Abrupt Climate Change Reading Answers

Jul 3, 2025

Abrupt Climate Change Reading Answers is an IELTS Reading Answer that contains 13 questions and needs to be completed within 20 minutes. This reading answer also helps you to prepare for your IELTS exam. Abrupt Climate Change Reading Answers consists of questions like: Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-ix. Choose TWO letters, A-E. Which TWO of the following are among the goals of the RESET project? Match each description with the correct technique, A, B or C

Participants should go through the IELTS Reading passage to recognise synonyms, identify keywords, and answer the questions. It's critical to comprehend the guidelines for every question type and create effective ways to manage time if you wish to receive excellent band scores. Candidates can use IELTS reading practice questions and answers to enhance their performance in the reading section.

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Topic:

ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change taking place over a relatively short period is not a new phenomenon. A project is investigating such changes that occurred in the past.

A.A research consortium, led by Professor John Lowe in the Geography Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, has been awarded funding of £3 million to develop a novel approach for assessing how humans may have responded to rapid environmental changes during the recent past. Among its tools, the team will use laser-based technology to provide a high degree of accuracy in dating. The five-year project is known as RESET (Response of Humans to Abrupt Environmental Transitions) and is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. It brings together scientists from the Geography and Geology Departments of Royal Holloway, the University of Oxford, the Natural History Museum, London, and the University of Southampton, based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Together, they have expertise in human palaeontology, archaeology, oceanography, volcanic geology and past climate change.

B.The driving forces behind major shifts in recent human evolution and adaptation have been the subject of intense debate for more than 100 years. The funding emphasises the importance of using records from the past to meet the challenge of climate change today. Ice-core records from Greenland have suggested that pronounced climatic shifts with severe environmental consequences have sometimes taken place within as little as 20 years or less. This means that some of our ancestors experienced climatic variability perhaps as rapid as those associated with global warming today.

C.Our understanding of how humans responded to such abrupt events is limited however, largely because current studies are compromised by an inability to synchronise archaeological and geological records with sufficient precision. All geological dating methods are subject to

some statistical uncertainty. Even in the case of radiocarbon dating, which is one of the most precise and flexible methods at scientists' disposal, age estimates can at best be narrowed down to a timespan of about a hundred years, and at worst, a few thousand. Most of the alternative dating methods are less flexible in their application and frequently produce results that are even less well constrained. Professor John Lowe, scientific co-ordinator of RESET. explains. 'Being able to establish the precise temporal relationships between archaeological events and sudden changes in the environment has proved an elusive goal for scientists so far. Until this obstacle is overcome, answers to some of the most vital and intriguing questions about our recent past, and understanding fully their implications for the future, will remain tantalisingly beyond our grasp.’

D.The RESET project will construct a revised chronological framework for testing the hypothesis that major shifts in human development coincided with, or immediately followed, some prominent abrupt environmental transitions in the recent geological past. At the core of this framework are volcanic ash layers which are found in archaeological and geological records throughout Europe, and which were created at approximately the same time in widely separated locations.

E.Explosive volcanic eruptions generate large volumes of ash which are carried by air mass movements and the jet stream up to thousands of kilometres from the source volcano. Ash from Central Italy has been traced as far as Russia, and Icelandic ash regularly reaches Western

Europe. A long history of explosions from Italian, Icelandic and other volcanic centres has led to a complex series of ash layers being laid down on the sea floor, in lakes, on peat-bogs, in archaeological sites, such as shallow caves, and even onto the Greenland ice cap.

F.Martin Menzies, Professor of Geochemistry at Royal Holloway, is leading one strand of the project concerning geochemical 'fingerprinting of the ash layers. This strand (one of seven, in total) will provide the volcanic ash framework that underpins the project. Here, the emphasis will

be on maintaining and improving laboratory protocols for the detection, extraction and geochemical 'fingerprinting’ of selected ash layers. For testing the chemical consistency of individual layers, and for refining their chronology. To achieve this, RESET will use laser-based technology to analyse key ash layers, producing a lattice that will tie together the various records, and bring greater clarity to the sequence of climatic and human events in Europe and North Africa during the last 80,000 years.

G.Professor Clive Gamble is leading the strand 'Re-populating Europe after the Last Glacial Stage'. With his colleagues he will focus on major archaeological events which occur during periods of abrupt environmental change, such as the movement north of hunters as climate rapidly changed from one of intense cold to conditions more similar to today. There is a rich archive of archaeological evidence which records the impact of these population movements, sometimes at a continental scale, and the team will develop new dating methods to assess their

correspondence to the climate data. Professor Chris Stringer, a specialist in human evolution, sums up, 'This project could take us into a new phase in the interdisciplinary study of prehistoric human development. Establishing the precise order of events is the key to resolving some

of the long-standing debates about climate history and its impacts on the human dimension, and long-standing research questions such as the fate of the Neanderthals.'

Questions 14-20

Reading Passage 2 has seven sections, A-G. Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i-ix.

i. Climate change forced people to move to new areas

ii. The risk of overestimating the significance of volcanic ash layers

iii. The speed of climate change today may be nothing new

iv. A multi-disciplinary team

v. How volcanic ash is transported

vi. Why standard measurement techniques are less than ideal

vii. Identifying precise details of volcanic ash layers

viii. What material the scientists will analyse in a new approach to dating

ix. The downside of academic competitiveness

14. Section A

Answer: IV

Supporting statement: Together, they have expertise in human palaeontology, archaeology, oceanography, volcanic geology and past climate change.

Keywords: expertise, human

Keyword Location: Para A, Line 10

Explanation: Paragraph A mentions that the multidisciplinary team brought together for the five-year project is known as RESET, the team includes researchers from the University of Southampton, situated at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, the Natural History Museum in London, the University of Oxford, and the Royal Holloway Departments of Geography and Geology. Together, their areas of expertise include oceanography, volcanic geology, human palaeontology, archaeology, and past climate change.

15. Section B

Answer: III

Supporting statement: The driving forces behind major shifts in recent human evolution and adaptation have been the subject of intense debate for more than 100 years.

Keywords: evolution, 100 years

Keyword Location: Para B, Lines 1-2

Explanation: Paragraph B mentions that the speed of climate change today may be nothing new, as debate about the driving forces behind major shifts in recent human evolution and adaptation has been going on for over 100 years.

16. Section C

Answer: VI

Supporting statement: All geological dating methods are subject to some statistical uncertainty.

Keywords: methods, uncertainty

Keyword Location: Para C, Lines 3-4

Explanation: As mentioned in Paragraph C, standard measurement techniques are less than ideal because all geological dating methods are subject to some statistical uncertainty.

17. Section D

Answer: VIII

Supporting statement: this framework are volcanic ash layers which are found in archaeological and geological records

Keywords: framework, volcanic ash

Keyword Location: Para D, Line 4

Explanation: According to Para D, the material used in the analyses in the RESET project will be the volcanic ash found in archaeological and geological records throughout Europe.

18. Section E

Answer: V

Supporting statement: volumes of ash which are carried by air mass movements and the jet stream up to thousands of kilometres from the source volcano.

Keywords: air mass, stream

Keyword Location: Para E, Lines 1-2

Explanation: Volcanic ash is transported up to thousands of kilometres from the source volcano by air mass movements and the jet stream, according to paragraph E.

19. Section F

Answer: VII

Supporting statement: For testing the chemical consistency of individual layers, and for refining their chronology. To achieve this, RESET will use laser-based technology to analyse key ash layers,

Keywords: layers, laser-based

Keyword Location: Para F, Lines 6-7

Explanation: The RESET project will use laser-based technology to analyse the ash layers to test the chemical consistency of each layer according to paragraph F

20. Section G

Answer: I

Supporting statement: such as the movement north of hunters as climate rapidly changed from one of intense cold to conditions more similar to today.

Keywords: climate, conditions

Keyword Location: Para G, Lines 3-4

Explanation: In Para G, the movement of humans on a large scale from one place due to climate change is mentioned.

Questions 21-22

Choose TWO letters, A-E. Which TWO of the following are among the goals of the RESET project?

A. to gain information that can help to deal with current climate change

B. to improve the accuracy of radiocarbon dating

C. to find previously unidentified layers of volcanic ash

D. to gain more information about population movements

E. to find out where Neanderthals lived

Answer: A

Supporting statement: The funding emphasises the importance of using records from the past to meet the challenge of climate change today.

Keywords: records, climate change

Keyword Location: Para B, Line 3

Explanation: According to the text, the goal of the RESET project is to gain information from the past records that can help to deal with current climate change.

Answer: D

Supporting statement: which records the impact of these population movements,

Keywords: population, movements

Keyword Location: Para G, Line 5

Explanation: To find out information about population movements is another goal of the RESET project.

Questions 23-26

Match each description with the correct technique, A, B or C.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

LISTS OF TECHNIQUES

A. use of ice-core records

B. radiocarbon dating

C. laser-based technology

23. suitable for calculating the relative dates of different ash layers

Answer: C

Supporting statement: RESET will use laser-based technology to analyse key ash layers,

Keywords: RESET, ash layers

Keyword Location: Para F, Lines 6-7

Explanation: According to the text, the reset project will use laser-based technology to analyse the volcanic Ash layers, creating a framework that will connect the different records and provide further insight into the chronology of human and climatic events that have occurred in North Africa and Europe over the past 80,000 years.

24. cannot date an event to within less than a century

Answer: B

Supporting statement: Even in the case of radiocarbon dating, which is one of the most precise and flexible methods at scientists' disposal, age estimates can at best be narrowed down to a timespan of about a hundred years,

Keywords: radiocarbon, hundred years

Keyword Location: Para C, Lines 4-5

Explanation: According to the passage radio radiocarbon dating is a method used by scientists to estimate the precise date or age of things. At most, it is limited to a period of approximately one hundred years.

25. has produced evidence that features of today's climate change are not new

Answer: A

Supporting statement: climatic shifts with severe environmental consequences have sometimes taken place within as little as 20 years or less.

Keywords: environmental, 20 years

Keyword Location: Para B, Lines 4-5

Explanation: According to Greenland ice-core records, significant changes in climate with adverse impacts on the environment have occasionally occurred in as little as 20 years, making it not something new.

26. will increase understanding of the relationship between human and natural events

Answer: C

Supporting statement: and bring greater clarity to the sequence of climatic and human events in Europe and North Africa during the last 80,000 years.

Keywords: climatic and human, 80,000 years

Keyword Location: Para F, Lines 8-9

Explanation: According to the text, the laser-based technology that will be used in the recent project will bring about clarity regarding the sequence of climate changes and human events that happened in Europe and North Africa during the last 80000 years.

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