Cambridge IELTS 11 Academic Reading Test 2

• Read each passage carefully. You can highlight text by selecting and right-clicking.
• Answer all 40 questions. Move freely between parts using the question palette.
• Submit before time runs out — auto-submit at 60:00.

Cambridge 11 Test 2 moves from Tudor naval archaeology to remote Pacific collapse to brain science. Passage 1, Raising the Mary Rose, recounts the recovery of Henry VIII's warship from the Solent seabed. Passage 2 asks what destroyed Easter Island's civilisation, weighing deforestation, isolation and collapse theories. Passage 3 introduces neuroaesthetics, an emerging field that uses brain imaging to study why we respond to art.

The diagram-labelling block on the Mary Rose recovery (five labels) is the unusual feature here, paired with four True/False/Not Given and four matching items linking dates to events. Passage 2 has seven headings, a four-gap summary and a two-answer multiple choice, where the headings task is the make-or-break section. Passage 3 closes with multiple choice, summary completion and six Yes/No/Not Given items — neuroaesthetics is opinion-rich, so flag attribution carefully.

Spend eighteen minutes on the Mary Rose, twenty on Easter Island, twenty-two on neuroaesthetics, with three minutes to transfer. Sketch the recovery cradle for the diagram task and resist re-reading whole paragraphs once you have your evidence. Easter Island's downfall came from running out of resources — make sure you don't run out of time.

New to this skill? Read the Reading question types guide for tactics, scoring rules, and frequency analysis across Cambridge 10–20. Or browse all Reading practice tests.

Looking for written strategy? See the IELTS Blog for in-depth posts.