Cambridge IELTS 19 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 19 Test 4 tackles climate ecology, marine biotech and human nature. Passage 1 reports that around two-thirds of British butterfly species have declined over forty years and explores the climate links. Passage 2 examines deep-sea mining, where ocean-floor bacteria show promise against superbugs and cancer but their habitats face mineral extraction. Passage 3, The Unselfish Gene, has a psychologist arguing against the assumption that humans are inherently self-centred.

Passage 1 mixes six True/False/Not Given and seven note completions on butterfly survey data. Passage 2 features four matching information items, six matching items linking discoveries to researchers and a three-gap summary — eleven matching items in one passage make this the structural pinch point. Passage 3 ends with four multiple choice, a five-gap summary and five Yes/No/Not Given.

Spend sixteen minutes on butterflies, twenty-three on deep-sea mining, twenty on the Unselfish Gene, with one minute to transfer. The matching block in Passage 2 is the longest single task in the paper and demands you treat each researcher as a discrete claim. Bacteria from the seabed take years to discover; you have one hour, so spend less time admiring the difficulty and more time scanning for distinctive surnames.

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