Hello there, this is Fiona from IELTS with Fiona and the Members Academy.
This week it was the Lunar New Year 2026, which is the year of the horse, so I've found an IELTS reading related to the horse.
Now, horses don't come up very often in IELTS, although If you look at my Task 1 Crash Course for Weird Questions, there is an academic writing which asks you to describe the development of the horse's hoof, believe it or not.
But apart from that, I could only find this text, which isn't exactly about a horse.
It's called The White Horse of, And the white horse is an ancient chalk figure cut into a hillside in England.
So this text will probably go into my civilisation unit in the vocabulary course because it is all about well ancient civilisations, which is a huge topic.
IELTS.
I've seen this particular topic about ancient, mysterious drawings elsewhere in IELTS.
There's one about the Nazca lines in Peru, so it's really well worth doing this and learning a bit about this topic.
Interestingly, it's a passage one, but it's seems to follow a kind of research based structure.
So if you've done my reading course, you'll know I talk about two different types of reading.
One is mostly just factual and it's chronological.
It goes in order of time.
So that often relates to people like scientists or artists and their life history.
The other type is the more difficult one and it's the type of reading that you'll get at university.
There's a problem that's introduced, something controversial, something people don't agree about, and then they try to find evidence to either prove or disprove a theory.
And that's exactly what we've got here.
So the question arises about, well, when this horse was made.
The text says it was probably created in the late Bronze Age.
But this is debated, and this is what we will learn more about in the text and also later, whether it has tribal, religious or cultural significance.
So it starts.
The first paragraph is always the background.
It gives us this word geoglyphs, and it tells us there in paragraph one that there are about 56 of these hill figures in england.
They're made of chalk and chalk is a kind of soft white stone.
The problem is introduced in paragraph two, that this Uffington white horse Uffington is just a place is older than previously thought.
Now, you might think, well, so what?
Well, again, This comes from a real news item.
I found it on a website called World History Encyclopedia.
You can see the actual text there.
And this is big news that they've discovered that it might not be as recent as they think.
It could be much older.
So that was the news items.
It tells us a bit in paragraph three about how these geoglyphs were made and preserved.
And then it gives us almost four paragraphs giving evidence about why they thought it was created in the Bronze Age.
So it talks about the shape of the horse and then about the landscape. and then about early records.
Finally, it comes to the last section, when it tells us about more recent scientific testing and a new date for the horse.
And it concludes just by saying it doesn't really matter when the date was.
The importance is what it tells us about the people that time and how they worshipped and what they thought and why these geoglyphs are important so yes this is the structure of an academic text and this is why you need to become familiar with this type of reading because it's what you will need to study at university So let's go through it.
There are two sets of questions.
The usual true, false, not given and gap fill.
And by the way, they also give you after the reading four items of vocabulary.
So you don't need to know these, but they tell us about the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, the Neolithic period.
And finally, the word Celtic comes up at the end and they tell us Celtic means an ancient people who migrated from Europe to Britain before the Romans.
So they do give you some of that vocabulary again, so no need to worry about it.
Let's look at the true, false and not given.
Now, how many of these can we guess from that summary?
So the first one is most geoglyphs in england are located in a particular area of the country, so that keyword most is dangerous.
We need to look for something which tells us this.
So what does it say?
In the introduction it says there are 56 hill figures in England, with the vast majority in the country's southern counties.
So absolutely, yes, the vast majority is a synonym for most in a particular area.
Yes, in the southern counties.
So the first one is most true.
Now the second one we always say to take care with comparisons, and it says there are more geoglyphs in the shape of a horse than any other creature.
So there's a comparison there.
Comparisons should ring alarm bells for you, because usually There's no comparison in the text, and that's the same here.
It does not mention how many of these are horse shaped.
It just says the figures include giants, horses, crosses and badges.
So number two is not given.
So we know we're still in paragraph one because we're coming up to The third true, false question.
It's about the recent dating of the Uffington white horse.
Indicates that people were mistaken about its age.
So in paragraph two it says the white horse has recently been redated and shown to be even older than me previous date.
So yes, it has recently been redated and this indicates that people were mistaken about its age.
So number three is also true.
Number four historians have come to an agreement about the origins of another called the Long Man of Wilmington.
Now, those are capital letters.
You can find them easily like that in paragraph two, the Long Man of Wilmington.
What does it say about this geoglyph?
It says more controversial is the date of the Long Man of Wilmington.
And you can see a perfect controversy structure here that we use in task two.
It says, sorry, task two writing.
We use this in the introduction.
It says, while many historians are convinced the figure is prehistoric, others believe it was the work of an artistic monk between the 11th and 15th centuries.
So you can see there you've got two points of view which differ and it's controversial.
So have historians come to an agreement?
The answer is no because the date of the Wilmington man is still controversial.
They don't agree about it.
Now, number five, I've mentioned this about how the geoglyphs were created.
We know that they are, well, made of chalk, white chalk.
And number five says geoglyphs were created by people placing the white chalk on the hillside.
So we have to go to paragraph five. and find out well how did they create these pictures.
It says the method of cutting these huge figures was simply to remove the overlying grass to reveal the gleaming white chalk below.
So that's how they did it.
They removed the grass to reveal the chalk under the grass.
Now go back to the question.
It says that the people placed white chalk on the hillside.
Is that true?
No, the chalk was already on the hillside, but it was under the grass.
So number five is False.
Number six, many geoglyphs in England are no longer visible.
So when we go to find the next sentence about the grass, it says however, the grass would soon grow over the geoglyph again.
One reason that the vast majority of hill figures have disappeared again the vast majorities, most of the hill figures have disappeared is that people no longer bothered or remembered to clear away the grass to expose the chalk outline.
So yes, Many, in fact, the vast majority are no longer visible.
So number six is true.
And number seven, you could probably guess now.
The shape of some geoglyphs has been altered over time.
So remember we said that the grass grows over the chalk.
Well, It says, furthermore, over hundreds of years, the outlines would sometimes change.
So synonym there, change and alter.
Due to people not always cutting in exactly the same place, thus creating a different shape.
So synonyms again, altered shape, different shape to the original.
So number seven is true.
So the last one, number eight, we've had a nice balance so far of true, false and not given.
Number eight, the fame of the white horse is due to its size.
So turn that into a question.
Why is the A Fington white horse, so famous.
Well, there's no mention of that.
There's no mention why it's famous.
In fact, to be honest, I had never heard of it before I read this text.
The word famous comes up.
It does say in paragraph two.
It does say the most famous of these figures is perhaps also the most mysterious.
So, yes, it is the most famous.
It's the most mysterious.
But it doesn't say anything about why it's so famous.
It certainly doesn't say it's because of its size.
So number eight is not given.
So we've looked at questions from paragraphs one, two and three.
So let's jump ahead to the next set of questions, which we can guess will come in paragraph four, because paragraph four relates to the location of the effington white horse.
That's what we're looking for, and it says the horse is situated 25 kilometers from effington village.
So that's the first bullet point.
You can see that's already there.
We're looking for the next bullet point near an ancient road known as the.
Now, here is a big clue.
Whenever you see, known as in the reading and even the listening, there are some punctuation clues that help you.
I've got a whole blog and a whole list of these on my website.
So very often they are in inverted commas or maybe they have capital letters.
And you need that help here because it's a long sentence.
And it says that the Uffington village horse is on a steep slope close to the late Bronze Age hillfort of Uffington Castle and below the ridgeway, which is a long distance neolithic track.
So which one of those words could we say it's known as and i think this is tricky the answer is the ridgeway.
It's got a capital r, so that tells us that it's a name And it's got the before it.
So that could help you too.
So the answer is Ridgeway.
And they explain that that is a long distance track.
So track being a synonym for road and Neolithic track being a synonym for ancient.
Now, another clue, how could you guess that?
Well, the next bullet point talks about an ancient cemetery and burial mounds.
And that's in the next paragraph.
You can see the burial mounds.
So that tells you the answer must be in that sentence, and it helps you to focus and not look around anywhere else.
Use the headings in the summary too.
So the next heading is all about the dating of the horse.
So we can jump again to paragraph 6 where we see lots of dates.
We've got the 1070s there.
You can see it and that's our first bullet point.
It says the first reference to White Horse Hill appears in something from the 1070s, so that preposition might help us.
It says the earliest evidence of a horse at uffington is from the 1070s, when white horse hill is mentioned in documents.
That's it.
Documents is our answer and the in did help there.
I have to say we can skip the next bullet point.
Just look at the numbers.
It's about coins from 100 BCE.
So, quickly find them, BCE coins.
Skip that and then move to the third bullet point.
According to analysis of the surrounding something, the horse is late Bronze Age.
So, surrounding what what was around the horse that they analyzed so paragraph seven testing there's your analysis was carried out on soil from two of the layers of the horse's body so the testing was carried out on soil and 11 is the answer soil the surrounding soil s-o-i-l is the answer the final part of the summary is possible reasons for the creation of the horse the first idea is that it's an emblem to indicate land ownership so we can see that in paragraph 8 a tribal emblem like a symbol Marking the land of the inhabitants.
OK, skip that one.
Go to the next one.
Formed part of an ancient ritual.
So here we've got bronze iron age ritual.
So we know that the answer is going to come in the next line.
It was a representation of goddess Epona.
So capital letter there.
Very nice, easy to find.
Who was Epona?
She was worshipped as a protector of horses and for her associations with fertility.
So two things, horses and fertility.
And we can see those two things in the gap.
She was associated with protection of horses.
And gap twelve is fertility.
Now the last one, gap 13, was a representation of a Welsh goddess, a Welsh goddess, capital W.
Let's find Welsh there we are called again that clue, remember we said known as is often a clue, It makes it easier to find.
We're looking for a name, a capital letter, and that comes up right in the last bit, where it says Rhiannon, described in later Welsh mythology as a beautiful woman dressed in gold and riding a white horse.
So the answer is Rhiannon.
Remember to copy it exactly from the text.
Don't worry about spelling.
If you don't know the word, just copy it.
So that is the story of the Uffington White Horse.
I've taken a few really important words of vocabulary from this reading.
If you're in the Bronze Academy, you can find this under the topic civilization, and a few things I think that come up so often are things like the burial mounds, so burial to bury ancient graves, things like that prehistoric, a time before written history, Local customs, traditional ways of behaving in a community, native mythology, traditional stories of a local culture.
Ritual is a traditional ceremony.
Fertility, the ability to produce new life, and economic significance.
Remember those texts about Easter Island?
For example, all of these texts often mention the economic significance, the importance for trade or wealth.
And it might be useful to learn some of these expressions when you get these questions about describing a traditional celebration in your country.
I've put a list of these on my Instagram.
So things like celebrations give us a sense of belonging.
People wear traditional clothes to honour ancient customs or ancestral customs.
These celebrations or festivals are rooted in history.
They are passed down through generations.
There is a festive atmosphere in the streets.
It's a communal celebration.
It's a family reunion, a time when family members meet.
It has symbolic meaning and people wear traditional costumes.
It's part of our local heritage and it is often a public holiday.
So everyone can get together, exchange gifts, decorate the house and maybe pay respect to their ancestors.
So key vocabulary coming from that text there that you can use in your speaking test.
And I do have model answers for you for any question related to festival celebrations and traditional customs.
There's a whole unit there on my website.
All right.
So if you have any questions or any special requests, please do get in touch with me in any way, shape or form, on social media.
Leave a comment or email me.
Thanks for listening today.
I hope that helped And remember to share it with your classmates if they're preparing for IELTS 2.
That's all for now.
Bye bye.
