The Commons and How to Manage Them: Reading Answers & Explanations
IELTS Reading practice test · 14 questionsAcademichard
Haven't taken this test yet?
Looking at the answers first spoils the practice — you only get one honest first attempt at a passage. Take the test with the 20-minute timer, get an instant score and estimated band, then come back here to study every answer.
About this passage
The passage opens: “Few ideas in modern social science have been as influential as the argument known as 'the tragedy of the commons'. It was made famous in 1968 by the American ecologist Garrett Hardin, in a short and forceful essay that has been reprinted and argued over ever since.”
- Passage length: about 732 words
- Questions: 14
- Question types: Matching Features, Sentence Completion, True / False / Not Given
“The Commons and How to Manage Them” is an original IELTS-style practice passage written by IELTS-Bank. It is not taken from an official IELTS or Cambridge test, so these answers only apply to our version.
Answer key at a glance
The Commons and How to Manage Them answers with explanations
Questions 1–5: Matching Features
Look at the following statements and the two thinkers below. Match each statement with the correct thinker, A or B. You may use either letter more than once.
- A. Garrett Hardin
- B. Elinor Ostrom
- 1
Individuals acting in self-interest will inevitably exhaust a shared resource.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: A — Garrett Hardin
Why: Garrett Hardin argued that individually rational decisions lead to the overuse and destruction of shared resources, as each person acting in self-interest adds more pressure on the commons, ultimately exhausting it.
Where to find it · Paragraph 2 “Each herder, acting purely in self-interest, has an incentive to add one more animal to the common land, because he personally gains the full benefit of the extra beast while the cost of the additional grazing, the gradual damage to the pasture, is shared among everyone who uses it.”
- 2
Communities can devise their own rules to manage shared resources sustainably.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: B — Elinor Ostrom
Why: Elinor Ostrom argued that communities can successfully manage shared resources by developing and enforcing their own rules, as demonstrated by her research on communities worldwide that sustainably managed commons without private ownership or government control.
Where to find it · Paragraph 4 “Across the world, from mountain pastures and forests to fishing grounds and irrigation systems, Ostrom and her colleagues documented communities that had shared a common resource successfully, often for hundreds of years, without either dividing it into private plots or handing it over to a distant government.”
- 3
The only real remedies are private ownership or government control.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: A — Garrett Hardin
Why: Garrett Hardin argued that shared ownership leads to resource ruin, so the only solutions are private ownership or government control to prevent the tragedy of the commons, as stated in the passage.
Where to find it · Paragraph 6 “Where Hardin had seen only two remedies, private ownership or state control, Ostrom revealed a rich third possibility: that communities can, under the right conditions, govern themselves.”
- 4
Field studies show many commons have been shared successfully for centuries.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: B — Elinor Ostrom
Why: Elinor Ostrom's research documented communities worldwide that have successfully managed shared resources for centuries without privatization or government control, contradicting Hardin's prediction of inevitable resource depletion under shared ownership.
Where to find it · Paragraph 4 “Across the world, from mountain pastures and forests to fishing grounds and irrigation systems, Ostrom and her colleagues documented communities that had shared a common resource successfully, often for hundreds of years, without either dividing it into private plots or handing it over to a distant government.”
- 5
People obey rules more readily when they have helped to make them.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: B — Elinor Ostrom
Why: The passage states that Elinor Ostrom found communities successfully managing shared resources by creating and enforcing their own rules, which people are more likely to respect than externally imposed restrictions.
Where to find it · Paragraph 5 “Crucially, the users themselves helped to design and enforce these rules, which made them far more likely to be respected than restrictions imposed from outside.”
Questions 6–10: Sentence Completion
Complete the sentences below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
- 6
Hardin made his argument famous in a short ______ published in 1968.(max 2 words)
Show answerHide answer
Answer: essay
Why: The passage states that Garrett Hardin's argument became famous through a brief and impactful essay published in 1968.
Where to find it · Paragraph 1 “It was made famous in 1968 by the American ecologist Garrett Hardin, in a short and forceful essay that has been reprinted and argued over ever since.”
- 7
In Hardin's example, herders add animals to a shared ______ until it is ruined.(max 2 words)
Show answerHide answer
Answer: pasture
Why: The answer is found in the section where Hardin's example describes herders adding animals to a communal grazing area, leading to its eventual destruction.
Where to find it · Paragraph 2 “Each herder, acting purely in self-interest, has an incentive to add one more animal to the common land, because he personally gains the full benefit of the extra beast while the cost of the additional grazing, the gradual damage to the pasture, is shared among everyone who uses it.”
- 8
Hardin argued that the alternatives were state regulation or private ______.(max 2 words)
Show answerHide answer
Answer: property (also accepted: ownership)
Why: The answer comes from the part of the passage where Hardin concludes that the only solutions to prevent resource depletion are either dividing the resource into private ownership or placing it under strict state control.
Where to find it · Paragraph 3 “Private property or government regulation: for Hardin these were essentially the only two ways of avoiding catastrophe, and much of the policy thinking that followed took his conclusion for granted.”
- 9
Ostrom studied real communities that shared resources such as forests, fishing grounds and ______.(max 2 words)
Show answerHide answer
Answer: irrigation systems (also accepted: pastures)
Why: The answer is found in the passage where it lists examples of shared resources managed by communities, including mountain pastures, forests, fishing grounds, and irrigation systems, which Ostrom and her colleagues documented in their research.
Where to find it · Paragraph 4 “Across the world, from mountain pastures and forests to fishing grounds and irrigation systems, Ostrom and her colleagues documented communities that had shared a common resource successfully, often for hundreds of years, without either dividing it into private plots or handing it over to a distant government.”
- 10
Ostrom was the first woman to receive the ______ Prize in economics.(max 2 words)
Show answerHide answer
Answer: Nobel
Why: The passage does not explicitly mention Ostrom receiving the Nobel Prize in economics, so the answer cannot be directly derived from the text provided.
Where to find it · Paragraph 6 “Ostrom's work, for which she became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, did not prove that shared resources are always safe; commons can and do collapse when the conditions for cooperation are absent.”
Questions 11–14: True / False / Not Given
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? Write TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.
- 11
In Hardin's account, an individual herder gains the full benefit of adding an extra animal.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: TRUE
Why: In Hardin's account, each herder benefits fully from adding an extra animal because the personal gain outweighs the shared cost of additional grazing, leading to overuse of the common resource.
Where to find it · Paragraph 2 “Each herder, acting purely in self-interest, has an incentive to add one more animal to the common land, because he personally gains the full benefit of the extra beast while the cost of the additional grazing, the gradual damage to the pasture, is shared among everyone who uses it.”
- 12
Ostrom's research supported Hardin's view that ruin was unavoidable.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: FALSE
Why: Ostrom's research contradicted Hardin's view by showing that communities worldwide successfully managed shared resources without dividing them into private plots or handing them over to the government.
Where to find it · Paragraph 4 “Across the world, from mountain pastures and forests to fishing grounds and irrigation systems, Ostrom and her colleagues documented communities that had shared a common resource successfully, often for hundreds of years, without either dividing it into private plots or handing it over to a distant government.”
- 13
Ostrom found that successful communities relied on rules the users had helped to create.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: TRUE
Why: Ostrom discovered that successful communities managed shared resources by developing and enforcing their own rules, which the users themselves helped to create, ensuring the rules were respected and effective.
Where to find it · Paragraph 5 “Crucially, the users themselves helped to design and enforce these rules, which made them far more likely to be respected than restrictions imposed from outside.”
- 14
Ostrom's ideas have now been adopted by every national government.
Show answerHide answer
Answer: NOT GIVEN
Why: The statement claims that every national government has adopted Ostrom's ideas, but the passage neither confirms nor denies this, only discussing Ostrom's findings and their contrast to Hardin's views.
Estimated band score for this test
Your raw score out of 14 scaled to the 40-question IELTS Reading (Academic) conversion table. This is the same estimate the practice page shows after you submit. A single passage is a small sample, so treat it as a guide.
| Correct answers | Estimated band |
|---|---|
| 14 / 14 | 9.0 |
| 13 / 14 | 8.5 |
| 12 / 14 | 7.5 |
| 11 / 14 | 7.0 |
| 10 / 14 | 6.5 |
| 8–9 / 14 | 6.0 |
| 7 / 14 | 5.5 |
| 6 / 14 | 5.0 |
| 5 / 14 | 4.5 |
| 4 / 14 | 4.0 |
| 3 / 14 | 3.5 |
| 2 / 14 | 3.0 |
| 1 / 14 | 2.0 |
| 0 / 14 | 0.0 |
Full-test score? Use the IELTS band calculator.
Tips for the question types in this test
Matching Features
- Read the list of options (the features) and locate each one in the passage, underlining every place it appears — names and dates are easy to spot.
- Read the statements and identify the claim or characteristic each one describes.
Common trap: Assuming each option is used exactly once — some are reused and some are distractors.
Full Matching Features strategySentence Completion
- Circle the word limit before reading anything else.
- Predict the missing word class: noun, verb, adjective, number or short phrase.
Common trap: Exceeding the word limit.
Full Sentence Completion strategyTrue / False / Not Given
- Read the statement first and underline the key idea, especially any qualifiers like "all", "only", "never", "always", "more than" or dates and numbers.
- Because the questions follow the order of the passage, scan for the paragraph that deals with the same topic rather than re-reading everything.
Common trap: Confusing "False" with "Not Given": choose False only when the passage actively contradicts the statement; if the passage is silent, it is Not Given.
Full True / False / Not Given strategyPractise “The Commons and How to Manage Them” under exam conditions
Free, auto-marked, with the 20-minute timer and an instant band estimate.
Take this test first (timed)More IELTS Reading tests with answers
A Beginner's Guide to Home Composting
easy
A Brief History of Money
medium
A History of the World in Board Games
medium
A Short History of Tea
medium
Ancient Water Engineering
medium
Behavioural Economics and Decision Making
medium