The Global Spread of the Chilli: Reading Answers & Explanations
IELTS Reading practice test · 14 questionsAcademicmedium
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About this passage
The passage opens: “Few flavours have travelled so far from home as the heat of the chilli. Today chillies are central to the cooking of India, Thailand, China, Mexico, Hungary and much of the rest of the world, yet the plant is a native of the Americas alone.”
- Passage length: about 784 words
- Questions: 14
- Question types: Matching Headings, Sentence Completion, True / False / Not Given
“The Global Spread of the Chilli” 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 Global Spread of the Chilli answers with explanations
Questions 1–6: Matching Headings
The passage has six paragraphs, A-F. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
- i. A defence aimed at some animals but not others
- ii. The chemical that creates the burning sensation
- iii. A pleasure born out of pain
- iv. Spreading around the world within a single century
- v. A way of putting a number on spiciness
- vi. A spice that travelled far from its birthplace
- vii. Growing chillies in the home garden
- viii. The medical dangers of eating chillies
- ix. Festivals held in honour of food
- 1
Paragraph A
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Answer: vi — A spice that travelled far from its birthplace
Why: Paragraph A discusses how chillies, native to the Americas, have become central to cuisines worldwide, indicating their journey far from their original home, which aligns with the heading about a spice traveling far.
Where to find it · Paragraph A “Few flavours have travelled so far from home as the heat of the chilli.”
- 2
Paragraph B
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Answer: ii — The chemical that creates the burning sensation
Why: Paragraph B explains that the burning sensation from chillies is caused by capsaicin, a chemical that tricks the nervous system into feeling heat, thus supporting the heading "The chemical that creates the burning sensation.
Where to find it · Paragraph B “Capsaicin does no real harm to the flesh of the mouth; instead it plays a trick on the nervous system.”
- 3
Paragraph C
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Answer: i — A defence aimed at some animals but not others
Why: Paragraph C explains that capsaicin in chillies acts as a defense mechanism targeting mammals, whose teeth destroy seeds, while allowing birds, unaffected by capsaicin, to spread the seeds, supporting heading i.
Where to find it · Paragraph C “The receptors that capsaicin inflames are found in mammals, whose grinding teeth would destroy a chilli's seeds, but birds do not react to capsaicin at all.”
- 4
Paragraph D
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Answer: iv — Spreading around the world within a single century
Why: Paragraph D describes how chillies spread globally within a century after Columbus's voyages, highlighting their rapid integration into various cuisines, which aligns with the heading "Spreading around the world within a single century.
Where to find it · Paragraph D “In some places the chilli was taken up so eagerly that it reshaped entire national cuisines within a few generations, and it is now hard to picture the food of Sichuan, Bengal or Hungary without it, even though none of these places had so much as tasted the plant before the sixteenth century.”
- 5
Paragraph E
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Answer: v — A way of putting a number on spiciness
Why: Paragraph E discusses the creation of the Scoville scale by Wilbur Scoville in 1912 to measure the strength of chillies, which aligns with the heading "A way of putting a number on spiciness.
Where to find it · Paragraph E “In 1912 a pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville devised the scale that still bears his name, ranking chillies by how much they must be diluted before the heat can no longer be tasted.”
- 6
Paragraph F
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Answer: iii — A pleasure born out of pain
Why: Paragraph F discusses the pleasurable sensation derived from the pain caused by chilli's heat, highlighting how people enjoy the burning sensation despite it being a trick on the nervous system.
Where to find it · Paragraph B “Capsaicin does no real harm to the flesh of the mouth; instead it plays a trick on the nervous system.”
Questions 7–11: Sentence Completion
Complete the sentences below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
- 7
The heat of a chilli comes mainly from a chemical called ______.(max 2 words)
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Answer: capsaicin
Why: The answer is found in section B, which explains that the primary source of a chilli's heat is a family of chemicals, mainly capsaicin.
Where to find it · Paragraph B “The famous heat comes from a single family of chemicals, chiefly one called capsaicin.”
- 8
Capsaicin binds to receptors that normally warn the body of dangerous ______.(max 2 words)
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Answer: heat
Why: The answer is found in section B, where it explains that capsaicin attaches to the receptors that usually alert the body to harmful heat, tricking the brain into feeling a burning sensation.
Where to find it · Paragraph B “It binds to the very receptors that normally warn the body of dangerous heat, so that the brain is fooled into feeling a fierce burning even though nothing is actually being burned.”
- 9
Chilli seeds are carried to new ground by ______, which are unaffected by capsaicin.(max 2 words)
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Answer: birds
Why: The answer is found in section C, which explains that birds are not affected by capsaicin and can freely eat chillies, helping to spread their seeds to new locations.
Where to find it · Paragraph C “Birds can therefore eat the fruit freely and carry the seeds, still able to sprout, to new ground.”
- 10
Chillies began to spread around the world after the voyages of ______.(max 2 words)
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Answer: Columbus
Why: The answer is found in section D, which explains that the global spread of chillies began with Columbus's voyages at the end of the fifteenth century.
Where to find it · Paragraph D “The plant's confinement to the Americas ended suddenly with the voyages of Columbus at the close of the fifteenth century.”
- 11
The strength of a chilli is measured on the ______ scale.(max 2 words)
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Answer: Scoville
Why: The answer is found in section E, which explains that the strength of a chilli is measured using the Scoville scale, created by Wilbur Scoville in 1912 to rank chillies based on their heat intensity.
Where to find it · Paragraph E “In 1912 a pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville devised the scale that still bears his name, ranking chillies by how much they must be diluted before the heat can no longer be tasted.”
Questions 12–14: True / False / Not Given
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? Write TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.
- 12
Chilli peppers were first domesticated in Asia.
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Answer: FALSE
Why: Chilli peppers were first domesticated in the Americas, as the passage states that people in Mexico and further south had been growing and eating chillies long before Europeans encountered them.
Where to find it · Paragraph A “Archaeologists believe that peoples in Mexico and further south had already been growing and eating chillies for thousands of years before any European set eyes on one, making it among the oldest cultivated crops of the New World.”
- 13
Birds are not deterred from eating chillies by capsaicin.
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Answer: TRUE
Why: Birds are unaffected by capsaicin, allowing them to eat chillies without experiencing the burning sensation that deters mammals, as described in the passage.
Where to find it · Paragraph C “The receptors that capsaicin inflames are found in mammals, whose grinding teeth would destroy a chilli's seeds, but birds do not react to capsaicin at all.”
- 14
The chilli is the most widely grown spice in the world today.
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Answer: NOT GIVEN
Why: The statement claims that the chilli is the most widely grown spice in the world today, but the passage does not confirm or deny this, only discussing the chilli's global spread and culinary influence.
Closest related text · Paragraph A “Today chillies are central to the cooking of India, Thailand, China, Mexico, Hungary and much of the rest of the world, yet the plant is a native of the Americas alone.”
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 Headings
- Read the list of headings first so you know the options, and notice how they differ from one another — often two headings are deliberately similar.
- Read the first paragraph and ask yourself: "In one sentence, what is this paragraph mainly saying?" before you look back at the headings.
Common trap: Picking a heading because it repeats a word from the paragraph, when that word only appears in a minor detail.
Full Matching Headings 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 Global Spread of the Chilli” under exam conditions
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