What Is a Port City?: reading answers and analysis
A port is an economic idea, land-sea exchange, and not just a harbour. Cities like London and New York began as ports and grew into far more, but remain port cities, cosmopolitan and with their business centres by the water. Bigger ships left some old ports as backwaters, domestic trade usually outweighed foreign trade, and ports draw processing industries like oil refining.
Questions 27-40 · 14 marks · 3 question blocks
Where the answers sit
The headings (27-30) cover B to E (A is the example). The city-pair matching (31-34) needs A, B, D and G. YES / NO / NOT GIVEN (35-40) runs from B to F.
Questions 27-30
B: cities that outgrew their port role still differ from non-port cities (once a port city, always a port city). C: ports are cosmopolitan. D: bigger ships left some ports behind. E: domestic trade and service work outweigh foreign trade. The profit and oil headings are traps.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 27 | ii | — |
| 28 | i | — |
| 29 | v | — |
| 30 | vi | — |
Questions 31-34
Choose the pair where both cities fit. Madras and Colombo had expensive harbour work, and Istanbul and Jakarta both began as ports. Plymouth and Melaka were bypassed by bigger ships, and Singapore and Yokohama keep their business centres by the harbour. Mixed pairs like Hong Kong and Salem are traps.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | D | — |
| 32 | C | — |
| 33 | F | — |
| 34 | G | — |
Questions 35-40
A city stays a port city even when other functions dominate (NO). Domestic trade was greater than foreign trade (YES), and most people provide goods and services for the city itself (NO). Ports draw processing industries (YES), and river mouths feature throughout (YES). A common language of trade is never discussed.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 35 | NO | — |
| 36 | YES | — |
| 37 | NO | — |
| 38 | YES | — |
| 39 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 40 | YES | — |
The questions most people get wrong
NO. B says cities whose port functions are no longer dominant remain different from non-port cities, and F says a city 'may still be regarded as a port city'.
NO. Most of a city's population provides goods and services for the city itself. Trade is the basic function, but it isn't what most people do.
C. Istanbul and Jakarta are both on the list of cities that began as ports and grew beyond that. In the other pairs, only one city fits.
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The full Cambridge 2 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 2, 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.