Timur Gareyev — blindfold chess champion: reading answers and analysis
Timur Gareyev, the 'Blindfold King', plans to play nearly 50 blindfolded games at once. The passage covers his background, the long history of blindfold chess, and why juggling many boards in your head is hard. UCLA's memory tests found nothing special, but brain scans suggest unusually strong links in the networks that direct attention and process visual information.
Questions 27-40 · 14 marks · 3 question blocks
Where the answers sit
Paragraph matching (27-32) uses E twice. TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN (33-36) covers A to E. The summary (37-40) is F and G.
Questions 27-32
E answers two items: what playing blind involves (holding, updating and storing each board) and why the end of a game is hard (exhaustion makes recall patchy). Thirteenth-century Florence is in D. The researchers' interest is in B, 'nothing other than chess' is in F, and his priorities are in his closing words in H.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 27 | D | — |
| 28 | E | — |
| 29 | F | — |
| 30 | B | — |
| 31 | H | — |
| 32 | E | — |
Questions 33-36
Only Gareyev will be blindfolded, not his opponents (FALSE). E says many accomplished players can play blind (TRUE). BASE jumping is his hobby, but no competition wins are mentioned, and nothing says UCLA was first.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 33 | FALSE | — |
| 34 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 35 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 36 | TRUE | — |
Questions 37-40
F starts with standard memory tests, including repeating a string of numbers forwards and backwards. The scans showed more communication within the frontoparietal control network, and G adds unusual strength in the areas handling visual input.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 37 | memory | — |
| 38 | numbers | — |
| 39 | communication | — |
| 40 | visual | — |
The questions most people get wrong
E. The ends of games are taxing because exhaustion sets in and his recall gets patchy. It's near the end of the paragraph that also answers question 28.
TRUE. Accomplished players can develop the skill without realising it, and Gareyev says a lot of players could do what he does.
Write 'communication'. The scans found much greater communication between the parts of the control network.
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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 3. 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.