Silbo Gomero – the whistle 'language' of the Canary Islands: reading answers and analysis
On La Gomera, shepherds whistle Spanish across ravines up to 10 km apart. Brain scans show that whistlers process Silbo in the same left-hemisphere language areas as speech, while non-whistlers' whole brains light up. Silbo predates the Spanish conquest. It is threatened by modern technology, so it's now taught in schools and the island is seeking UNESCO recognition.
Questions 14-26 · 13 marks · 2 question blocks
Where the answers sit
TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN (14-19) runs from the first paragraph to the last. The notes (20-26) go back to how Silbo is produced and run forward again in the same order.
Questions 14-19
Three FALSEs: any Spanish sentence can be whistled (not just short messages), the islanders already whistled before the Spanish arrived, and only 12 of about 70 whistled languages have been studied. La Gomera is described as mountainous but not compared with other islands (NOT GIVEN).
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 15 | FALSE | — |
| 16 | TRUE | — |
| 17 | FALSE | — |
| 18 | FALSE | — |
| 19 | TRUE | — |
Questions 20-26
The note headings follow the passage: how whistles are made (what tones recode, what the finger raises the pitch of, what the cupped hand adjusts), how Silbo is used (short commands, fire warnings), and its future (a threat from technology, hope from a UNESCO award). One answer in the production notes is a body part, singular.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | words | — |
| 21 | finger | — |
| 22 | direction | — |
| 23 | commands | — |
| 24 | fires | — |
| 25 | technology | — |
| 26 | award | — |
The questions most people get wrong
FALSE. They use it daily for short commands, but 'any Spanish sentence could be whistled', so it isn't limited to simple messages.
FALSE. The indigenous islanders already had a whistled language when Spain conquered the islands in the 15th century.
The silbador puts a finger in the mouth to raise the pitch. It's 'finger', singular, because the other hand does something else.
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The full Cambridge 15 Test 4 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 15, Test 4, Reading Passage 2. The passage name belongs to Cambridge University Press. No passage text or question wording is reproduced on this page. The answers are published for self-marking, and the analysis is our own.