Australia’s Lost Giants Reading Answers

Janice Thompson

5 min read

Updated On Aug 14, 2024

Australia’s Lost Giants
Answers

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This article contains the Australia’s Lost Giants reading answers.

Australia’s Lost Giants is a real Reading test passage that appeared in the IELTS.

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Australia’s Lost Giants

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 26-38, which are based on the Reading Passage below.

Find the practice test with the Australia’s Lost Giants PDF here.

Answers

Question number	Answer	Explanation
26	F	Paragraph F mentions that the Earth preserves its history haphazardly. Naturally occurring events like ‘bones disintegrate, the land erodes, the climate changes, forests come and go, rivers change their course’ takes place and ‘history’ (past), if not destroyed, is ‘steadily concealed’ (hard to trace). Hence, the answer is F.
27	E	Paragraph E says that a famous boneyard in the same region is a place called Wellington Caves, where ‘Diprotodon, the largest known marsupial’ – an animal which carries its young in a pouch like kangaroos and koalas – ‘was first discovered’. A surveyor named Thomas Mitchell arrived, explored the caves in the area, and shipped fossils off to Richard Owen, the British paleontologist who later gained fame for revealing the existence of dinosaurs. Owen recognized that the ‘Wellington cave bones’ belonged to an ‘extinct’ (died out) ‘marsupial’. Hence, the answer is E.
28	A	Paragraph A informs that in 1969, a fossil hunter named Rod Wells came to Naracoorte in South Australia to explore what was then known as Victoria Cave. It took Wells a moment to realize what he was looking at, which was the ‘bones of thousands of creatures’ (a variety of animals all died) that ‘must have fallen through holes in the ground above and become trapped’ (reason of death in the same small area). Hence, the answer is A.

29	E	Paragraph E points out that between 1909 and 1915 sediments in Mammoth Cave that contained ‘fossils’ were ‘hauled out’ (uncover) and ‘examined in a chaotic manner that no scientist today would approve’ (procedure was inappropriate). Hence, the answer is E.
30	B	Paragraph B states that Martin said that modern humans created havoc as they spread through the Americas, ‘wielding spears to annihilate animals’ (hunting) that had never faced a technological predator. But this period of extinction wasn’t comprehensive as North America kept its ‘deer, black bears and a small type of bison’ (examples of kinds of animals that did not die out as a result of hunting), and South America its ‘jaguars and llamas’. Hence, the answer is B.
31	B	Paragraph D mentions the debate about megafauna pivots to a great degree on the techniques for ‘dating old bones and the sediments’ in which they are buried. As it happens, there is one place where there may be such evidence: Cuddie Springs in New South Wales. Today the person most vocal about the site is ‘archeologist Judith Field’. In 1991, she discovered ‘megafauna bones’ (fossil remains of giant animals) directly ‘adjacent to stone tools’ – a headline-making find. Hence, the answer is B.
32	C	In paragraph D, the writer says that in 1991, Judith Field discovered megafauna bones directly adjacent to stone tools – a headline-making find. Later, it is given that her critics say the ‘fossils’ have been ‘moved from their original resting places and redeposited in younger sediments’ (displaced). Hence, the answer is C.
33	A,C	Paragraph C discussed that ‘Australia’ has been ‘drying out’ (extinction) for over a million years, and the ‘megafauna’ were faced with a continent where ‘vegetation began to disappear’ (loss of habitat). Australian paleontologist Tim Flannery suggests that ‘people, who arrived on the continent’ around 50,000 years ago, ‘used fire to hunt, which led to deforestation’ (human activity). Hence, the answer is A (human activity) & C (loss of habitat).
34	A,D	Paragraph E refers to the fact that between 1909 and 1915 sediments in Mammoth Cave (Australian site) that contained ‘fossils were hauled out and examined’ in a chaotic manner that no scientist today would approve. Still, one bone in particular has drawn extensive attention: ‘a femur with a cut’ (bone injury) in it, possibly ‘left there by a sharp tool’(man-made object).Further, it is added in Paragraph F that Australia’s first people expressed themselves in ‘rock art’ (preserved images). Paleontologist Peter Murray has studied a rock painting in far northern Australia that shows what looks very much like a ‘megafauna marsupial’ known as Palorchestes. Hence, the answer is A (bone injury caused by a man-made object) & D (preserved images of megafauna species).
35	A	In paragraph A, the writer points out that in boneyards across the continent, scientists have found the fossils of a giant snake, a huge flightless bird, and a seven foot kangaroo, to name but a few. Given how ‘much ink has been spilled on the extinction of the dinosaurs’, it’s a wonder that even more ‘hasn’t been devoted to megafauna’. Hence, the answer is A (TRUE) as the statement agrees with the claims of the author.
36	C	In paragraph B, it is given that In the 1960s, paleoecologist ‘Paul Martin developed what became known as the blitzkrieg hypothesis’. Modern humans, Martin said, created havoc as they spread through the Americas, wielding spears to annihilate animals that had never faced a technological predator. But this period of extinction wasn’t comprehensive. There is no mention of any problems in the theory. Hence, the answer is C (NOT GIVEN).
37	C	In paragraph C, it is given that in Flannery’s 1994 book called ‘The Future Eaters’, he sets out his thesis that human beings are a new kind of animal on the planet, and are in general, one prone to ruining ecosystems. ‘Flannery’s book proved highly controversial’. Some viewed it as ‘critical of the Aborigines’, who pride themselves on living in harmony with nature. The more basic problem with Flannery’s thesis is that there is no direct evidence that they killed any Australian megafauna. As there is no mention of protest, hence, the answer is C (NOT GIVEN).
38	B	In paragraph C, it is stated that in Flannery’s 1994 book called The Future Eaters, he sets out his thesis that human beings are a new kind of animal on the planet, and are in general, one prone to ruining ecosystems. Flannery’s book proved highly controversial. The ‘more basic problem with Flannery’s thesis’ is that there is ‘no direct evidence’ that ‘they’ (Aborigines) ‘killed any Australian megafauna’. Hence, the answer is B (FALSE) as the statement contradicts the claims of the author.

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