B2CEFRReading18 min

Reading: Seed Banks and Crop Diversity

Seed banks and crop diversity

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How to use this lesson

👨‍🏫 For the Teacher:

Guide students through this 18-minute reading lesson by presenting paragraphs A–D and having them complete the 10 IELTS-style questions. Check student answers against the detailed Evidence section provided with each task to review paragraph references and reasoning together.

🧑‍🎓 For the Learner:

Read paragraphs A to D carefully first to understand the main facts and the writer's view on seed banks. Next, answer questions 1 to 10 in order from Yes/No/Not Given to Summary Completion, then check your evidence for each answer.

IELTS Academic Reading Passage

Seed Banks and Crop Diversity

Paragraph A

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway opened on 26 February 2008. Its own website says that it keeps copies of seed from gene banks all over the world, so that a bank can replace a lost sample. More than 320,000 samples arrived during the opening ceremony. The Crop Trust says that the banks that send the seeds still own them.

Paragraph B

The vault has three halls inside a mountain, and the seed store lies more than 100 metres inside it. Its website says that each hall can hold about 1.5 million samples, so the vault has room for 4.5 million samples in total. The store is kept at minus 18 degrees Celsius.

Paragraph C

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, or FAO, reported in 2010 that genebanks around the world kept about 7.4 million samples of seeds and other plant material. The FAO estimates that less than 30 percent of them are different from each other. The rest are duplicates.

Paragraph D

I think the vault shows that countries share the risk of losing crop varieties, and it seems that the world still keeps far more samples than it needs. The FAO figure is from 2010, so I do not think it tells us how many different varieties exist today, and a count of samples says little about how many of them farmers actually grow.

Why this works

Notice how writers express cautious views or expectation without stating them as absolute facts. Look at this sentence pattern:

"There is a hope that the rain will come before the end of the week."

In IELTS Reading, phrases like "I think", "it seems", or "there is a hope" signal a writer's cautious opinion rather than an established fact.

Interactive IELTS Questions

Answer all 10 questions below using information from Paragraphs A to D.

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. The institutions that send seeds to the Svalbard vault retain ownership of their samples.

____ Yes ____ No ____ Not Given

2. The seed store inside the mountain is maintained at a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius.

____ Yes ____ No ____ Not Given

3. The construction of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault cost over ten million dollars to complete.

____ Yes ____ No ____ Not Given

Questions 4–6

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

4. According to its website, what is the main purpose of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault?

____ a. To sell agricultural seeds directly to local farmers ____ b. To store backup copies so gene banks can replace lost samples ____ c. To conduct scientific experiments on frozen plant tissues ____ d. To replace all traditional gene banks around the world

5. What is the total storage capacity of the Svalbard vault across all its halls?

____ a. 320,000 samples ____ b. 1.5 million samples ____ c. 4.5 million samples ____ d. 7.4 million samples

6. What is the writer's view regarding the 2010 FAO statistics?

____ a. They accurately reflect the exact number of crop varieties grown today. ____ b. They prove that gene banks need to store millions more duplicate samples. ____ c. They do not inform us how many distinct crop varieties exist today. ____ d. They demonstrate that farmers actively cultivate 7.4 million seed varieties.

Questions 7–8

Which paragraph contains the following information?

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

7. Information about the estimated proportion of global seed samples that are duplicates.

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

8. Details regarding the physical depth of the vault inside the mountain and its storage structure.

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

Questions 9–10

Complete the summary below.

Choose exact words from the passage to fill in each blank.

Writer's Reflections on Global Seed Storage

Regarding international cooperation, the writer believes that the establishment of the Svalbard vault indicates that countries ____ (type exact phrase) of losing crop varieties.

Furthermore, the writer points out that simply keeping a count of stored seed samples provides very little information regarding how many of these varieties ____ (type exact phrase) .

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