Cambridge ielts 1-15 series reading answers explained

33. Answer: NOT GIVEN 
Explain 
– Key words: some, mussels, choose, eat, plastic, preference, natural, diet 
– Paragraph 7 only states that the “mussels may be fine eating trash”. It does not mean they prefer 
trash to their natural diet. 
– The statement is NOT GIVEN. 
34. Answer: large 
Explain 
– Key words: bits, debris, harmful, animals 
– Rochman found (paragraph 8) that “most of the dangers also involved large pieces of debris” that 
can cause severe injuries to animals. 
– So the answer is “large”. 
35. Answer: microplastic 
Explain 
– Key words: little, research, synthetic fibres 
– Paragraph 9 mentions that “Rochman‟s group found little research on the 
effects of these tiny bits”, with “tiny bits” referring to microplastic. 
– So the answer is “microplastic”. 
36. Answer: populations 
 
Explain 
– Key words: most, focused individual, not, entire 
– The remaining questions refer to the drawbacks of the studies. According to paragraph 10: “Many 
studies have looked at how plastic affects an individual animal…rather than the whole populations”. 
37. Answer: concentrations 
Explain 
– Key words: plastic, lab, not, reflect, ocean 
– It is mentioned in paragraph 10 that “in the lab, scientists often use higher 
concentrations of plastic than what‟s really in the ocean”. This means that the concentrations of plastic 
used in the lab was different from, and thus did not always correctly reflect, those in the ocean. 
38. Answer: predators 
Explain 
– Key words: impact, reduction, numbers, species 
– Rochman said in paragraph 10 that no one can tell us “how deaths in one 
species could affect that animal‟s predators”. Deaths in one species can be 
understood as a reduction in numbers of that species. 
– Impact = effect (affect) 
– Thus, there is insufficient information on how a reduction in numbers of a species can impact on 
their predators. The blank should be filled with 
“predators”.