Climate change reveals ancient artefacts in Norway’s glaciers: reading answers and analysis
Melting ice in Norway's Oppland mountains is releasing 6,000 years of arrows, skis and horse tack, and archaeologists must race to save them before they decay. Dating 153 finds showed that hunters kept going up into the mountains even in a mini ice age (perhaps because harvests failed), and that Viking-era demand for hides and antlers made mountain hunting good business.
Questions 14-26 · 13 marks · 4 question blocks
Where the answers sit
Section matching (14-19) uses six sections once each, B to H. The summary (20-22) is in B and C. The choose-TWO blocks cover E-F (23-24) and G (25-26).
Questions 14-19
The race against the clock is in B, and the hard fieldwork (hiking, camping on permafrost) in C. Lost arrows and discarded bows are in D, and failed harvests explaining less food are in F. The trade in hides and antlers is in G, and artefacts still in the ice waiting to be found are in H.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | D | — |
| 15 | C | — |
| 16 | F | — |
| 17 | H | — |
| 18 | G | — |
| 19 | B | — |
Questions 20-22
B explains that organic materials decay unless protected from one thing, and both spellings are accepted. C gives the animals that gathered on the ice patches and what they were escaping.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | microorganisms | micro-organisms |
| 21 | reindeer | — |
| 22 | insects | — |
Questions 23-24
E says some periods show few or no signs of activity, and F says hunters kept going up into the mountains even when it turned cold. The finds weren't just skis, and nothing is said about unreliable dating or other mountain sites.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 23-24 | B and C(in either order) | — |
Questions 25-26
G says business must have been good for hunters, with demand for hides and antlers booming, and that plenty of goods went overland as well as by ship. The Middle East is mentioned as one trading link, not the main one.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 25-26 | A and C(in either order) | — |
The questions most people get wrong
F. A colder climate meant crop failures, so there was less food and more hunting. It comes at the end of the section about the Late Antique Little Ice Age.
B. Glacial archaeologists 'need to race the clock' to find and preserve newly revealed items, which is the pressure to work quickly.
The reindeer were escaping biting insects. The summary's 'attacked by' is the clue.
Sit this test on Langujet, then come back
The full Cambridge 16 Test 3 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 16, Test 3, 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.