The Wild West Village Near Tabernas Reading Answers

The IELTS Reading Module offers a fantastic chance to achieve excellent scores. It assesses a candidate’s reading comprehension skills in English. You must comprehend the various question types in order to perform at your best in this area. Ideally, you should not spend more than 20 minutes on a passage.

The Academic passage, The Wild West Village Near Tabernas reading answers appeared in an IELTS Test. It contains some of the IELTS reading question types. If you are interested in familiarising yourself with all the question types, don’t hesitate to take an IELTS reading practice test.

So, let’s see how easy this passage is for you and if you’re able to make it in 20 minutes.

The question types found in this passage are:

• True/False/Not Given (Q. 1-5)
• Matching Sentence Ending (Q.6-10)
• Multiple-choice Questions (Q. 11)
• Sentence Completion (Q. 12-13)

Reading Passage

The Wild West Village near Tabernas

Sandwiched between the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, Gador, Filabres and Alhamilla is one of the most dramatic landscapes in Spain, the desolate Desierto de Tabernas. Tabernas desert is one of the most geologically interesting landscapes in Europe since it clearly shows the process of natural desertification and erosion. Its features include sheer- sided gullies, carved out by the infrequent but torrential rains that only fall on a few days in the year. Another feature is piping, where water permeates through the top of a slope and emerges farther down through a hole, the water creating an underground pipe in the process. In certain places, there are so many holes that they have created a Swiss cheese effect.

Eight million years ago, in the Miocene period, the sea covered the Tabernas desert area, reaching inland as far as the foothills of the Sierra de Los Filabres, where today a strip of fossilised coral dunes delineates the former coastline. The deposited material consisted of sand and loam, and this is what makes up the Tabernas desert today. A million years later the Sierra Alhamilla rose up, cutting off the Tabernas desert area from the ocean and creating an inland sea, where more sand, loam, clay, limestone and gypsum were deposited. At the end of the Pliocene epoch, the sea receded, leaving the seabed exposed to erosion.

Although the desert may look like it has scarce vegetation, it, in fact, harbours a fair variety of xerophyte flora accustomed to surviving in semi-arid areas, including some plants that are unique to the Desierto de Tabernas. Among these species are the attractive sea lavender. Another is the winter-flowering toadflax, which after a wet autumn, clothe the usually barren desert slopes around Tabernas in white and release their vanilla scent into the air. You can find it on flat land next to the Solar Platform of Almeria (a vast expanse of solar panels, installed to take advantage of the 3,000 hours of sun received in this area every year) near Tabernas, off the road north to Senes. It also grows in dry river beds.

With its annual rainfall of 240mm concentrated in no more than four days a year, only plants that have adapted to semi-arid climate can thrive here. With high levels of salinity in the soil, plants also need to be salt-resistant, like the saltwort, Salsola genistoides, commonly seen here. The desert is riddled with numerous dry riverbeds or ramblas, which provide a unique microclimate that is more humid than any other place in this otherwise parched landscape. Here you can see reeds, oleanders and tamarisks.

It may appear as if this harsh landscape is incapable of supporting much in the way of fauna, but along the edges of the seasonal rivers, there is a wealth of vertebrates, most notably reptiles and birds. The most commonly seen reptiles are ladder snakes, spiny-footed lizards and ocellated lizards. Around the more moist areas of the dry riverbeds, you can see amphibians such as marsh frogs, natterjack toads and terrapins. Birds of prey, including Bonelli’s eagles and peregrines, come from the nearby Sierra de Alhamilla Natural Area to use the desert as a hunting ground. The steppe region, including former areas of cereal cultivation, is one of Europe’s few refuges for trumpeter finches, a common resident of oases in the Sahara desert. They hide themselves away in the numerous rocky crevices in this Spanish desert, along with the Sierra de Alhamilla and the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park. Bee-eaters make their nests in holes in the rocky slopes.

Given the arid conditions, mammals are less common with around 20 species inhabiting the park, the most important being the Algerian hedgehog. As a North African species, this is one of only several places, concentrated in eastern Spain, where it is found in the Iberian Peninsula. Abundant rabbits, hares and dormice provide plentiful prey for the carnivores and raptors in the area.

Questions 1- 5

1 Most westerns made in Europe are filmed in Tabernas.

2 The area is perfect for the development of alternative energy.

3 Different plants find different ways to adapt to the heat.

4 The hottest place in the desert is in the dry river beds.

5 Bonelli’s eagles live in the desert.

Questions 6-10

6 The plants that grow in the desert adapt to

7 The lunar type landscape has not been affected much by

8 The trumpeter finches are protected by

9 The Swiss cheese effect has been caused by

10 The floral fragrance of vanilla is produced by

A the rocky crevices.

B the oases.

C salt.

D the winter flowering toadflax.

E the gullies.

F water permeating through the rocks.

G good soil.

H farmers.

Questions 11

11 Why does the desert look surreal?

A because it looks like the moon

B because it has barren slopes

C because it has a lot of vegetation

D because it is bleached by the sun

Questions 12 – 13

12 The rainy season only lasts for up to and so plants must adapt to a semi-arid environment.

13 The Algerian hedgehog is one example of a number of different that live there.

Answers of The Wild West Village Near Tabernas Reading Answers and Explanations

1 Answer: Not Given

Question type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 2

Answer explanation: The passage does not provide information about where most westerns made in Europe are filmed.

2 Answer: True

Question type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 6

Answer explanation: The passage mentions that the area has a Solar Platform of Almeria with solar panels to take advantage of the sun, indicating it is suitable for alternative energy development.

3 Answer: True

Question type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 7

Answer explanation: The passage describes various plants’ adaptations to the semi-arid climate in the desert.

4 Answer: Not Given

Question type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 9

Answer explanation: The passage no where specifies the hottest place in the desert.

5 Answer: False

Question type: True/False/Not Given

Answer location: Paragraph 11

Answer explanation: The passage mentions that Bonelli’s eagles come from the nearby Sierra de Alhamilla Natural Area to use the desert as a hunting ground, indicating they do not live in the desert.

Tips for Answering the Question Types in ‘The Wild West Village Near Tabernas’ Reading Passage

Let us check out some quick tips to answer the types of questions in ‘The Wild West Village Near Tabernas’ Reading Answers passage.

True/False/Not Given:

In IELTS Reading, ‘True, False, Not Given’ questions are based on verifiable information. You will be presented with several factual statements, and your task is to determine their accuracy by referring to the text.

To address this question type, you can employ the following strategies:

• Carefully read the question and identify the keywords – Before delving into the text, review your list of True, False, and Not Given questions.
• Scan the passage for synonyms or rephrased versions of the keywords – Once you’ve pinpointed the keywords, quickly scan the text to spot synonyms or reworded terms.
• Correlate the highlighted words in the questions with their equivalents in the text – When you locate both sets of keywords, cross-reference them to find the answer.
• Determine the answer – If the facts align, the answer is TRUE; if they contradict, it’s FALSE. If you cannot find the answer or are unsure, mark it as NOT GIVEN.

Matching Sentence Endings: 

Matching sentence endings questions comprise two lists: one with incomplete sentences and another with possible sentence endings. Your goal is to match them based on the information provided in the passage.

Here are some tips to excel in these questions and achieve a high band score in the IELTS exam:

• Answers will follow the same order as the list of incomplete sentences.
• Utilize the process of elimination to identify the correct answer.
• Avoid reading the entire text until you’ve examined both the incomplete sentences and the endings.
• Focus only on the relevant sentences.
• Seek paraphrasing and synonyms to match meanings, not necessarily identical words.
• Ensure that the grammatical structure of both sentence halves align correctly.

Multiple-Choice Questions:

Multiple-choice questions in the IELTS Reading test are based on a reading passage and feature several questions related to the information in the text. Your task is to understand the question and compare it to the passage in order to select the most appropriate answer among the available choices.

Here are some strategies for tackling these questions effectively:

• Before reading the passage, review the question and identify the keywords. If the question statement lacks information, consider potential keywords.
• Use the identified keywords to scan the passage and locate relevant information.
• Carefully read the relevant words in the passage and match them with each option.
• Some options may contain keywords that do not align with the information in the text. Utilize the elimination method.
• Focus on matching the meaning, not just the keywords.

Sentence Completion:

In the sentence completion task of the IELTS Reading test, you’ll be asked to fill in the blanks in incomplete phrases with appropriate words or numbers.

To excel in sentence completion questions, follow these guidelines:

• Read the instructions attentively, noting the word limit (e.g., no more than two words, one word, etc.) and key terms like ‘using words from the text.’
• Start by reading the incomplete sentences and consider keywords and how they might be paraphrased or represented.
• Quickly scan the text to identify where the information may be located. If you can’t find it immediately, move on.
• Employ skimming and scanning techniques to study the reading text, allowing you to find the answers efficiently. When scanning, think about synonyms and paraphrases of keywords.
• Answers will be presented in the same order as the questions. Pay attention to spelling and ensure your answer is grammatically correct.

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