The King Of Fruits Reading Answers with IELTS Passage

The King Of Fruits Reading Answers: The King of Fruits is a popular passage found in the IELTS Reading section, often used to test a candidate's ability to understand detailed factual information, identify opinions, and match information to paragraphs. This passage focuses on the unique and controversial durian fruit, exploring its appearance, smell, ecological role, cultural importance, and commercial value. In the IELTS Reading test, passages like this challenge your ability to identify True/False/Not Given statements, locate specific information, and understand subtle contrasts in viewpoints. Practising with such passages helps improve your reading speed, accuracy, and comprehension skills, all of which are essential for a high IELTS exam band score.

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The King Of Fruits Reading Answers Passage

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on the Reading Passage below.

The King of Fruits

A One fact is certain: you’ll smell it before you see it. The scent (or should that be odor?) is overpowering (or should that be nauseating?). One inhales it with delight, or shrinks back in disgust. Is it sweet almonds with vanilla custard and a splash of whiskey? Or old socks garnished with rotten onion and a sprinkling of turpentine? Whatever the description, it wafts from what must be considered the most singular fruit on the planet—the durian, a Southeast Asian favorite, commonly called the ‘king of fruits’.

B Its title is, in many ways, deserved. As fruits go, it is huge and imposing. As big as a basketball, up to three kilograms heavy, and most noticeably, covered with a thick and tough thorn-covered husk, it demands a royal respect. The thorns are so sharp that even holding the massive object is difficult. In supermarkets, they are usually put into mesh bags to ease handling, while extracting the flesh itself requires the wearing of thick protective gloves, a delicate and dextrous use of a large knife, and visible effort. One can see why it is increasingly popular, in western markets, to have that flesh removed, wrapped up, and purchased directly.

C This leads one to wonder why nature designed such a smelly fruit in such an inconvenient package. Nature is, however, cleverer than one might think. For a start, that pungent odor allows easier detection by animals in the thick tropical forests of Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia, where the wild durian originates. When the pod falls, and the husk begins to crack open, wild deer, pigs, orangutans, and elephants are easily drawn forth, navigating from hundreds of meters away directly to the tree. The second clever fact is that, since the inner seeds are rather large, the durian tree needs correspondingly larger animals to eat, ingest, and transport these seeds away, hence the use of that tough spiny cover. Only the largest and strongest animals can get past that.

D And what are they seeking? Upon prising open the large pod, one is presented with white fibrous pith in which are nestled pockets of soft yellowish flesh, divided into lobes. Each lobe holds a large brown seed within. Although these seeds themselves can be cooked and eaten, it is the surrounding flesh over which all the fuss is made. One of the best descriptions comes from the British naturalist, Alfred Wallace. Written in 1856, his experience is typical of many, and certainly of mine. At first, he struggled hard to overcome the ‘disagreeable aroma’, but upon ‘eating it out of doors’ found the flesh to have a ‘rich glutinous smoothness, neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect’. He ‘at once

became a confirmed durian eater’. Exactly!

E In actual fact, the flavor can vary considerably depending on the stage of ripeness and methods of storage. In Southern Thailand, the people prefer younger durians, with firmer texture and milder flavor, whereas in Malaysia, the preference is to allow the durian to fall naturally from the tree, then further ripen during transport. This results in a buttery texture and highly individual aroma, often slightly fermented. Whatever the case, it is this soft creamy consistency which easily allows durian to blend with other Southeast Asian delicacies, from candy and cakes, to modern milkshakes and ice cream. It can also appear in meals, mixed with vegetables or chili, and lower-grade durian (otherwise unfit for human consumption) is fermented into paste, used in a variety of local rice dishes.

F Such popularity has seen the widespread cultivation of durian, although the tree will only respond to tropical climates'—for example, only in the very northern parts of Australia, where it was introduced in the early 1960s. Since that time, modern breeding and cultivation techniques have resulted in the introduction of hundreds of cultivars (subspecies bred, and maintained by propagation, for desirable characteristics). They produce different degrees of odor, seed size, color, and texture of flesh. The tree itself is always very large, up to 50 meters, and given that the heavy thorny pods can hang from even the highest branches, and will drop when

ripened, one does not walk within a durian plantation without a hardhat—or at least, not without risking serious injury.

G Thailand, where durian remains very popular, now exports most of this fruit, with five cultivars in large-scale commercial production. The market is principally other Asian nations, although interest is growing in the West as Asian immigrants take their tastes and eating preferences with them — for example, in Canada and Australia. The fruit is seasonal, and local, sale of durian pods is usually done by weight. These can fetch high prices, particularly in the more affluent Asian countries, and especially when one considers that less than one third of that heavy pod

contains the edible pulp. In the true spirit of Alfred Wallace, there are certainly a large and growing number of ‘confirmed durian eaters’ out there.

Also Read: 

• IELTS Reading Tips And Strategies

• IELTS Listening Tips

• IELTS Writing Tips

• IELTS Speaking Tips And Tricks

The King Of Fruits Reading Answers Sample Questions 

Questions 1–7: True / False / Not Given
Do the following statements agree with the information in the passage?

1. The durian has a smell that everyone finds disgusting.

2. Durian’s exterior makes it difficult to hold.

3. The odour of durian helps animals find it in the forest.

4. Wallace was never able to enjoy the taste of durian.

5. Thai people prefer durians that have a very soft texture.

6. Durian flesh is rarely used in cooked meals.

7. Some parts of Australia are suitable for growing durians.

Questions 8–13: Matching Information
Match the information (Questions 8–13) with the correct paragraph (A–G).

8. A British explorer’s impression of durian

9. Reasons for the fruit’s hard outer shell

10. Differences in preferences in various countries

11. Details about commercial production

12. Use of durian in other food items

13. Protective measures taken around durian trees

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