Book review: The World of Sugar by Ulbe Bosma: reading answers and analysis
A review of a global history of sugar. It covers cane and beet, who did the work, how rich sugar interests shaped government policy, the industrial side of refining, and the health damage as consumption exploded. The reviewer likes the book a lot.
Questions 27-40 · 14 marks · 3 question blocks
Where the answers sit
The multiple choice (27-30) points you to named paragraphs: the first, second, third and last. The summary (31-36) lives in paragraphs D and E. YES / NO / NOT GIVEN (37-40) is all paragraph G.
Questions 27-30
Each question tells you which paragraph to read, so read that one paragraph closely and nothing else. The wrong options are true-sounding statements about sugar in general. The right one is what that paragraph actually does.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 27 | B | — |
| 28 | A | — |
| 29 | C | — |
| 30 | A | — |
Questions 31-36
Nine options, six gaps, so three are decoys. Two of the decoys sound like the passage: 'outdated methods' and 'untrained workers'. The passage says 'traditional' and says nothing about training. Fill each gap by grammar first (a group of people? a place? a type of policy?) and then by meaning.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 31 | H | — |
| 32 | E | — |
| 33 | I | — |
| 34 | A | — |
| 35 | G | — |
| 36 | C | — |
Questions 37-40
All four sit in paragraph G, in order. It's the reviewer's opinion you are checking, and G is where the reviewer stops summarising and starts judging. Words like 'appalling' and 'worrying' are your signal.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 37 | YES | — |
| 38 | NOT GIVEN | — |
| 39 | NO | — |
| 40 | YES | — |
The questions most people get wrong
G says sugar was once regarded as a luxury and later promoted as an energy source. It never says advertisers sold it as a luxury. NOT GIVEN, and the most-missed answer in this passage.
'Outdated methods' is tempting, but the passage says traditional methods on small farms continued. Traditional is not outdated. The answer is small-scale cultivation (E).
The last paragraph says we could always have done without sugar and lists its tragedies, so the book's message is that sugar is harmful and unnecessary (A). The marketing option describes paragraph G, not the final one.
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The full Cambridge 21 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 21, Test 1, 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.