Before you read: identify the kind of evidence
Treat this as a lesson in the boundary between description and interpretation. Highlight verbs such as “saw”, “described”, “proposed” and “tested”. They identify different kinds of activity. A statement can accurately report a team’s opinion without establishing that the opinion is scientifically correct. Read questions about the teams as questions about the fictional workshop.
This is original IELTS-style practice with a short, fictional learning scenario. It is not a Cambridge passage or an answer key to any named published test. Paragraph A supplies a brief factual introduction; paragraphs B–E describe invented people, materials and events. Answer from this passage alone. You do not need to research the topic or agree with a character to identify what the text says.
Read once for the overall sequence, then answer the ten questions without opening the explanations. Beside any uncertain answer, note the paragraph and the missing or contradictory detail. The response fields are for practice only: there is no submit button, automatic marking or saved result. Keep any notes you want to retain. This short lesson does not estimate an IELTS band.
A light in the film, a question in the caption
A. Bioluminescence occurs when a living organism produces light through a chemical reaction. It is widespread among animals in the ocean’s water column, and different species use different chemicals. The light can serve several roles, including defence, finding food and reproduction. Researchers still have questions about many examples. Observation can itself be difficult: bright illumination may disturb animals, while some forms of their light are hard to see under ordinary lighting. A striking image does not, by itself, explain the behaviour behind it.
B. In the fictional Harbour Museum workshop, students prepared captions for a short exhibition film. The film contained twelve invented scenes of a luminous marine animal. To keep the exercise focused on reasoning, the organisers did not identify it as a real species. Each scene had a time label and a description of the recording conditions. The students first wrote what they could see, such as the position and duration of a flash, before proposing any explanation for why it appeared.
C. Two teams received the same scenes in different orders. Team Amber saw the most dramatic flash first, while Team Slate began with a scene in which no flash was visible. Their initial captions differed markedly. Amber described the light as a warning; Slate described it as an invitation. When the teams compared notes, they realised that neither interpretation had been tested. The exercise did not establish which explanation was correct. It showed that the order of examples could influence the story a viewer constructed.
D. The students then built a caption checklist. Any statement about an animal’s intention needed a separate evidence note, while an uncertain explanation had to retain words such as “may”. They also recorded moments when the film gave no clear view. A blank observation was not labelled “no light”, because the animal might simply be outside the frame. The museum tutor accepted a less dramatic caption when it more accurately represented the scene. Clarity, she said, included being clear about what was missing.
E. For the final display, visitors could open two panels beside each scene. The first panel described the observation; the second offered a possible interpretation and named the additional evidence it would require. The students suggested comparing more scenes recorded under consistent conditions before choosing between their explanations. They did not claim that a larger collection would automatically settle the question. Their aim was to make the difference between seeing a flash and understanding its role visible to visitors, so that curiosity could continue after the film ended.
Factual background for paragraph A: NOAA Ocean Exploration: what is bioluminescence?, checked 15 October 2026. The workshop or project in paragraphs B–E is fictional and was written for this exercise.
Ten questions: record an answer and locate its support
Questions 1–3: TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN
Choose TRUE when the statement agrees with the passage, FALSE when the passage contradicts it, and NOT GIVEN when the passage does not provide enough information to decide. A statement that sounds likely is not automatically TRUE.
Questions 4–6: sentence completion
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer. Copy the wording accurately and check that the completed sentence is grammatical. Do not add an explanation in the answer field.
Questions 7–8: matching information
Choose the paragraph, A–E, that contains the specified information. A paragraph may be used more than once. Match the whole idea, not just a repeated topic word.
Questions 9–10: multiple choice
Choose one answer, A, B, C or D. Check the scope of each option: an explanation for one action is not necessarily a claim about every situation.
- To keep the exercise focused on reasoning
- To conceal a newly discovered species
- To avoid a threatened legal complaint
- To prove that species cannot be identified
- Two different museum ticket prices
- The teams’ final examination scores
- Two scientifically proven functions of light
- An observation and a possible explanation
Questions 4–6: maximum two words from the passage. Answers are checked manually using the reveals below.
Answers with paragraph evidence
Open one explanation at a time. Before changing an answer, identify whether the mistake concerned vocabulary, a missing fact, the wrong participant or an exaggerated conclusion. A correct guess still needs an evidence check.
1. Reveal answer and explanation
TRUE. Paragraph C explicitly says the teams received the same scenes in different orders. The changed order matters, but the content set was shared. Do not confuse a different sequence with a different collection of material.
2. Reveal answer and explanation
FALSE. Paragraph C says neither interpretation had been tested and the exercise did not establish which was correct. Warning was Team Amber’s initial description. Reporting that a team proposed an explanation is different from saying the workshop demonstrated it.
3. Reveal answer and explanation
NOT GIVEN. The passage names the teams and contrasts their first scenes and captions. It gives no membership totals or size comparison. A more dramatic first response does not provide evidence that the group producing it contained more people.
4. Reveal answer and explanation
time label. Paragraph B supplies the two-word expression “time label”. This identifies what accompanied each scene. “Duration” is something students observed about a flash, while the question asks about the information supplied with the scene before that observation task.
5. Reveal answer and explanation
evidence note. Paragraph D requires a separate evidence note for a statement about intention. Both words matter because the passage also discusses captions and panels. This noun phrase precisely identifies the supporting item the checklist demanded.
6. Reveal answer and explanation
frame. Paragraph D uses “frame” to explain why an unclear view must not automatically become a claim that no light existed. Copy the singular noun. “Panel” belongs to the later exhibition design and does not describe the camera’s visible area.
7. Reveal answer and explanation
C. Paragraph C places a dramatic first scene beside a quiet first scene and then compares the different captions. The paragraph draws attention to the viewers’ constructed stories. The final display in paragraph E concerns explaining evidence, not testing the effect of sequence.
8. Reveal answer and explanation
D. Paragraph D explains that an animal may be outside the frame, so a blank observation cannot safely be labelled “no light”. The question paraphrases that contrast between unavailable evidence and a definite negative conclusion.
9. Reveal answer and explanation
A. Paragraph B states that the organisers wanted to keep attention on reasoning. The scenes are invented for a teaching exercise. Nothing says the naming decision protected a discovery, prevented legal action or demonstrated that species identification is always impossible.
10. Reveal answer and explanation
D. Paragraph E separates a description of what is observed from a possible interpretation and its evidence needs. This structure makes the reasoning visible. It does not compare ticket prices, rank the teams or provide two proven functions of the animal’s light.
Review the reasoning behind your choices
Question 2 tests a stronger claim than the passage allows. Underline “proved” in the question and compare it with “neither interpretation had been tested” in paragraph C. By contrast, Question 3 requires information that is simply absent. A useful review note names the missing fact: team membership totals. Avoid writing only “not in the text”, because that does not show which part of the statement you checked.
An “interpretation” is an explanation of what an observation means. “Consistent conditions” are conditions kept sufficiently similar for the intended comparison. “Intention” concerns a purpose attributed to an animal. In this lesson, those words help you locate the step from describing evidence to making an explanatory claim.
Choose one answer you initially doubted and complete this evidence note: “I selected this answer because paragraph ___ says ___; the alternative would require ___.” If you cannot complete the final part, reread the competing answer rather than simply memorising the key. Your next practice goal should name a process you can repeat, such as checking the speaker or preserving a qualification.
Paraphrase without changing the certainty
Sentence from the passage: A blank observation was not labelled “no light”, because the animal might simply be outside the frame.
Rewrite the sentence beginning “An unclear view did not establish…” Keep the possible explanation rather than turning it into a confirmed event. After writing, circle the words that communicate uncertainty in your version.
Reveal one possible rewrite and the meaning check
Possible rewrite: An unclear view did not establish that the animal produced no light, since it could have been beyond the camera’s view.
“Could have been” preserves the possibility expressed by “might”. The passage does not establish that the animal actually left the frame on every such occasion. The rewrite also retains the distinction between failure to observe light and evidence that no light was produced.
This is an open-ended language exercise, so other accurate rewrites are possible. Check the actor, action, time and level of certainty before judging style. Replacing words with synonyms is useful only when the new sentence still makes the same claim.
Choose the next Reading skill to practise
Continue with short-answer and exact-word practice if your completion answers exceeded the limit. Use matching features to work on attaching details to the correct people or groups. For a change of text type, try two original Academic-style texts. Keep the answer explanations closed until you have made an evidence-based attempt.