# Why We Underestimate How Long Things Take: answers and explanations

Testmigo Practice Test 3, Reading Passage 3

Source: Written by Testmigo.

## Answer key

| Q | Answer | Proof |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 27 | NO | is part of the problem rather than the cure |
| 28 | YES | Urging people to expect the worst, then, is no solution |
| 29 | NOT GIVEN | analysed 258 transport infrastructure projects in 20 countries |
| 30 | NO | I find this only half persuasive |
| 31 | YES | lies precisely in what it leaves out |
| 32 | D | The group pressed on regardless |
| 33 | G | students who expected to take longer generally did |
| 34 | B | tended to overestimate the time required |
| 35 | H | they tended to blame causes largely outside themselves |
| 36 | E | decided to use the method when appraising large transport schemes |
| 37 | B | A forecaster absorbed in a plan is telling a story |
| 38 | D | estimates were no more accurate than they had been 70 years earlier |
| 39 | A | a longer estimate is not necessarily a correct one |
| 40 | C | ask how comparable projects actually turned out |

## Why these answers are right

**27. NO.** At the end of the first paragraph the writer says the usual advice, to think harder about the plan, is part of the problem rather than the cure. Focusing harder on a plan's details is therefore presented as a cause of poor forecasts, not the best fix.

**28. YES.** The third paragraph reports that even the students' worst-case forecasts were too short, and the writer concludes that urging people to expect the worst is no solution because the forecasts became no more accurate overall. The statement matches this view.

**29. NOT GIVEN.** The fifth paragraph gives overrun figures only for transport infrastructure and mentions a single opera house as another case. The writer never compares transport schemes with other types of public project, so there is no way to know their view on which overruns more often.

The why and the trap for questions 30 onwards are free with an account on the [answers page](https://testmigo.com/ielts/reading/why-we-underestimate-how-long-things-take/answers).

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