As you can see, you are given a number of statements and you
are required to match these to the correct paragraphs in the
reading text.
The paragraphs in the reading text are labeled a, b, c, d and so
on. Your answer will be the letter of the paragraph, not the words
or phrases in the paragraph.
There will normally be more paragraphs than questions, so don’t
worry if some of the paragraphs do not contain the information
you are looking for. Also, don’t worry if you find more than
one answer in one paragraph.
The answers do not appear in the same order as the
questions.
Reading Skills
You will first have to be able to skim the reading text to get a
general meaning of each paragraph.
You will also have to scan for specific words within the
paragraphs. It is more likely that you will be looking for synonyms
(different words that mean the same or nearly the same) and
paraphrases rather than keywords from the question statements.
When you have found the words or phrases you think might give
you the correct answer, you have to read very carefully in order to
fully understand the meaning to be able to decide if it is really the
correct answer.
Common Problems
The biggest problem is the fact that you need to look at the whole
text. The answers could be anywhere in the text and they do not
come in order, so it takes time.
Also, the answers might not be the main idea of each paragraph.
Normally paragraphs contain one main idea and reading the first
and last lines of the paragraph can help you understand this. With
these questions, the answer could be in any part of the paragraph
and you cannot therefore just quickly skim to find it.
There is also lots of irrelevant information that you do not need to
consider. The strategy below will help you ignore much of this
irrelevant information.
Finally, as stated above, not all paragraphs contain an answer and
some paragraphs contain more than one answer.
Tips
1. Do this question last. If you do other questions first, you will
become familiar with the passage and this will help you
identify the correct information more quickly and easily.
2. Try to find names, place names and numbers in the questions.
These are often easier to find in the text.
3. Be aware that there may be synonyms. For example, you
might see ‘34%‘ in the question but it might say ‘just over a
third‘ or ‘about a third‘ in the text.
Strategy
This is my suggested strategy. There are many different strategies
and you should use the one you feel comfortable with. You can
also adapt this strategy to what suits you.
1. Read the instructions carefully.
2. Read the questions first. Think about synonyms and how you
could paraphrase the statements. This will help you identify
the answer. Saying each statement in your own words can
help do this.
3. Quickly skim the reading text to try to understand the general
meaning of the text.
4. Read the question statements again and predict which
paragraph contains the answer.
5. Scan the text paragraphs you think might contain the answer
for synonyms. If you find a possible answer underline it.
6. Check back with the question statement and mark the answer
if correct. If not, move on to other paragraphs.
