Hi everyone, and welcome to the video on our last matching question type - matching sentence

endings. In this video, you will learn the key steps you need to follow to answer this type of question in
IELTS reading.
There are four steps to help you answer matching sentence endings. Step 1 is to analyze the question.
Step 2 is to read the question and consider which endings match them. Step 3 is to scan the passage for
the key words. And the last step is to read intensively to find the correct answer.
In the first step, there are several ways to analyze the question. Start by reading the question and
identifying the key words. It's often a good idea to identify any names, including place names or dates,
because these are often easy to find in the reading text. Also in your mind, try to predict how the
sentences might end before reading the endings given. After that, you should read the sentence endings
and identify the key words as well. Try to think of synonyms while you are doing this.
To practice Step 1, look at the following matching sentence endings task from a reading passage called
"Use of comics in education". The questions ask you to complete each sentence with the correct ending.
Note that there are five incomplete sentences, but eight possible sentence endings to choose from.
Remember in this step, you need to identify the key words in all the questions or sentence beginnings,
as well as the keywords in the sentence endings. Think about the meaning and possible synonyms while
you do this. Have you chosen similar key words?
We will analyze how to find the ending for Sentence 1, "Some early forms of sequential art," in more
detail later. So notice the two key words in this incomplete sentence, which are "early forms" and
"sequential art."
Once you have identified the key words, you need to move on to Step 2, which is to read the questions
and consider which endings match them. Read the first question or sentence beginning carefully. Try to
predict what the ending could be. As there are always more endings than needed, it is important to try
to eliminate some that you think cannot match. How can you do that?
Firstly, you need to think about what word form you need to make the sentence grammatically correct.
So do you need a noun, verb, or perhaps adjective? In other words, can you see any endings that would
not work grammatically? Another elimination strategy is to check for collocations. Can you see any
words that would not go together? Lastly, but importantly, consider the meaning. Ask yourself: are
there any obvious sentence endings that wouldn't make sense? Well hopefully, you will be left with only
two or three possible options.
Let's practice this step by looking at Question 1. It says "Some early forms of sequential art...", read
through the sentence endings and try to eliminate some of them. Think about the meaning and
grammar. Which endings do you think you could eliminate? Firstly, it's clear that a verb is needed next
because the incomplete sentence only has a noun phrase. It says "Some early forms of sequential art..."
but they all start with a verb, so that is not very helpful. However, it seems that the first part of the
sentence is referring to the past - "the early forms." So all the sentences beginning with "were",
including A, E, and F, are definite possibilities.
Let's look at Sentence ending A. It contains the word "all" while the question contains the word "some."
So this does not make logical sense when you put them together. So ending A can be eliminated. Ending
E can also be eliminated because sequential art was pictures not writing. So it was probably not read in
the 19th century. This leaves F as the only "were" ending that seems logical. People who are illiterate,
this means can't read and write, may have looked at sequential art.
However, we cannot just choose this answer without considering the other endings. The ones beginning
with, "have been" can also refer to the past and continue to the present. So let's consider the meaning

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of some of the "save been" sentences too. Sentence B is about science class, and art is probably not
studied in a science class. C seems possible - someone could be judging art today. And D seems less
likely because ancient forms of art are probably not widely looked at by children today. G also seems like
an incorrect answer, as governments are unlikely to produce this art. However, H is possible. People
could be re-evaluating sequential art. So now we are only left with three endings to choose from: C, F,
and H.
The next step, which is Step 3, is to scan the passage for the key words. In Step 3, scan the passage and
look for the key words from the question that is the sentence beginning. Look for synonyms or
antonyms of the key words as well as paraphrases. Please know that the information in the reading
passage is in the same order as the questions, which makes it easier to locate the correct answer. So the
answer to Question 2 will be after the answer to Question 1 and so on.
In this step, the test taker found that the words, "sequential art" are mentioned in Paragraph B.
Therefore, Paragraph B is probably the correct place to look for the answer. In order to make sure that
the chosen paragraph is the correct place, you need to read that section intensively to understand the
main idea. And this is Step 4. This means you need to read the sentence that contains the words
"sequential art" and possibly the one after it very carefully to understand the main idea. You then need
to look at the sentence endings again and choose the ending that has the same meaning. Check carefully
that the meaning of the sentence ending you choose has the same meaning as the passage. It should be
a paraphrase.
Okay, let's give it a try. The reading says "Much later, after the invention of writing, sequential art
continued to be used for the instruction of those among the population who were illiterate." Now it is
time to check the possible endings. Any of them match? Yes, F - "were used as an aid to help the
illiterate." The word "instruction" is paraphrased as "an aid," and the word "illiterate" is repeated. So
this is the answer for Question 1.
The complete sentence reads, "Some early forms of sequential art were used as an aid to help the
illiterate." Note that the first question you do is usually the most difficult one because you have lots of
different options to choose from. And the last question that you do should take less time because there
are fewer options left.

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