IELTS Reading Comprehension

Headings Question Strategy Analysis

The Headings question is basically a main idea question. The test makers want to know if you can look at a paragraph and get the gist (main idea) of what this paragraph is about.

Note: For this question we do a monthly live class session to explain the Headings Question. Many students have trouble with this question and so we do a live online class every month to explain this question. This will give students the opportunity to ask live questions and truly understand this question.  If you would like to be included in our next live class for the Headings Question, please send us your full name and email address. We will notify students each month as to when this live class will take place.

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General Headings Question Information:

1.     Do this question last in your reading passage question set. If you have questions that go in-order, then do those first and then come back to the Headings question. This way you will have a better general idea of what the passage is about and this question will be much easier for you to do.

2.     When you begin answering this question, try to use the shortest questions first. These questions are faster to do and will help you get more points.

3.     There are always more choices than questions and there is only one possible choice for a question.

4.     This question is a synonyms test. You must be able to get the gist of the paragraph and then find synonym language that matches this.

5.     Be careful with picking answer simply because you see the same words. A correct answer will utilize some synonym language. Most students make this huge mistake. Look for similar language that captures the meaning.

6.     The test is designed so that a low level English person will not pass. A person of low English will pick answers simply because they see the same words. Exact language traps work on them quite often.

7.     The most important sentence is Topic Sentence, which is the first sentence of the paragraph. A Topic Sentence explains what this paragraph is about and normally this is what the heading will match in regards to meaning.

8.     A heading is like a title and a Topic Sentence provides the main idea which the title should capture. If you understand the Topic Sentence, you can understand the right heading to choose.

9.     What makes this question difficult is that you must understand meaning. This happens to be a good test of a person’s English ability and that is why you see this question a lot on the exam.

Specific Question Strategy

Step 1: Quickly read through the possible answer choices, underlining any keywords that standout.

Step 2: Go to the shortest paragraph and read either:

A.   The first and last sentence

B.   The first and second sentence

** If you are a fast reader, breeze through all three.

Step 3: Go to the headings and choose the one that captures the same meaning that you basically found from the Topic Sentence

                   ** Be careful with the last sentence because very often for an incorrect answer, they will pull exact language from the last sentence into an incorrect answer.

Step 4: Move onto to the next shortest paragraph and repeat the process.