Answer key
Cambridge IELTS 21 Reading Test 3 Answers
The published key, in full, free — then sit the paper properly and let it mark itself.
The answer key
Taken from the same file this site marks candidates against, so the key here and the mark you are given cannot disagree. Question numbers run as they do in the book.
Passage 1 — Saving the saiga
Questions 1–13
| # | Answer |
|---|---|
| 1 | dust |
| 2 | blood |
| 3 | coat |
| 4 | horns |
| 5 | habitat |
| 6 | routes |
| 7 | streams |
| 8 | FALSE |
| 9 | FALSE |
| 10 | TRUE |
| 11 | NOT GIVEN |
| 12 | TRUE |
| 13 | NOT GIVEN |
Passage 2 — The problems of getting around the city of Dar es Salaam
Questions 14–26
| # | Answer |
|---|---|
| 14 | NOT GIVEN |
| 15 | FALSE |
| 16 | NOT GIVEN |
| 17 | TRUE |
| 18 | FALSE |
| 19 | lanes |
| 20 | boarding |
| 21 | wheelchairs |
| 22 | fuel |
| 23 | flood |
| 24 | smartcards |
| 25 | gates |
| 26 | queues |
Passage 3 — Rethinking the Past
Questions 27–40
| # | Answer |
|---|---|
| 27 | A |
| 28 | A |
| 29 | D |
| 30 | A |
| 31 | EHomo sapiens was probably not the only species capable of sophisticated workmanship. |
| 32 | Fother species managed to survive in harsh environments before the arrival of Homo sapiens. |
| 33 | Dexperts may have been mistaken about who looked for food in early human communities. |
| 34 | Bprevious assumptions about who had power in the prehistoric world were inaccurate. |
| 35 | NO |
| 36 | NOT GIVEN |
| 37 | NOT GIVEN |
| 38 | YES |
| 39 | YES |
| 40 | NO |
Counting by hand is the slow way
You have the key. The part it cannot tell you is how you would do under the clock, on the screen the real test uses, with the transfer time the paper actually allows. Cambridge IELTS 21 Reading Test 3 is free to sit here — no card, nothing held back — and it is marked against this same key the moment you hand in.
What your score is worth
IELTS publishes these four points per module and calls them indicative — the marks needed vary slightly between test versions. The thirty-six rows in between are not published, so a score of 27 is honestly "between band 6 and band 7" and nothing more precise. Any converter showing you all forty rows invented thirty-six of them.
- 5.0
- 15 / 40
- 6.0
- 23 / 40
- 7.0
- 30 / 40
- 8.0
- 35 / 40
Questions people ask about this paper
Yes. They come from the published answer key for the book, and from the same file this site uses to mark candidates who sit the paper here — so the answers on this page and the mark the platform gives cannot disagree.
Yes, in full, on a replica of the computer-delivered exam screen, with no card and nothing held back. It is marked against this key the moment you hand in.
30 correct is an indicative band 7. IELTS publishes four points per module — band 5, 6, 7 and 8 — and describes them as indicative, because the marks needed vary slightly between versions. Scores between those points cannot be converted exactly, whatever a calculator claims.
Some do. Where the published key accepts more than one form — "distilled water" and "distilled", for instance — every accepted form is listed beside the answer on this page. Anything outside that list is marked wrong, and American and British spellings are both accepted throughout.
Why the ones you got wrong were wrong
The question types this paper leans on, written out properly rather than listed as tips.
The rest of this book
Every Cambridge test on this site is free to sit, book 1 to 21.
You have the key. Now the clock.
Counting by hand tells you what you knew. Sitting it on the real screen, under the real clock, tells you what you would score.