The importance of children's play: reading answers and analysis
A Cambridge research centre, PEDAL, sets out to prove what play does for children. Play seems to build creativity, self-control and writing skills, yet free play is shrinking as more children grow up in cities and parents worry about traffic, crime and academic pressure.
Both blocks follow the passage in order. The notes (1-8) use the first eight paragraphs: Alice's games, then the decline in play, then the policy problem. The TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN statements (9-13) start at the self-regulation paragraph and run to the final quote.
Answer key and self-check
Type what you wrote and hit mark. Hide the key first if you haven't done the passage yet. Every question number jumps to its explanation.
How to attack this block: The note headings follow the passage, so each one tells you which paragraph to read. Questions 4 and 5 are a pair of fears from the same sentence and can go in either order. Question 6 needs a noun after 'increased', so look for the thing that is growing in schools, not the adjective 'academic'.
Question 1
Answer: creativityParagraph 1, last sentence
What might building an imaginary kingdom help a child develop?
this fantasy is helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for creativity
Question says → Passage says
building a 'magical kingdom'Brick by brick, six-year-old Alice is building a magical kingdom
may help developis helping her take her first steps towards her capacity for
Why: The note heading is about uses of play, and the first one is Alice's kingdom. The passage says the fantasy is a first step towards her capacity for creativity. 'Creativity' is a noun and fits straight after 'develop'.
The trap: 'Fantasy' and 'imagining' are nearby, but they describe what she is doing now, not what the play develops.
Question 2
Answer: rulesParagraph 2, last sentence
Besides taking turns, what do board games involve?
settle down with a board game, she's learning about the need to follow rules and take turns with a partner
Question says → Passage says
board games involvesettle down with a board game, she's learning about the need to
turn-takingtake turns
Why: The note pairs the gap with turn-taking, and the passage pairs 'follow rules' with 'take turns'. The note needs a noun, so write 'rules', in the plural.
The trap: 'Emotions' is in the same paragraph, but that comes from playing schools, not from the board game.
Question 3
Answer: citiesParagraph 5, first sentence
What kind of populations have grown?
pointing out that over half the people in the world now live in cities
Question says → Passage says
Recent changeswe live in changing times
populations of ___ have grownover half the people in the world now live in
Why: Whitebread links the decline in play to urban living: over half the world now lives in cities. The note turns that into city populations growing. The gap follows 'populations of', so it needs a plural noun: 'cities'.
The trap: 'World' is in the same phrase, but 'populations of world' doesn't make sense, and the point is the shift to urban living.
Question 4
Answer: trafficParagraph 5, last sentence
Also accepted: crime
Name one fear that limits outdoor free play (traffic or crime).
Outdoor play is curtailed by perceptions of risk to do with traffic, as well as parents' increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime
Question says → Passage says
opportunities for free play are limitedOutdoor play is curtailed
fear ofperceptions of risk to do with / wish to protect their children from being the victims of
Why: The sentence gives two worries: the risk from traffic and the risk of children becoming victims of crime. Gaps 4 and 5 take one each, in either order. 'Curtailed' is the passage's word for 'limited'.
The trap: Don't write 'risk' or 'perceptions'. Those are the fear itself; the gap needs what people are afraid of.
Question 5
Answer: crimeParagraph 5, last sentence
Also accepted: traffic
Name the other fear that limits outdoor free play (crime or traffic).
parents' increased wish to protect their children from being the victims of crime
Question says → Passage says
fear ofwish to protect their children from being the victims of
Why: This is the second of the two fears in the same sentence. Parents want to protect children from crime, so they are afraid of crime. Whichever of 'traffic' and 'crime' you used for 4, write the other here.
The trap: 'Victims' is right next to it, but children aren't afraid of victims. The fear is of crime.
Question 6
Answer: competitionParagraph 5, end
What has increased in schools?
the emphasis on 'earlier is better' which is leading to greater competition in academic learning and schools
Question says → Passage says
increasedgreater
in schoolsin academic learning and schools
Why: 'Greater' becomes 'increased' in the note, and the noun after it is 'competition'. The gap sits between 'increased' and 'in schools', so it has to be a noun.
The trap: 'Academic' is tempting because it's right there, but it's an adjective. 'Increased academic in schools' isn't grammatical.
Question 7
Answer: evidenceParagraph 6, last sentence
What is hard to find to support new policies on play?
But what they often lack is the evidence to base policies on.
Question says → Passage says
it is difficult to findwhat they often lack
to support new policiesto base policies on
Why: International bodies want policies on children's right to play, but they lack the evidence to base them on. 'Lack' becomes 'difficult to find', and 'base policies on' becomes 'support new policies'.
The trap: 'Policies' and 'programmes' are nearby nouns, but they are what needs the support, not the support itself.
Question 8
Answer: lifeParagraph 8
Research should study the impact of play on which part of the child's existence?
there is very little data on the impact it has on the child's later life
Question says → Passage says
research needs to study the impact of playvery little data on the impact it has
the rest of the child'sthe child's later
Why: Gibson says there's little data on how play affects the child's later life. The note's 'the rest of the child's' replaces 'later', so the gap takes the noun: 'life'.
The trap: 'Impact' is in the note already. Some people write 'long-term' from Baker's line, but that's two words and an adjective.
TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN
Questions 9-13
How to attack this block: These move through the research findings paragraph by paragraph. Watch for paraphrase: self-control becomes self-regulation, and medical problems become disorders like autism. The Lego and dolls paragraph produces both a NOT GIVEN and a FALSE, so read it slowly.
Question 9
Answer: TRUEParagraph 12
Are children with good self-control known to do well at school later?
the ability to self-regulate has been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance
Question says → Passage says
good self-controlthe ability to self-regulate
are known to be likely to do well at schoolhas been shown to be a key predictor of academic performance
Why: TRUE. Paragraph 10 defines self-control, and paragraph 12 calls the same thing 'the ability to self-regulate'. 'Has been shown' matches 'are known', and a predictor of academic performance means it predicts doing well at school.
The trap: Some answer NOT GIVEN because the paragraph starts with 'If playful experiences...'. That 'if' is about play's effect, not about self-control predicting school results, which is stated as fact.
Question 10
Answer: TRUEParagraph 13
Can how a child plays tell us about possible medical problems?
observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism
Question says → Passage says
The way a child playsobserving children at play
provide informationgive us important clues
possible medical problemsthe diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism
Why: TRUE. Gibson says watching children play can help diagnose disorders like autism. Diagnosing a disorder means finding a medical problem, and 'clues' is 'information'.
Question 11
Answer: NOT GIVENParagraph 14
Did playing with dolls help girls' writing more than boys'?
Children wrote longer and better-structured stories when they first played with dolls representing characters in the story.
Question says → Passage says
Playing with dollsplayed with dolls
benefit… writingwrote longer and better-structured stories
Why: NOT GIVEN. The passage says the dolls helped children write better, but it only talks about 'children'. There's no comparison between girls and boys anywhere.
The trap: Dolls might make you think of girls, and you might mark it TRUE or FALSE from that. The passage gives no gender split at all.
Question 12
Answer: FALSEParagraph 14, last sentence
Did children struggle for ideas when they first used Lego to create the story?
With the Lego building, however, not a single child said this through the whole year of the project.
Question says → Passage says
had problems thinking up ideaschildren saying they didn't know what to write about
created the story with LegoWith the Lego building
Why: FALSE. Teachers say children used to complain they didn't know what to write about, but with Lego not one child said it all year. That directly contradicts the statement.
The trap: The word 'previously' in the teachers' comment trips people up. The problem existed before Lego, not with it.
Question 13
Answer: TRUEParagraph 16
Do people today think play matters less than they used to?
Somehow the importance of play has been lost in recent decades. It's regarded as something trivial
Question says → Passage says
People nowadays regard… as less significantthe importance of play has been lost in recent decades / regarded as something trivial
than they did in the pastin recent decades
Why: TRUE. Whitebread says the importance of play has been lost in recent decades and it's now seen as trivial. Losing importance over time means people value it less than before.
The trap: Paragraph 4 says recognising play's importance is 'not new', which can look like a contradiction. It's about the past, and the last paragraph says that view has since been lost.
FALSE, not NOT GIVEN. Teachers say children used to struggle for ideas, but with Lego not one child did.
Words from this passage worth keeping
repercussions(Paragraph 1)
effects that follow from something, often later
underpin(Paragraph 3)
form the base that something else rests on
extol(Paragraph 4)
praise very highly
curtailed(Paragraph 5)
cut back or limited
spontaneous(Paragraph 7)
happening naturally, without planning
facilitate(Paragraph 12)
make something easier to happen
predictor(Paragraph 12)
something that helps forecast a later result
backwater(Paragraph 15)
a quiet place where little changes or happens
Sit this test on Langujet, then come back
The full Cambridge 14 Test 1 reading paper: all three passages, 60 minutes, marked the second you finish with a review of every answer. Already done it? Take it again and see if the same traps still get you.
Cambridge IELTS 14, Test 1, Reading Passage 1. The passage and questions belong to Cambridge University Press and are not reproduced here. We quote short extracts only as evidence for our own commentary, and the answers are published for self-marking. Get the book for the full text, or sit the test on Langujet.
The rest of Cambridge 14 Test 1
Passage 1 · Questions 1-13 · You're hereThe importance of children's play
