B2CEFRReading18 min

Reading: Mega Sporting Events and Host Cities

Mega sporting events and host cities

Add to my libraryFree for teachers. You sign in only when you add the lesson.

Answers and an explanation for each question appear once you add this activity to your own library.

IELTS Academic Reading • 18-Minute Workout

The True Cost of Hosting Mega Events

Analyse budget overruns, auditing methods, and academic research across three Olympic case studies.

📋 How to use this lesson

For Teacher:

Give students 8 minutes to read the text and 10 minutes to finish the exercises.

Display the answer key at the end and discuss why the wrong options are incorrect.

For Learner:

Read the four paragraphs once without stopping so you understand the central topic.

Underline key names and numbers in the questions before you search for the answers.

Reading Passage

The True Cost of Hosting Mega Events

B2 Academic

In 2016 researchers at the University of Oxford studied the cost of the Olympic Games from 1960 to 2016. They counted only sports costs. They found that every Games went over its budget, and that the cost was on average 156% more than planned, after taking out inflation. 47% of the Games went more than 100% over. Montreal 1976 was the worst summer case, at 720%.

In December 2022 the Board of Audit of Japan, a public audit body, said that the Tokyo Games cost 1.7 trillion yen. The organisers had given a figure of 1.42 trillion yen, so the audit found a cost 20% higher than the organisers said.

On 29 September 2025 France's national audit office, the Cour des comptes, reported on the Paris 2024 Games. It said they cost public bodies 6.6 billion euros, and 3.63 billion euros of that went on infrastructure. It judged the economic effect modest at this stage and relatively limited in the short term.

The writer's own cautious view, hedged ("I think", "it seems"): these facts seem to show that big events often cost more than planned, and I think the three reports suggest that the total depends on who counts and what they count. The Oxford study counts only sports costs and the Paris report counts public spending, so the facts here do not show whether a Games pays off for a city over many years.

Questions 1–3

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in the reading passage?

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

1. Every single Olympic Games evaluated by the Oxford researchers surpassed its projected budget.

____ YES ____ NO ____ NOT GIVEN

2. Winter Olympic Games typically produced lower budget overruns than Summer Games between 1960 and 2016.

____ YES ____ NO ____ NOT GIVEN

3. The data collected from Oxford, Tokyo, and Paris conclusively proves that hosting an Olympic Games provides long-term financial profit for a host city.

____ YES ____ NO ____ NOT GIVEN

Questions 4–5

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.

4. What was the significance of the 1.7 trillion yen figure reported by the Board of Audit of Japan?

____ A. It revealed that the organisers' initial summary understated the real cost by 20%. ____ B. It proved that public bodies spent 156% more on sports costs after adjusting for inflation. ____ C. It showed that 3.63 billion euros had been allocated directly to construction and infrastructure. ____ D. It matched the 720% overrun record previously documented in Montreal.

5. According to the Cour des comptes, what was the primary economic outcome of the Paris 2024 Games?

____ A. It generated immediate revenue that paid off all costs incurred by public bodies. ____ B. It caused 47% of public infrastructure projects to exceed their estimated budgets. ____ C. It yielded modest economic advantages that remained relatively limited in the short term. ____ D. It established that calculating sports costs alone accurately predicts long-term municipal gain.

Questions 6–7

The reading passage has four paragraphs, A–D. Which paragraph contains the following information?

NB You may use any letter more than once.

6. a breakdown stating the exact proportion of public funding allocated to physical infrastructure

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

7. an explanation that varying accounting categories and reporting entities make direct cost comparisons complex

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

Questions 8–10

Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

Variations in Olympic Expenditure

When examining over five decades of Olympic editions, researchers from Oxford focused exclusively on calculating ____ (your answer) rather than wider municipal investments, finding that nearly half of the events suffered cost overruns exceeding 100%.

In Japan, formal assessments conducted by the Board of Audit identified a final figure that was ____ (your answer) greater than the total previously released by the event organisers.

Similarly, the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris required substantial state financing, resulting in an expense of 6.6 billion euros charged to ____ (your answer) with over half directed toward long-term facilities.

Add to my library