Before you read: identify the kind of evidence
Underline words that describe the status of information: “estimated”, “assumed”, “showed”, “guaranteed” and “measured”. This passage asks you to distinguish an expected result from a demonstrated one. Keep a separate note of what the panel recommended now and what it reserved for a later decision. Investigating a proposal is not the same action as approving construction.
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.
Heat beneath the proposal
A. Geothermal direct use provides heat from underground resources without first converting it into electricity. Wells can bring hot water to the surface for heating buildings or supplying industrial processes. Applications include greenhouses and food processing. After heat has been used, water may be returned underground or managed at the surface, depending on the system. These general possibilities do not establish that every site is suitable. A proposed installation still needs evidence about the local resource and the task it is expected to perform.
B. The fictional town of Elmbrook considered a direct-use heating proposal for its public swimming pool. A student planning panel received two documents: a consultant’s forecast and the pool’s operating log. The forecast estimated a reduction in purchased heating energy, but it assumed the building would be occupied for the same hours every week. The log showed that school holidays and evening events changed the schedule. Before comparing totals, the panel listed these differences beside the forecast’s assumptions.
C. The consultant then supplied a revised estimate for three schedules rather than one. The panel did not select the most favourable number as its headline. Instead, it displayed the range and explained which schedule produced each estimate. One member suggested treating the middle value as a guaranteed result, but the others rejected this. A calculated estimate remained different from a measurement made after installation. The documents did not yet include a completed local test of how much usable heat the proposed well could supply.
D. To organise the next stage, the panel divided its questions into resource, building and operating questions. The first group concerned the local heat supply; the second concerned changes needed inside the pool building. The third included who would inspect equipment and how interruptions would be handled. The caretaker’s experience was particularly helpful in this final group. However, the panel did not use that experience as a substitute for the missing resource test. Different questions required different kinds of evidence.
E. The recommendation was to investigate further, with a review point before any construction commitment. The panel requested a local resource test and a maintenance plan, then asked for the estimates to be updated using the results. If the resource proved inadequate, it wanted the option to reconsider the proposal rather than defend the original forecast. In its public summary, the panel placed the expected benefit beside the unresolved questions. It argued that a useful proposal should make its assumptions easy to examine, so a decision could improve as evidence accumulated.
Factual background for paragraph A: US Department of Energy: geothermal direct use, 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.
- It guaranteed the underground heat supply
- It replaced the consultant’s calculations entirely
- It established the cost of every future repair
- It helped address equipment operation and interruptions
- Gather further evidence before a construction decision
- Start construction on the strength of the best estimate
- Abandon every possible heating improvement
- Promise the middle estimate as a fixed saving
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 B states that the building was assumed to be occupied for the same hours every week. The operating log then supplies a reason to question that assumption. The statement accurately reports the forecast, even though the assumption did not match every schedule.
2. Reveal answer and explanation
FALSE. Paragraph C says one member proposed that interpretation and the others rejected it. The question confuses an individual suggestion with the panel’s accepted position. The passage explicitly distinguishes calculated estimates from results measured after installation.
3. Reveal answer and explanation
NOT GIVEN. The consultant provides forecasts and revised estimates, but no previous project count is supplied. Professional involvement does not establish a specific number of past clients. Neither acceptance nor rejection of the number five can be supported by the passage.
4. Reveal answer and explanation
operating log. Paragraph B names the operating log as the other document. It provides information about changing schedules. “Maintenance plan” appears later as a requested future item, so it cannot be substituted for the document already used in this comparison.
5. Reveal answer and explanation
schedules. Paragraph C says the consultant supplied estimates for three schedules. The plural noun is required after “three different”. The passage does not say there were three wells, three buildings or three completed installations.
6. Reveal answer and explanation
review point. Paragraph E calls for a review point before any construction commitment and preserves the option to reconsider the proposal. The gap asks for that reconsideration stage. A maintenance plan is a requested document, not a point at which the proposal is reviewed.
7. Reveal answer and explanation
D. Paragraph D divides questions into resource, building and operating categories, then explains why the caretaker’s experience cannot replace a resource test. It is about matching evidence to the question, rather than merely listing the two initial documents in paragraph B.
8. Reveal answer and explanation
C. Paragraph C shows the panel displaying the range and linking each estimate to its schedule. It rejects selecting the most attractive value as a headline. Paragraph E summarises remaining uncertainty but does not describe this choice of presentation.
9. Reveal answer and explanation
D. Paragraph D links the caretaker to operating questions, including inspection and interruptions. It also explicitly limits that usefulness: practical experience does not replace a missing local resource test. The correct option respects both the contribution and its boundary.
10. Reveal answer and explanation
A. Paragraph E recommends further investigation with a review before construction. Resource testing and a maintenance plan should inform updated estimates. The recommendation therefore keeps a later decision open rather than immediately building, abandoning all heating proposals or promising guaranteed savings.
Review the reasoning behind your choices
Question 2 contains a common trap: an idea appears in the text, but the relevant group rejects it. Record both the speaker and the response whenever a passage contains competing proposals. For Question 8, the key is not simply that there are several numbers. The purpose of displaying them is to connect each forecast with the conditions that generate it. That connection is the evidence the matching question requires.
An “assumption” is a condition taken as given in a calculation or argument. A “forecast” estimates a future result. A “commitment” here means a decision to proceed with construction. When these words appear together, ask which conditions are checked, which are uncertain and which decision is still pending.
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 calculated estimate remained different from a measurement made after installation.
Rewrite the sentence using “forecast” and “observed performance”. Keep the sentence neutral about whether the estimate will eventually be accurate. Then explain why saying “the forecast was wrong” would add information.
Reveal one possible rewrite and the meaning check
Possible rewrite: A forecast was not the same kind of evidence as observed performance after the system had been installed.
The rewrite distinguishes types of evidence without predicting an error. A forecast might later match a measured result, but that does not turn it into an observation at the planning stage. Calling it wrong would require a comparison with actual performance that the fictional documents do not yet provide.
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.