Comets - IELTS Reading Answers

Nehasri Ravishenbagam

13 min read

Updated On Jun 21, 2025

Get set to practice the “Comets - IELTS Reading” topic with this article. Once you’re done, you will get to check the answers along with their explanations and gain some of our expert tips to crack the question types present in it as well!

Reading Passage
Comet IELTS Reading Answer Key
Comet IELTS Reading Answers With Explanation and Location
Tips for Answering the Question Types in the Comet IELTS Reading Passage

Recent IELTS Reading Tests with Answers PDF

The ‘Comets’ is an academic reading passage that has appeared in an IELTS exam. As the questions get repeated in the exam, these kinds of reading passages are ideal for practice. If you want more practice, try taking a whole IELTS reading practice test.

Since IELTS Academic Reading is considered the second easiest module of the exam after Listening, try to solve and review the ‘Comets’ Reading passage and similar passages to ensure that your reading skills are up to the mark.

The question types found in the ‘Comets’ IELTS Reading passage are:

Reading Passage

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on the Reading Passage below.

Comets

A Comets arrive to grace our skies every year; some are new to the inner Solar System, and some are old friends on a repeat visit, but only comparatively rarely do they reach sufficient brightness to become apparent to the unaided eye.

B Comets do not behave like any other object that we can observe in the night sky with the unaided eye. Stars remain fixed in the pattern of their constellations and are regular in their motion through the sky from one night to the next, and from one month to the next. A planet follows a fairly slow but expected path. By comparison, a comet is a totally different kind of event: it will appear unexpectedly and at any place in the sky, it will change position from one night to the next relative to the background of stars, and its path will be along a separate direction and path across the sky from the planets and stars. During the few weeks or months that it is observable, it will first steadily increase in brightness from one night to the next, may change its shape – growing bigger, longer or extra tails – and then wane to invisibility, never to be seen again. Throughout history, comets have always signified evil, war and death, and they were supposed to leave chaos and calamity in their wake. Indeed, plenty of past comets have been blamed by the astrologers of their day for bringing or marking misfortune.

C There have been many spectacular comets throughout history; on average we are visited by what is termed a ‘great comet’ about three times a century. This appellation is saved for those comets that reach exceptional brightness. The most famous of all comets is Halley’s comet; not that it is the most spectacular, but study of its orbit by the English astronomer, Edmond Halley, was fundamental to pinning down the real nature of comets. During the 17th century, Halley was using Newton’s new mathematics of calculus to try to characterize the orbits of twenty- four comets from sightings recorded over the previous four centuries. He realised that the orbital path of the bright comet recently seen in 1682 was very similar to that followed by two other comets – one observed in 1531 and one in 1607. All moved in a retrograde direction (i.e. opposite to the revolution of the planets round the Sun), following an elliptical orbit that had a similar orientation to the plane of the planets’ motion. The great comet of 1456 was also known to have travelled in a retrograde direction. Halley’s inspiration was to realise that these were four apparitions of the same comet, following a set path around the Sun, but which only became apparent to observers on Earth when its orbit returned the comet to the inner Solar System, after an interval of about 76 years. Although he did not live to see the success of his prediction of the comet’s return in 1758, when the comet was spotted on schedule, it was given his name. Subsequently, at least 23 previous appearances of Halley’s comet have been identified from historical records, the first known being from a Chinese text dating from 240 BC.

D The nucleus is the sole solid component of a comet, and the only part that is always present. It resembles a dark-coloured iceberg; it is a frozen chunk of ice ranging between 5 to 20 km in size, and with a somewhat irregular shape. The ice is not just water ice, but also contains the ices of frozen ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide. The ices are blackened, as they contain small fragments of dust embedded within them, and the whole nucleus is of a low density, suggesting it to be a partially porous body. When travelling along the outer reaches of its orbit, far from the Sun, the nucleus remains frozen and dormant. As soon as its path brings the icy block into the inner Solar system, it begins to warm up and its surface becomes active. The solid ice turns directly into gas, in a process known as ‘sublimation,’ and is liberated from the surface. The process is particularly apparent on the sunward flank of the nucleus, where the gases escape as jets, particularly through any fissures that open up in the structure. These jets also push out the particles of solid dust that are embedded in the ice.

E The closer an orbit brings a nucleus to the Sun, the warmer it becomes, and the more spectacular tails are generated with them, sometimes being visible during the day. There are two types of comet tails: dust and gas ion. A dust tail contains small, solid particles that are about the same size as those found in cigarette smoke. This tail forms because sunlight pushes on these small particles, gently shoving them away from the comet’s nucleus. Because the pressure from sunlight is relatively weak, the dust particles end up forming a diffuse curved tail in the direction of the comet’s orbit. A gas ion tail forms when ultraviolet sunlight rips one or more electrons from gas atoms in the coma, making them into ions. The solar wind then carries these ions straight outward away from the Sun. As a comet heads away from the Sun, its tails dissipate, and the matter contained in its nucleus freezes into a rock-like material.

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Questions 14-18

Complete the summary using the words in the box below.

Write your answers in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

COMETS

Comets are quite common in our solar system, but they are seldom 14…………….. Comets behave differently to other sky objects; they are seemingly quite 15……………. in their movements and 16…………….. Comets have often been seen as predicting 17…………….. Halley’s comet is probably the best known ‘great comet.’ Using previous 18……………., Edmond Halley was successfully able to predict the comet’s next appearance, although it occurred after his death.

observations	dangerous	visible
beautiful	naming	Disaster
success	unpredictable	properties
star

Questions 19-23

Complete the sentences below.

Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet.

19 The nucleus of a comet is the only part that is known to be …………….. and to remain present through its orbit.

20 The frozen components of a comet’s nucleus are ……………. due to the presence of dust particles.

21 The nucleus of a comet has been theorised to be porous because of its …………….

22 When far from the sun, a comet’s nucleus is icy and ……………..

23 Gas jets eject more frequently from the …………….. side of a comet.

Questions 24-26

Label the diagram below.

Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.

comets reading answers

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Comet IELTS Reading Answer Key

Question No.	Answer	Question No.	Answer
14.	visible	21.	(low) density
15.	unpredictable	22.	dormant
16.	properties	23.	sunward
17.	disaster	24.	dust
18.	observations	25.	gas (ion) / ion
19.	solid	26.	dissipate
20.	blackened

Comet IELTS Reading Answers With Explanation and Location

14 Answer: visible

Question type: Summary Completion

Answer location: Paragraph A

Answer explanation: From the lines – Comets arrive to grace our skies every year; some are new to the inner Solar System, and some are old friends on a repeat visit, but only comparatively rarely do they reach sufficient brightness to become apparent to the unaided eye.– it is evident that even though comets are common in our solar system, they are rarely visible due to the lack of brightness. Hence, the answer is ‘visible’.

15 Answer: unpredictable

Question type: Summary Completion

Answer location: Paragraph B, line 4

Answer explanation: In the mentioned line, it is given “By comparison, a comet is a totally different kind of event: it will appear unexpectedly and at any place in the sky, it will change position from one night to the next relative to the background of stars, and its path will be along a separate direction and path across the sky from the planets and stars.”. In light of the fact that comets are quite unpredictable in their movements and can change position, the answer is ‘unpredictable’.

16 Answer: properties

Question type: Summary Completion

Answer location: Paragraph B, line 5

Answer explanation: In this paragraph, it is stated that “During the few weeks or months that it is observable, it will first steadily increase in brightness from one night to the next, may change its shape – growing bigger, longer or extra tails – and then wane to invisibility, never to be seen again.” It can be pointed out that comets, unlike stars and planets, change their properties like shape, brightness, etc. Hence, the answer is ‘properties’.

17 Answer: disaster

Question type: Summary Completion

Answer location: Paragraph B, line 6

Answer explanation: Through the line, “Throughout history, comets have always signified evil, war and death, and they were supposed to leave chaos and calamity in their wake.”, it can be concluded that comets have often been seen as predicting disaster (chaos and calamity). Hence, the answer is ‘disaster’.

18 Answer: observations

Question type: Summary Completion

Answer location: Paragraph C, line 4

Answer explanation: In the mentioned paragraph of the passage, it is noted that, “During the 17th century, Halley was using Newton’s new mathematics of calculus to try to characterise the orbits of twenty- four comets from sightings recorded over the previous four centuries.”. Based on this reference, it can be concluded that using previous observations, Hailey predicted the comet’s next appearance. Hence, the answer is ‘observations’.

19 Answer: solid