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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #60125 Medium Ometepe: an island of two volcanoes in Lake Nicaragua

Read the following passage.

A. Ometepe rises out of Lake Nicaragua, the largest freshwater lake in Central America, and it is the largest island in that lake. Seen from above, the island has the shape of a figure eight. Each rounded half is a volcano: Concepcion forms the northern half and Maderas the southern half, and the two are joined by a narrow isthmus about 3 kilometres wide. The island lies about 8 kilometres from the mainland. Photographs taken by astronauts on the International Space Station show a grid of farm fields around Concepcion, with lobes of forest along its lower slopes.

B. The two volcanoes are very different. Concepcion is a steep cone that rises to about 1,700 metres, and it is still active, with a small explosion as recently as May 2024. Loose rock and ash from earlier eruptions leave its slopes unstable, and in heavy rain they can give way as flows of mud called lahars. Some of the most serious lahars came during Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Maderas, at 1,394 metres, has not erupted in the last 10,000 years and is covered by dense rainforest. The island's fog forests have the highest conservation value in Nicaragua.

C. People have lived on Ometepe for a very long time and have left their mark on its stones. Old lahars scattered boulders across Maderas, and these boulders inspired hundreds of carvings. A survey carried out from 1995 to 2012 reported 1,626 boulders with petroglyphs, the largest concentration documented in Nicaragua and Lower Central America. Some of the carvings date back 1,700 years and reflect mythological stories. About 2,022 ceramic pieces of archaeological significance have also been recorded in the area, many of them religious statues. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spanish colonised Nicaragua, and English and French pirates later invaded the area on several occasions.

D. The island's two main municipalities are Altagracia and Moyogalpa. Early economic activities on Ometepe included basket weaving and the making of sacred jewellery. Now the main activities are agriculture, with crops such as bananas, corn and melons, along with fishing and livestock. Tourists visit every year, and many of them take tours through Volcan Maderas National Park. The park is home to endangered animals, among them the yellow-naped parrot and the white-headed capuchin.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
Farming, fishing and raising animals are now the main ways of earning a living on Ometepe.

- 2.
Less than ten kilometres of water lies between Ometepe and the nearest shore.

- 3.
A hurricane once sent streams of wet earth and stone down the active volcano.

- 4.
A bird species at risk lives in a park that visitors can tour.

- 5.
Concepcion is the tallest volcano anywhere in Nicaragua.

- 6.
Sea raiders from England and France attacked the region more than once.

- 7.
Ometepe is the biggest island in the biggest lake of fresh water in Central America.

- 8.
Some pictures cut into stone on Ometepe are about seventeen centuries old.

- 9.
Visitor numbers on Ometepe have grown because boat fares to it became cheaper.

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