IELTS Reading: arts and culture passages
Art, music, literature, crafts and traditions from cultures around the world.
44 passages mainly about arts and culture · 72 more that touch on it · from 107 full tests
Passages mainly about arts and culture
Each passage opens as a timed 20-minute practice with its 13–14 questions. Submit to see your band estimate and the sentence that proves every answer.
- Whose Heritage?
- Who Should Pay for Museums?
- The Walls Have Voices
- The Case for Public Support of the Arts
- The Violin Maker's Art
- Bringing Drawings to Life: A Short History of Animation
- The Birth of Cinema
- Coloured Light: The Art of Stained Glass
- The Museum Without Walls
- Can Machines Be Creative?
- Are Video Games Art?
- The Dead on Tour
- Inventing the Past
- Who Pays for the Past?
- The Dead in the Glass Case
- Should Old Films Be Edited?
- Hearing the Chorus
- The Book of Kells
- Should Traditional Crafts Be Subsidised?
- Restoration or Distortion?
- The Bronzes of Benin
- Must Historical Films Be Accurate?
- Pictures of the Floating World
- Pictures Made of Stone and Light
- Painting on Wet Stone
- How Oil Painting Arrived
- Reading the Threads: Medieval Tapestries
- The Private Page
- The Lindisfarne Gospels
- Should Cultural Treasures Travel Abroad on Loan?
- Making a Book by Hand
- Should Historic Gardens Be Restored to Their Original Design?
- Giving It Back
- The Manuscript in the Hand or on the Screen
- Can Museum Objects Tell Stories Without Labels?
- Should Traditional Festivals Be Adapted for Modern Audiences?
- Cameras at the Shrine
- The Making of a Medieval Stained-Glass Window
- Should Graffiti Be Treated as Art?
- Does Commercialisation Damage Cultural Festivals?
- Should Countries Protect Their Film Industries?
- Should Tourists Be Allowed to Climb Sacred Mountains?
- Should the Value of the Arts Be Judged by Their Popularity?
- Should Museums Sell Their Collections?
Other passages that cover arts and culture
These passages have a different main subject but deal with arts and culture along the way.
72 passages
- Music and the Mind
- Fixing the Image
- Faces on the Page
- When a Dialect Falls Silent
- The Dead Sea Scrolls
- From Chaturanga to the Global Game
- Games of the Sacred Truce
- Ears or Eyes: The Audiobook Question
- Heritage Tourism: Promise and Pressure
- The Ethics of Restoring Historic Buildings
- Brutalist Architecture Reconsidered
- The Library at Alexandria
- The Long History of the Pipe Organ
- Buying a Place in the Story
- Who Owns an Idea? Copyright in the Digital Age
- The Machine That Made Music Private
- Arresting the Image: The Rise of Videotape
- Who Pays for a Stream?
- Plugging In: The Making of the Electric Guitar
- A Nickel in the Slot: The Rise of the Jukebox
- What Should Be Done with Difficult Monuments?
- The Uses of Hindsight
- Saving the Paper Record
- Keep the Ship or Let It Go?
- The Manuscripts of Timbuktu
- Trajan's Column
- The Past on Display
- Was the Renaissance Really a Turning Point?
- Heraldry and the Language of Coats of Arms
- The Bayeux Tapestry
- The Unfinished Life
- Should Historical Texts Be Modernised for Students?
- The Case for the Copy
- The Cave Paintings of Lascaux
- History in the Spotlight
- Should Historic Town Centres Limit New Architecture?
- The Building of the Taj Mahal
- History as Entertainment?
- Should Commemorative Holidays Change Over Time?
- Should Old Prisons Become Museums?
- Should Famous Battles Be Re-staged for Visitors?
- Can Novels Be Used as Historical Evidence?
- A Label Under Strain
- Taking Down the Great and the Good
- Can Autobiographies Be Trusted as History?
- Drawing Plants for Science
- How Church Bells Were Cast
- The Rock Churches of Lalibela
- Lighting Up the Past
- Copies and Originals
- The Globe Theatre
- The Lewis Chessmen
- The Gundestrup Cauldron
- The Staffordshire Hoard
- The Potters Who Crossed the Pacific
- The Book Nobody Can Read
- The Comb and the Cylinder
- A Gallery in the Sahara
- The Bridge That Is Rebuilt Every Year
- The Caves at Ajanta
- How a Spinning Wheel Turns Fibre into Yarn
- The Codex Gigas
- The Birth of the Modern Circus
- Should New Buildings Copy Historic Styles?
- Should Art Be Taught in Every Year of School?
- The Dunhuang Caves and Their Hidden Library
- Who Should Pay for Public Broadcasting?
- The Books of the Maya
- The Tea Houses of Japan
- Building the Sydney Opera House
- Can creative writing be taught?
- How a Traditional Pottery Kiln Works
Key arts and culture vocabulary
Words worth knowing before you read about arts and culture, each with the sentence it appears in.
| Word | Meaning | Example from a passage |
|---|---|---|
| incised adjective | cut or carved into a surface as decoration or a mark | “it was first used by archaeologists for marks incised into plaster and stone” Test 437 |
| anonymous adjective | with a name that is not known or not made public | “now sell for large sums while the artist remains anonymous” Test 437 |
| opportunistic adjective | taking advantage of a chance that happens to arise, without planning | “it tested a small, opportunistic act in a specific setting” Test 437 |
| proportion noun | a relationship of size or amount between one thing and another | “punish unauthorised damage in proportion to its cost” Test 437 |
| designating verb | officially choosing or naming a place for a particular purpose | “Some local councils have responded by designating walls where painting is permitted” Test 437 |
| prestige noun | respect and admiration that comes from success or recognition | “inclusion on its lists can bring both prestige and tourists” Test 444 |
| safeguards noun | measures taken to protect something from harm | “Two safeguards seem to me essential. The first is that the community” Test 444 |
| special pleading phrase | an argument made only to protect one's own interests | “which is not merely special pleading by sponsors” Test 444 |
| slippery adjective | difficult to define or deal with precisely | “Evidence is thin, and not only because the concepts are slippery” Test 444 |
| rearranged verb | put into a different order or position | “its elements are rearranged to suit the paying audience” Test 444 |
| prolific adjective | producing a very large number of works, results or products | “it developed one of the world's most prolific film industries” Test 459 |
| symptom noun | a visible sign of a deeper problem rather than the problem itself | “quotas treat a symptom rather than a cause” Test 459 |
| imitative adjective | copying other people's work or style rather than being original | “the rule was associated with weak, imitative production” Test 459 |
| underlying adjective | existing beneath the surface as the fundamental or real cause | “slower and less dramatic, but they address the underlying problem” Test 459 |
| exception noun | a case that is deliberately not covered by a general rule or agreement | “The principle became known as the cultural exception” Test 459 |
| monolith noun | a very large single block of stone standing alone | “the great sandstone monolith in central Australia, was closed permanently” Test 478 |
| custodianship noun | the role of being responsible for looking after a place or object | “Custodianship is not ownership, and a custodian is answerable for what is kept” Test 478 |
| pretext noun | an apparent reason given to justify something when the real reason is different | “does not use sanctity as a pretext for excluding people it dislikes” Test 478 |
| ration verb | to control how much of something people are allowed to have | “Permits ration scarce routes; seasonal closures protect wildlife or the most fragile ground” Test 478 |
| override verb | to take priority over something and cancel its effect | “religious conviction, however sincere, should not override the interests of the majority” Test 478 |
| treacherous adjective | deceptive and likely to lead people into error | “The economics of live performance make the numbers especially treacherous.” Test 489 |
| discernment noun | the ability to judge quality or value accurately | “acquire a familiarity that later looks like natural discernment” Test 489 |
| formulaic adjective | made to a fixed and predictable pattern | “argued that mass-produced entertainment is standardised and formulaic, and that its popularity reflects marketing” Test 489 |
| disinterested adjective | impartial, not influenced by one's own preferences or advantage | “Philosophers in the Kantian tradition insist that a judgement of beauty must be disinterested” Test 489 |
Question types in these passages
- Yes / No / Not Given · 55 passages
- Multiple choice · 54 passages
- True / False / Not Given · 34 passages
- Summary completion (word list) · 24 passages
- Matching sentence endings · 21 passages
- Matching features · 21 passages
- Summary completion · 18 passages
- Flow-chart completion · 14 passages
- Table completion · 13 passages
- Matching information · 13 passages
- Matching headings · 13 passages
- Short-answer questions · 12 passages
- Note completion · 10 passages
- Sentence completion · 9 passages
- Multiple choice (choose more than one) · 8 passages
- Diagram label completion · 4 passages