IELTS Reading 15: Matching Headings — Full Passage Practice (Mixed Review)

i — Why the pyramids were built

ii — A theory that divided experts

iii — The workforce behind the monuments

iv — Moving mountains without machines

v — The pyramids in modern culture

vi — What lies inside a pyramid

vii — An enduring architectural puzzle

viii — Slaves or citizens? An old image corrected

A. "How the ancient Egyptians raised two-million-plus blocks of stone, some weighing as much as a lorry, into a structure nearly 150 metres tall remains one of archaeology's most stubborn questions. Despite two centuries of serious study, no complete answer has been agreed upon, and each new excavation seems to raise as many questions as it settles.

B. "For generations, popular films and school books painted the builders as slaves toiling under the whip. Archaeology has quietly demolished this picture. Excavations of the builders' settlement at Giza uncovered bakeries, breweries and medical care, and workers were buried honourably close to the king's own monument — privileges no slave would have received. Most scholars now see the builders as paid labourers and farmers doing seasonal service for the state.

C. "That service demanded organisation on an industrial scale. Written records recovered from the harbour at Wadi al-Jarf describe teams of about forty men, each with its own name, quotas and rations, ferrying limestone across the Nile. Supplying tens of thousands of workers with bread, beer and fish every day was, in effect, the world's first mass logistics operation.

D. "The stones themselves travelled by simpler means than legend suggests. Wall paintings show gangs hauling statues on wooden sledges while a worker pours water onto the sand ahead — a trick that, as physicists confirmed in 2014, roughly halves the friction. Ramps of rubble and mudbrick, traces of which survive at several sites, carried the blocks upwards as the pyramid grew.

E. "More contested is the question of what the ramps looked like in their final form. Straight ramps would have needed to be impossibly long to reach the summit; spiral ramps would have hidden the pyramid's edges, which builders needed to see to keep the shape true. A French architect's proposal of an internal ramp, winding unseen inside the structure itself, won enthusiastic supporters and fierce critics in equal measure — and the debate shows no sign of ending."

5/5 — ajoyib! Matching Headings sizga bo'ysundi; keyingi mavzu — Matching Information.

4/5 — kuchli natija; xato paragrafingizning izohini o'qib, qaysi tuzoqqa tushganingizni aniqlang.

3/5 yoki kam — 12–14-darslarni takrorlang: gist usuli, 4 tuzoq qolipi, vazifa so'zlari.