The Sweet Scent of Success - IELTS Reading Answers

Question number 

Answer

Explanation

1

F

Paragraph F mentions “convinced her father that shower power should be in supermarkets.” Thus, we can infer that the daughter of Coles Myer is persuading another family member to sell cleaning products such as shower power. Hence, the correct answer is “F.” 

2

E

As per paragraph E, “it was all hands on deck at the factory, labelling and bottling Shower Power to keep up with demand.” As the idiom ‘all hands on deck’ implies that all team members are required. It suggests that it was a difficult situation for factory staff to cope with sales. Hence, the correct answer is “E.” 

3

C

A line in paragraph C infers that “he is credited with finding the Shower Power formula.” This line alludes to the account of the creation of the formula of Shower Power. Hence, the correct answer is “C.” 

4

B

A per paragraph B, “Tom Quinn and John Heron bought a struggling cleaning products business, OzKleen .” This line from the passage signifies the account of buying the original OzKleen company. Hence, the correct answer is “B.” 

5

G

In paragraph G, there’s a line that describes the Shower Power’s international expansion, i.e., ‘the cleaning products are sold everywhere.’ Hence, the correct answer is “G.”  

6

D

In paragraph D, a line denotes the reason for changing the size of Shower Power. The reason is that ‘Tom Quinn decided to sell it in 750ml bottles after the contant “raves” from customers at their retail store at, near Brisbane.Hence, the correct answer is “D.”   

7

A

Paragraph A states examples of some ideas that innovate “are spruiking to potential investors include new water-saving showerheads, a keyless locking system, ping-pong balls that keep pollution out of rainwater tanks and so on. Hence, the correct answer is “A.”   

8

C

Paragraph A mentions that according to Grant Kearney, “an idea only becomes innovation when it is connected to the right resources and capabilities.” The right resources and capabilities are the support required for innovations to succeed. Hence, the correct answer is “C.”    

9

A

In paragraph D, Tom Quinn said, “we did a dummy label and went to see Woolworths.” Thus, we can infer from this line that he is describing his story of selling his product to a chain store. Hence, the correct answer is “A.”    

10

D

Paragraph F puts forward the information that “Peter Quinn says the company was wary of how long the sales would last and hesitated to spend money on upgrading the manufacturing process.”  According to Peter Quinn, he was able to sense a problem about how long the sales would last. Therefore, we can deduce that he believes new products like Shower Power may incur risks. Hence, the correct answer is “D.”  

11

B

Few lines in paragraph E conveys that “Shower Power was released in Australian supermarkets in 1997 and became the top-selling product in its category within six months.” Besides that “Belinda McDonnell recalls it was hand-to-mouth, cash flow was very difficult.”  Since it was a hand-to-mouth difficult cash flow situation, it implies that there was a shortage of money when sales suddenly increased. Hence, the correct answer is “B.”  

12

B

In paragraph D, there’s a line that claims “Tom Quinn to sell it in 750ml bottles after the constant ‘raves’ from customers at their retail store,near Brisbane.” And “how good Shower Power was.” This line indicates that Tom Quinn changed the bottle size to make it more appealing to individual customers. Hence, the correct answer is “B.”   

13

D

The last line of paragraph G indicates the reason why Tom Quinn decided not to sell Ozkleen. It was because he says ‘he is happy with things as they are.’ From this line, we can infer that we wanted things to remain unchanged. Hence, the correct answer is “D.”