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👨‍🏫 For the Teacher

Guide students through the passage and 10 IELTS-style questions within an 18-minute session. Check answers automatically or review evidence statements together to refine scanning techniques.

🎓 For the Learner

First, read Paragraphs A through D carefully while noting key terms and statistical facts. Next, answer all 10 questions in order and check your detailed feedback after submission.

Reading Passage

Lightning and Thunderstorms

Source: US National Weather Service

The US National Weather Service says that lightning is a giant spark of electricity. In a thunderstorm, strong updrafts carry small drops of water up to between 35,000 and 70,000 feet, far above the freezing level, while downdrafts carry hail and ice down. When they collide, electrons are sheared off the rising pieces and collect on the falling ones. The cloud gets a negative base and a positive top. The air in between works as an insulator until the difference in charge becomes too great, and then lightning follows.

The service says that a channel of negative charge, called a stepped leader, goes down from the cloud in rapid steps, and that people cannot see it. The positive charge on the ground reaches up to meet it with its own channel, called a streamer. Then the return stroke, the very bright flash that people see, travels up the channel. The service says that lightning can heat the air to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, about 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.

The service says that thunder is made when lightning passes through the air. The hot air expands and then cools quickly, and this makes a sound wave. People can hear thunder only about 10 miles from the strike. The service says that the United States has about 25 million lightning flashes every year, and that lightning kills about 20 people in the country each year.

I think the numbers show that lightning is very common but kills few people, yet it seems that the service gives only an average, so I would not say that the risk is the same every year.

____ YES ____ NO ____ NOT GIVEN

____ YES ____ NO ____ NOT GIVEN

____ YES ____ NO ____ NOT GIVEN

____ A. Slightly cooler than the sun's surface ____ B. Exactly equal to the temperature of the sun's core ____ C. Approximately five times hotter than the surface of the sun ____ D. Up to 70,000 degrees Fahrenheit in the upper cloud

____ A. It travels upward from the ground in a single step. ____ B. It is an electrical channel that cannot be observed by people. ____ C. It carries a positive charge directly to the top of the cloud. ____ D. It produces the bright light that observers see during a storm.

____ A. About 10 miles from the strike ____ B. Between 35,000 and 70,000 feet from the storm center ____ C. Up to 50 miles away in open terrain ____ D. Only within the immediate cloud base area

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

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