot of energy while it is working.
   • the item is a smartphone or laptop.
   • the item is still under warranty.
   • the item was made abroad.
10. Summary. Automation and global supply chains have reduced the cost of ____ goods.
11. At the same time, skilled ____ in rich countries has become more expensive.
12. Glued batteries and software that detects new parts keep ____ repairers out of the market.
13. Unless labour costs change, repair will remain an activity mainly for ____.
14. Repair cafés are most valuable for keeping practical ____ alive.

Writing (60 phút)

Task 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. Write at least 150 words.

1. The chart shows the average number of hours per week that people aged 18 to 24 in one country spent on six leisure activities in 2014 and 2024. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

   Tối thiểu 150 từ.

Task 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Write at least 250 words.

1. Some museums and galleries now allow visitors to touch, handle and closely examine objects that used to be kept behind glass. Some people welcome this change, while others believe it puts irreplaceable items at risk. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

   Tối thiểu 250 từ.