Urban farming: reading answers and analysis
On a Paris exhibition hall, the world's largest urban rooftop farm grows strawberries, lettuces and herbs in hollow aeroponic towers with no soil. Its designer, Pascal Hardy, says it won't feed the city, but local growing avoids pesticides, long refrigerated journeys and middlemen, and uses 90% less water. The limits: no root vegetables, no fruit trees, and mostly summer crops.
Questions 1-13 · 13 marks · 3 question blocks
Where the answers sit
Every block follows the passage in order. The sentences (1-3) are in the second and third paragraphs, the table (4-7) in Hardy's complaints and his answer to them, and TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN (8-13) in the last two paragraphs.
Questions 1-3
This is the one block with a two-word limit, and all three answers use it differently: a single plural noun, a number with its unit, and a two-word phrase (the one-word version is also accepted). In question 2, write the future daily harvest, not the lettuces and strawberries already picked in one day.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | lettuces | — |
| 2 | 1,000 kg | 1000 kg |
| 3 | food consumption | consumption |
Questions 4-7
The table sets the conventional supply chain against Hardy's method, and the answers come from his list of complaints. Match the ideas: chemical treatment, varieties bred to survive long trips, who gets most of the money, and what crops can be chosen for instead. Both spellings of flavour are accepted.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | pesticides | — |
| 5 | journeys | — |
| 6 | producers | — |
| 7 | flavour | flavor |
Questions 8-13
The FALSEs contradict clear claims: aeroponics uses a tiny fraction of the electricity of some methods, and most produce suits the summer. Prices are lower than soil-based organic, so that one is TRUE. The passage never says the equipment can be home-made, or how long beans take to grow (only that they take up space).
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | TRUE | — |
| 9 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 10 | FALSE | — |
| 11 | TRUE | — |
| 12 | FALSE | — |
| 13 | NOT GIVEN | — |
The questions most people get wrong
1,000 kg is the planned daily harvest once the whole roof is in production. The 3,000 lettuces and 150 punnets are what was already picked in one day.
NOT GIVEN. Beans are ruled out because they take a lot of space for a small return. Nothing is said about how long they take.
TRUE. Rooftops are above ground, and mushrooms grown in underground car parks are below it. Both are in the passage.
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The full Cambridge 18 Test 1 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 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.