The Humongous Fungus Reading Answers

Janice Thompson

2 min read

Updated On Feb 21, 2023

Recent IELTS Reading Test with Answers - Free PDF

The Humongous Fungus is a real Reading test passage that appeared in the IELTS.

With diligent practice, the Reading Module can be the top-scoring category for IELTS Aspirants. To score well, you must understand how to approach and answer the different question types in the Reading Module.

There are two types of questions in this passage. They are:

By solving and reviewing Sample Reading Questions from past IELTS papers, you can ensure that your Reading skills are up to the mark. Take the practice test below and check your score with the answers for The Humongous Fungus!

You can also take more IELTS reading practice tests.

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on the Reading Passage.

Find the practice test with The Humongous Fungus PDF here.

Answers

Question number	Answer	Keywords	Location of keywords
1	TRUE	It may be not only the largest single organism in the world but also one of the oldest.	Paragraph A; Line 7
2	NOT GIVEN	–	–
3	TRUE	Using aerial photographs, she identified an area of dying trees stretching over a 5.6 kilometre area. She then collected samples from the roots of these trees. When she looked at the samples, Parks was able to confirm that many of the samples were infected by the same organism; the fungus had grown bigger than any other creature known to science.	Paragraph B; Lines 2 – 4
4	FALSE	A PhD biology student, Myron Smith, discovered it in a hardwood forest, when he and his team were trying to find the boundaries of individual fungi. & The next thing they did was develop new genetic tests to see if the DNA from the samples was from a single individual fungus and not closely related individuals.	Paragraph C; Line 2 & Line 4
5	TRUE	it produces chemicals that digest carbohydrates from the tree and interfere with the tree’s ability to absorb water and nutrients, eventually leading to the death of the host organism.	Paragraph D; Line 3
6	FALSE	Even the golden mushrooms produced by the honey mushroom fungus are edible, though apparently not very tasty.	Paragraph E; Line 5
7	NOT GIVEN	–	–
8	visible	Commonly known as the honey mushroom, the only visible evidence for the organism on the surface is groups of golden mushrooms that grow in forests during the autumn.	Paragraph A; Last line
9	trees dying/dying trees	The discovery of the organism came about when Catherine Parks, a scientist at the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Oregon, heard about trees dying from root rot in a forest east of Prairie City.	Paragraph B; Line 1
10	Root disease	The honey mushroom fungus is the cause of a root disease that kills many trees in the US and Canada.	Paragraph D; Line 1
11	Genetic tests	The next thing they did was develop new genetic tests to see if the DNA from the samples was from a single individual fungus and not closely related individuals.	Paragraph C; Line 4
12	Underground	Although to humans the idea of an enormous organism silently growing underground seems very strange,	Paragraph F; Line 1
13	normal	‘We think that they’re in fact normal.’	Paragraph F; Last line

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Janice Thompson

Soon after graduating with a Master’s in Literature from Southern Arkansas University, she joined an institute as an English language trainer. She has had innumerous student interactions and has produced a couple of research papers on English language teaching. She soon found that non-native speakers struggled to meet the English language requirements set by foreign universities. It was when she decided to jump ship into IELTS training. From then on, she has been mentoring IELTS aspirants. She joined IELTSMaterial about a year ago, and her contributions have been exceptional. Her essay ideas and vocabulary have taken many students to a band 9.