The Panda's Last Chance- IELTS Reading Sample with Explanation

IELTS Reading section contains three passages along with forty questions. IELTS Reading section tests a candidate’s understanding ability and analytical skills as well. This IELTS reading sample - The Panda's Last Chance is an IELTS General Training reading topic. This passage contains two question types:

1. Matching Information
2. Complete the summary by choosing words

Candidates need to practice daily from IELTS reading practice papers for increasing their score.

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Section 1

Read the Passage to Answer the Following Questions

The Panda's Last Chance IELTS Reading Sample

Chinese authorities have devised an ambitious plan to save the giant panda from the ravages of deforestation. Martin Williams assesses the creature’s chances of avoiding extinction.

1. The giant panda, the creature that has become a symbol of conservation, is facing extinction. The major reason is loss of habitat, which has continued despite the establishment, since 1963, of 14 panda reserves. Deforestation, mainly earned out by farmers clearing land to make way for fields as they move higher into the mountains, has drastically contracted the mammal’s range. The panda has disappeared from much of central and eastern China, and is now restricted to the eastern flank of the Himalayas in Sichuan and Gansu provinces, and the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi province. Fewer than 1400 of the animals are believed to remain in the wild.
2. Satellite imagery has shown the seriousness of the situation; almost half of the panda’s habitat has been cut or degraded since 1975. Worse, the surviving panda population has also become fragmented; a combination of satellite imagery and ground surveys reveals panda ’islands* in patches of forest separated by cleared land. The population of these islands, ranging from fewer than ten to more than 50 pandas, has become isolated because the animals are bathing to cross open areas. Just putting a road through panda habitat may be enough to split a population in two.
3. The minuscule size of the panda populations worries conservationists. The smallest groups have too few animals to be viable, and will inevitably die out. The larger populations may be viable in the short term, but will be susceptible to genetic defects as a result of inbreeding.
4. In these circumstances, a more traditional threat to pandas—the cycle of flowering and subsequent withering of the bamboo that is their staple food—can become literally species-threatening. The flowerings prompt pandas to move from one area to another, thus preventing inbreeding in otherwise sedentary populations. In panda islands, however, bamboo flowering could prove catastrophic because the pandas are unable to emigrate.
5. The latest conservation management plan for the panda, prepared by China’s Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature, aims primarily to maintain panda habitats and to ensure that populations are linked wherever possible. The plan will change some existing reserve boundaries, establish 14 new reserves and protect or replant corridors of forest between panda islands. Other measures include better control of poaching, which remains a problem despite strict laws, as panda skins fetch high prices; reducing the degradation of habitats outside reserves; and reforestation.
6. The plan is ambitious. Implementation will be expensive—Yuan 56.6 million (US$ 12.5 million) will be needed for the development of the panda reserves— and will require participation by individuals ranging from villagers to government officials.

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Section 2

Solution and Explanation
Question 28-31

The passage The Panda's Last Chance has 6 paragraphs labeled A-F. Which paragraphs contain the following information?

28. The separation of panda groups
29. The panda’s diet
30. The illegal killing of pandas
31. Why panda’s living areas have been reduced

28. Answer: B

Supporting answer: “Worse, the surviving panda population has also become fragmented, a combination of satellite imaginary and ground surveys reveals panda islands in patches of forest are separated by cleared land.”

Keyword: separated, fragmented

Keyword location: Paragraph B, line no. 3,4

Explanation: The satellite image gives the details of the panda's habitat, where it is seen that the habitats have been cut and have become fragmented. The panda islands have been separated by cleared land. The population of each island ranges from 10 to 50 pandas, as they are bathed to cross the open areas.

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29. Answer: D

Supporting answer: “the cycle of flowering and subsequent withering of the bamboo that is their staple food”

Keyword: the staple food

Keyword location: Para D, line no-2

Explanation: The flowering plants and bamboo are the staple food of the pandas. The withering of bamboo and the cycle of the flowering plants have led to species threatening pandas.

30. Answer: E

Supporting answer: “ Other measures include better control of poaching, which remains a problem despite strict laws, as panda skins fetch high price, reducing the degradation of habitats outside reserves and reforestation”

Keyword: poaching

Keyword location: para E, line no- 7

Explanation: The China Ministry of Forest and the World Wide Fund for nature have made management plans to protect pandas' habitats and to ensure that the panda populations are linked wherever possible. Some other measures include better control of poaching, reducing degradation of habitats outside reserves, and reforestation

31. Answer: A

Supporting answer: "Deforestation, mainly earned out of farmers clearing land to make way for fields as they move higher into the mountains.."

Keyword: Deforestation

Keyword location: Para A, line no- 3

Explanation: The reason for the pandas' living area to be reduced is deforestation. This is done by the farmers, as they clear the lands in order to walk their ways to the higher areas into the mountains. This Has drastically reduced the mammals' range.

Question 32-33

There are several problems affecting the panda. From the list below, choose 2 more problems that are mentioned in the reading passages.

Write the appropriate numbers (i-vi) in boxes 32 and 33 on your answer sheet

1. Pandas prefer to inbreed
2. Pandas groups are getting too small
3. Panda habitats have shrunk
4. Pandas move to other countries
5. More bamboo is withering
6. Panda groups are isolated

Answer

32. Answer: II

Supporting answer: “The minuscule size of the panda population worries conservationists.”

Keyword: minuscule size

Keyword location: Para C, line no- 1

Explanation:The panda group size is getting smaller with time. The group with the smallest number of pandas will soon be viable and inevitably die out, and the group with a larger population will be susceptible to genetic defects due to inbreeding.

33. Answer: VI

Supporting answer: “The population of these islands, ranging from fewer than ten to more than 50 pandas, has become isolated because animals are bath to cross open areas.”

Keyword: Isolated

Keyword location: Para B line 7

Explanation:The group of pandas is getting isolated as the panda islands are separated by cleared lands, and the animals cannot cross the open areas in between the forest, thus the groups get isolated.

Question 34-40

Below is a summary of the reading passage 'The Panda's Last Chance'. Complete the summary by choosing words from the box following the summary. Write your answers in boxes 34-50 on your answer sheet.

Answer

34. Answer: Decreased

Supporting answer: “The minuscule size of the panda populations worries conservationists ”; “A more traditional threat of pandas can become literally species threatening”

Keyword: minuscule size, species threatening

Keyword location: Para C, line no- 1; para D line no-3

Explanation: The size of the panda population is decreasing for reasons like poaching, deforestation, withering of bamboo, the cycle of flowering plants, panda islands being separated by cleared land.

35. Answer: Disconnected

Supporting answer: “Worse, the surviving panda population has also become fragmented, a combination of satellite imaginary and ground surveys reveals panda islands in patches of forest are separated by cleared land. The population of these islands, ranging from fewer than ten to more than 50 pandas, has become isolated because the animals are bath to cross open areas”

Keyword: isolated

Keyword location: Para B, line no- 7

Explanation: As the panda islands are separated by cleared lands, the pandas are not able to move from their small patches of forest to another. This is for the reason that the pandas are bathed to cross the open area that separates the patches of forest

36. Answer: Problems

Supporting answer: “The flowering prompt pandas to move from one area to another, thus preventing inbreeding in otherwise sedentary populations”;

Keyword: inbreeding

Keyword location: Para D, line no- 4

Explanation: The cycle of flowering and the withering of bamboo has led to species threat. The flowerings lured the pandas to move from one place to another, thus avoiding inbreeding, but since they cannot emigrate, inbreeding in taking place which is making the pandas more prone to a genetic disorder.

37. Answer: Growth

Supporting answer: “ In panda Islands, however bamboo flowering could prove catastrophic because the pandas are unable to emigrate”

Keyword: emigrate

Keyword location: Para D, lie no-7

Explanation: They are unable to freely move by following the cycle of the bamboo because they are bathed to cross the open area that separated the panda islands.

38. Answer: Join

Supporting answer: “The latest conservation management plans for the panda, prepared by China Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature, aims primarily to maintain panda habitats and to ensure that populations are linked wherever possible”

Keyword: linked

Keyword location: Para E, line no- 4

Explanation: The new plan has been taken up by the China Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature to protect the panda habitats and to ensure that the populations of the panda are joined wherever possible.

39. Answer: Reserves

Supporting answer: “The plan will change some existing reserves boundaries, establish 14 new reserves and protect or replant corridors of forest between panda islands”

Keyword: reserves

Keyword location: Para E, line no- 5

Explanation: The plan is also set to change some of the existing reserves and establish 14 new reserves.

40. Answer: Cooperates

Supporting answer: “Implementation will be expensive- Yuan 56.6 million will be needed for the development of the panda reserves- and will require participation by individuals ranging from villagers to government officials”

Keyword: ranging from villagers to government officials

Keyword location: Para F, line 4

Explanation: The plan to protect and for the betterment of the pandas' reserves is expensive. It will require an investment of US $ 12.5 million. This will require the cooperation of both the villagers and the government.