Cambridge IELTS 17 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 17 Test 3 covers extinction, agribusiness and the building of New York. Passage 1, The thylacine, profiles the extinct Tasmanian tiger and what we know of its biology and demise. Passage 2, Palm oil, surveys the global production of the world's most consumed vegetable oil and its environmental costs. Passage 3 reviews Jason Barr's book Building the Skyline on the geology and economics behind Manhattan's skyscrapers.

Passage 1 opens with eight True/False/Not Given and five note completions — the chronology of thylacine sightings is sequential, so move forward and don't double back. Passage 2 features a seven-item classifying task on palm oil claims, two-answer multiple choice and four sentence completions; classifying again rewards you for distinguishing fine shades of opinion. Passage 3 closes with five multiple choice, four Yes/No/Not Given and a five-gap summary.

Spend nineteen minutes on the thylacine, twenty on palm oil, twenty on Manhattan, with one minute to transfer. The Manhattan book review is the friendliest of the three closing tasks, with clear chapter-style structure. The thylacine vanished partly because nobody believed it would; do not assume an obvious-looking True/False answer is always right.

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