PTE Academic Reading Practice Test 4 (with Answers)

Type 1 · Fill in the Blanks (Dropdown)

Click each blank and choose the correct word from its dropdown menu.

How Desert Plants Survive Extreme Drought

Plants native to arid regions have evolved a range of strategies that them to survive months or even years without significant rainfall. Cacti, for example, store water in thick, fleshy stems and have replaced broad leaves with spines, which the surface area from which water can evaporate. opening their pores during the day, when heat would cause rapid water loss, many desert plants open them only at night to absorb carbon dioxide, a process called CAM photosynthesis. Some desert plants developed extremely deep root systems capable of reaching underground water sources far below the surface. , others take the opposite approach, spreading a shallow but extensive network of roots to quickly absorb any rainfall before it evaporates.

📖 বাংলা অনুবাদ · Bangla translation

শুষ্ক অঞ্চলের উদ্ভিদ বৃষ্টিপাত ছাড়াই মাস বা বছর টিকে থাকতে বিভিন্ন কৌশল অবলম্বন করেছে। ক্যাকটাস পানি সংরক্ষণ করে এবং কাঁটার মাধ্যমে পানি বাষ্পীভবন কমায়। অনেক মরুভূমির উদ্ভিদ রাতে ছিদ্র খোলে (CAM সালোকসংশ্লেষণ)। কিছু উদ্ভিদ গভীর মূল তৈরি করে, আবার কিছু অগভীর কিন্তু বিস্তৃত মূল ছড়িয়ে দেয়।

Type 2 · Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers

Read each passage and select all the options that are correct — more than one answer may be right.

Urban Food Deserts

An urban "food desert" refers to a neighbourhood, often in a lower-income area, where residents have limited access to affordable, fresh and nutritious food, typically because full-service grocery stores have closed or relocated to wealthier areas with higher expected profit margins. Residents of food deserts frequently rely instead on convenience stores or fast-food outlets, which tend to offer a narrower selection of processed, calorie-dense food at comparatively higher prices than a full grocery store. Public health researchers have linked living in a food desert to higher rates of diet-related conditions, including obesity and type 2 diabetes, though some researchers caution that food access alone may not fully explain these patterns, since income, transportation access and food preferences likely interact in complex ways. Some cities have responded by offering tax incentives to attract grocery retailers into underserved neighbourhoods, or by supporting mobile markets and community gardens as partial solutions.

According to the passage, which TWO statements are true?

Convenience stores in food deserts tend to charge higher prices for a narrower food selection. Some researchers caution that food access alone may not fully explain diet-related health patterns. All researchers agree that food access is the only cause of diet-related illness. Grocery stores have relocated exclusively to lower-income neighbourhoods in recent years. No city has attempted any policy response to the food desert problem.

Coral Spawning Events

Once a year, many coral species on a given reef release their eggs and sperm into the water simultaneously, in a highly synchronised event known as mass coral spawning. This synchronisation, which scientists believe is triggered by a combination of water temperature, the lunar cycle, and day length, allows for greater fertilisation success, since millions of coral colonies across a reef release their reproductive cells within the very same hour, overwhelming predators that might otherwise consume most of the eggs before fertilisation could occur. The resulting fertilised eggs develop into free-swimming larvae, which drift with ocean currents for days or weeks before eventually settling onto a suitable hard surface and beginning to grow into a new coral colony. Because mass spawning events are so precisely timed and occur only once or twice per year, researchers can predict them with reasonable accuracy, allowing marine biologists to observe and even collect coral gametes for conservation breeding programmes.

According to the passage, which TWO statements are true?

Mass spawning overwhelms predators, improving the odds that eggs are successfully fertilised. Researchers can predict mass coral spawning events with reasonable accuracy. Coral spawning occurs continuously throughout the year with no seasonal pattern. Coral larvae immediately settle in the exact location where they were released. Scientists have found no link between spawning timing and the lunar cycle.

Type 3 · Reorder Paragraphs

Drag the paragraphs into the correct order, or use the ▲▼ buttons.

The Invention of the Electric Telegraph

Samuel Morse, working independently in the United States, developed a practical single-wire telegraph system along with a code of dots and dashes representing letters, which became known as Morse code.

Although several inventors experimented with electrical signalling devices in the early nineteenth century, it was not until the 1830s and 1840s that a commercially practical telegraph system emerged.

By the 1860s, telegraph lines and undersea cables connected much of the world, allowing messages that once took weeks to travel by ship to be delivered within minutes.

This dramatic acceleration in communication speed transformed international business, journalism, and diplomacy, laying important groundwork for the even faster global communication technologies that followed.

Why Leaves Change Colour in Autumn

Throughout spring and summer, a green pigment called chlorophyll dominates a leaf's colour, absorbing sunlight to power photosynthesis while masking other pigments already present within the leaf.

As days shorten and temperatures drop in autumn, trees gradually stop producing chlorophyll and begin breaking down what remains, allowing previously hidden yellow and orange pigments to become visible.

Some tree species also actively produce new red pigments during this transition, though scientists are still researching the exact evolutionary purpose these additional pigments serve.

Once all pigments eventually break down and the connection between leaf and branch weakens, the leaf detaches and falls, completing the tree's preparation for winter dormancy.

Type 4 · Fill in the Blanks (Drag and Drop)

Click a word in the box below to select it, then click the blank where it fits (or drag it directly). Two extra words will not be used.

dependence fluctuate diversify vulnerable revenue stabilised expanded

The Risks of Single-Crop Agricultural Economies

Many developing economies historically built much of their export earnings around a single agricultural commodity, such as coffee, cocoa or sugar, a strategy that leaves government _____ highly exposed to sudden shifts in global commodity prices. Because international prices for a single crop can _____ significantly from one year to the next due to weather, disease, or shifting global demand, national economies built around one export crop can become _____ to sudden economic shocks entirely outside their control. This heavy _____ on a single commodity has led many economists to recommend that developing economies actively _____ their exports across multiple industries and crops, reducing their exposure to any single market's volatility.

📖 বাংলা অনুবাদ · Bangla translation

অনেক উন্নয়নশীল অর্থনীতি ঐতিহাসিকভাবে একক কৃষি পণ্যের (যেমন কফি, কোকো, চিনি) উপর তাদের রপ্তানি আয় গড়ে তুলেছে, যা সরকারি রাজস্বকে বিশ্ব পণ্যমূল্যের হঠাৎ পরিবর্তনের প্রতি অত্যন্ত সংবেদনশীল করে তোলে। একক পণ্যের উপর নির্ভরতার কারণে অর্থনীতিবিদরা রপ্তানি বৈচিত্র্যকরণের পরামর্শ দেন।

Type 5 · Multiple Choice, Single Answer

Read each passage and select the single best answer.

The Placebo Effect

The placebo effect refers to a measurable improvement in a patient's symptoms following treatment with an inactive substance, such as a sugar pill, that the patient believes to be an active medication. Researchers have found that placebo effects can be genuinely significant for certain conditions, particularly those involving subjective symptoms such as pain or fatigue, where a patient's expectation of relief appears to trigger real physiological changes, including the release of the body's own natural pain-relieving chemicals. Interestingly, studies have shown that placebo effects can vary depending on factors such as the pill's colour, its price, or even the perceived authority of the person administering it, suggesting that context and expectation play a substantial role in the effect's strength. Because of this well-documented effect, new medical treatments must be tested against a placebo in controlled clinical trials to demonstrate that they produce benefits beyond what expectation alone could achieve.

According to the passage, why must new medical treatments be tested against a placebo?

To prove that the treatment produces benefits beyond what expectation alone could achieve. Because placebo pills are always more effective than real medication. Because patients are legally required to receive a placebo before any real medicine. Because placebo effects have been proven not to exist at all.

The Function of a Ship's Ballast Tank (Not Ballast Water Species)

Modern cargo ships use ballast tanks, large compartments that can be filled with or emptied of seawater, primarily to control a vessel's draft, trim and stability at different stages of a voyage. When a ship is travelling without cargo, or "in ballast," its tanks are filled with seawater to add weight low in the hull, keeping the vessel stable and ensuring its propeller remains sufficiently submerged for efficient operation. As cargo is loaded at port, crew members pump ballast water out to compensate for the added weight, maintaining the ship's overall balance and preventing it from riding dangerously low or high in the water. Precise ballast management is especially critical for large container ships, where uneven loading or ballasting can cause a vessel to list dangerously to one side, and modern ships increasingly use computerised systems to calculate and automatically adjust ballast levels throughout a voyage.

According to the passage, why do crew members pump out ballast water as cargo is loaded?

To compensate for the added cargo weight and maintain the ship's overall balance. Because ballast water is illegal to carry once cargo has been loaded onto a ship. To increase the ship's total weight as much as possible before departure. Because computerised systems are incapable of managing ballast during loading.

PTE Reading Practice Test 4