Bats to the rescue: reading answers and analysis
Insect pests push Madagascar's rice farmers to clear forest for new paddies, but some native bats are thriving over the rice fields and eating those pests, along with pests of coffee, sugarcane, nuts and citrus, plus mosquitoes. Rocha's team proved it with ultrasonic recordings and DNA from droppings. Locals' feelings about bats are mixed, and the team suggests bat houses.
Questions 1-13 · 13 marks · 2 question blocks
Where the answers sit
TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN (1-6) covers the first five paragraphs. The table (7-13) runs from the method paragraph to the recommendation near the end, in order.
Questions 1-6
Both FALSEs twist the opening. Insects destroy rice, not forests (farmers clear the forest), and some insectivorous bats are thriving, not suffering. The NOT GIVENs ask about Rocha's work elsewhere and which bat species is most common, and the passage covers neither.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | FALSE | — |
| 2 | FALSE | — |
| 3 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 4 | TRUE | — |
| 5 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 6 | TRUE | — |
Questions 7-13
The table follows the study's write-up: what the DNA came from, the crop pests beyond rice (the gap before sugarcane), the disease carriers eaten, then locals' mixed attitudes (food rich in something, dirty buildings, a place in culture) and the recommendation. Both spellings of mosquitoes are accepted.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | droppings | — |
| 8 | coffee | — |
| 9 | mosquitos | mosquitoes |
| 10 | protein | — |
| 11 | unclean | — |
| 12 | culture | — |
| 13 | houses | — |
The questions most people get wrong
FALSE. Pests destroy the rice crop, which leads farmers to clear forest. The insects don't attack the forest themselves.
The black twig borer infests coffee plants. The table lists the crops in the same order as the passage, so coffee comes before sugarcane.
Bats are linked to sacred caves and the ancestors, which makes them significant in the people's culture. The word appears near the end of that sentence.
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The full Cambridge 17 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 17, Test 4, 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.