The Mysteries of Water – IELTS Reading Answers

The Academic passage, The Mysteries of Water Reading Answers, is a reading passage that consists of 13 questions.

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.

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 The Mysteries of Water below and try more IELTS reading practice tests from IELTSMaterial.com.

The question types found in this passage are:

• Matching Headings (Q. 1-5)
• Yes/No/Not Given (Q. 6-13)

Even though Yes/No/Not Given questions are similar to True/False/Not Given type, check out the video below for a thorough understanding of the various types of Reading questions, including the Yes/No/Not Given questions.

Reading Passage 

The Mysteries of Water 

A From the nature of dark matter and the origin of the universe to the research for a theory of everything, we come across many mysteries. Whilst these are all puzzles on a grand scale, there is another not quite so grand but equally confusing mystery of the physical world that you can observe from the comfort of your own kitchen. Simply fill a tall glass with chilled water, throw in an ice cube and leave it to stand. The fact that the ice cube floats is the first oddity. And the mystery deepens if you take a thermometer and measure the temperature of the water at various depths. At the top, near the ice cube, you’ll find it to be around 0°C, but at the bottom, it should be about 4°C. That’s why water is denser at 4°C than it is at any other temperature which is another strange feature that sets it apart from other liquids.

B Water’s odd but essential qualities don’t stop there, for ice is less dense than water, and water is less dense at its freezing point than it is when it is slightly warmer. It freezes from the top down rather than the bottom up. So even during the ice ages, life kept going on to flourish on lake floors and in the deep ocean. Also, water has an extraordinary capacity to absorb up the heat, and this helps smooth out climatic changes that could otherwise lay waste to ecosystems. However, in spite of water’s enormous importance to life, no single theory had been able to satisfactorily explain its mysterious qualities – until now. If we can believe physicists Anders Nilsson at Stanford University, California, and Lars Pettersson of Stockholm University, Sweden, we could, at last, be getting to the bottom of many of these anomalies.

C Their disputed ideas expand on a theory proposed more than a century ago. According to Wilhelm Roentgen, the man who discovered the X-ray, the molecule in liquid water packs together not in just one way, as today’s textbooks would have us believe, but in two different ways. The way its molecules are composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom and how they interact with one another is essential to the understanding of water’s mysteries. The oxygen atom has a slight negative charge whilst the hydrogen atoms share a compensating positive charge. Through this process, the hydrogen and oxygen atoms of neighbouring molecules are drawn to one another, forming a link called a hydrogen bond.

D Hydrogen bonds are even weaker than the bonds that link the atoms within molecules together, so keep going to break and reform, but they are at their strongest when molecules are organized so that each hydrogen bond lines up with a molecular bond. The shaping of a water molecule is such that each H₂0 molecule is surrounded by four neighbours organized in the shaping of a triangular pyramid better known as a tetrahedron. At least, that’s the way the molecules organize themselves in ice. From the conventional view, liquid water has a similar, although less hard, structure, in which extra molecules are able to pack into some of the open gaps in the tetrahedral arrangement. It explains why liquid water is denser than ice – and it seems to comply with the results of various experiments that beams of X-rays, infrared light and neutrons are bounced off samples of water.

E Some physicists had suggested that water placed under certain extreme conditions may separate into two different structures, but most had assumed it resumes a single structure under normal conditions. And then, 10 years ago, a change found by Pettersson and Nilsson called this idea into question. They were using X-ray absorption spectroscopy to research the amino acid glycine. The peaks in the X-ray absorption spectrum can shed light on the accurate nature of the target substance’s chemical bonds on its structure. Critically, the researchers had got hold of a new, high-power X-ray source with which they could make more sensitive and precise measurements than had ever been possible. They soon knew that the water containing their glycine sample was producing a far more interesting spectrum than the amino acids did. Nilsson recalls, “What we saw there was sensational, so we had to get to the bottom of it.”

F The characteristic that sparked their interest was a peak point in the absorption spectrum that is not anticipated by the traditional model of liquid water. Actually, a paper published in 2004 concludes that at any given moment 85% of the hydrogen bonds in water must be weakened or broken. This is far more than the 10% anticipated by the textbook model. The hints of this finding are dramatic: it claims that a total rethink of the structure of water is needed. So, both Nilsson and Pettersson turned to other X-ray experiments to confirm these claims. Their first move was to enlist the aid of Shik Shin of the University of Tokyo who specialises in a technique called X-ray emission spectroscopy. The main thing about these spectra is that the shorter the wavelength of the X-ray in a substance’s emission spectrum is, the looser the hydrogen bonding must be.

The team struck gold: the two peak spectrum of discharged X-ray might correspond to two separate structures. The researchers insisted that the spike of the longer-wavelength X-ray indicates the proportion of tetrahedrally organized molecules, whilst the shorter-wavelength peak reflects the proportion of disordered molecules. Critically, the shorter-wavelength peak in the X-ray emissions was the more intense of the two, suggesting that the loosely bound molecules must be more outstanding within the sample, an assertion that fitted the team’s previous models. What’s more, they also recognised that this peak shifts to an even shorter wavelength, as if the water was heated, the other peak remains more or less fixed.

Questions 1-5

List of Headings

i a significant role to creatures

ii spectrum’’s previous models

iii a distinction of hydrogen bonds

iv nature’s mysteries in the small place

v the effect of the spectrum on liquid water

vi molecular composition of water

vii water based on infrared light

viii on-body structure of water

Example           Answer

Section A           iv

1 Section B

2 Section C

3 Section D

4 Section E

5 Section F

Questions 6-13

6 Water’s temperature of the top and bottom is generally the same.

7 During the ice ages, there was life in the deep ocean because of warmth.

8 Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays for water molecules.

9 Both hydrogen and oxygen’s atoms are similar to a positive charge.

10 A single H₂0 molecule is composed entirely of five-angled shape.

11 Pettersson and Nilsson were scrutinising the amino acid glycine by using X-ray absorption spectroscopy.

12 The water including glycine was making a superior spectrum to the amino acid.

13 The shorter wavelength is subjected to the longer wavelength.

Tips for Answering the Question Types in the ‘The Mysteries of Water’ IELTS Reading Passage

Let us check out some quick tips to answer the types of questions in the ‘The Mysteries of Water’ Reading passage.

Matching Headings:

Matching Headings is a type of IELTS reading question that requires you to match a list of headings to the correct paragraphs in a passage. To answer matching headings questions, you can use the following strategies:

• Read the headings first: This will give you an idea of the topics that will be covered in the passage.
• Read the paragraphs quickly: This will give you a general understanding of the content of each paragraph.
• Match the headings to the paragraphs: As you read each paragraph, look for the heading that best summarizes the main idea of the paragraph.
• Check your answers: Once you have matched all of the headings, double-check your answers to make sure that they are correct.

Yes/No/Not Given: 

Yes/No/Not Given questions are a type of IELTS Reading question that requires you to identify whether a statement is true, false, or not given in the passage.

• Yes statements are statements that are explicitly stated in the passage.
• No statements are statements that are explicitly contradicted in the passage.
• Not Given statements are statements that are neither explicitly stated nor contradicted in the passage

To answer Yes/No/Not Given questions, you need to be able to understand the passage and identify the key information. You also need to be able to distinguish between statements that are explicitly stated, contradicted, and not given.

Great work on attempting to solve the ‘The Mysteries of Water’ IELTS reading passage! To crack your IELTS Reading in the first go, try solving more of the Recent IELTS Reading Passages.

‘The Mysteries of Water’ IELTS Reading Answers With Location and Explanation

1 Answer: i

Question type: Matching Headings

Answer location: Paragraph B, line 3 – line 4

Answer explanation: In the mentioned lines, it is given “So even during the ice ages, life kept going on to flourish on lake floors and in the deep ocean. Also, water has an extraordinary capacity to absorb up the heat, and this helps smooth out climatic changes that could otherwise lay waste to ecosystems.”. From this quoted statement it can be inferred that the writer is discussing how water plays a significant role in the survival of creatures (or life) in conditions like the ice ages or during climate changes. Hence, the answer is i (a significant role to creatures).

2 Answer: vi

Question type: Matching Headings

Answer location: Paragraph C

Answer explanation: The following line in the third paragraph- The way its molecules are composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom and how they interact with one another is essential to the understanding of water’s mysteries.- establishes the fact that in the third paragraph, the writer has explained the molecular composition of water in detail. Hence, the answer is vi (molecular composition of water).

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