The Industrial Revolution in Britain: reading answers and analysis
A tour of Britain's industrial revolution by sector: steam power from Newcomen to Watt and Boulton, coal and railways, textiles leaving the cottage for the factory, coke-smelted iron, the telegraph, and fast, dirty urban growth. It ends with the Luddites, the skilled weavers who smashed machines and were crushed by 1813.
Questions 1-13 · 13 marks · 2 question blocks
Where the answers sit
The notes (1-7) run in passage order from the second paragraph to the seventh, one heading per sector. The TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN block (8-13) starts again in the third paragraph and ends in the last.
Questions 1-7
The note headings match the passage's own sections, so jump to the right paragraph and read for the idea. Question 1 is about the part of the engine linked to the gears. Question 4 is a paraphrase: 'relatively little' in the text becomes 'not as much' in the notes. Both US and UK spellings of labour are accepted.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | piston | — |
| 2 | coal | — |
| 3 | workshops | — |
| 4 | labour | labor |
| 5 | quality | — |
| 6 | railway | railways |
| 7 | sanitation | — |
Questions 8-13
Half this block is NOT GIVEN. The passage mentions canals, Morse and Huddersfield, but never says the canal network grew, that one telegraph beat another, or how local people felt about the arrested Luddites. The one FALSE contradicts the text directly: coke made iron cheaper, not dearer.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 9 | FALSE | — |
| 10 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 11 | TRUE | — |
| 12 | TRUE | — |
| 13 | NOT GIVEN | — |
The questions most people get wrong
Canals are named (steam boats used them), but nothing says the network expanded. Words from the statement appearing in the text is not the same as the idea being there.
TRUE. The eighth paragraph says higher output helped the middle and upper classes while the poor kept struggling. That is 'benefits limited to certain sectors', just paraphrased.
Demand came from the Napoleonic Wars and the railways. Only 'railway' (or 'railways') fits a single-word gap after 'growth of the'.
Sit this test on Langujet, then come back
The full Cambridge 19 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 19, Test 2, 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.