Cambridge 11 Test 2 Reading Passage 2 with answers

This IELTS reading test consist of a long text of a random topic, with 3 question types together with 13 questions. The test was about 10 minutes long. Passage for this test will be taken from various references like newspapers, journals, magazines etc. Here, this post is about what destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island reading answers and practice tests will help you to clear your IELTS reading test easily.

Answer Table

1. ii	8. farming
2. ix	9. canoes
3. viii	10. birds
4. i	11. wood
5. iv	12. B, C IN EITHER ORDER
6. vii	13. B, C IN EITHER ORDER
7. vi

IELTS Reading Passage: What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island?

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A
Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred ancient human statues - the moai. After this remote Pacific island was settled by the Polynesians, it remained isolated for centuries. All the energy and resources that went into the moai - some of which are ten meters tall and weigh over 7,000 kilos - came from the island itself. Yet when Dutch explorers landed in 1722, they met a Stone Age culture. The moai were carved with stone tools, then transported for many kilometers, without the use of animals or wheels, to massive stone platforms. The identity of the moai builders was in doubt until well into the twentieth century. Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer, thought the statues had been created by pre-Inca peoples from Peru. Bestselling Swiss author Erich von Daniken believed they were built by stranded extraterrestrials. Modern science - linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence - has definitively proved the moai builders were Polynesians, but not how they moved their creations. Local folklore maintains that the statues walked, while researchers have tended to assume the ancestors dragged the statues somehow, using ropes and logs.

B
When the Europeans arrived, Rapa Nui was grassland, with only a few scrawny trees. In the 1970s and 1980s, though, researchers found pollen preserved in lake sediments, which proved the island had been covered in lush palm forests for thousands of years. Only after the Polynesians arrived did those forests disappear. US scientist Jared Diamond believes that the Rapanui people - descendants of Polynesian settlers - wrecked their own environment. They had unfortunately settled on an extremely fragile island - dry, cool, and too remote to be properly fertilized by windblown volcanic ash. When the islanders cleared the forests for firewood and farming, the forests didn’t grow back. As trees became scarce and they could no longer construct wooden canoes for fishing, they ate birds. Soil erosion decreased their crop yields. Before Europeans arrived, the Rapanui had descended into civil war and cannibalism, he maintains. The collapse of their isolated civilisation, Diamond writes, is a ’worst-case scenario for what may lie ahead of us in our own future’.

C
The moai, he thinks, accelerated the self-destruction. Diamond interprets them as power displays by rival chieftains who, trapped on a remote little island, lacked other ways of asserting their dominance. They competed by building ever bigger figures. Diamond thinks they laid the moai on wooden sledges, hauled over log rails, but that required both a lot of wood and a lot of people. To feed the people, even more land had to be cleared. When the wood was gone and civil war began, the islanders began toppling the moai. By the nineteenth century none were standing.

D
Archaeologists Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of California State University agree that Easter Island lost its lush forests and that it was an ‘ecological catastrophe' - but they believe the islanders themselves weren’t to blame. And the moai certainly weren’t. Archaeological excavations indicate that the Rapanui went to heroic efforts to protect the resources of their wind-lashed, infertile fields. They built thousands of circular stone windbreaks and gardened inside them, and used broken volcanic rocks to keep the soil moist. In short, Hunt and Lipo argue, the prehistoric Rapanui were pioneers of sustainable farming.

E
Hunt and Lipo contend that moai-building was an activity that helped keep the peace between islanders. They also believe that moving the moai required few people and no wood, because they were walking upright. On that issue, Hunt and Lipo say, archaeological evidence backs up Rapanui folklore. Recent experiments indicate that as few as 18 people could, with three strong ropes and a bit of practice, easily maneuver a 1,000 kg moai replica a few hundred meters. The figures’ fat bellies tilted them forward, and a D-shaped base allowed handlers to roll and rock them side to side.

F
Moreover, Hunt and Lipo are convinced that the settlers were not wholly responsible for the loss of the island’s trees. Archaeological finds of nuts from the extinct Easter Island palm show tiny grooves, made by the teeth of Polynesian rats. The rats arrived along with the settlers, and in just a few years, Hunt and Lipo calculate, they would have overrun the island. They would have prevented the reseeding of the slow-growing palm trees and thereby doomed Rapa Nui’s forest, even without the settlers’ campaign of deforestation. No doubt the rats ate birds’ eggs too. Hunt and Lipo also see no evidence that Rapanui civilization collapsed when the palm forest did. They think its population grew rapidly and then remained more or less stable until the arrival of the Europeans, who introduced deadly diseases to which islanders had no immunity. Then in the nineteenth century slave traders decimated the population, which shriveled to 111 people by 1877.

G
Hunt and Lipo’s vision, therefore, is one of an island populated by peaceful and ingenious moai builders and careful stewards of the land, rather than by reckless destroyers ruining their own environment and society. ‘Rather than a case of abject failure, Rapa Nui is an unlikely story of success’, they claim. Whichever is the case, there are surely some valuable lessons which the world at large can learn from the story of Rapa Nui.

IELTS Reading Questions

Questions 1-7

• Reading Passage has seven paragraphs, A-G.
• Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
• Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

List of Headings

i. Evidence of innovative environment management practices
ii. An undisputed answer to a question about the moai
iii. The future of the moai statues
iv. A theory which supports a local belief
v. The future of Easter Island
vi. Two opposing views about the Rapanui people
vii. Destruction outside the inhabitants’ control
viii. How the statues made a situation worse
ix. Diminishing food resources
 
1. Paragraph A  
2. Paragraph B  
3. Paragraph C  
4. Paragraph D  
5. Paragraph E  
6. Paragraph F  
7. Paragraph G  

Questions 8-11

• Complete the summary below.
• Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
• Write your answers in boxes 8-11 on your answer sheet.

Jared Diamond’s View

Diamond believes that the Polynesian settlers on Rapa Nui destroyed its forests, cutting down its trees for fuel and clearing land for 8.___________ 

Twentieth-century discoveries of pollen prove that Rapu Nui had once been covered in palm forests, which had turned into grassland by the time the Europeans arrived on the island.

When the islanders were no longer able to build the 9.__________  they needed to go fishing, they began using the island’s 10.__________ as a food source, according to Diamond.

Diamond also claims that the moai were built to show the power of the island’s chieftains, and that the methods of transporting the statues needed not only a great number of people, but also a great deal of 11.___________

Questions 12-13

• Choose TWO letters, A-E.
• Write the correct letters in boxes 12-13 on your answer sheet.

On what points do Hunt and Lipo disagree with Diamond?

A.  the period when the moai were created
B.  how the moai were transported 
C.  the impact of the moai on Rapa Nui society 
D.  how the moai were carved 
E.  the origins of the people who made the moai

Answers with Explanations

1. Answer: ii

Explanation: Modern science - linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence - has definitively proved the moai builders were Polynesians, These lines in paragraph indicates that moai builders are polynesians based on linguistic, archeological and genetic evidences. Hence paragraph A describes about moai and the heading "What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island" matches the paragraph A.

2. Answer: ix

Explanation: In paragraph B "When the islanders cleared the forests for firewood and farming, the forests didn’t grow back", they tell that forests were cleared by the people of island for firewood and farming and not grown them back. Hence this paragraph supports the statement Diminishing food resources

3. Answer: viii

Explanation: The moai, he thinks, accelerated the self-destruction, They competed by building ever bigger figures. The given answer is located in paragraph C states that maoi abd diamonders compete by building bigger figures. Hence the destruction happen. Thus statues made the situation worse.

4. Answer: i

Explanation: The given answer is located in paragraph D at 4-5 lines, Archaeological excavations indicate that the Rapanui went to heroic efforts to protect the resources of their wind-lashed, infertile fields. This paragraph describes how the Rapunai protects the infertile lands and wind-lashed field. Hence, “Evidence of innovative environment management practices” is considered the most suitable heading for the paragraph.

5. Anwer: iv

Explanation: On that issue, Hunt and Lipo say, archaeological evidence backs up Rapanui folklore, these lines in paragraph E, indicates that they had a local belief and hence the answer.

6. Answer: vii

Explanation:  The rats arrived along with the settlers, and in just a few years, Hunt and Lipo calculate, they would have overrun the island. The given answer is located in paragraph F states that rats came and settled there and invaded the trees. The people lacked hygiene crops as the rats hunt the trees. Thus "Destruction outside the inhabitants’ control" supports this paragraph.

7. Answer: vi

Explanation: ‘Rather than a case of abject failure, Rapa Nui is an unlikely story of success’, they claim, the given answer is located in paragraph G at 3-4 lines. This paragraph describes two opposing view, where the moai builders are peaceful and innovative. While the Rapunai were destroyers winning their own environment. Hence this paragraph can be determined by the statement "Two opposing views about the Rapanui people". 

8. Answer: farming

Explanation: When the islanders cleared the forests for firewood and farming, the forests didn’t grow back., the given answer is located in paragraph B which states that for farming and firewood they cleared the forests. Hence the answers.

9. Answer: canoes

Explanation: As trees became scarce and they could no longer construct wooden canoes for fishing, they ate birds., In paragraph B, as the trees are cut the islanders couldn't make canoes for fishing. Hence the answer.

10. Answer: birds

Explanation: As trees became scarce and they could no longer construct wooden canoes for fishing, they ate birds, Islanders ate birds as they couldn't construct wood for fishing. Hence the answer.

11. Answer: wood

Explanation: Diamond thinks they laid the moai on wooden sledges, hauled over log rails, but that required both a lot of wood and a lot of people. The Diamonds needs lot of wood to transport maoi. Hence the answer.

12. Answer: B, C in either order

Explanation: Hunt and Lipo disagree with Diamond on how the moai were transported. The diamond thinks they laid the moai on wooden sledges, hauled over log rails, but that required both a lot of wood and a lot of people. Hunt and Lipo contend that moai-building was an activity that helped keep the peace between islanders. They also believe that moving the moai required few people and no wood. These lines indicates that diamond disagreed with how maoi was transported. Hence the answer.

13. Answer: B, C in either order

Explanation: The impact of the moai on Rapanui society . The moai, he thinks, accelerated the self-destruction. Moreover, Hunt and Lipo are convinced that the settlers were not wholly responsible for the loss of the island’s trees. From these lines it is very much understood that they both disagreed on Rapanui society. 

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