IELTS
JOURNAL
147
Preparing for the IELTS reading test
Note:
The reading text below is longer than usual and is used as the basis for all the
questions and examples in this section. However, in the real IELTS test the 40
questions will be based on three texts not just one text. In addition,
the questions will
not test your understanding of a point in the text more than once, as they may do
here.
Sample reading text:
Lessons from the Titanic
A
From the comfort of our modern lives we tend to look back at the turn of the
twentieth century as a dangerous time for sea travelers. With limited
communication facilities, and shipping technology still
in its infancy in the early
nineteen hundreds, we consider ocean travel to have been a risky business. But
to the people of the time it was one of the safest forms of transport. At the time
of the Titanic’s maiden voyage in 1912, there had only been four lives lost in the
previous forty years on passenger ships on the North Atlantic crossing. And the
Titanic was confidently proclaimed to be unsinkable. She represented the
pinnacle of technological advance at the time.
Her builders, crew and passengers
had no doubt that she was the finest ship ever built. But still she did sink on April
14, 1912, taking 1,517 of her passengers and crew with her.
B
The RMS Titanic left Southampton for New York on April 10, 1912. On board
were some of the richest and most famous people of the time who had paid
large sums of money to sail on the first voyage of the most luxurious ship in the
world. Imagine her placed on her end: she was larger at 269
meters than many
of the tallest buildings of the day. And with nine decks, she was as high as an
eleven storey building. The Titanic carried 329 first class, 285 second class and
710 third class passengers with 899 crew members, under the care of the very
experienced Captain Edward J. Smith. She also carried enough food
to feed a
small town, including 40,000 fresh eggs, 36,000 apples, 111,000 lbs of fresh
meat and 2,200 lbs of coffee for the five day journey.
C
RMS Titanic was believed to be unsinkable because the hull was divided into
sixteen watertight compartments. Even if two of these compartments flooded,
the ship could still float. The ship’s owners could not imagine that,
in the case of
an accident, the Titanic would not be able to float until she was rescued. It was
largely as a result of this confidence in the ship and in the safety of ocean travel
that the disaster could claim such a great loss of life.