# What is a Port City?: answers and explanations

Cambridge IELTS 2, Test 2, Reading Passage 3

Source: Passage, questions and answer key from Cambridge IELTS 2, Test 2, Reading Passage 3. © Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Used for educational practice. Explanations and evidence notes are written by Testmigo.

## Answer key

| Q | Answer | Proof |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 27 | ii | They remain different kinds of places from non-port cities and their port functions account for that difference. |
| 28 | i | Port functions, more than anything else, make a city cosmopolitan. A port city is open to the world. |
| 29 | v | Many formerly important ports have become economically and physically less accessible as a result. |
| 30 | vi | Estimates of the ratio of basic to service workers range from 1:4 to 1:8. |
| 31 | D | Madras and Colombo are examples of harbours expensively improved by enlarging, dredging and building breakwaters. |
| 32 | C | but they have since grown disproportionately in other respects so that their port functions are no longer dominant. |
| 33 | F | Charleston, Salem, Bristol, Plymouth, Surat, Galle, Melaka |
| 34 | G | Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Yokohama, where the commercial, financial, and administrative centres are still grouped around their harbours |
| 35 | NO | A city may still be regarded as a port city when it becomes involved in a great range of functions not immediately involved with ships or docks. |
| 36 | YES | What evidence we have suggests that domestic trade was greater at all periods than external trade. |
| 37 | NO | Most of any city's population is engaged in providing goods and services for the city itself. |
| 38 | YES | No city can be simply a port but must be involved in a variety of other activities. |
| 39 | NOT GIVEN | In it races, cultures, and ideas, as well as goods from a variety of places, jostle, mix and enrich each other |
| 40 | YES | The centre of New York is in lower Manhattan between two river mouths, the City of London is on the Thames |

## Why these answers are right

**27. ii.** Paragraph B lists huge cities that began as ports and later grew in other ways, so shipping no longer dominates. Its final point is that they still differ from non-port cities because of their port functions. That idea of staying a port city matches heading ii.

**28. i.** Paragraph C opens by saying port functions make a city cosmopolitan and open to the world, then describes races, cultures, ideas and goods mixing together. Cosmopolitan and open to the world both point to heading i, a truly international environment.

**29. v.** Paragraph D explains that bigger powered ships with deeper draughts left many once-important ports less accessible, so they became backwaters or museums of the past. The paragraph is about why ports lost their importance, which is heading v, reasons for the decline of ports.

The why and the trap for questions 30 onwards are free with an account on the [answers page](https://testmigo.com/ielts/reading/what-is-a-port-city/answers).

[Practice What is a Port City?](https://testmigo.com/ielts/reading/what-is-a-port-city)