IELTS Listening Practice Test: Photosynthesis for Food

This practice test will help you prepare for the IELTS Listening exam.

You will hear a lecture about improving photosynthesis to address global food insufficiency from a TED Talk.

The test contains 10 sentence completion questions that follow the natural progression of the audio.

You’ll have approximately 15 minutes to complete all questions.

Read the instructions carefully before beginning, and remember that every answer can be found in the recording.

Good luck!

Play the recordingSteve Long Can We Hack Photosynthesis To Feed The WorldThe video loads from TED when you press play. TED may set cookies.

Sentence Completion Questions 1-10#

• Complete the sentences below using information from the audio.
• Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
• Pay attention to spelling and grammar.

1. The number of food insufficient people has been increasing annually since _______.
2. Currently, even the most efficient crops only achieve _______ of their potential photosynthetic efficiency.
3. The Green Revolution was primarily based on mutations in _______ genes.
4. The scientists created a ___ of the photosynthesis process using differential equations.
5. According to the speaker, photosynthesis is more complicated than _______.
6. Each modification to photosynthesis resulted in yield increases of more than _______.
7. The protein called _______ needed to be more abundant in leaves according to their model.
8. The ancestors of modern crops evolved in conditions with _______ today’s CO2 levels.
9. Slower leaf adjustment reduces _______ in shaded conditions.
10. The speaker refers to cowpea as the _______ in West Africa.

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Answer key with explanationsShowHide

1. 12014“That number has been rising every year since 2014”
2. 2one fifthalso: one-fifth, 1/5, a fifth“our most productive crops are only achieving about one fifth of the potential efficiency”
3. 3a fewalso: just a few, fewThe Green Revolution “involved mutations in just a few genes”
4. 4digital twin“we built a digital twin of the process in which every one of these reactions was described by a differential equation”
5. 5rocket science“photosynthesis isn’t rocket science. It’s harder.”
6. 620 percentalso: 20%, 20“three different changes to photosynthesis, each individually increasing yield by over 20 percent”
7. 7SBPase“a protein we call SBPase should be far more abundant in the leaf than it is”
8. 8about halfalso: halfCrop ancestors “evolved in the carbon dioxide concentration that is about half what it is today”
9. 9productivity“this slow adjustment costs productivity an estimated 20 to 40 percent”
10. 10poor man’s meatalso: poor mans meat, poor man's meatCowpea “is often referred to as the ‘poor man’s meat’”

For more listening questions, you can also visit Astrophysics Topic.