Cambridge IELTS 12 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 12 Test 2 takes you from rural risk through Andean archaeology to the bilingual brain. Passage 1, The risks agriculture faces in developing countries, is a synthesis of an online debate, with multiple voices in lettered sections. Passage 2 retells Hiram Bingham's encounter with Machu Picchu, the Inca city revealed in 1911. Passage 3, The Benefits of Being Bilingual, summarises the cognitive advantages now associated with growing up multilingual.

Matching is the dominant question form. Passage 1 combines three matching information, a six-item matching of opinions to debate participants and two two-answer multiple choice questions — read each contributor's section carefully and tag a one-line summary in the margin. Passage 2 has seven headings, four True/False/Not Given and two sentence completions. Passage 3 finishes with a five-row table, five Yes/No/Not Given and four matching information items.

Spend twenty minutes on agriculture, eighteen on Machu Picchu, twenty-two on bilingualism, with no slack. The Machu Picchu narrative is sequential and friendly, so use it to reset your pace mid-paper. Bilingual brains are flexible — flex yours by switching tactics for each question type rather than re-reading the passage three times.

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.