Table of Contents
BEST IELTS General Reading Test 234
IELTS GENERAL READING TEST 234 – PASSAGE – 3
IELTS GENERAL READING TEST
READING PASSAGE – 3
The Berlin Wall
A. The Berlin Wall was a secured concrete barrier that substantially and ideologically separated Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Construction of the Wall was beginning by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, with East Berlin. The barrier comprised guard towers positioned along concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails, and other defences. The justification behind building the wall was that East Germany said it wanted to protect its people.
B. The Eastern Bloc depicted the Wall as defending its population from fascist elements colluding to avert the “will of the people” from building a socialist state in East Germany .GDR authorities officially denoted to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampar. The West Berlin city government occasionally mentioned to it as the “Wall of Shame”, a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall’s restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the distinct and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which delineated the border between East and West Germany, it came to physically signify the “Iron Curtain” that parted Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
IELTS General Reading Test
C. Before the Wall’s erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration limitations and deserted from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prohibited almost all such emigration. During this period, over 100,000 people tried to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with a projected death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.
D. On 15 June 1961, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht specified in an international press conference, “No one has the intention of erecting a wall!”. It was the first time the colloquial term Mauer (wall) had been used in this situation. The transcript of a telephone call between Nikita Khrushchev and Ulbricht, on 1 August in the same year, recommends that the initiative for the creation of the Wall came from Khrushchev. Nevertheless, other sources recommend that Khrushchev had initially been wary about building a wall, fearing negative Western reaction. However, Ulbricht had pushed for a border closure for quite some time, disagreeing that East Germany’s very existence was at stake.
IELTS General Reading Test
E. Khrushchev had become encouraged upon seeing US president John F. Kennedy’s youth and immaturity, a weakness against Khrushchev’s ruthless, undiplomatic aggression. In the 1961 Vienna summit, Kennedy made the mistake of confessing that the US would not actively oppose the building of a barrier. A feeling of inaccuracy and disappointment immediately afterwards was self-confessed by Kennedy in a candid interview with New York Times columnist James “Scotty” Reston. On Saturday, 12 August 1961, the leaders of the GDR attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin. There, Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a wall.
F. At midnight, the police and units of the East German army started to close the border and, by Sunday morning, 13 August, the border with West Berlin was shut. East German troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the border to make them blocked to most vehicles and to install hooked wire entanglements and fences along the 156 kilometers (97 mi) around the three western sectors, and the 43 kilometers (27 mi) that alienated West and East Berlin. The date of 13 August became commonly denoted to as Barbed Wire Sunday in Germany.
IELTS General Reading Test
G. The barrier was erected inside East Berlin or East German territory to confirm that it did not intrude on West Berlin at any point. Generally, the Wall was only slightly inside East Berlin, but in a few places, it was some distance from the legal border, most particularly at Potsdamer Bohnhoff and the Lenné Triangle that is now much of the Potsdamer Platz development. Later, the initial barrier was built up into the Wall proper, the first concrete elements and large blocks being put in place on 17 August. Throughout the erection of the Wall, National People’s Army (NVA) and Combat Groups of the Working Class (KdA) soldiers stood in front of it with guidelines to shoot anyone who tried to defect. Furthermore, chain fences, walls, minefields, and other hindrances were installed along the length of East Germany’s western border with West Germany proper. A vast no man’s land was cleared to offer a clear line of fire at escaping refugees.
H. In 1989, a succession of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries- in Poland and Hungary in particular triggered a chain reaction in East Germany that eventually caused in the demise of the Wall. After several weeks of civil turbulence, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Masses of East Germans crossed and mounted onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a festive atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters fragmented away parts of the Wall. The Brandenburg Gate, a few meters from the Berlin Wall, was unlocked on 22 December 1989. The destruction of the Wall officially commenced on 13 June 1990 and was accomplished in November 1991. The “fall of the Berlin Wall” paved the way for German reunification, which officially took place on 3 October 1990.
IELTS General Reading Test
Question 27-34
Choose the correct heading for the given sections from the list of headings below.
27. Paragraph A
28. Paragraph B
29. Paragraph C
30. Paragraph D
31. Paragraph E
32. Paragraph F
33. Paragraph G
34. Paragraph H
IELTS General Reading Test
List of headings
i. The wall erected marginally within east Germany.
ii. Vulnerability of the US leader.
iii. The Berlin wall erection and rationale
iv. The Berlin wall was the longest and strongest wall in the world.
V. Testimony from a conversation about who directed to construct the wall.
vi. The wall was erected by using labours from both sides of Germany
vii. Both sides mentioning the partition in their specific ways.
viii. Cessation of border by armed forces.
ix. The government of Germany is planning to build a similar wall in future
x. The fall of the wall.
xi. People perishing in pursuit to cross the border.
IELTS General Reading Test
Question 35-40
Complete the fill ups below.
Write no more than THREE WORDS and/or numbers for each answer.
35. The defence towers were placed adjacent to ………….. walls.
36. The West Berlin city government sporadically revealed wall as the………………
37. ……….. people endeavoured to dodge the wall.
38. Kennedy made the blunder of acknowledging that the US would not vigorously ……… the construction of a fence in a conference.
39. The boundary with West Berlin was closed on ……… .
40. People from East Germany jumped onto the Wall along with …… on the west side in a cheerful ambience.
IELTS General Reading Test
ANSWERS ARE BELOW
IELTS General Reading Test
ANSWERS
27. III
28. VII
29. XI
30. V
31. II
32. VIII
33. I
34. X
35. CONCRETE
36. WALL OF SHAME
37. 100,000
38. OPPOSE
39. SUNDAY / 13 AUGUST OR
SUNDAY AUGUST
40. WEST GERMANS
IELTS General Reading Test