Cambridge IELTS 12 Academic Reading Test 3

• 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 3 connects conservation, public health and music neuroscience. Passage 1, Flying tortoises, follows the airborne reintroduction of giant tortoises to Galápagos islands. Passage 2, The Intersection of Health Sciences and Geography, explores how location, climate and access to care shape disease outcomes. Passage 3, Music and the emotions, draws on neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer's work on why music moves us.

The headings task on Galápagos sets the tone, with seven headings and six note completions in Passage 1 — match the headings first because the paragraphs are clearly themed. Passage 2 brings six matching information items and seven sentence completions; the matching information section is the longest in the paper, so do not get stuck on a single question. Passage 3 closes with a five-gap summary, five multiple choice and four sentence endings.

Aim for seventeen minutes on tortoises, twenty on health geography, twenty-one on music, leaving two minutes for transfer. Flying tortoises took years of planning, with each animal weighed and crated individually — your reading plan can take three minutes at the start and pay off across all sixty.

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.