Governments and the Environment: reading answers and analysis
Governments often harm the environment by subsidising the use of resources. Farming, which shapes a third of the world's land, has raised output with irrigation, chemicals and new crops, causing deforestation, polluted water, erosion and lost plant varieties. Rich-country subsidies push fertiliser and pesticide use higher, and New Zealand's removal of subsidies helped. The Uruguay trade round should help sustainable farming.
Questions 14-28 · 15 marks · 4 question blocks
Where the answers sit
The headings (14-18) cover sections A-D and F (E is the example). The practice-and-damage table (19-22) is in B and C. The multiple choice (23-27) runs from C to F. Question 28 asks about the whole passage.
Questions 14-18
A introduces governments and environmental management. B is about farming raising food output, and C lists farming's environmental damage. D covers policy in rich countries (E, the example, covers poor ones). F predicts the effects of the new trade agreement. Several headings share words, so match each section's main topic.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | v | — |
| 15 | vii | — |
| 16 | ii | — |
| 17 | iv | — |
| 18 | i | — |
Questions 19-22
C pairs each practice with its damage: land clearing leads to deforestation, chemicals contaminate water, intensive farming worsens soil erosion, and monoculture wipes out old plant varieties. 'Insurance against pests' is what those lost varieties might have given, not the damage itself.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 19 | G | — |
| 20 | C | — |
| 21 | F | — |
| 22 | B | — |
Questions 23-27
In the US, a fifth of farmland was losing topsoil, which is damage to 20% of land, not a 20% drop in output. Danish fertiliser use doubled between 1960 and 1985. After 1984 New Zealand's farms diversified. Other rich countries only reduced subsidies instead of ending them. The trade round should encourage sustainable farming in the long run.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 23 | C | — |
| 24 | B | — |
| 25 | D | — |
| 26 | C | — |
| 27 | A | — |
Question 28
The passage opens and closes on the role of governments in managing the environment. Subsidies, soil erosion and fertilisers are all parts of that argument, not the whole of it.
| Question | Answer | Also accepted |
|---|---|---|
| 28 | A | — |
The questions most people get wrong
C. About one-fifth of US farmland was losing topsoil at a damaging rate. A misreads this as a 20% loss of productivity.
B. Fertiliser use doubled in Denmark between 1960 and 1985. The 115% rise was in how often pesticides were applied (D misreads it).
C. These countries reduce subsidies and add new payments instead of scrapping them, so they miss the long-term benefit New Zealand gained.
Sit this test on Langujet, then come back
The full Cambridge 3 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 3, Test 2, Reading Passage 2. 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.