Why we need to protect polar bears: reading answers and analysis
Polar bears could help medicine: a gene keeps their 'bad' cholesterol low despite huge fat reserves, and pregnant females keep their bones dense through six months of fasting, which matters for osteoporosis and even astronauts. The writer also argues they deserve protection for their own sake, citing tool use, play, frustration and unusual friendships.
Questions 1-13 · 13 marks · 2 question blocks
Where the answers sit
TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN (1-7) covers the four medical paragraphs in order. The table (8-13) covers the intelligence and emotion paragraphs that follow.
Questions 1-7
The FALSEs contradict clear points: the bears have no health problems from their fat, Liu compared polar bears with brown bears (not with other polar bears), and the females' bones showed no significant loss. Whether Liu's team was first to compare the two species is never said.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | FALSE | — |
| 2 | FALSE | — |
| 3 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 4 | TRUE | — |
| 5 | TRUE | — |
| 6 | FALSE | — |
| 7 | TRUE | — |
Questions 8-13
The table follows the anecdotes in order: how people see bears (unintelligent and one other adjective), GoGo's branch and what it knocked down, who the wild bear was trying to reach, what the pile-toppling looked like, and the emotion behind hitting the ice.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | violent | — |
| 9 | tool | — |
| 10 | meat | — |
| 11 | photographer | — |
| 12 | game | — |
| 13 | frustration | — |
The questions most people get wrong
FALSE. Liu's team compared polar bears with brown bears, their closest relatives from a warmer climate, not different groups of polar bears.
NOT GIVEN. The study is dated 2014, but nothing says nobody had compared the two species before.
People see bears as stupid and 'in many cases violent'. The table's 'unintelligent' paraphrases 'stupid', so the gap is the other adjective.
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Cambridge IELTS 16, Test 1, Reading Passage 1. 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.