Table of Contents
BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 487
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 487 – PASSAGE – 2
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 487
READING PASSAGE – 2
Apollo 11- The first Moon Landing
A. Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that helped humans land on the moon for the first time. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin designed the American crew that landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969. After landing of the Module, Armstrong stepped onto to the surface of the moon after six hours and nineteen minutes. After nineteen minutes, Aldrin also landed on the lunar surface.
They spent about two and a quarter hour together outside the spacecraft, and they gathered 21.5 kg of lunar material to bring back to Earth. The third crew member never landed on the moon as he flew the command module, named Columbia around the moon alone. Both the astronauts spent 21 hours, 36 minutes on the lunar surface at a site they named Tranquillity Base before lifting off to re-join Columbia in lunar orbit.
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B. Saturn V rocket was used to launch the Apollo 11 from the Kennedy Space centre located in Florida on 16th of July. It was the fifth crewed assignment of NASA’s Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three slices: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, the only part that reimbursed to Earth; a service module (SM), which braced the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had dual phases a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to room the astronauts back into lunar orbit.
The astronauts had to travel for three days to reach the lunar’s orbit after they separated themselves from the Saturn V rocket. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into Eagle that docked (joined) with the command module and landed on the site of Tranquillity on July 20. After the mission was accomplished, the astronauts used the ascent module to propel themselves into the lunar’s orbit and join Collins in the command module. They dumped Eagle before they performed the manoeuvres that propelled Columbia out of the last of its 30 lunar orbits onto a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and speckled down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24 next more than eight days in space.
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C. Millions of people around the globe saw the live telecast of Armstrong’s first step onto the lunar surface. He spoke these words as soon as he landed on the moon “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Apollo 11 effectively ended the Space Race and fulfilled a national goal projected in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, who said in the public “before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
The initial crew project of Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Buzz Aldrin on the holdup crew for Apollo 9 was officially announced on November 20, 1967. Lovell and Aldrin had formerly sailed together as the crew of Gemini 12. Owing to design and manufacturing delays in the LM, Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 swapped prime and backup crews, and Armstrong’s crew became the backup for Apollo 8. Grounded on the normal crew rotation structure, Armstrong was then likely to command Apollo 11.
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D. There would be one change. Michael Collins, the CMP on the Apollo 8 crew, started facing trouble with his legs. Doctors analysed the delinquent as a bony growth amid his fifth and sixth vertebrae, requiring surgery. Lovell took his place on the Apollo 8 crew, and when Collins recovered, he teamed up with Armstrong’s crew as CMP. In the interim, Fred Haise occupied in as backup LMP, and Aldrin as backup CMP for Apollo 8. Apollo 11 was the subsequent American mission where all the crew members had past spaceflight experience, the first being Apollo 10. The next was STS-26 in 1988.
Deke Slayton provided Armstrong the choice to substitute Aldrin with Lovell, since some thought Aldrin was difficult to work with. Armstrong had no matters working with Aldrin nonetheless thought it over for a day before declining. He thought Lovell earned to knack his own mission (eventually Apollo 13). The Apollo 11 prime crew had not a single person of the close joyful camaraderie characterized by that of Apollo 12.
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Instead, they forged an amiable working relationship. Armstrong was scandalously indifferent, but Collins, who considered himself a lone wolf, confessed to rebuffing Aldrin’s attempts to create a more personal relationship. Aldrin and Collins labelled the crew as “amiable strangers”. Armstrong did not settle with the valuation and said, “all the crews I was on worked very well together.”
E. The backup crew consisted of Lovell as Commander, William Anders as CMP, and Haise as LMP. Anders had flown with Lovell on Apollo 8. In early 1969, he accepted a job with the National Aeronautics and Space Council and announced he would retire as an astronaut at that time. Ken Mattingly was stirred from the support crew into corresponding training with Anders as backup CMP in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch date, at which point Anders would be unavailable. Lovell, Haise, and Mattingly were later allocated as the prime crew of Apollo 13. Throughout Projects Mercury and Gemini, to each mission had a prime and a backup crew.
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F. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts was supplemented, acknowledged as the support crew. The support crew maintained the flight plan, checklists, and mission ground rules, and ensured the prime and backup crews were reported of the changes during the mission. They developed measures, particularly those for emergency situations, so these were prepared for when the prime and backup crews came to train in the simulators, allowing them to concentrate on practicing and mastering them.
For Apollo 11, the support crew comprised of Ken Mattingly, Ronald Evans, and Bill Pogue. The capsule communicator (CAPCOM) was an astronaut at the Mission Control Centre in Houston, Texas, who was the only person who communicated directly with the flight crew. For Apollo 11, the CAPCOMS were: Charles Duke, Ronald Evans, Bruce McCandless II, James Lovell, William Anders, Ken Mattingly, Fred Haise, Don L. Lind, Owen K. Garriott and Harrison Schmitt.
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Questions 14-19
Choose the correct heading for the given sections from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number in the answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. An occasion that the entire world watched.
ii. Alternate crew.
iii. This crew formed the actions required in predicament.
iv. This crew was not able to complete their tasks on time.
v. One of the crew members facing distress in his limbs.
vi. Elucidation of the different parts of the space craft.
vii. The mission that never get going.
viii. The historic moment.
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14. Paragraph A
15. Paragraph B
16. Paragraph C
17. Paragraph D
18. Paragraph E
19. Paragraph F
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Questions 20-27
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
TRUE – If the statement agrees with the information.
FALSE – If the statement contradicts the information.
NOT GIVEN – If there is no information on this.
20 All crew members of Apollo 11 touched down the lunar surface.
21. The specimen of lunar soil collected by Apollo 11 crew was not useful for research.
22. The coupling of Eagle and Command module was unsuccessful.
23. The Apollo 11 crew flew back to Earth on Eagle module.
24. There was some adjournment in the creation and design of the lunar module that prompted the substitution of crew members.
25. Armstrong accepted to bring in Lovell instead of Aldrin as the third crew member.
26. Three astronauts were assigned as the core group of the mission Apollo 13.
27. The support crew of Apollo 11 was accountable for broadcasting alterations to the prime and back-up crews.
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ANSWERS
14. VIII
15. VI
16. I
17. V
18. II
19. III
20. FALSE
21. NOT GIVEN
22. FALSE
23. FALSE
24. TRUE
25. FALSE
26. TRUE
27. TRUE
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