Reading Question Types
Reading Question Types
Reading Question Types
This table shows all the different task types and where you’ll find more
information about them in this course. Not all of these task types appear
in every Reading test but any of them can be used at any point in the
test, so you need to be familiar with them all and how to approach each
one.
of a sentence
answer questions
short answers Short answers
about a text
Matching headings
Matching headings focuses on your skimming skills.
In this type of task, you have to look at a paragraph and decide what the
main idea is, and then decide which of a list of headings best captures
that main idea. There will always be more headings than there are
paragraphs.
Read these two paragraphs and choose the correct heading for each one
from this list:
List of headings
A. At the age of thirteen, Miles Davis was given his first trumpet, lessons
were arranged with a local trumpet player, and a musical odyssey
began. These early lessons, paid for and supported by his father, had a
profound effect on shaping Davis’ signature sound. Whereas most
trumpeters of the era favored the use of vibrato (a wobbly quiver in pitch
inflected in the instrument’s tone), Davis was taught to play with a long,
straight tone, a preference his instructor reportedly drilled into the
young trumpeter with a rap on the knuckles every time Davis began
using vibrato. This clear, distinctive style never left Davis. He continued
playing with it for the rest of his career, once remarking, ‘If I can’t get
that sound, I can’t play anything.’
Look at paragraph A. Here, the topic sentence, the sentence which gives
the main idea of a paragraph, is the second sentence. It mentions Davis’
signature sound. Later on, in the paragraph, you see this clear,
distinctive style. These two pieces of information lead us to heading four
(iv), Davis’ unique style of trumpet playing.
Answer: iii
Matching information
Matching headings tests your ability to skim a text to get a general idea
of it. Matching information is a similar task but this time it tests
your scanning skills.
specific details
an example
a reason
a description
a comparison
a summary
an explanation.
The answer is Paragraph A because of the phrase ‘it has also become a
great favorite with the crowds. You’ll notice that Paragraph B contains
the phrase ‘his adoring crowd’ but this is referring to the trapeze artist,
not the painting.
Table completion:
The instructions will tell you how many words you should write in your
answer. If you write too many words, your answer is wrong. Here are
four other important points to remember about these tasks:
The words you need to write as your answers are actually in the
text. You don’t need to paraphrase.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each
answer.
Summary completion
The process of becoming a knight has changed over time. In the Middle
Ages, people began training to become a knight at . They had to
show they were brave and skilled fighters, and were required to work
for for part of the year. Today, potential recipients of a
knighthood are selected through . A final decision is made
by .
Diagram labelling
Diagram labelling is similar to the summary task types you looked
at in the previous steps.
The general tips for this task type are almost exactly the same as for the
summary task type:
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from this text for each
answer.
Multiple-choice questions
In multiple-choice questions, you have to choose the correct
answer or answers from a number of possible choices.
The first question refers to one specific paragraph and requires you
to locate and understand one single statement. You’re looking for
two facts – whether he believes time travel is possible or not and if
yes, are there limitations? It would be possible to answer by
scanning the text to find the short section on Stephen Hawking,
reading only that section and looking for synonyms and
paraphrasing to compare his statement with the possible options.
In the second example, the text may mention some or all the options
in the question. However, only one answer correctly describes the
purpose of the text. In order to answer you need to read the whole
text. These questions typically come at the end of the section.
Let’s look at some of the techniques that can help you with
multiple-choice questions. First, read the question and identify the
key words:
A barmaid stands alone behind her bar, fitted out in a black bodice
that has a frilly white neckline, and with a spray of flowers sitting
across her décolletage.
She rests her hands on the bar and gazes out forlornly at a point
just below the viewer, not quite making eye contact. Also on the bar
are some bottles of liquor and a bowl of oranges, but much of the
activity in the room takes place in the reflection of a mirror behind
the barmaid. Through this mirror we see an auditorium, bustling
with blurred figures and faces: men in top hats, a woman examining
the scene below her through binoculars, another in long gloves,
even the feet of a trapeze artist demonstrating acrobatic feats
above his adoring crowd. In the foreground of the reflection, a man
with a thick moustache is talking with the barmaid.
Sentence completion
As with short answer questions, sentence completion
questions require you to identify a limited number of words
and/or numbers from the text in order to find each answer.
Look at this example from a text entitled Ada Lovelace: The first
computer programmer?
By scanning the text, you can quickly find the section that talks
about Menabrea’s work:
C- Contradiction/Opposite – False / No
Look at these examples of True, False and Not Given answers from
the same text we looked at in Step 3.6:
Lord Byron, a restless man who had conceived other children out of
wedlock, left his wife in a bitter divorce just weeks after Ada’s birth.
Following the separation he headed immediately to Europe, where he
died in Greece several years later, never having seen his daughter again.
Anne Byron, forever averse to what she perceived as ‘dangerous’ poetic
tendencies after her troubling experiences with her wayward former
husband, began from an early age trying to prevent the young Ada from
following too closely in her father’s footsteps. Some of Anne’s strategies
were relatively draconian – Ada was not permitted, for example, to look
at any portraits of her father until she reached adulthood at twenty
years of age. But others proved fortuitous. Attempting to nudge Ada
away from poetry, literature and other pursuits that she feared would
encourage caprice and self-indulgence in her daughter’s young mind,
Anne instead focused Ada’s attention on areas of study that required
more discipline and sober calculation instead: music and mathematics. It
was through the latter that Ada found her calling, and eventually her
place in the history books.
Lord Byron left his wife ‘just weeks after Ada’s birth’ and ‘died
several years later’. It should be very clear that the first
statement, ‘Ada Lovelace was born after her father’s death’,
is False.
Finally, look at the third statement. The text mentions poetry and
literature in the sentence ‘Attempting to nudge Ada away from
poetry, literature and other pursuits …Anne instead focused Ada’s
attention on areas of study that …’.
However, it does not mention how Ann felt about this, or what she
wanted to do, only what her mother tried to do. Ada may have been
wanted to read novels and poems, but the text simply does not tell
us anything about it. So the answer is Not Given.
Look at these examples from the text on the jazz musician Miles
Davis which we looked at last week, and the sections of the text
where the answers are located.
1. Davis felt that his contribution to cool jazz had not been
acknowledged.
For each of the above questions, which answer would you choose,
Yes, No or Not Given? Think about it before reading the
explanations below …
In the first question, you can see that Davis was frustrated and felt
he had been overlooked by music critics. This means the same as
the statement that ‘his contribution … had not been acknowledged’,
so the answer here is Yes.
Time management
What can you do to manage your time effectively in the
Reading test?
In the video you watched on Step 2.15 one of the teachers said that
the Reading test is “not so much a passage reading test as
a question reading test”.
In this course we’ve already talked about the two most important
techniques to help you manage your time effectively:
There’s no one correct way to approach the test but you must be
familiar with skimming and scanning and you must know which way
works for you.
Here are some important points to remember that can help you
manage your time.
Read the question. Before you look at the reading text, read
the questions! Have an idea of what kind of information you’re
looking for.
Read the question CAREFULLY. Does the question say ‘no
more than three words’ or something similar? It’s easy to lose
marks by not reading the question properly.
Predict answers where you can. For several task types you can
make a prediction about the answer. For example, for short
answers, what kind of word(s) are you looking for? A noun? A
verb? Use the information in the question to help you think
about the answer.
After you’ve read the questions, start reading the passage.
Underline parts of the text where you think the answers might
be.
Practise doing timed tests before your test day. The actual
IELTS Reading test should definitely not be the first time
you’ve done a full test in 60 minutes.
Don’t waste time. If you don’t know an answer, move on to
another question. Come back to difficult questions later.
If you really don’t know an answer or you run out of time,
guess! Don’t leave any questions unanswered.