IELTS Reading Matching Headings

In the IELTS reading test you may be asked to match headings to

sections of text. This type of question tests your ability to
understand the main idea of each paragraph.

Headings are short sentences that summarise the information in a

paragraph. You have to pick the one that best summarises the
information in a paragraph.

You will be given between 5 and 7 headings and asked to match

each paragraph in the reading text to one heading. There are always
more headings than paragraphs.

In this post we will look at:

1. Common problems

2. Tips

3. Strategy

4. Practice

Common Problems

Below is a list of common problems my students tend to have. Have

you experienced any of these problems?

Later in the post we will look at tips to overcome these problems

and a strategy for answering this kind of reading question.
 1. There is too much information to get through and not enough

time.

2. Trying to match a word or words from the headings to a word

in the text.

3. Some of the headings may appear to have the same meaning.

4. Some students only read the first sentence of each paragraph

and do not understand the main idea of the paragraph.

5. Spending too much time on one paragraph or heading.

6. Answers are not in the same order as the text.

Tips and Solutions

1. Do this question first. By doing this you will be able to get the

general meaning of the text as a whole and this will help you

with the rest of the question that requires you to take a more

detailed look at the text.

2. You are not expected to read every word of the text. This will

take too long and you don’t have time for this. In this kind of

question you are only expected to understand the main idea of

each paragraph. A good way to do this is to read the first one

or two sentences and the last sentence of the paragraphs. You

can also briefly look at the rest of the paragraph but you don’t

have to read every word.

3. If there are words you don’t understand, don’t worry about

this. Again, you should only worry about the general meaning

of the paragraph as a whole, not individual words. Even native

speakers will fail to understand every word in the IELTS reading

test.

4. Be aware of synonyms. Many students look for words that

match exactly with words in the text and ignore synonyms. For

example, a keyword in the heading might be ‘Beautiful’,

however the word you’re looking for could be many different

 synonyms of ‘beautiful’ like ‘attractive’, ‘pretty’, ‘lovely’ or

‘stunning’.

5. If there are two or three headings that are similar, write them

beside the paragraph and try to find out the difference

between the two headings. What are the keywords? How does

this change the meaning? Which one matches the paragraph

best?

6. If you still can’t decide which one suits best, move on and

come back to it later. The answer will normally be easier to find

after you have matched some more headings.

7. Ignore anything you already know about the topic. You are

being tested on the text only.

8. Don’t read too quickly. Some teachers advise that students

should just ‘skim’ the text because you don’t have much time.

In my experience, this leads to students not understanding

 most of the text and making mistakes. It is better to do this a

little slower and actually understand what is in front of you.

9. Don’t panic if you know nothing about the general topic of the

reading text. The IELTS reading test is not a knowledge test

and you are not expected to have prior knowledge of the

topic.

10. Don’t look at the headings first. This will automatically

make you look for specific words in the text rather than the

main idea. Remember it is your ability to find the main idea

that is being tested, not your ability to find specific

information. Instead of reading the headings first, ignore them

and get the general meaning of each paragraph first by

reading the first and last sentences.

Strategy

1. If this type of question is on the test, do it first.

2. Don’t look at the headings.

3. Read the first one or two sentences and the last sentence of

each paragraph to understand the general meaning of the

paragraph. Don’t worry about highlighting keywords in the

test. Try to sum up the general meaning of each paragraph in

one or two words.

4. Look at the headings and identify keywords within each

heading.

5. Match any headings that are very obvious and you are sure

about.

6. For the others, write 2 or 3 headings beside the paragraph.

Identify the difference between each of the headings. Establish

if there are any synonyms in the paragraph to keywords in the

headings.

7. If you still can’t pick one, move one. The answer will often

reveal itself later.

 8. Repeat until finished.

Practice

Let us look at an example question. Below are two paragraphs from

an article called ‘Trees in Trouble- What is causing the decline of the
World’s giant forests?’

Match the two paragraphs with two of the following three headings:

1. How wildlife benefits from big trees

2. Factors that enable trees to grow to significant heights

3. How other plants can cause harm

Paragraph 1- Big trees are incredibly important ecologically. For a

start, they sustain countless other species. They provide shelter for
many animals, and their trunks and branches can become gardens,
hung with green ferns, orchids and bromeliads, coated with mosses
and draped with vines. With their tall canopies basking in the sun,
they capture vast amounts of energy. This allows them to sustain
much of the animal life in the forest.

Paragraph 2- Only a small number of tree species have the genetic

capacity to grow really big. The mightiest are native to Norther
America, but big trees grow all over the globe, from the tropics to
the boreal forests of the high latitudes. To achieve giant stature, a
tree needs three things: the right place to establish its seedling,
good growing conditions and lots of time with low adult mortality.
Disrupt any of these, and you can lose your biggest trees.

If you look at the above paragraphs you will see that they are full of
difficult words like ‘bromeliads’, ‘basking’ and ‘stature’. If you try to
read and understand every word you will get nowhere.

Instead we just look at the first and the last sentences and with
some highlighting of keywords and an awareness of synonyms it is
apparent that the answers are:

Paragraph 1- How wildlife benefits from big trees

Paragraph 2- Factors that enable tree to grow to significant heights