Ielts Reading Exercise

The word Kangaroo was adopted into Standard English where it has come to mean
any member of the family of kangaroos and wallabies. The belief that it means "I
don't understand" or "I don't know" is a popular myth that is also applied to many
other Aboriginal-sounding Australian words. Male kangaroos are called bucks,
boomers or jacks; females are does, flyers, or jills and the young ones are joeys.
The collective noun for kangaroos is a mob, troop, or court.
ii
Kangaroos have long been regarded as strange animals. Early explorers described
them as creatures that had heads like deer (without antlers), stood upright like
men, and hopped like frogs. Combined with the two-headed appearance of a
mother kangaroo, this lead many back home to dismiss them as travellers tales for
quite some time
Kangaroos have large, powerful hind legs, large feet adapted for leaping, a long
muscular tail for balance, and a small head. Like all marsupials, kangaroos have a
pouch called a marsupium in which their young complete their development after
birth.
iii
Kangaroos are large herbivores, feeding on grass and roots, and they chew cud. All
species are nocturnal and crepuscular, usually spending the days idling quietly and
the cool evenings, nights and mornings moving about and feeding, typically in
mobs.
iv
Along with dingoes and other canids, introduced species like foxes and feral cats
also pose a threat to kangaroo populations, as they do most populations of native
animals. Kangaroos and wallabies are apt swimmers, and often flee into waterways
if presented with the option. If pursued into the water, a large kangaroo may use its
forepaws to hold the predator underwater to drown it. Another defensive tactic
described by witnesses is catching the attacking dog with the forepaws and
disembowelling it with the hind legs.
v
A mob may have ten or more males and females. The dominant male (called a
boomer) is based on his size and age. A boomer has temporary exclusive access to
females in a mob for mating. A boomer may find himself wandering in and out of a

mob - checking out the females and intimidating the other males who try to mate
with the females within the mob.
vi
Kangaroos have developed in a number of ways to survive in a dry, infertile
continent and a highly variable climate. As with all marsupials, the young are born
at a very early stage of development after a gestation of 31-36 days. At this stage,
only the forelimbs are somewhat developed, to allow the newborn to climb to the
pouch and attach to a teat. In comparison, a human embryo at a similar stage of
development would be about 7 weeks old, and premature babies born at less than
23 weeks are usually not mature enough to survive. The joey will usually stay in
the pouch for about 9 months or (for the Western Grey) 180 to 320 days, before
starting to leave the pouch for small periods of time. It is usually fed by its mother
until the age of 18 months.
vii
Before white settlement, the kangaroo was a very important animal for Australian
Aborigines, both for its meat, its hide, its bones and its sinews. In addition, there
were important Dreaming stories and ceremonies involving the kangaroo.
Aherrenge is a current kangaroo dreaming site in the Northern Territory. The game
of Marn grook was played using a ball made from kangaroo by the Kurnai people.
Heading choices
_i_ Terminology
___Kangaroos and humans
___ Adaptations
___ Diet
___ Predators
___ Courtship
___ Physical description
By doing this Ielts reading exercise, you can see that the information required is
typically vocabulary related. Learning synonyms is a useful approach to vocabulary
learning. Especially when it comes to this section of the Ielts test.
For instance, in paragraph v, you would need to know the synonym for mate or
mating is court or courting. Therefore, the right paragraph heading for paragraph v
in this ielts reading exercise is the word Courtship.

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**Answers to Ielts Reading Exercise above = i, vii, vi, iii,

iv, v, ii