BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 607

Table of Contents

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 607 – READING PASSAGE – 2

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 607

READING PASSAGE – 2

Preserving Gardens

A. With a quarter of the world’s plants set to vanish within the next 50 years, Dough
Alexander reports on the scientists working against the clock the preserve the Earth’s
botanical heritage. They travel the four corners of the globe, scouring jungles, forests and
savannas. But they’re not looking for ancient artefacts, lost treasure or undiscovered tombs.
Just pods.

It may lack the romantic allure of archaeology or the whiff of danger that
accompanies going after a big game, but seed hunting is an increasingly serious business.
Some seek seeds for profit-hunters in the employ of biotechnology firms, pharmaceutical
companies and private corporations on the lookout for species that will yield the drugs or
crops of the future. Others collect to conserve, working to halt the sad slide into extinction
facing so many plant species.

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST
B. Among the pioneers of this botanical treasure hunt was John Tradescant, an English royal
gardener who brought back plants and seeds from his journeys abroad in the early 1600s.
Later, the English botanist Sir Joseph Banks – who was the first director of the Royal Botanic
Gardens at Kew and travelled with Captain James Cook on his voyages near the end of the
18th century – was so driven to expand his collections that he sent botanists around the
world at his own expense.

C. Those heady days of exploration and discovery may be over, but they have been replaced
by a pressing need to preserve our natural history for the future. This modern mission drives
hunters such as Dr Michiel van Slageren, a good-natured Dutchman who often sports a
wide-brimmed hat in the field – he could easily be mistaken for the cinematic hero Indiana
Jones. He and three other seed hunters work at the Millennium Seed Bank, an 80 million
[pounds sterling] international conservation project that aims to protect the world’s most
endangered wild plant species.

D. The group’s headquarters are in a modern glass-and-concrete structure on a 200-hectare
Estate at Wakehurst Place in the West Sussex countryside. Within its underground vaults are
260 million dried seeds from 122 countries, all stored at -20 Celsius to survive for centuries.
Among the 5,100 species represented are virtually all of Britain’s 1,400 native seed-bearing
plants, the most complete such collection of any country’s flora.

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST
E. Overseen by the Royal botanic gardens, the Millennium Seed Bank is the world’s largest
wild-plant depository. It aims to collect 24,000 species by 2010. The reason is simple: thanks
to humanity’s effort, an estimated 25 per cent of the world’s plants are on the verge of
extinction and may vanish within 50 years. We’re currently responsible for habitat
destruction on an unprecedented scale, and during the past 400 years, plant species
extinction rates have been about 70 times greater than those indicated by the geological
record as being ‘normal’. Experts predict that during the next 50 years further one billion
hectares of wilderness will be converted to farmland in developing countries alone.

F. The implications of this loss are enormous. Besides providing staple food crops, plants are
a source of many machines and the principal supply of fuel and building materials in many parts of the world. They also protect soil and help regulate the climate. Yet, across the
globe, plant species are being driven to extinction before their potential benefits are
discovered.

G. The world Conservation Union has listed 5,714 threatened species is sure to be much
higher. In the UK alone, 300 wild plant species are classified as endangered. The Millennium
Seed Bank aims to ensure that even if a plant becomes extinct in the wild, it won’t be lost
forever. Stored seeds can be used the help restore damaged or destroyed the environment
or in scientific research to find new benefits for society- in medicine, agriculture or local
industry- that would otherwise be lost.

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST
H. Seed banks are an insurance policy to protect the world’s plant heritage for the future,
explains Dr Paul Smith, another Kew seed hunter.

“Seed conservation techniques were
originally developed by farmers,” he says. “Storage is the basis what we do, conserving
seeds until you can use them just as in farming,” Smith says there’s no reason why any plant
species should become extinct, given today’s technology. But he admits that the biggest
challenge is finding, naming and categorizing all the world’s plants. And someone has to
gather these seeds before it’s too late. “There aren’t a lot of people out there doing this,” he
says. “The key is to know the flora from a particular area, and that knowledge takes years to
acquire.”

I. There are about 1,470 seedbanks scattered around the globe, with a combined total of 5.4
million samples, of which perhaps two million are distinct non-duplicates. Most preserve
genetic material for agriculture use in order to ensure crop diversity; others aim to conserve
wild species, although only 15 per cent of all banked plants is wild.

J. Many seed banks are themselves under threat due to a lack of funds. Last year, Imperial
College, London, examined crop collections from 151 countries and found that while the
number of plant samples had increased in two-thirds of the countries, the budget had been
cut in a quarter and remained static in another 35 per cent. The UN’s Food and Agriculture
Organization and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has since
set up the Global Conservation Trust, which aims to raise the US $260 million to protect
seed banks in perpetuity.

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST

Questions 14-19

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

14. The purpose of collecting seeds now is different from the past.
15. The millennium seed bank is the earliest seed bank.

16. One of the major threats for plant species extinction is farmland expansion into
wildness.
17. The approach that scientists apply to store seeds is similar to that used by farmers.
18. technological development is the only hope to save plant species.
19. The works of seed conservation are often limited by financial problems.

Questions 20-24

Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer.

Some people collect seeds for the purpose of protecting certain species
from 20____________ others collect seeds for their ability to
produce 21____________ They are called seed hunters. The 22____________Of them
included both gardeners and botanists, such as 23____________, who financially supported
collectors out of his own pocket. The seeds collected are usually stored in seed banks, one
of which is the famous millennium seed bank, where seeds are all stored in
the24____________ at a low temperature.

Questions 25-26

Choose the correct letter, A-E.

Which TWO of the following are provided by plants to the human?
A. food
B. fuels
C. clothes
D. energy
E. commercial products

IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST

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