The thylacine: reading answers and analysis
The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was a shy, striped, meat-eating marsupial that hunted by scent. Dingoes probably wiped it out on the mainland about 3,000 years ago. In Tasmania, hunting, habitat loss and disease finished it off. Protection came far too late, and the last one died in Hobart Zoo in 1936.
Questions 1-13 · 13 marks · 2 question blocks
Where the answers sit
The notes (1-5) run from the second paragraph to the fifth. TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN (6-13) goes from the fifth paragraph to the end.
Questions 1-5
Watch the word forms: the diet gap needs an adjective (entirely ___ diet), and the rest are nouns. The sense it relied on when hunting, where the young lived, what the mainland evidence is, and what disappeared along with prey in Tasmania.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | carnivorous | — |
| 2 | scent | — |
| 3 | pouch | — |
| 4 | fossil | — |
| 5 | habitat | — |
Questions 6-13
Check each FALSE carefully: only one thylacine was ever bred in captivity, scientists showed 'little' concern (Flynn was the exception), and the breeding-season protection came when the species was 'on the very edge of extinction'. The NOT GIVENs ask how biologists reacted to Gould, whether Flynn's island idea was practical, and how often searches happen now.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | TRUE | — |
| 7 | FALSE | — |
| 8 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 9 | FALSE | — |
| 10 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 11 | FALSE | — |
| 12 | TRUE | — |
| 13 | NOT GIVEN | — |
The questions most people get wrong
TRUE. The last wild thylacine was shot in 1930, 'leaving just captive specimens' until the last one died in 1936.
FALSE. Scientists expressed little concern in the decades after Gould. Flynn is described as a notable exception, not one of many.
Loss of habitat is listed together with the disappearance of prey species, and the note pairs it with 'available sources of food'.
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The full Cambridge 17 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 17, Test 3, 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.