An ideal city: reading answers and analysis
After plague killed half of Milan, Leonardo da Vinci designed an 'ideal city' on the Ticino River. It was never built, but it was centuries ahead of its time: several levels linked by outdoor staircases, services underneath, canals worked by clocks and basins, and street widths matched to house heights. Haussmann's Paris echoed it, and planners today see it as a model for compact, sustainable cities.
Questions 27-40 · 14 marks · 2 question blocks
Where the answers sit
TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN (27-33) runs from A to E. The summary (34-40) takes over from E and runs to the end, I.
Questions 27-33
Three are NOT GIVEN, and each uses a real detail to tempt you: 'genius' and '500 years' are both in A but aren't linked, deaths from plague and climate are both mentioned but never compared, and Pienza and Ferrara were redesigned with no mention of protests. The FALSEs are the plan never being built and Leonardo's disordered notes.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 27 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 28 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 29 | TRUE | — |
| 30 | FALSE | — |
| 31 | TRUE | — |
| 32 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 33 | FALSE | — |
Questions 34-40
The summary follows E to I. Watch the word forms: the field of expertise shown by the canals, the word for the street-width principle (a 'rule' still followed), and the adjective for the ancient cities. The last gap is the direction modern cities should stop building in.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 34 | transport | — |
| 35 | staircases | — |
| 36 | engineering | — |
| 37 | rule | — |
| 38 | Roman | — |
| 39 | Paris | — |
| 40 | outwards | — |
The questions most people get wrong
NOT GIVEN. The plague killed some 200 million, and the climate crisis is predicted to cause widespread death, but the passage never says which is worse.
FALSE. The project 'would remain unfulfilled' because of its costs, so it was never built.
'Built upwards instead of outwards': the approach to move away from is building outwards.
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The full Cambridge 18 Test 2 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 18, Test 2, 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.