The Growing Global Threat Of Antibiotic Resistance Ielts Reading Answers Verified ((free)) | Confirmed |

Found in Section B: "...often administered for viral infections like influenza or the common cold..."

Patients seeking help in hospitals can inadvertently contaminate other patients.

This natural selection is vastly accelerated by human misuse. In many parts of the world, antibiotics are available over-the-counter without a prescription, leading to improper self-medication for viral infections like the common cold or influenza, against which antibiotics are completely ineffective. Furthermore, patients frequently stop taking their prescribed medication as soon as their symptoms improve, leaving behind the most resilient bacteria to mutate and proliferate. Agricultural Amplification Found in Section B: "

Because new antibiotics are meant to be kept in , pharmaceutical firms find them less profitable to develop. Questions 10–13

Patients infected with resistant strains require alternative, often more toxic, second- or third-line drugs. These treatments necessitate extended hospitalization, intensive monitoring, and specialized care. Others manufacture enzymes

While bacterial mutation is an inevitable biological process, human activity has exponentially accelerated the timeline. The primary driver of this acceleration is the profound over-prescription of antibiotics in human medicine. Epidemiological studies indicate that a significant percentage of antibiotics prescribed worldwide are medically unnecessary, often administered for viral infections like influenza or the common cold, against which they are entirely ineffective.

Explanation: Paragraph D states that antibiotics are used to prevent disease in "overcrowded, unsanitary factory farming environments." such as beta-lactamases

The mechanisms by which bacteria evade antibiotic action are marvels of evolutionary adaptation. Bacteria can develop thick cellular walls that prevent drugs from penetrating their defenses, or they can produce specialized pumps—known as efflux pumps—that actively eject the antibiotic before it can cause damage. Others manufacture enzymes, such as beta-lactamases, which chemically degrade and neutralize the medication. Most alarming of all is the capacity of bacteria to share these resistance genes with neighboring microbes through a process called horizontal gene transfer. This allows completely different species of bacteria to rapidly acquire resistance without inheriting it from a parent cell. Paragraph F

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