Keep The Water Away - IELTS Reading Answers & Explanations
From IELTS Recent Actual Test 5 Academic Reading Test 4 · Part 2 · Questions 14–26
Reading Passage
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Keep the Water Away
A
Last winter's floods on the rivers of central Europe were among the worst since the Middle Ages, and as winter storms return, the spectre of floods is returning too. Just weeks ago, the river Rhône in south-east France burst its banks, driving 15,000 people from their homes, and worse could be on the way. Traditionally, river engineers have gone for Plan A: get rid of the water fast, draining it off the land and down to the sea in tall-sided rivers re-engineered as high-performance drains. But however big they dug city drains, however wide and straight they made the rivers, and however high they built the banks, the floods kept coming back to taunt them, from the Mississippi to the Danube. And when the floods came, they seemed to be worse than ever. No wonder engineers are turning to Plan B: sap the water's destructive strength by dispersing it into fields, forgotten lakes, flood plains and aquifers.
B
Back in the days when rivers took a more tortuous path to the sea, flood waters lost impetus and volume while meandering across flood plains and idling through wetlands and inland deltas. But today the water tends to have an unimpeded journey to the sea. And this means that when it rains in the uplands, the water comes down all at once. Worse, whenever we close off more flood plains, the river's flow farther downstream becomes more violent and uncontrollable. Dykes are only as good as their weakest link—and the water will unerringly find it. By trying to turn the complex hydrology of rivers into the simple mechanics of a water pipe, engineers have often created danger where they promised safety, and intensified the floods they meant to end. Take the Rhine, Europe's most engineered river. For two centuries, German engineers have erased its backwaters and cut it off from its flood plain.
C
Today, the river has lost 7 percent of its original length and runs up to a third faster. When it rains hard in the Alps, the peak flows from several tributaries coincide in the main river, where once they arrived separately. And with four-fifths of the lower Rhine's flood plain barricaded off, the waters rise ever higher. The result is more frequent flooding that does ever-greater damage to the homes, offices and roads that sit on the flood plain. Much the same has happened in the US on the mighty Mississippi, which drains the world's second largest river catchment into the Gulf of Mexico.
D
The European Union is trying to improve rain forecasts and more accurately model how intense rains swell rivers. That may help cities prepare, but it won't stop the floods. To do that, say hydrologists, you need a new approach to engineering not just rivers, but the whole landscape. The UK's Environment Agency—which has been granted an extra £150 million a year to spend in the wake of floods in 2000 that cost the country £1 billion—puts it like this: "The focus is now on working with the forces of nature. Towering concrete walls are out, and new wetlands are in." To help keep London's feet dry, the agency is breaking the Thames's banks upstream and reflooding 10 square kilometres of ancient flood plain at Otmoor outside Oxford. Nearer to London it has spent £100 million creating new wetlands and a relief channel across 16 kilometres of flood plain to protect the town of Maidenhead, as well as the ancient playing fields of Eton College. And near the south coast, the agency is digging out channels to reconnect old meanders on the river Cuckmere in East Sussex that were cut off by flood banks 150 years ago.
E
The same is taking place on a much grander scale in Austria, in one of Europe's largest river restorations to date. Engineers are regenerating flood plains along 60 kilometres of the river Drava as it exits the Alps. They are also widening the river bed and channelling it back into abandoned meanders, oxbow lakes and backwaters overhung with willows. The engineers calculate that the restored flood plain can now store up to 10 million cubic metres of flood waters and slow storm surges coming out of the Alps by more than an hour, protecting towns as far downstream as Slovenia and Croatia.
F
“Rivers have to be allowed to take more space. They have to be turned from flood-chutes into flood-foilers,” says Nienhuis. And the Dutch, for whom preventing floods is a matter of survival, have gone furthest. A nation built largely on drained marshes and seabed had the fright of its life in 1993 when the Rhine almost overwhelmed it. The same happened again in 1995, when a quarter of a million people were evacuated from the Netherlands. But a new breed of "soft engineers" wants our cities to become porous, and Berlin is their shining example. Since reunification, the city's massive redevelopment has been governed by tough new rules to prevent its drains becoming overloaded after heavy rains. Harald Kraft, an architect working in the city, says: “We now see rainwater as a resource to be kept rather than got rid of at great cost.” A good illustration is the giant Potsdamer Platz, a huge new commercial redevelopment by Daimler Chrysler in the heart of the city.
G
Los Angeles has spent billions of dollars digging huge drains and concreting river beds to carry away the water from occasional intense storms. The latest plan is to spend a cool $280 million raising the concrete walls on the Los Angeles river by another 2 metres. Yet many communities still flood regularly. Meanwhile this desert city is shipping in water from hundreds of kilometres away in northern California and from the Colorado river in Arizona to fill its taps and swimming pools, and irrigate its green spaces. It all sounds like bad planning. “In LA we receive half the water we need in rainfall, and we throw it away. Then we spend hundreds of millions to import water,” says Andy Lipkis, an LA environmentalist, along with citizen groups like Friends of the Los Angeles River and Unpaved LA, want to beat the urban flood hazard and fill the taps by holding onto the city's flood water. And it's not just a pipe dream. The authorities this year launched a $100 million scheme to road-test the porous city in one flood-hit community in Sun Valley. The plan is to catch the rain that falls on thousands of driveways, parking lots and rooftops in the valley. Trees will soak up water from parking lots. Homes and public buildings will capture roof water to irrigate gardens and parks. And road drains will empty into old gravel pits and other leaky places that should recharge the city's underground water reserves. Result: less flooding and more water for the city. Plan B says every city should be porous, every river should have room to flood naturally and every coastline should be left to build its own defences. It sounds expensive and utopian, until you realise how much we spend trying to drain cities and protect our watery margins—and how bad we are at it.
Questions
Questions 14–19 Matching Information
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Questions 20–23 True / False / Not Given
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
Write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts with the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
Questions 24–26 Sentence Completion
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
- UK's Environment Agency carried out one innovative approach: a wetland is generated not far from the city of 24 to protect it from flooding.
- 25 suggested that cities should be porous, and Berlin set a good example.
- Another city devastated by heavy storms casually is 26, though government pours billions of dollars each year in order to solve the problem.
Answers & Explanations Summary
| # | Answer | Evidence | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q14 | D | To do that, say hydrologists, you need a new approach to engineering not just rivers, but the whole landscape. The UK’s Environment Agency—which has been granted an extra £150 million a year to spend in the wake of floods in 2000 that cost the country £1 billion—puts it like this: "The focus is now on working with the forces of nature. Towering concrete walls are out, and new wetlands are in." | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that the UK's Environment Agency has a new idea. They want to work *with* nature, not against it. This means they are not building big concrete walls anymore. Instead, they are making new wetlands. For example, they are letting river areas flood naturally near London and making new water channels near Maidenhead and East Sussex. This helps manage the water and protect towns. Answer Explanation: The answer is D. This means paragraph D of the text talks about a new way of dealing with water and floods in the UK. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is D because this paragraph clearly explains how the United Kingdom is changing its methods for flood management. It mentions 'The UK's Environment Agency' and describes their new approach, which focuses on 'working with the forces of nature' instead of building huge walls. The paragraph then gives several examples of these new methods being used in different places in the UK, like London and East Sussex. |
| Q15 | B | Back in the days when rivers took a more tortuous path to the sea, flood waters lost impetus and volume while meandering across flood plains and idling through wetlands and inland deltas. But today the water tends to have an unimpeded journey to the sea. And this means that when it rains in the uplands, the water comes down all at once. Worse, whenever we close off more flood plains, the river's flow farther downstream becomes more violent and uncontrollable. Dykes are only as good as their weakest link—and the water will unerringly find it. By trying to turn the complex hydrology of rivers into the simple mechanics of a water pipe, engineers have often created danger where they promised safety, and intensified the floods they meant to end | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that in the past, rivers had a 'twisty path' ('tortuous path') that helped make flood waters slower and less powerful. But now, people have made rivers straight, so water flows quickly to the sea, causing bigger floods. It also says that walls built to stop floods ('Dykes') often fail because water will always find the weakest part of the wall and break through it. Answer Explanation: The answer is Paragraph B. This part of the text tells us why old methods, like making rivers curvy and building walls (dykes), did not work well to stop floods. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is Paragraph B because it explains two key points. First, it mentions that rivers naturally curved ('tortuous path'), which helped slow down flood waters. When rivers were made straight, this natural slowing down stopped, making floods worse. Second, the passage clearly states why dykes (protective walls) fail: 'Dykes are only as good as their weakest link—and the water will unerringly find it.' This means that if even a small part of a dyke is not strong, the water will find that weak spot and cause a flood. |
| Q16 | G | Plan B says every city should be porous, every river should have room to flood naturally and every coastline should be left to build its own defences. It sounds expensive and utopian, until you realise how much we spend trying to drain cities and protect our watery margins—and how bad we are at it | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that this new 'Plan B' suggests making cities absorb water naturally, letting rivers flood, and letting coastlines protect themselves. It then says that this idea 'sounds expensive and utopian'. 'Utopian' means like a perfect but impossible dream, so it means the plan seems unrealistic or hard to do. Answer Explanation: The answer is G, which means the information about the alternative plan in Los Angeles that seems unrealistic can be found in paragraph G of the passage. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is G because this paragraph specifically talks about an alternative plan for Los Angeles (LA) to deal with water, called 'Plan B' or making the city 'porous'. The passage then uses words like 'expensive and utopian' to describe how this plan might sound at first, which means it seems very unrealistic or like a dream that is hard to achieve. This matches the idea of a plan that 'seems much unrealistic' as stated in the question. |
| Q17 | A | Traditionally, river engineers have gone for Plan A: get rid of the water fast, draining it off the land and down to the sea in tall-sided rivers re-engineered as high-performance drains. But however big they dug city drains, however wide and straight they made the rivers, and however high they built the banks, the floods kept coming back to taunt them, from the Mississippi to the Danube | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that in the past, engineers had a 'Plan A' to stop floods. They tried to quickly remove water by making rivers like big, fast-moving drains. They dug big city drains, made rivers wide and straight, and built high walls along the river. But even with all these efforts, floods still happened. Answer Explanation: The answer is A. This part of the passage talks about the old way people tried to stop floods. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is A because this paragraph clearly explains the 'traditional' method used by engineers to deal with floods. It mentions 'Plan A,' which involved getting rid of water quickly by making rivers wider, straighter, and building high banks. This is contrasted with a newer 'Plan B,' showing Plan A as the older, traditional approach. |
| Q18 | F | And the Dutch, for whom preventing floods is a matter of survival, have gone furthest. A nation built largely on drained marshes and seabed had the fright of its life in 1993 when the Rhine almost overwhelmed it. The same happened again in 1995, when a quarter of a million people were evacuated from the Netherlands. But a new breed of "soft engineers" wants our cities to become porous, and Berlin is their shining example. Since reunification, the city's massive redevelopment has been governed by tough new rules to prevent its drains becoming overloaded after heavy rains. Harald Kraft, an architect working in the city, says: “We now see rainwater as a resource to be kept rather than got rid of at great cost.” A good illustration is the giant Potsdamer Platz, a huge new commercial redevelopment by Daimler Chrysler in the heart of the city | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that the Netherlands has done a lot to stop floods because it's very important for them to survive. It also says that Berlin, a city in Germany, is a good example of new ways to manage water and that they have strong rules to stop their water systems from getting too full when it rains a lot. Answer Explanation: The answer is paragraph F. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is F because this paragraph talks about what both the Netherlands and Germany have done regarding floods. It mentions the Dutch going 'furthest' in preventing floods after serious events and then highlights Berlin in Germany as a 'shining example' for soft engineering with new rules to prevent drains from overloading after heavy rains. |
| Q19 | E | The engineers calculate that the restored flood plain can now store up to 10 million cubic metres of flood waters and slow storm surges coming out of the Alps by more than an hour, protecting towns as far downstream as Slovenia and Croatia | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that the river project can hold a lot of flood water. This will make strong water flows from the mountains slower. Because of this, towns in countries like Slovenia and Croatia, which are farther down the river, will be safe from floods. Answer Explanation: The answer is Paragraph E. This paragraph describes a special plan for a river. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is Paragraph E because it clearly explains a big river project that helps not just one, but three different countries: Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia. The paragraph mentions how engineers are fixing the Drava river in Austria, and this work will protect towns in Slovenia and Croatia from floods. The key phrase here is 'protecting towns as far downstream as Slovenia and Croatia,' which shows the project's benefit across multiple nations. |
| Q20 | FALSE | But however big they dug city drains, however wide and straight they made the rivers, and however high they built the banks, the floods kept coming back to taunt them, from the Mississippi to the Danube. And when the floods came, they seemed to be worse than ever | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that even if engineers made city drains bigger, rivers wider and straighter, and built river banks higher, floods still happened. In fact, when floods did occur, they appeared to be more severe than before. Answer Explanation: The answer is 'FALSE'. This means the statement is not true based on the passage. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is 'FALSE' because the passage indicates that even when people tried to improve river banks by building them higher, the floods did not become less severe. Instead, the passage states that the floods continued to happen and seemed to get worse. This contradicts the idea that making efforts to improve river banks resulted in less severe flooding. |
| Q21 | TRUE | Today, the river has lost 7 percent of its original length and runs up to a third faster. When it rains hard in the Alps, the peak flows from several tributaries coincide in the main river, where once they arrived separately. And with four-fifths of the lower Rhine's flood plain barricaded off, the waters rise ever higher. The result is more frequent flooding that does ever-greater damage to the homes, offices and roads that sit on the flood plain | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage tells us that the Rhine river is now shorter and flows quicker. When there is heavy rain, the water levels in the river go up very high because much of the land next to the river, called the flood plain, is blocked. This causes floods to happen more often and cause a lot of harm to houses, offices, and roads that are built on that land. Answer Explanation: The answer means that because of floods or how people try to stop floods, rivers become shorter and flow faster than they used to. This causes more harm to the buildings near the river. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is TRUE. The passage explains that human efforts to manage rivers, often in the context of preventing floods, have resulted in rivers becoming shorter and flowing faster. Specifically, the text mentions the Rhine river has 'lost 7 percent of its original length' and 'runs up to a third faster.' The passage then directly links these changes to 'more frequent flooding that does ever-greater damage to the homes, offices and roads that sit on the flood plain.' Therefore, the statement accurately describes the consequences of these river alterations in relation to flooding and damage. |
| Q22 | NOT GIVEN | The same is taking place on a much grander scale in Austria, in one of Europe's largest river restorations to date | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that the UK's Environment Agency is changing its methods, like creating new wetlands and re-opening flood plains near London and Oxford. It then says that similar work is happening in Austria, but on a 'much grander scale,' meaning it's a bigger project in size. This part of the passage describes what both countries are doing and notes the project size in Austria, but it does not tell us if one country's method is more effective or 'better' than the other's. Answer Explanation: The answer means that the passage does not provide enough information to decide if the new way the UK is handling floods is better than Austria's new way. We cannot tell from the text. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is 'NOT GIVEN' because the passage describes the new approaches to flood management in both the UK (in Paragraph D) and Austria (in Paragraph E) separately, detailing their actions and some results. While it mentions that Austria's project is on a 'much grander scale,' this refers to its size or scope, not its superior effectiveness or quality compared to the UK's methods. The passage does not make any direct comparison or judgment about which country's approach is 'better' than the other in terms of overall success or methodology. Therefore, there is no information in the text to confirm or deny the statement. |
| Q23 | FALSE | The same happened again in 1995, when a quarter of a million people were evacuated from the Netherlands | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that in 1995, because of floods, about 250,000 people had to leave their homes in the Netherlands. Answer Explanation: The answer, FALSE, means that the statement is not true based on the information in the reading passage. The number of people mentioned in the passage is different from what the statement says. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is FALSE because the passage states that 'a quarter of a million people were evacuated from the Netherlands' in 1995. 'A quarter of a million' means 250,000 people. The statement claims 'At least 300,000 people left from Netherlands in 1995'. Since 250,000 is less than 300,000, the statement contradicts the information given in the passage about the number of people who left. |
| Q24 | London | To help keep London's feet dry, the agency is breaking the Thames's banks upstream and reflooding 10 square kilometres of ancient flood plain at Otmoor outside Oxford | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that to make sure London does not get wet from floods, the agency is changing the sides of the Thames river and letting water spread over a large old flood plain, which is like creating a wetland, far away in Otmoor near Oxford. This action is taken specifically to protect London. Answer Explanation: The answer is 'London', which is a very big city in England. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is 'London' because the passage explains that the UK's Environment Agency is creating new natural areas that can hold water, like a wetland, to keep London safe from floods. The text mentions this in the phrase 'To help keep London's feet dry', which means to protect London from getting flooded. |
| Q25 | soft engineers | But a new breed of "soft engineers" wants our cities to become porous, and Berlin is their shining example | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that there is a new group of engineers called 'soft engineers' who want cities to be designed so they can let water soak in, like a sponge. They believe Berlin is a very good model for how cities can do this. Answer Explanation: The answer 'soft engineers' means a new kind of engineers who have a new way of thinking about how cities should handle water, especially rain and floods. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is 'soft engineers' because the passage states that 'a new breed of 'soft engineers' wants our cities to become porous, and Berlin is their shining example.' This clearly shows that these engineers are the ones suggesting cities should be 'porous' (meaning they can absorb water) and that Berlin is a good example of this approach to flood prevention. |
| Q26 | Los Angeles | Los Angeles has spent billions of dollars digging huge drains and concreting river beds to carry away the water from occasional intense storms. The latest plan is to spend a cool $280 million raising the concrete walls on the Los Angeles river by another 2 metres. Yet many communities still flood regularly | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that Los Angeles has spent a lot of money, billions (many dollars), building big drains and covering river beds with concrete, to get rid of water from strong storms that happen sometimes. Even with all this money and work, many parts of the city still get flooded often. Answer Explanation: The answer is 'Los Angeles'. This is a big city in America. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is 'Los Angeles' because the passage explains that this city often gets hit by strong storms. Even though a lot of money (billions of dollars) is spent to fix the problem, the city still faces floods regularly. The passage states that 'Los Angeles has spent billions of dollars digging huge drains and concreting river beds to carry away the water from occasional intense storms' and 'Yet many communities still flood regularly,' which directly supports the idea of the city being affected by storms despite government spending. |