Cambridge 1 Academic Test 2 Passage 02: Migratory Beekeeping reading answers location, explanation and pdf summary. This reading paragraph has been taken from our huge collection of Academic & General Training (GT) Reading practice test PDF’s.
IELTS reading module focuses on evaluating a candidate’s comprehension skills and ability to understand English. This is done by testing the reading proficiency through questions based on different structures and paragraphs (500-950 words each). There are 40 questions in total and hence it becomes extremely important to practice each and every question structure before actually sitting for the exam.
This reading passage mainly consists of following types of questions:
- Fill in the blanks
- Label the diagram
- Yes/No/Not Given
We are going to read about the background of migratory beekeeping and how it’s done. You must read the passage carefully and try to answer all questions correctly.
Migratory Beekeeping
Of the 2,000 commercial beekeepers in the United States about half migrate This pays off in two ways Moving north in the summer and south in the winter lets bees work a longer money — for their keepers. Second, beekeepers can carry their hives to farmers who need bees to pollinate their crops. Every spring a migratory beekeeper in California blooming season, making more honey — and may move up to 160 million bees to flowering fields in Minnesota and every winter his family may haul the hives back to California, where farmers will rent the bees to pollinate almond and cherry trees.
Migratory beekeeping is nothing new. The ancient Egyptians moved clay hives, probably on rafts, down the Nile to follow the bloom and nectar flow as it moved toward Cairo. In the 1880s North American beekeepers experimented with the same idea, moving bees on barges along the Mississippi and on waterways in Florida, but their lighter, wooden hives kept falling into the water. Other keepers tried the railroad and horsedrawn wagons, but that didn’t prove practical. Not until the 1920s when cars and trucks became affordable and roads improved, did migratory beekeeping begin to catch on.
For the Californian beekeeper, the pollination season begins in February. At this time, the beehives are in particular demand by farmers who have almond groves; they need two hives an acre. For the three-week long bloom, beekeepers can hire out their hives for $32 each. It’s a bonanza for the bees too. Most people consider almond honey too bitter to eat so the bees get to keep it for themselves.
By early March it is time to move the bees. It can take up to seven nights to pack the 4,000 or so hives that a beekeeper may own. These are not moved in the middle of the day because too many of the bees would end up homeless. But at night, the hives are stacked onto wooden pallets, back-to-back in sets of four, and lifted onto a truck. It is not necessary to wear gloves or a beekeeper’s veil because the hives are not being opened and the bees should remain relatively quiet. Just in case some are still lively, bees can be pacified with a few puffs of smoke blown into each hive’s narrow entrance.
In their new location, the beekeeper will pay the farmer to allow his bees to feed in such places as orange groves. The honey produced here is fragrant and sweet and can be sold by the beekeepers. To encourage the bees to produce as much honey as possible during this period, the beekeepers open the hives and stack extra boxes called supers on top. These temporary hive extensions contain frames of empty comb for the bees to fill with honey. In the brood chamber below, the bees will stash honey to eat later. To prevent the queen from crawling up to the top and laying eggs, a screen can be inserted between the brood chamber and the supers. Three weeks later the honey can be gathered.
Foul smelling chemicals are often used to irritate the bees and drive them down into the hive’s bottom boxes, leaving the honeyfilled supers more or less bee free. These can then be pulled off the hive. They are heavy with honey and may weigh up to 90 pounds each. The supers are taken to a warehouse. In the extracting room, the frames are lilted out and lowered into an “uncapper” where rotating blades shave away the wax that covers each cell. The uncapped frames are put in a carousel that sits on the bottom of a large stainless steel drum. The carousel is filled to capacity with 72 frames. A switch is flipped and the frames begin to whirl at 300 revolutions per minute; centrifugal force throws the honey out of the combs. Finally the honey is poured into barrels for shipment.
After this, approximately a quarter of the hives weakened by disease, mites, or an ageing or dead queen, will have to be replaced. To create new colonies, a healthy double hive, teeming with bees, can be separated into two boxes. One half will hold the queen and a young, already mated queen can be put in the other half, to make two hives from one. By the time the flowers bloom, the new queens will be laying eggs, filling each hive with young worker bees. The beekeeper’s family will then migrate with them to their summer location.
Questions 13-19
The flow chart below outlines the movements of the migratory beekeeper as described in Reading Passage 2.
Complete the flow chart Choose your answers from the box at the bottom of the page and write your answers in boxes 13-19 on your answer sheet.
| List of Words/Phrases |
|---|
| smoke barrels set off pollinate combs full chemicals pay protection charge light split machines supers screen prepare empty queens |
Questions 20-23
Label the diagram below.
Choose ONE OR TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer and Write your answers in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet.
Questions 24-27
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 24-27 write:
| YES | if the statement agrees with the information given |
| NO | if the statement contradicts with the information given |
| NOT GIVEN | if there is no information about this |
24. The Egyptians keep bees on the banks of the Nile.
25. First attempts at migratory beekeeping in America were unsuccessful.
26. Bees keep honey for themselves in the bottom of the hive.
27. The honey is spun to make it liquid.
Answers/Explanation
Check out your Migratory Beekeeping reading answers below with locations and explanations given in the text.
| Questions | Task | Skills tested |
|---|---|---|
| 13-39 | Completing a flow chart | • following a sequence of events • scanning/skimming for information • understanding gist and paraphrase |
| 20-23 | Labelling a diagram | • skimming for factual information • understanding description and relationships |
| 24-27 | Yes, No, Not Given | • skimming for factual information • understanding gist and paraphrase |
Questions 13-19
(Suggested approach)
- Read the task rubric carefully. You have to complete the flow chart of the movements of a migratory beekeeper.
- Read through the flow chart to familiarise yourself with it.
- Scan the text and note the section that discusses the beekeepers’ movements. In this case, the information is scattered throughout the text, so it is important to have a good idea of what you are looking for.
- Go back to the first box in the flow chart. Note that this box focuses on the start of migration.
- Re-skim the text until you come to this information. It is cued in the fourth paragraph: “By early March …”
- The flow chart will express the movements differently from the text. This is called “paraphrasing”. The fourth paragraph is all about the beekeepers’ preparations. So the answer to item 13 is “prepare”.
- Go on to item 14. Remember that you will not use all the words in the box, and although some of the words in the box may seem to fit in the gaps, they have an incorrect meaning. Your summary must be an accurate reflection of what is stated in the passage.
| Question | Answer | Location of answer in text |
| 13 | prepare | gist of paragraph 4 |
| 14 | full | “These are not moved in the middle of the day because too many of the bees would end up homeless.” |
| 15 | smoke | “… bees can be pacified with a few puffs of smoke …” |
| 16 | charge | “… the beekeeper will pay the farmer to allow his bees to feed |
| 17 | machines | paraphrase of “uncapper” and “carousel” |
| 18 | combs | “… centrifugal force throws the honey out of the combs .” |
| 19 | split | “… a healthy double hive can be separated into two boxes.” |
| Question | Answer |
| 20 | (hexagonal) cells//comb |
| 21 | frames (of comb) |
| 22 | screen |
| 23 | brood chamber |
| 24 | NOT GIVEN |
| 25 | YES |
| 26 | YES |
| 27 | NO |
Have any doubts??? Discuss in the comments ...
PDF Summary
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