IELTS Real Reading Test Pre 2025 - Vol 1 Test 3 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation

Luyện tập đề IELTS Real Reading Test Pre 2025 - Vol 1 Test 3 được lấy từ cuốn sách Real Test Pre 2025 - Vol 1 với trải nghiệm thi IELTS trên máy và giải thích đáp án chi tiết bằng Linearthinking, kèm answer key và list từ vựng IELTS cần học trong bài đọc.

Làm Bài Xem giải thích

IELTS Real Reading Test Pre 2025 - Vol 1 Test 3 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation

Passage

📖 Bài đọc passage 1

To bee or not to bee?
A
A. The European honey bee is one of the most common bee species worldwide. Not only does it produce honey, it is also one of nature's most prolific pollinators. It is the single most important for agriculture due to its role in the growth of as much as a third of crops, although other bee species - around 250 in the UK and over 4000 in the US - also play their part in this process. Over recent years, however, reports of declining bee populations have increased, leaving concern surrounding the future of this incredibly important insect and its continuing role in providing the food we eat. 
B
B. The European honey bee is thought to have originated in Africa or Asia, from where it spread throughout the Middle East and Europe and, with human assistance, is today present in every continent excluding Antarctica. Able to adapt to geographical surroundings and seasonal changes, the honey bee, unlike other species, benefits from perennial colonies that reproduce through the process of 'swarming'. During this process, up to half a colony's members will separate with the existing queen, leaving a successor behind to continue her work. Scout bees then search out a suitable location and the separated cluster relocates, forming a new colony. 
C
Domestication of the species dates back as far as Ancient Egypt, evidenced in its depiction in tomb paintings. Today it remains one of the only insect species to be farmed, and is primarily chosen due to its honey-making virtues, its usefulness in pollination, and resistance to cold weather and disease. However, beekeepers sounded the alarm for the first time in 2006 reporting declining populations and abandoned hives, resulting in the terming of the syndrome known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The New York based National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) estimate that nearly one third of North America's bees have simply vanished since then, sending numbers plummeting to a fifty-year low. Additionally, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), established under the UN in 2012, states that bees and butterflies are 'declining in abundance' across mainly Northwest Europe and North America, though other regions of the world are not escaping unscathed, and warns of the importance of protecting these species to ensure stable fruit and vegetable production, especially faced with a future in which we will have to feed ever-growing populations. 
D
The consequences of a severely depleted honey bee population would be far-reaching. Considering our main staple crops such as rice, wheat and maize are wind-pollinated, and therefore not reliant on insects, we need not go hungry. However, we would lose essential nutrients from fruits, vegetables, nuts and oils were they to become no longer available or scarcer, potentially resulting in poor health for many. The IPBES cite 'more than three-quarters of the leading types of food crops' require animal pollination to some degree for both yield and quality. Economically speaking, global agricultural production reliant on bees and other insects is estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Lower yields through a dramatic reduction in pollinators would lead to higher prices for consumers and a serious dent in the profitability of the agriculture sector globally. To avoid this eventuality, research has been completed and more is underway to discover the cause of the phenomenon and possible solutions. 
E
Yet that might be easier said than done, as the scientific consensus is that there is no one specific cause for CCD and the disappearance of bees. Many researchers believe a combination of factors is to blame. Global warming is causing changes in seasonal blooming, meaning bees may be missing important events in the agricultural calendar as, by the time they come out of hibernation, they arrive too late to pollinate crops. Pesticides are another probable cause. In 2016, an 18-year-long UK study concluded that some specific pesticides could be linked to 'large-scale population extinctions' of wild bees. Their use has been restricted or banned by the EU and parts of the US in response to this. Other suggested factors include a loss of habitat brought about by development of rural land, immunodeficiency in bees causing mass die-offs, GM crops, the use of antibiotics by beekeepers, and migratory beekeeping (the practice of moving hives around a country to aid pollination of crops), to mention just a few. 
F
However, other voices in the field claim there is no bee crisis. Although they admit that CCD did challenge species in 2006, it is claimed that this is a centuries-old, periodic phenomenon from which bees recover. Some species, including the European honey bee, appear to be doing so and numbers are on the rise. These experts tell us we are worrying about the wrong bees. Those which are in danger of dying out are lesser known, wild species which, despite pollinating naturally, are not the domesticated honeybees we depend so greatly upon for our sustenance. While the extent of the bee decline is still under debate, for many it has served as a means of highlighting the delicate balance that exists in our ecosystem and the need for a greater understanding of agricultural sustainability. 

❓ Câu hỏi passage 1

List of Headings

Falling figures

Farming regulations

III

Expanding populations

Potential solutions

Questioning the claims

The cost of collapse

VII

The end of the crisis

VIII

The roots of the problem

Paragraph B

Paragraph C

Paragraph D

Paragraph E

Paragraph F

Colony Collapse Disorder
Name arrived at due to reported issues in 6.
            
﻿
.
Bee numbers have fallen to their lowest in decades.
In addition to bees, 7.
            
﻿
 have also dramatically reduced in number in the US and parts of Europe.
These species needed for crops due to a continual increase in human populations.
﻿
Reasons for Vanishing Bees
Climatic changes bring forward flowering of plants to when bees are still in 8.
            
﻿
.
Research shows mass 9.
            
﻿
 of non-domesticated bees could be due to pesticides.
Genetically modified crops and the relocation of hives could be to blame.

A significant fall in the number of animals able to transfer pollen to crops would be costly for both industry and individuals.

Research into alternative methods of pollination has already turned up some potential causes of bees disappearing.

Regularly moving bees to a different location can tackle CCD.

The future of the honey bee is more certain than other types of bee.

🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1

III

Giải thích chi tiết

😎 Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng Matching Headings

Step 01: Read relevant information to understand (main idea – không cần đọc detail)

Dựa vào phần Simplify & Connection ở trên, có thể rút ra được: → Đại ý toàn đoạn: European honey bees đã lan rộng khắp thế giới và tiếp tục mở rộng số lượng qua cơ chế phân đàn (swarming) tạo thêm các quần thể mới.

-------------------

Step 02: Compare meaning with meaning - Đại ý của đoạn: Sự lan tỏa toàn cầu + sự phân đàn của ong mật = quần thể ngày càng mở rộng. Chọn đáp án đúng: C. Expanding populations -> Giải thích: đáp án nêu bật ý “sự mở rộng của quần thể ong”, trùng khớp với mô tả nguồn gốc → lan khắp thế giới + quá trình swarming nhân đàn.

– Lưu ý:

Nếu chỉ scan từ khóa “colonies”, “originated”, "human assistance" có thể bị lạc vào D (Potential solutions) hay H (The roots of the problem), nhưng cả hai không phù hợp vì đoạn B không nói tới nguyên nhân hay giải pháp – chỉ mô tả quá trình lan rộng của loài ong.

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Passage

📖 Bài đọc passage 2

How plants fight back
A
A. Recent research has shown that plants are more aware of their environment and more active in their responses than was ever previously imagined. Simon Gilroy, a professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA, has spent much of his career trying to understand how plants work. Now, Gilroy and one of his postdoctoral researchers, Masatsugu Toyota, have produced a series of videos that shows how plants responded when they subjected them to wounds, including scissor cuts and caterpillar bites.
B
B. Gilroy and Toyota discovered that when one part of a plant is attacked or damaged, a wave of calcium spreads throughout the rest of the plant. The calcium alerts the plant to danger and the need to deploy defence tactics. The team were able to see this by utilising a naturally occurring fluorescent-green protein which binds to the calcium, making its path visible.

While scientists already knew that plants reacted to danger via an electrical charge that moves across the plant, they didn't know exactly how it happened. Gilroy and Toyota suspected it had something to do with calcium and were able to confirm their suspicions. They were also able to reveal how glutamate - an abundant neurotransmitter in animals - triggers this wave of calcium.
C
The find was fortuitous given that Gilroy hadn't intended to study wounding at all. His real passion is understanding how plants sense gravity and seem to know which way is up-something that's proving extremely hard to work out. It was during the early stages of an experiment into gravity that Toyota came across the wounding response.

'We work very intensely on the calcium signal, because it's a ubiquitous signal. Biology uses it absolutely everywhere,' explains Gilroy. 'It makes your heart beat, it makes your muscles contract. Plants use it for a lot of their signalling machinery. We had some hints that the gravity-sensing system is based around the calcium signal, and so we were developing the technology to image calcium cells in real-time.' It was during this process that Gilroy and Toyota realised they'd captured something never usually visible to humans.
D
The team found that the calcium travels at one millimetre per second, fast enough to spread to other leaves in just a couple of minutes. From the data collected up to now, it appears that how far the calcium travels depends on the extent of the wound, or, as Gilroy puts it, 'The more you hurt it, the louder it screams." 

That 'scream' can result in a range of responses. 'Plants are masters of chemistry,' says Gilroy. We deal with the world by running away from it, plants deal with the world by growing in response to it, or by making a tonne of stuff. That ‘tonne of stuff’ could be chemicals that poison a hungry insect, or that make the plant unattractive, tough or unpalatable. Some plants even make proteins that block the ability of a caterpillar's gut to digest the plant material. This is dinner that fights back.
E
The next step for Gilroy and his team is to delve deeper into the signalling response on a cellular level, dissecting the genes and proteins responsible. In contrast to our understanding of human nerve cells, Gilroy admits that the equivalent responses in plants are still barely understood. He is also going to widen the scope of the study and look at other signals that plants send out - signals regarding temperature and changes in light and touch.

Gilroy explains that there may be a wider use for the research, albeit a long way in the future. Once scientists have managed to identify the specific genes that make the signalling process work and can understand what happens when you switch those genes on and off, it's not hard to think about the potential. You can imagine that we should be able to take a crop plant and switch on its defences on-call,' says Gilroy. 'We're nowhere near that point yet, but once we get there - say you're in a field and you predict there's going to be an outbreak of some pest, you could go in and pre-defend all of the plants in the field, but you do it on-call so the plants aren't wasting their resources defending themselves the whole time."
F
For now, though, Gilroy is happy to simply increase understanding of plants. He is energetic in his insistence that they are not the inactive and unreceptive organisms that people generally believe them to be. For that reason, he's as enthusiastic about the way the videos bring the response process to life as he is about the future potential of the research. 'When you look at a plant, just because it doesn't do what we do, and it doesn't move, that doesn't mean it isn't doing anything. They're hugely dynamic organisms,' he says.

❓ Câu hỏi passage 2

An explanation of how scientists were able to observe plants sending warning signals

Examples of the means used by scientists to provoke plants' signalling response

Reference to the idea that we could one day manipulate plants' signalling abilities

The purpose of the research which led to Gilroy and Toyota's discovery

A comparison regarding levels of scientific knowledge about responses in plants and humans

Gilroy and Toyota's research

As part of their research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Simon Gilroy and Masatsugu Toyota made several ﻿ revealing plants' reactions to cuts, bites and other ﻿.
These indicated how the spread of calcium warns plants about the presence of ﻿. The use of a brightly coloured ﻿ enabled the researchers to see the movement of calcium through the plant. The research also showed how ﻿ activates the release of calcium in the plant.

Which TWO aspects of the calcium signal in plants does the writer mention?

the volume of calcium released following an attack

the rate at which calcium flows through plants

the different parts of the plant where calcium is produced

the species of plants which produce calcium as a warning signal

the link between the severity of an attack and the distance calcium moves

Which TWO plans are mentioned by the writer?

research plants' reactions to heat and cold

use their findings to help grow a greater variety of crops

investigate warning signals in organisms other than plants 

analyse further the chemical processes involved in signalling responses 

conduct studies to compare human cell and plant cell behavior

🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2

Giải thích chi tiết

Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Information

📌 Dạng Matching Information chúng ta nên làm cuối cùng, sau khi đã làm các dạng câu hỏi khác nhé DOLBIES, bởi vì lúc này mình đã đọc và hiểu nội dung của bài rồi → sẽ nhanh chóng tìm được vị trí đáp án hơn!!

-------

Step 1: Phân tích câu hỏi (Matching Information) an explanation of how scientists were able to observe plants sending warning signals .

Dự đoán thông tin cần tìm (SPECIFY): Đề hỏi “giải thích cách quan sát” ⇒ đoạn đúng phải có:

Một method/technique/tool (ví dụ: protein/fluorescent marker/imaging technology…)
Và kết quả là make the signal visible / allow them to see it (tức trước đó không thấy được bằng mắt thường).

-------

Step 2: Locate bằng chứng Đoạn B có câu giải thích trực tiếp “họ đã nhìn thấy bằng cách nào”:

The team were able to see this by utilising a naturally occurring fluorescent-green protein which binds to the calcium , making its path visible .

-------

Step 3: Đối chiếu paraphrasing (đảm bảo match đúng)

an explanation of how ⇔ by utilising...
scientists were able to observe ⇔ The team were able to see
plants sending warning signals ⇔ a wave of calcium ... alerts the plant to danger + making its path visible

⇒ Đoạn B đúng vì nó nói rõ: nhờ protein phát huỳnh quang bám vào calcium nên họ mới nhìn thấy được đường đi của tín hiệu cảnh báo.

-------

❌ Những đáp án “bẫy” hay dính

Bẫy đoạn A: có “videos that shows how plants responded” nên skim/scan dễ chọn A. Nhưng A chỉ nói họ quay video phản ứng khi bị làm bị thương, không giải thích kỹ thuật/công cụ giúp nhìn thấy “warning signals” bên trong cây.
Bẫy đoạn C: có “developing the technology to image calcium cells in real-time” nghe giống “cách quan sát”. Nhưng C nói khá chung chung về việc phát triển công nghệ; còn câu hỏi cần giải thích cụ thể cách họ quan sát được tín hiệu, và chi tiết đó nằm rõ nhất ở B (fluorescent-green protein binds to calcium → visible).

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Passage

📖 Bài đọc passage 3

Does class size matter?
A
A. Of all the ideas for improving education, few are as simple or attractive as reducing the number of pupils per teacher. With its uncomplicated appeal, class-size reduction has lately gone from being a subject of primarily academic interest to become a public issue. In the U.S., more than 2o states have adopted policies aimed at decreasing class size.
B
B. One way investigators have attempted to analyze the effects of class size is by reviewing existing data, such as records kept by the U.S. Department of Education. These show that between 1969 and 1997, the average number of pupils per teacher in American public and private elementary schools fell from 25 to 18, a decline of greater than 27 percent. In secondary schools, the number also fell, from 19 to 14. Does these findings mean that class size makes no difference? Not necessarily. For a variety of
reasons, most researchers, including us, pay little attention to those figures. For instance, schools strive for more than just high test scores; they also usually try to keep their dropout rates low. And indeed, the dropout rate for students aged 16 to 24 fell from 15 to 11 percent over that period. Because dropouts generally come from the low end of the achievement distribution, a reduction in the dropout rate could, be expected to pull down average test scores in the upper grades. Ideally, U.S. students would all come from families that are financially well off, with two highly educated, English-speaking parents who are involved in their children's schooling. Teachers would all be creative and have complete mastery of their subject matter. Schools would be nicely outfitted with libraries, computers and other resources.
C
Over the past 35 years, hundreds of studies and analyses of existing data (such as the Department of Education records) have focused on class size. Unfortunately, most of these studies were poorly designed. The notable exception was the STAR project. Students entering kindergarten were randomly assigned to one of three kinds of classes: a small class of 13 to 17 students, a regular-size class of 22 to 26. The students remained in whatever category they had been assigned to through the third grade, after which they joined a regular classroom in the fourth. To ensure that teaching quality did not differ, teachers were randomly assigned to small and regular-size classrooms. Few teachers received any special training for working with small classes, and there were no new curricular materials.
D
Charles M. Achilles of Eastern Michigan University found "an array of benefits of small classes" in their review. They also found that the effect was stronger for minority students. Black and Hispanic children improved their scores slightly more than did other students - a significant finding from a policy standpoint. He argues, the STAR data cannot be used to prove that the gains persist for years after a student has returned to regular-size classes. He and others have also shown that during the study, too many children migrated from the regular to the small classes, probably because school personnel caved in to parent demands. Criticism does not undermine the findings of a statistically significant benefit of being in a small class.
E
California’s multi-billion-dollar effort, begun in 1996, stands more as a model of what not to do than as an initiative worthy of emulation. That state is trying to reduce classes in kindergarten through grade three from a maximum of 33 to a maximum of 2o in rich and poor districts alike - despite a shortage of qualified teachers, especially in low-income areas. This across-the-board approach may be politically expedient, but it seems to have actually exacerbated the disparity in resources available to rich and poor schools in California. The better-paying, more affluent districts got the best teachers - including a fair number that good teachers. The evaluators found a small but statistically significant achievement advantage in reading, writing and mathematics for students in classes that had been reduced to 20 or fewer pupils, as compared with the classes of more than 20. The second program, Wisconsin's Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE), also begun in 1996, was a five-year study. It was small - class size was reduced in just 14 schools - but noteworthy because it targeted schools in which at least 30 percent of the students were below the poverty level.
F
Studies such as STAR and SAGE have made it hard to argue that reducing class sizes makes no difference. On the other hand, the California initiative has shown that the strategy, applied with too little fore thought and insight, can consume billions of dollars and, at least in the short run, produce only minuscule gains and even some losses. Legislators and administrators need more solid information on the relative costs of the other options before they can make sensible policy decisions.

❓ Câu hỏi passage 3

Criticism about STAR program due to some factors that are not reliable.

A comparison of one program’s failure and other programs’ successes.

The change of class-size reduction from an academic topic to a public one.

Actions were taken to ensure the reliability of the data.

Reasons why analyzing existing data on class size is complex.

List of Findings

STAR

California

SAGE

Class's composition was left by chance.

It is not certain that small class size results in better performance even they went to the fourth grade.

The special groups got advantages from the program.

It was a very small-scale project.

The students remained in whatever category they had been assigned to through the third grade.

It targeted schools in which at least 30 percent of the students were below the poverty level.

The program aggravated the situation of the poorer districts, which were already having trouble recruiting and retaining good teachers.

Students' background also affect their performance.

🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3

Giải thích chi tiết

Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Information

-------

Step 1: Phân tích câu hỏi (Matching Information) Criticism about STAR program due to some factors that are not reliable .

Dự đoán thông tin cần tìm (SPECIFY): đoạn đúng phải có đủ 2 mảnh:

Có lời phê bình/điểm yếu của chương trình STAR (ví dụ: “cannot be used to prove…”, “criticised…”, “problem…”).
Và phải nêu một yếu tố làm cho kết quả/thiết kế không đáng tin (ví dụ: dữ liệu bị “nhiễu” do người tham gia không theo đúng phân nhóm, can thiệp của nhà trường/phụ huynh, học sinh chuyển lớp, v.v.).

-------

Step 2: Locate bằng chứng Đoạn D nói trực tiếp về các criticism nhắm vào STAR và nêu rõ một yếu tố làm dữ liệu kém đáng tin.

Câu bằng chứng: “He argues, the STAR data cannot be used to prove that the gains persist for years… too many children migrated from the regular to the small classes, probably because school personnel caved in to parent demands.”

-------

Step 3: Đối chiếu paraphrasing

Criticism about STAR program ⇔ the STAR data cannot be used to prove (tức dữ liệu STAR không đủ mạnh để chứng minh tác động kéo dài nhiều năm).

some factors that are not reliable ⇔ too many children migrated from the regular to the small classes (quá nhiều trẻ tự chuyển từ lớp thường sang lớp nhỏ, làm phá vỡ thiết kế ban đầu) ⇔ và nguyên nhân: school personnel caved in to parent demands (= nhà trường “nhượng bộ” đòi hỏi của phụ huynh).

=> Vậy đoạn D đúng vì vừa có phê bình STAR, vừa có yếu tố khiến kết quả/thiết kế không còn đáng tin (học sinh chuyển nhóm do tác động phụ huynh/nhà trường).

❌ Bẫy hay dính:

Đoạn C nói rất nhiều về STAR (randomly assigned, small vs regular class…) nên đọc lướt thấy keyword “STAR project” dễ chọn C. Nhưng C chủ yếu là mô tả thiết kế nghiên cứu, không tập trung vào criticism vì dữ liệu bị nhiễu/không đáng tin như đoạn D (migrated classes, caved in to parent demands, cannot prove long-term gains).

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IELTS Real Reading Test Pre 2025 - Vol 1 Test 3 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation

Passage

📖 Bài đọc passage 1

❓ Câu hỏi passage 1

🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1

Giải thích chi tiết

Passage

📖 Bài đọc passage 2

❓ Câu hỏi passage 2

🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2

Giải thích chi tiết

Passage

📖 Bài đọc passage 3

❓ Câu hỏi passage 3

🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3

Giải thích chi tiết

IELTS Online Test

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