Cambridge IELTS 12 Academic Reading Test 4

• 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 4 covers materials, rewilding and corporate governance. Passage 1, The History of Glass, traces the material from natural obsidian and ancient Mesopotamian glassware to the float glass of today. Passage 2, Bring back the big cats, makes the case for reintroducing lynx and other native predators to Britain. Passage 3 argues that UK companies need more effective boards of directors after a series of governance failures.

Note completion (eight gaps) and True/False/Not Given (five) dominate Passage 1 — the chronology of the glass history makes locating answers unusually quick if you scan for dates. Passage 2 mixes five classifying-style items, a four-gap summary and four Yes/No/Not Given questions. Passage 3 finishes with seven headings on board-level reform, four Yes/No/Not Given and three sentence completions where the language of governance is dense and abstract.

Allow seventeen minutes on glass, nineteen on big cats, and twenty-one on directors, with three minutes to transfer. The classifying task on rewilding species in Passage 2 is the trickiest single block, so do it last in that passage. Glass-making rewards careful temperature control; reading rewards careful attention control. Let neither one shatter under pressure.

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