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How to use this lesson

👨‍🏫 For the Teacher:

Guide students through this 15-minute B1 reading practice to build scanning and inference skills. Have students answer individually, then review the detailed evidence lines together to check comprehension.

🎓 For the Learner:

Read the passage about the famous shipwreck below before answering the 8 practice questions. Begin with the True/False statements and work your way through to the sentence completion task.

Sentence Pattern Example

"By the time the storm reached the coast, the fishing boats had already returned to the harbour."

Why this works: Notice how this sentence clearly connects two past events, showing that one action was completed before another took place.

🚢 Ships, Shipwrecks and Sea Stories: The Mary Rose

Read the short magazine article below and use it to answer the questions that follow.

A

Workers built the Mary Rose for King Henry VIII at Portsmouth, in England, between 1509 and 1511. She was Henry's favourite ship. The Mary Rose Trust says that she was 34 years old when she sank.

B

The Mary Rose sank on 19 July 1545, in the Solent, which is the sea between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. Royal Museums Greenwich says that the king watched and that she sank very quickly. Only about 30 men were saved.

C

Nobody is sure why she sank. The Mary Rose Trust says that the only sure eyewitness was a sailor from Flanders. He said that the ship was turning when a strong gust of wind pushed her open gunports below the water.

D

Alexander McKee began a search for old ships in the Solent in 1965, and a diver found the first timbers of the Mary Rose on 1 May 1971. Workers lifted the hull of the Mary Rose from the sea floor on 11 October 1982. Royal Museums Greenwich says that people have taken as many as 19,000 things out of the wreck, and that there is a special museum for the ship in Portsmouth.

✏️ IELTS Reading Practice Questions

Answer all 8 questions based on the article above.

Questions 1–2: True / False / Not Given Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? Choose TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN.

1. The Mary Rose had been in service for more than thirty years before she sank.

____ True ____ False ____ Not Given

2. King Henry VIII ordered the construction of new warships immediately after the disaster.

____ True ____ False ____ Not Given

Questions 3–4: Multiple Choice Choose the correct letter, a, b, c, or d.

3. Why is the reason for the sinking of the Mary Rose still uncertain today?

____ a. King Henry VIII forbade anyone from discussing the incident. ____ b. Diver reports contradicted the information provided by Royal Museums Greenwich. ____ c. No crew members survived the disaster to explain what happened. ____ d. Only one reliable eyewitness provided an explanation of the sinking.

4. What event occurred on 11 October 1982?

____ a. Workers raised the body of the ship from the seabed. ____ b. Alexander McKee started searching the Solent for old shipwrecks. ____ c. A diver discovered the first wooden timbers of the Mary Rose. ____ d. The special Mary Rose Museum opened in Portsmouth.

Questions 5–6: Matching Paragraph Information Which paragraph contains the following information? Choose the correct letter, A–D.

5. Details about how many men survived the sinking of the ship.

____ Paragraph A ____ Paragraph B ____ Paragraph C ____ Paragraph D

6. Information about the large quantity of historical items recovered from the underwater site.

____ Paragraph A ____ Paragraph B ____ Paragraph C ____ Paragraph D

Questions 7–8: Sentence Completion Complete the sentences below. Choose WORDS OR NUMBERS directly from the text for each answer.

7. A sailor reported that the Mary Rose was turning when a strong ____ pushed her open gunports below the water.

8. A diver discovered the first timbers of the shipwreck on 1 May ____.

Reading: The Mary Rose Shipwreck

How to use this lesson

🚢 Ships, Shipwrecks and Sea Stories: The Mary Rose

✏️ IELTS Reading Practice Questions

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