Đề thi thử IELTS Academic số 4: IELTS Academic Mock Test 4

Listening (30 phút)

Part 1

Questions 1-10. Complete the form below. Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer. HARBOURSIDE HOMESTAY NETWORK: HOST REGISTRATION

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

1. Host's name: Helen ____
2. Address: 27 ____ Avenue
3. Occupation: ____
4. Other people in the house: husband and ____
5. Pets: one ____, kept in the garden
6. Student's room: first floor, with its own ____
7. Bus to Harbourside College: about ____ minutes
8. Payment to host: £____ per week
9. Food: the family never has ____ in the house
10. Home visit: Wednesday at ____ pm

Part 2

Questions 11-15: Choose the correct letter, A, B or C. Questions 16-20: What information does Nadia give about each area of the radio station? Choose the correct answer for each area.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

1. How did the station first broadcast?
   • on the internet
   • through loudspeakers in a canteen
   • on FM radio
2. What must every new presenter do before going on air?
   • send in a demo recording
   • show some previous experience
   • complete a training course
3. What does Nadia say about the station's audience?
   • Most listeners are not students.
   • The breakfast show has the most listeners.
   • Listening figures fell last year.
4. What is the fundraising appeal for?
   • music licences
   • a new transmitter
   • a move to larger premises
5. What are volunteers not allowed to do?
   • eat or drink in the studios
   • bring guests to the station
   • use their phones in the building
6. Studio One
   • can be reserved online
   • will soon move to a different floor
   • is shared with another student organisation
   • is open twenty-four hours a day
   • has recently been redecorated
   • may only be used alone by trained presenters
7. Studio Two
   • can be reserved online
   • will soon move to a different floor
   • is shared with another student organisation
   • is open twenty-four hours a day
   • has recently been redecorated
   • may only be used alone by trained presenters
8. Newsroom
   • can be reserved online
   • will soon move to a different floor
   • is shared with another student organisation
   • is open twenty-four hours a day
   • has recently been redecorated
   • may only be used alone by trained presenters
9. Music library
   • can be reserved online
   • will soon move to a different floor
   • is shared with another student organisation
   • is open twenty-four hours a day
   • has recently been redecorated
   • may only be used alone by trained presenters
10. Production suite
    • can be reserved online
    • will soon move to a different floor
    • is shared with another student organisation
    • is open twenty-four hours a day
    • has recently been redecorated
    • may only be used alone by trained presenters

Part 3

Questions 21-25: Choose the correct letter, A, B or C. Questions 26-30: What do the students say about each coastal defence option? Choose the correct answer for each option.

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

1. What surprised Laura most about Selbourne Bay?
   • how quickly the cliff was retreating
   • the number of houses close to the cliff edge
   • the lack of warning signs on the footpath
2. Why did the students use a drone to measure the cliff?
   • It gave more accurate results.
   • It was less expensive than tapes.
   • It meant they did not have to approach the edge.
3. What problem did the students have with the historical maps?
   • The maps were drawn at different scales.
   • The oldest coastline may not have been surveyed.
   • Some editions were missing from the archive.
4. What does Dr Morales suggest adding to the project?
   • interviews with local residents
   • a comparison with another bay
   • data from a tide gauge
5. What do the students agree is the main cause of faster erosion?
   • more frequent storms
   • rising sea levels
   • the removal of sand offshore
6. a concrete sea wall
   • It would cost too much for a site like this.
   • It would move the problem further along the coast.
   • It would spoil the appearance of the bay.
   • It would only be effective for a few years.
   • It is the most realistic option.
   • It is not permitted under current rules.
7. groynes
   • It would cost too much for a site like this.
   • It would move the problem further along the coast.
   • It would spoil the appearance of the bay.
   • It would only be effective for a few years.
   • It is the most realistic option.
   • It is not permitted under current rules.
8. beach nourishment
   • It would cost too much for a site like this.
   • It would move the problem further along the coast.
   • It would spoil the appearance of the bay.
   • It would only be effective for a few years.
   • It is the most realistic option.
   • It is not permitted under current rules.
9. rock armour
   • It would cost too much for a site like this.
   • It would move the problem further along the coast.
   • It would spoil the appearance of the bay.
   • It would only be effective for a few years.
   • It is the most realistic option.
   • It is not permitted under current rules.
10. managed retreat
    • It would cost too much for a site like this.
    • It would move the problem further along the coast.
    • It would spoil the appearance of the bay.
    • It would only be effective for a few years.
    • It is the most realistic option.
    • It is not permitted under current rules.

Part 4

Questions 31-40. Complete the notes below. Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer. SLEEPING IN SPACE

Phần nghe phát trong phòng thi.

1. Light: the crew see about ____ sunrises every 24 hours.
2. Noise: a constant hum is produced by ventilation ____.
3. Air: without moving air, carbon dioxide gathers around a sleeper's ____.
4. Stress: astronauts have a very heavy ____.
5. Each private cabin is about the size of a ____.
6. The sleeping bag is attached to the ____.
7. Lighting: in the evening, LEDs give out a warmer, ____ light.
8. Medication: many astronauts take ____, a natural hormone.
9. Bed rest studies: the bed is tilted so the ____ is lower than the feet.
10. The findings are now being tested with shift ____ such as nurses.

Reading (60 phút)

Passage 1

Read the passage and answer Questions 1-13. Questions 1-7: 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, NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this. Questions 8-13: Complete the table below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

A SECOND LIFE FOR GLASS

Glass is one of the oldest materials that humans have learned to manufacture. The basic recipe has hardly changed in two thousand years: sand, which supplies silica, is mixed with soda ash and limestone and heated in a furnace to around 1,500 degrees Celsius until it becomes a glowing liquid that can be blown, pressed or moulded. What makes glass especially interesting to environmental planners is that, unlike paper or most plastics, it can be melted down and reshaped again and again without any loss of quality. A bottle made today could, in principle, contain material that was first melted a century ago. Yet the share of glass that is actually recycled varies enormously from country to country, from well over 90 per cent of bottles and jars in some parts of northern Europe to less than a third in others.

The case for recycling glass rests mainly on energy. Crushed waste glass, known in the industry as cullet, melts at a lower temperature than the raw ingredients, so a furnace fed with a high proportion of cullet can run cooler and burn less fuel. As a rough guide, every ten per cent of cullet added to the mix cuts the energy needed by between two and three per cent. There is a second, less obvious benefit. When soda ash and limestone are heated, they give off carbon dioxide as part of the chemical reaction, quite apart from the fuel being burned. Cullet has already been through that reaction, so replacing raw materials with recycled glass reduces emissions twice over. It also means that less sand has to be dug out of quarries and riverbeds.

However, not all waste glass is equally useful. Container glass comes in three main colours: clear, green and brown. Because even a small quantity of coloured glass will tint a batch of clear glass, the colours must be kept apart, and clear cullet, which can be used to make a new bottle of any colour, is the most valuable. This creates an unusual problem for countries that drink a great deal of imported wine. Wine typically arrives in green bottles made abroad, while local factories mainly produce clear glass for food jars and soft drinks. The result is a surplus of green cullet that domestic furnaces simply cannot absorb, and that must either be exported or put to some lower use.

How glass is collected makes a large difference to its value. In the traditional system, householders carry their empty bottles to bottle banks, large containers divided by colour that are often placed in supermarket car parks. More and more local councils, however, now collect glass from the kerbside together with paper, cans and plastic in a single bin. Mixed collection is convenient, and it has been shown to increase the amount of glass and other material that households put out for recycling. The drawback is that glass breaks as the lorry compresses its load. Sharp fragments become embedded in paper and cardboard, lowering their value, and pieces too small to be sorted by colour often end up crushed and used as aggregate in road building rather than being made into new containers. Modern optical sorting machines, which photograph each fragment and blow it into the correct chute with a jet of air, have improved matters, but they still struggle with pieces smaller than about a centimetre.

Contamination is a further concern. Glassmakers worry less about labels and food residue, which burn off in the furnace, than about materials that look like glass but behave differently. Ceramics such as broken mugs and plates do not melt at furnace temperatures at all, and they leave tiny solid inclusions, known as stones, in the finished product, which can cause a bottle to shatter under pressure. Ovenproof dishes are another hazard, because they contain boron, which changes the way the glass melts. Drinking glasses and window panes have their own chemistry too, which is why most schemes ask people to put only bottles and jars in their recycling.

Some countries have gone further and introduced deposit return schemes, in which customers pay a small extra charge when they buy a drink and receive it back when they return the empty container. Return rates under such schemes are often above 90 per cent, and the bottles come back clean and unbroken. In several countries the strongest bottles are not even melted, but washed and refilled, a process that uses less energy than recycling. A well-made refillable bottle can be used as many as 50 times before it is retired. The catch is weight: refillable bottles must be thicker and heavier than single-use ones, so they cost more to transport. Refilling therefore makes the most sense where the distances between breweries, shops and washing plants are short.

The lesson that emerges is that glass is not automatically the environmentally friendly choice it is often assumed to be. It is heavy, and carrying it long distances by road can cancel out much of the energy saved in the furnace. Its true value depends on whether it is collected cleanly, sorted carefully and used close to where it was made.

1. Glass loses some of its quality each time it is recycled.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
2. A furnace that uses a lot of cullet can operate at a lower temperature.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
3. The price of sand for glassmaking has risen in recent years.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
4. Recyclers value clear cullet more highly than coloured cullet.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
5. In some wine-importing countries, most green glass is produced by local factories.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
6. Mixed kerbside collection tends to reduce the amount of glass that households recycle.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
7. Optical sorting machines were originally designed for the food industry.
   • TRUE
   • FALSE
   • NOT GIVEN
8. Mixed kerbside collection: broken glass becomes embedded in paper and ____
9. Mixed kerbside collection: small pieces are often used as ____ in road building
10. Optical sorting: has difficulty with pieces smaller than about a ____
11. Ceramics: leave solid inclusions called ____ in new bottles
12. Ovenproof dishes: contain ____, which alters how glass melts
13. Refillable bottles: can be used up to ____ times

Passage 2

Read the passage and answer Questions 14-26. Questions 14-18: The passage has six paragraphs, A-F. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-F from the list of headings. One heading is not needed. Questions 19-22: Which paragraph contains the following information? Choose the correct letter, A-F. Questions 23-26: Match each finding with the correct researcher.

THE INNER COMPASS: HOW MIGRATING BIRDS FIND THEIR WAY

A. Every autumn, several billion birds leave their breeding grounds in the northern hemisphere and head south. Some travel only a few hundred kilometres; others cross entire oceans. The bar-tailed godwit, a long-legged wading bird, holds one of the most remarkable records: tracked individuals have flown from Alaska to New Zealand, a distance of more than 11,000 kilometres, in around ten days without once stopping to feed or rest. Perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that many small songbirds make their first migration alone, at night, with no adult to follow. They have never seen their destination, yet most of them reach it. For more than a century, scientists have tried to work out how they do it, and the answer turns out to involve not one sense but several.

B. The first clue came from birds kept in cages. As the migration season approaches, caged songbirds become restless at night, hopping and fluttering towards one side of the cage, and they continue to do so even if they were hatched and raised by hand with no contact with wild birds. This suggests that at least part of the journey is programmed from birth. Dr Ingrid Solberg tested this idea with blackcaps, small warblers that breed in central Europe. Most of the population migrates south-west towards Spain, but a smaller group heads south-east towards East Africa. When Solberg cross-bred birds from the two groups, their young pointed neither south-west nor south-east, but roughly due south, between the two. The preferred direction, it seemed, was inherited from both parents.

C. A direction is of little use, however, without a means of finding it. Many birds use the sun during the day, but the sun moves across the sky, so a bird must know the time in order to interpret its position correctly. Experiments in which birds' internal clocks were shifted, by keeping them under artificial light for several days, showed exactly this: the birds misjudged the sun's position and set off at the wrong angle. Night migrants rely on the stars. In a series of planetarium experiments, Professor Rafael Duarte raised young birds under an artificial sky that rotated around a star other than the Pole Star. When the birds were old enough to migrate, they treated that star as if it marked north. What they had learned, Duarte concluded, was not the shape of particular constellations but the single point in the sky around which all the others turn.

D. Birds can also detect the Earth's magnetic field, and this ability works even under cloud, when neither sun nor stars are visible. Curiously, a bird's magnetic compass does not distinguish north from south in the way a human compass does. Instead, it senses the angle at which the field lines meet the ground, which tells the bird whether it is facing towards the nearer pole or towards the equator. A leading explanation is that the sense depends on light-sensitive molecules in the eye, which may allow birds to see the magnetic field as a faint pattern laid over their normal vision. Some of the most persuasive evidence came by accident. Dr Hana Kimura found that European robins kept in wooden huts on a university campus in a large city could not orient at all. Only when she lined the huts with aluminium sheets, which blocked weak electrical noise from the city's equipment, did the robins recover their sense of direction.

E. A more surprising candidate is smell. Seabirds such as shearwaters spend months over open water, where there are few visual landmarks. Dr Elena Petrova took shearwaters from their nesting colony on an island and released them several hundred kilometres away, far out at sea. Birds whose sense of smell had been temporarily blocked wandered for days, while those carrying small magnets designed to disturb their magnetic sense returned home almost as quickly as untreated birds. Petrova argues that the birds build up a map of the odours carried on the wind across the ocean. The idea remains controversial, however. Critics point out that birds deprived of smell may simply be less motivated to fly, and that it is hard to see how such a map could work over thousands of kilometres.

F. Knowing which way is south is not the same as knowing where you are. A compass tells a bird its direction, but to correct its course after being blown off route, it also needs something like a map. Studies of birds that were caught during migration, carried by plane far to one side of their usual route and then released, have revealed a striking difference between age groups. Adults that had made the journey before quickly changed direction and headed for their normal wintering area. Young birds on their first migration simply carried on in their inherited direction and ended up far from where they should have been. The map, in other words, is not inherited but learned, and each journey makes a bird a better navigator than it was the year before.

1. Paragraph B
   • A skill that improves with experience
   • A direction passed down from parents
   • A role for the nose
   • Reading the sky by day and by night
   • Why some species have stopped migrating
   • Sensing the Earth's magnetism
2. Paragraph C
   • A skill that improves with experience
   • A direction passed down from parents
   • A role for the nose
   • Reading the sky by day and by night
   • Why some species have stopped migrating
   • Sensing the Earth's magnetism
3. Paragraph D
   • A skill that improves with experience
   • A direction passed down from parents
   • A role for the nose
   • Reading the sky by day and by night
   • Why some species have stopped migrating
   • Sensing the Earth's magnetism
4. Paragraph E
   • A skill that improves with experience
   • A direction passed down from parents
   • A role for the nose
   • Reading the sky by day and by night
   • Why some species have stopped migrating
   • Sensing the Earth's magnetism
5. Paragraph F
   • A skill that improves with experience
   • A direction passed down from parents
   • A role for the nose
   • Reading the sky by day and by night
   • Why some species have stopped migrating
   • Sensing the Earth's magnetism
6. a reference to birds failing to orient in an urban environment
   • A
   • B
   • C
   • D
   • E
   • F
7. an example of a very long journey made without a break
   • A
   • B
   • C
   • D
   • E
   • F
8. a contrast between the behaviour of older and younger birds
   • A
   • B
   • C
   • D
   • E
   • F
9. a description of what happens when a bird's sense of time is altered
   • A
   • B
   • C
   • D
   • E
   • F
10. Birds released at sea without one of their senses had difficulty returning home.
    • Ingrid Solberg
    • Rafael Duarte
    • Hana Kimura
    • Elena Petrova
11. Young birds whose parents used different routes chose a direction in between.
    • Ingrid Solberg
    • Rafael Duarte
    • Hana Kimura
    • Elena Petrova
12. Protecting birds from interference allowed them to orient correctly again.
    • Ingrid Solberg
    • Rafael Duarte
    • Hana Kimura
    • Elena Petrova
13. Birds learn the centre of the sky's rotation rather than the shapes of star groups.
    • Ingrid Solberg
    • Rafael Duarte
    • Hana Kimura
    • Elena Petrova

Passage 3

Read the passage and answer Questions 27-40. Questions 27-30: Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D. Questions 31-35: Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer? Choose 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. Questions 36-40: Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

THE HONEST LIES OF MAPS

Every map is a lie, the old saying goes, and cartographers themselves are often the first to agree. A map reduces a round, three-dimensional planet, crowded with detail, to a flat sheet of paper or a small screen. Something must be stretched, something must be shrunk, and most things must be left out altogether. The interesting question, then, is not whether a map distorts, but which distortions its makers have chosen, and whether its readers realise that a choice has been made at all.

The most famous example is the projection published by the Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. Mercator's problem was a practical one. Sailors steered by compass, and they needed a chart on which a line of constant compass bearing would appear as a straight line, so that a navigator could lay a ruler between two ports and read off the course to follow. Mercator achieved this by stretching the map increasingly towards the poles, and as a tool for navigation it was a brilliant solution, one that remains in use on nautical charts today. The difficulty arose when a design intended for sailors became the standard picture of the world on classroom walls. On a Mercator map, Greenland appears roughly the size of Africa, although Africa is in fact about fourteen times larger, and Europe looks considerably bigger, relative to the regions near the equator, than it really is.

In the 1970s the German historian Arno Peters attacked the Mercator map as a symbol of a European view of the world, and promoted an alternative that showed every country at its correct relative area. Peters's map was taken up enthusiastically by aid agencies and some schools, and his argument reached a far wider public than any cartographer had ever managed. Professional mapmakers, however, were largely hostile. They pointed out that equal-area projections had existed for centuries, that a very similar one had been described by a Scottish clergyman more than a hundred years earlier, and that Peters's version badly distorted the shapes of the continents near the equator, stretching them vertically. Much of this criticism was justified, and yet it is hard to avoid the impression that the profession was irritated less by the flaws in the map than by the fact that an outsider had captured the public's attention so successfully. In the end, Peters's real achievement was not a better map but a better question: why should any one projection be treated as the natural picture of the world?

Projections are only the most visible kind of choice. Every map also involves selection, and what is left out can matter as much as what is shown. Nineteenth-century European maps of the African interior often presented vast areas as empty white space. To their makers, the blankness meant only that no European surveyor had yet recorded the area. To many readers, however, it suggested that the land was unoccupied and available, an impression that was convenient for those planning to claim it, even though these regions were home to millions of people with their own systems of naming places and marking boundaries. A blank on a map, in other words, says as much about the mapmaker as it does about the place.

It might be expected that digital maps, built from satellite images and constantly updated, would finally free cartography from such biases. In some respects they have. Anyone can now zoom from a view of the whole planet to a single street, and the familiar exaggeration of Greenland matters less when the map is no longer a fixed rectangle on a wall. But digital maps introduce choices of their own, and these are harder to notice because they are made automatically. The features shown on an online map are increasingly selected for the individual user, based on past searches and location history, so that two people looking at the same city may see different restaurants, shops and landmarks. Businesses that pay for prominence may appear more readily than those that do not. Even international borders may be drawn differently depending on the country from which the map is viewed, so that a disputed region appears to belong to whichever state the viewer happens to live in. The paper atlas at least presented the same picture to everyone who opened it; the personalised map gives each reader a slightly different world, and no reader can easily see the version shown to anyone else.

None of this means that maps should be distrusted, still less abandoned. Mapmakers cannot avoid making choices, and a map that tried to show everything would be as useless as the imaginary map, described in a well-known short story, that was drawn at the same scale as the territory it represented. The danger lies rather in forgetting that choices have been made. For that reason, the most effective response is not to replace one projection with another as the single correct view, as Peters's followers once hoped, but to teach people to read maps critically: to set several projections side by side, to ask who drew a map and for what purpose, and to notice what has been left blank. Read in that spirit, a map is no longer a lie but an argument, and arguments can be examined.

1. According to the first paragraph, the most important question about a map is
   • whether it can be made without any distortion.
   • which distortions were chosen and whether readers are aware of them.
   • how much detail it should attempt to include.
   • why cartographers admit that their maps are inaccurate.
2. What does the writer say about the Mercator projection?
   • It was the first projection designed for navigation.
   • Sailors stopped using it once better charts appeared.
   • It caused problems when it was used for a purpose other than its original one.
   • It makes countries near the equator look larger than they are.
3. Professional mapmakers criticised the Peters map because it
   • showed countries at the wrong relative size.
   • was promoted mainly by aid agencies.
   • ignored the needs of navigators.
   • misrepresented the shapes of some continents.
4. The writer refers to nineteenth-century maps of Africa in order to show that
   • empty areas on a map can give a misleading impression.
   • European surveyors often worked carelessly.
   • local systems of naming places were unknown in Europe.
   • maps of that period were drawn mainly for sailors.
5. The Mercator projection was a poor tool for navigation.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
6. The professional reaction to Peters was partly caused by resentment of his popularity.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
7. The Peters map is now more widely used in schools than the Mercator map.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
8. The choices built into digital maps are easier to detect than those in paper maps.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
9. Learners should be shown several map projections and encouraged to compare them.
   • YES
   • NO
   • NOT GIVEN
10. Digital maps allow users to zoom from a view of the whole planet to a single ____.
11. However, the choices behind digital maps are harder to notice because they are made ____.
12. Businesses that pay for ____ may appear more readily than others.
13. Even international ____ may be shown differently depending on where the viewer lives.
14. In contrast, the paper ____ showed the same picture to everyone who opened it.

Writing (60 phút)

Task 1

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

1. The graph below shows the amount of electricity generated from coal, natural gas, wind and solar power in the country of Westmark between 1990 and 2020, measured in terawatt hours (TWh). 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. In many countries, large numbers of young people are leaving villages and small towns to live and work in big cities. What problems does this cause for the places they leave behind? What can be done to reduce these problems? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

   Tối thiểu 250 từ.