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IELTS Academic Reading 2025 past questions and answers

This 2025 IELTS Academic Reading set has 20 practice questions. Try these 5 free sample questions, tap a question to reveal the answer and explanation. Then practise the whole 2025 set with instant marking.

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Sample IELTS Academic Reading 2025 questions

1. Passage: In a trial across twelve apartment blocks, researchers replaced small sections of conventional rooftop planting with drought-tolerant native flowers. The planted roofs did not cool entire buildings dramatically, but rooms directly below them were cooler during late-afternoon heat. More importantly, the roofs attracted several pollinator species that had rarely been recorded in the district. Residents also reported that the flowers required less watering than the ornamental grasses previously used. The researchers caution that these results do not mean every roof should be converted, since structural capacity and local climate differ. Question: What is the passage mainly about?
  1. Why apartment roofs should be used exclusively for food production
  2. How rooftop gardens can eliminate urban heat across a district
  3. Potential benefits and limits of adding native plants to rooftops
  4. Why ornamental grasses attract more pollinators than flowers

Answer: C. Potential benefits and limits of adding native plants to rooftops

The passage presents several measured benefits of native rooftop planting while stressing that the approach has practical limits.

2. Passage: During a survey of pottery workshops in the lower Arven Valley, historian Mira Solen compared kiln remains with fragments found nearby. The oldest workshop contained a single circular kiln, while a later site had two rectangular kilns built beside a storage room. Charcoal samples suggested that the later complex operated for roughly four decades, although the dating range is not precise. The team found no evidence that either workshop produced glazed vessels; most surviving pieces were plain bowls and narrow-necked jars. Question: What feature distinguished the later workshop from the oldest one?
  1. It had two rectangular kilns and a storage room
  2. It produced glazed bowls for export
  3. It was built entirely from imported stone
  4. It operated for more than a century

Answer: A. It had two rectangular kilns and a storage room

The passage says the later site had two rectangular kilns beside a storage room, unlike the oldest site's single circular kiln.

3. Passage: A field team studying algae on high mountain snow noticed that patches with a faint rose colour melted sooner than nearby white snow. Laboratory tests showed that the algae absorb sunlight, but the team did not find evidence that they release heat themselves. The coloured patches also contained more dust, which can darken snow independently. Researchers therefore plan to measure algae and dust separately over several seasons before estimating their contributions to melt rates. Question: What can be inferred from the team's next step?
  1. The team has proved algae are the only cause of early melting
  2. Dust has no effect on how snow absorbs sunlight
  3. Rose-coloured snow melts later than clean white snow
  4. The team considers it premature to assign the melting difference to algae alone

Answer: D. The team considers it premature to assign the melting difference to algae alone

Because dust may also darken the snow, the researchers intend to separate its effect from that of the algae.

4. Passage: A set of hand-drawn coastal maps from the early nineteenth century was long treated as a record of exact shorelines. Yet the mapmakers often shifted a headland to make room for a harbour label, and some copied older outlines even after storms altered the coast. This does not make the maps useless. Their symbols and annotations reveal which routes officials considered important and where they expected ships to stop. Historians should therefore read them as documents of both geography and administrative priorities, rather than as neutral snapshots. Question: What is the writer's view of the coastal maps?
  1. They are too inaccurate to provide any historical evidence
  2. They are valuable, but must be interpreted as more than precise geographic records
  3. They were created mainly to record the effects of storms
  4. Their harbour labels are more reliable than all other map features

Answer: B. They are valuable, but must be interpreted as more than precise geographic records

The writer sees the maps as useful evidence about routes and priorities, but not as neutral or exact shoreline records.

5. Passage: Engineers tested a low-cost sensor that estimates soil moisture by measuring electrical resistance between two probes. In early trials, the readings were provisional: they offered a useful indication of whether a field was drying, but they were not yet accurate enough to determine irrigation schedules on their own. Salinity and soil composition altered the resistance, so the team compared sensor results with laboratory samples from several farms. After calibration, the device may help growers decide where more detailed measurements are needed. Question: In this passage, what does "provisional" most nearly mean?
  1. Designed to function without electricity
  2. Guaranteed to remain unchanged
  3. Temporary or not yet fully confirmed
  4. Based on a direct measurement of rainfall

Answer: C. Temporary or not yet fully confirmed

The readings were useful but not accurate enough for independent decisions, so they were preliminary rather than final.

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