# THE ROCKET - FROM EAST TO WEST: answers and explanations

Cambridge IELTS 3, Test 1, Reading Passage 1

Source: Passage, questions and answer key from Cambridge IELTS 3, Test 1, Reading Passage 1. © Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Used for educational practice. Explanations and evidence notes are written by Testmigo.

## Answer key

| Q | Answer | Proof |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | iv | they remained a relatively minor artefact of civilisation until the twentieth century |
| 2 | i | A simple analogy can help us to understand how a rocket operates. |
| 3 | v | The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of 'black powder'. |
| 4 | vii | Europe became seriously interested in the possibilities of using the rocket itself as a weapon of war |
| 5 | B | which was the key to space travel ... more importantly, it literally opened the door to exploration of the universe. |
| 6 | D | Prodigious efforts, accelerated during two world wars, were required ... Since then, there have been huge developments in rocket technology |
| 7 | A | Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. |
| 8 | A | By the thirteenth century, powder-propelled fire arrows had become rather common. |
| 9 | B | whose leaders had built up a corps of rocketeers and used rockets successfully against the British |
| 10 | E | The Americans developed a rocket, complete with its own launcher |
| 11 | B | The 0.7 metre-long arrows, each with a long tube of gunpowder attached near the point of each arrow |
| 12 | E | This 'egg' was apparently full of gunpowder and stabilised by a 1.5m tail. ... It was fired using two rockets attached to either side of this tail. |
| 13 | F | an iron envelope about 200 millimetres long and 40 millimetres in diameter with sharp points at the top and a 3m-long bamboo guiding stick |
| 14 | G | completely encased in a stout, iron cylinder, terminating in a conical head, measuring one metre in diameter and having a stick almost five metres long |

## Why these answers are right

**1. iv.** Paragraph B says a breakthrough does not guarantee practical use: rockets were used sporadically for several hundred years yet remained a minor artifact until the twentieth century. That long stretch without real progress matches heading iv, undeveloped for centuries.

**2. i.** Paragraph C uses a machine gun on the back of a boat to show how a rocket moves: the backward discharge pushes the boat forward, just as ejected particles push a rocket. That account of the mechanism matches heading i, how the reaction principle works.

**3. v.** Paragraph D traces the earliest rockets: black powder in China, powder-propelled fire arrows by the thirteenth century, the basket of fire and the Arab egg which moves and burns. This survey of the first rocket devices fits heading v, the first rockets.

The why and the trap for questions 4 onwards are free with an account on the [answers page](https://testmigo.com/ielts/reading/the-rocket-from-east-to-west/answers).

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