Thematic ielts reading practice tests toshkent «pir» nashriyoti – 2023 Cambridge English

Cambridge IELTS Academic 17
TEST 71 
Questions 27 – 31
Complete the summary using the list of words
 
A-J
 below.
Write the correct letter,
 
A-J
, in boxes 
27-31
 on your answer sheet.
The story behind the hunt for Charles II
Charles II’s father was executed by the Parliamentarian forces in 1649. Charles II then 
formed a 
27
.………………… with the Scots, and in order to become King of Scots, 
he abandoned an important 
28
.………………… that was held by his father and had 
contributed to his father’s death. The opposing sides then met outside Worcester in 
1651. The battle led to a 
29
.………………… for the Parliamentarians and Charles had 
to flee for his life. A 
30
.………………… was offered for Charles’s capture, but after 
six weeks spent in hiding, he eventually managed to reach the 
31
.………………… of 
continental Europe.
A
military innovation
B
large reward
C
widespread conspiracy
D
relative safety
E
new government
F
decisive victory
G
political debate
H
strategic alliance
I
popular solution
J
religious conviction

---

180
TEST 72 READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on 
Questions 36-40
 which are based on 
Reading Passage 3 below.
[Note: This is an extract from READING PASSAGE 3 about Building the 
Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers]
Katharine L. Shester reviews a book by Jason Barr about the development of 
New York City
Barr begins chapter one by taking the reader on a ‘helicopter time-machine’ ride 
– giving a fascinating account of how the New York landscape in 1609 might have 
looked from the sky. He then moves on to a subterranean walking tour of the city, 
indicating the location of rock and water below the subsoil, before taking the reader 
back to the surface. His love of the city comes through as he describes various 
fun facts about the location of the New York residence of early 19th-century vice-
president Aaron Burr as well as a number of legends about the city.
Chapter seven tackles the ‘bedrock myth’, the assumption that the absence of 
bedrock close to the surface between Downtown and Midtown New York is the 
reason for skyscrapers not being built between the two urban centers. Rather, Barr 
argues that while deeper bedrock does increase foundation costs, these costs were 
neither prohibitively high nor were they large compared to the overall cost of building 
a skyscraper. What I enjoyed the most about this chapter was Barr’s discussion 
of how foundations are actually built. He describes the use of caissons, which 
enable workers to dig down for considerable distances, often below the water table, 
until they reach bedrock. Barr’s thorough technological history discusses not only 
how caissons work, but also the dangers involved. While this chapter references 
empirical research papers, it is a relatively easy read.
Chapters eight and nine focus on the birth of Midtown and the building boom of the 
1920s. Chapter eight contains lengthy discussions of urban economic theory that 
may serve as a distraction to readers primarily interested in New York. However, 
they would be well-suited for undergraduates learning about the economics of 
cities. In the next chapter, Barr considers two of the primary explanations for the 
building boom of the 1920s – the first being exuberance, and the second being 
financing. He uses data to assess the viability of these two explanations and finds 
that supply and demand factors explain much of the development of the 1920s; 
though it enable the boom, cheap credit was not, he argues, the primary cause.
In the final chapter (chapter 10), Barr discusses another of his empirical papers 
that estimates Manhattan land values from the mid-19th century to the present 
day. The data work that went into these estimations is particularly impressive. 
Toward the end of the chapter, Barr assesses ‘whether skyscrapers are a cause 
or an effect of high land values’. He finds that changes in land values predict future 
building height, but the reverse is not true. The book ends with an epilogue, in 
which Barr discusses the impact of climate change on the city and makes policy 
suggestions for New York going forward.

---

181