Matching information and matching features on one passage

A complete passage on how scientists came to accept moving continents, with seven matching information questions and six matching features questions, solved step by step with every trap explained.

Two tasks reward a reader who can find things quickly: matching information (which paragraph contains a particular piece of information) and matching features (which person or group said or did something). In this lesson they share one passage, a history of how scientists came to accept that the continents move. The passage has seven lettered paragraphs and five researchers, which is a typical set-up.

Do the task first. Allow 17 minutes. Answer questions 1 to 13 on paper, then read the walkthrough.

The passage

How the continents moved

A Anyone who looks at a map of the Atlantic Ocean notices that the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa look as if they could be fitted together. The observation is old: the Flemish mapmaker Abraham Ortelius remarked on it in the sixteenth century. For more than three hundred years, however, it was treated as a coincidence. Most scientists in the early twentieth century believed that the continents had always stood where they do now. To explain mountain ranges they pointed to a cooling Earth, which they imagined shrinking like a drying apple so that its surface wrinkled; and to explain similar fossils on distant continents, they proposed land bridges that had since sunk beneath the sea.

B In 1912 a German meteorologist and polar explorer, Alfred Wegener, put forward a bolder idea: the continents themselves had moved. He gathered evidence from several sciences. Fossils of Mesosaurus, a small freshwater reptile, had been found in both South America and Africa, and a reptile that could not cross an ocean must once have lived in lands that were joined. The same fossil plant, Glossopteris, was found across the southern continents. Mountain ranges, including the Appalachians and the Scottish Highlands, seemed to continue across the Atlantic, and traces of ancient glaciers were found in regions that are now warm. Wegener concluded that all the land had once formed a single supercontinent, which he called Pangaea, and had since broken apart.

C Most geologists rejected the theory, and the reason was not a lack of evidence but the lack of a mechanism. Wegener suggested that the Earth’s rotation and the pull of the tides might push the continents through the rock of the ocean floor. Physicists calculated that these forces were far too weak, and critics asked how a continent could plough through solid rock at all. The criticism was strongest in North America. Wegener himself died during an expedition across the Greenland ice in 1930, long before his central idea was accepted.

D One alternative was already being discussed. In the late 1920s the British geologist Arthur Holmes, a pioneer in using radioactivity to measure the age of rocks, suggested that the rock of the Earth’s mantle, though solid, could flow very slowly. Heat from radioactive decay, he argued, would make it rise, cool and sink again in great circular currents. These currents, he proposed, might carry the continents on their backs. The idea attracted little attention at the time, since no one could test it.

E The test came from the oceans. During the Second World War, sonar had been developed to detect submarines, and afterwards scientists used the technique to chart the sea bed. In the 1950s the American geologist Marie Tharp, working at Columbia University with Bruce Heezen, turned lines of depth measurements into the first detailed maps of the Atlantic floor. Women were not then allowed on research ships, so she worked from the data that others brought back. She noticed that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a huge underwater mountain chain, had a deep valley running along its centre, which suggested that the crust was being pulled apart. Heezen at first doubted this interpretation, but later work supported it.

F In 1960 another American, Harry Hess, a geologist who had commanded a navy ship during the war, set out the idea now called sea-floor spreading. Molten rock rises at the mid-ocean ridges, he proposed, forming new ocean floor that moves slowly sideways and sinks back into the Earth at deep ocean trenches. The idea explained a puzzle. Samples show that the ocean floor is geologically young, nowhere more than about 200 million years old, whereas the oldest rocks on the continents are several billion years old.

G Proof of spreading arrived in 1963, when the British scientists Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews examined magnetic measurements made over the sea bed. The Earth’s magnetic field has reversed many times, and rock that cools from a molten state records the direction of the field at that moment. Vine and Matthews showed that the rocks of the ocean floor form parallel stripes of alternating magnetic direction, arranged in mirror image on either side of a ridge, exactly as spreading would produce. Within a few years the new theory of plate tectonics, in which the surface is divided into moving plates, had replaced the old belief in fixed continents. Today satellites measure the plates’ movement directly. They travel at a few centimetres a year, roughly the speed at which fingernails grow.

The questions

Questions 1 to 7

The passage has seven paragraphs, A to G. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A to G. You may use any letter more than once.

1. a comparison between the age of the ocean floor and the age of the continents
2. the reason why many experts rejected a theory
3. the use of a technique first developed for military purposes
4. a measurement of how fast the Earth’s surface is moving at present
5. the names of particular species used as evidence for a theory
6. explanations that were given for geological features before the idea of moving continents
7. a description of rock moving in a circular pattern

Questions 8 to 13

Look at the following statements and the list of researchers below. Match each statement with the correct researcher, A to E. You may use any letter more than once.

List of researchers

A. Alfred Wegener B. Arthur Holmes C. Marie Tharp D. Harry Hess E. Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews

8. gave a name to a single ancient landmass
9. suggested that slow movement of heated rock inside the Earth could carry the continents
10. identified a valley along the centre of an underwater mountain chain
11. proposed that new ocean floor is formed at ridges and spreads sideways
12. showed that the rock of the sea bed recorded changes in the Earth’s magnetic field
13. thought that the Earth’s rotation might supply the force that moved the continents

Stop here and do the task before you continue.

The walkthrough

Step 0: Looking at the task before the text

Two features of this passage tell a Band 8 reader how to work, and they notice both in thirty seconds.

• The questions in both tasks are not in passage order. Question 1 is about paragraph F, question 2 about C. Matching information questions are normally jumbled, so you cannot use the previous answer to narrow the search for the next one.
• Matching features gives you names, and names are the easiest thing in a passage to find. They are capitalised, they are not paraphrased, and each name sits close to what that person said or did.

So the Band 8 reader does the features task first. Scanning for five names costs about ninety seconds and leaves the reader with a map: Wegener in B and C, Holmes in D, Tharp in E, Hess in F, Vine and Matthews in G. Paragraph A has no researcher and sets the scene. When the reader moves to the matching information task, they already know roughly what each paragraph is about and do not need to scan blind.

Band 6 habit: starting with question 1 and scanning the passage from the top for each question in turn, so that paragraph F is read once for question 1, again for question 5, and so on. That is how time disappears.

Step 1: Questions 8 to 13, matching features

The method is: find the name; read the sentence around it; compare the claim, not just the name; then check that no other researcher could also fit.

Question 8: gave a name to a single ancient landmass.

• Keywords: name, single ancient landmass. The question is about a name, and the passage uses “called”.
• Where: paragraph B, last sentence: “all the land had once formed a single supercontinent, which he called Pangaea”. He is Wegener.
• Paraphrase: “single supercontinent” = “single ancient landmass”; “which he called” = “gave a name to”.
• Answer: A. Nobody else names anything in the passage (the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is named, but it is a feature of the sea bed, not an ancient landmass).

Question 9: suggested that slow movement of heated rock inside the Earth could carry the continents.

• Keywords: heated rock, inside the Earth, carry the continents.
• Where: paragraph D. “the rock of the Earth’s mantle … could flow very slowly. Heat … would make it rise, cool and sink … These currents … might carry the continents on their backs.”
• Paraphrase: “flow very slowly” = “slow movement”; “the mantle” = “inside the Earth”; “carry the continents on their backs” = “carry the continents” (the same words).
• Answer: B. The tempting wrong answer is option D (Hess): in paragraph F, molten rock also rises. But Hess’s rock rises at ridges and forms new ocean floor; it does not carry the continents. A Band 6 reader sees “rock rises” in two places and picks the wrong one. The keyword carry the continents is what separates them.

Question 10: identified a valley along the centre of an underwater mountain chain.

• Keywords: valley, centre, underwater mountain chain. The passage will paraphrase: “a huge underwater mountain chain” is the passage’s own phrase for the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
• Where: paragraph E: “She noticed that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge … had a deep valley running along its centre.”
• Answer: C. The trap is Bruce Heezen, who appears in the same paragraph but is not on the list. Heezen only “doubted this interpretation”. Check the pronoun: she is Tharp.

Question 11: proposed that new ocean floor is formed at ridges and spreads sideways.

• Keywords: new ocean floor, ridges, sideways.
• Where: paragraph F: “Molten rock rises at the mid-ocean ridges, he proposed, forming new ocean floor that moves slowly sideways.”
• Answer: D. The statement and the sentence are almost the same. Tharp is the tempting wrong answer, because her valley “suggested that the crust was being pulled apart”. But she noticed a valley; she did not propose that new floor was forming. A Band 6 reader picks Tharp because the paragraph before F describes the same ridge.

Question 12: showed that the rock of the sea bed recorded changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.

• Keywords: rock, sea bed, recorded, changes, magnetic field.
• Where: paragraph G, which opens with Vine and Matthews and “magnetic measurements”.
• Paraphrase: “recorded changes in the Earth’s magnetic field” = “alternating magnetic direction” and “records the direction of the field”.
• Answer: E. Two scientists share one letter, because the list item names both. Note the verb in the statement: showed. Hess only proposed; Vine and Matthews provided the proof (“Proof of spreading arrived in 1963”).

Question 13: thought that the Earth’s rotation might supply the force that moved the continents.

• Keywords: Earth’s rotation, force, moved the continents.
• Where: paragraph C: “Wegener suggested that the Earth’s rotation and the pull of the tides might push the continents.”
• Paraphrase: “supply the force” = “push”; “thought that … might” = “suggested that … might”.
• Answer: A. The same letter as question 8. Candidates are often uneasy about using a letter twice, and some change a correct answer because of it. The instruction says “You may use any letter more than once”, so you may, and the passage often does. Do not count letters.

Time so far: about five minutes, including the first scan for names.

Step 2: Questions 1 to 7, matching information

This task is harder because the statements describe kinds of information (“a comparison”, “a reason”, “a measurement”) and not specific content. The Band 8 reader translates each statement into something concrete before they search.

For each statement they ask three things: What kind of information is this? What words would signal it? Which paragraph does my map say is most likely? Then they check that paragraph, and only that paragraph, and make sure no other paragraph fits equally well.

Question 1: a comparison between the age of the ocean floor and the age of the continents.

• Translation: two ages put side by side. Look for numbers and a contrast word such as whereas or but.
• Where: paragraph F, last sentence: “the ocean floor is geologically young, nowhere more than about 200 million years old, whereas the oldest rocks on the continents are several billion years old.”
• Answer: F. The signal word whereas carries the comparison. Paragraph E also mentions the ocean floor but gives no ages. A Band 6 reader sometimes chooses E because it also discusses the ocean floor, but E gives no ages.

Question 2: the reason why many experts rejected a theory.

• Translation: a theory, rejection, and an explanation. Signal words: because, the reason, since.
• Where: paragraph C: “Most geologists rejected the theory, and the reason was not a lack of evidence but the lack of a mechanism.”
• Paraphrase: “many experts” = “most geologists”; “the reason” repeats.
• Answer: C. One possible competitor is paragraph D, where Holmes’s idea “attracted little attention”. But that is not rejection, and D gives a different reason (no one could test it) for a different idea. Do not be pulled by the general topic.

Question 3: the use of a technique first developed for military purposes.

• Translation: a war or defence connection. The passage may not say “military”; it says “Second World War” and “submarines”.
• Where: paragraph E: “During the Second World War, sonar had been developed to detect submarines, and afterwards scientists used the technique to chart the sea bed.”
• Paraphrase: “developed to detect submarines” = “developed for military purposes”; “first developed” = “had been developed … and afterwards”.
• Answer: E. The competitor is paragraph F, where Hess “had commanded a navy ship during the war”. That is a fact about a person, not a technique. A Band 6 reader sees the war and the navy and chooses F.

Question 4: a measurement of how fast the Earth’s surface is moving at present.

• Translation: a rate, in centimetres or similar, and a present-day word (“today”, “now”).
• Where: paragraph G, final two sentences: “Today satellites measure the plates’ movement directly. They travel at a few centimetres a year.”
• Paraphrase: “the Earth’s surface” = “the plates”; “at present” = “today”.
• Answer: G. The word today was the signpost. No other paragraph has a speed.

Question 5: the names of particular species used as evidence for a theory.

• Translation: two or more species names, probably unfamiliar Latin-looking words.
• Where: paragraph B, which names Mesosaurus and Glossopteris.
• Answer: B. The trap is paragraph A, where “similar fossils on distant continents” are mentioned. There the fossils are generic (no species), and they are used to support land bridges, the older belief. The question says particular species. A Band 6 reader sees fossils in A first, since A comes first, and stops reading.

Question 6: explanations that were given for geological features before the idea of moving continents.

• Translation: an old explanation, described as such, with a time contrast (early twentieth century, before).
• Where: paragraph A: “Most scientists in the early twentieth century believed that the continents had always stood where they do now”, with the cooling-Earth and land-bridge explanations.
• Paraphrase: “explanations for geological features” = the cooling Earth (for mountains) and the sunken land bridges (for fossils); “before the idea of moving continents” = “early twentieth century” and “always stood where they do now”.
• Answer: A. Paragraph G also mentions “the old belief in fixed continents”, but only as a passing glance back. The statement asks for explanations, plural, and only A gives them. When two paragraphs seem to fit, choose the one that supplies the full information, and check that the other contains only a passing reference.

Question 7: a description of rock moving in a circular pattern.

• Translation: a shape of movement: circles, loops, cycles, currents.
• Where: paragraph D: “rise, cool and sink again in great circular currents.”
• Paraphrase: “circular pattern” = “circular currents”; “rock” = “the rock of the Earth’s mantle”.
• Answer: D. The competitor is paragraph F again, where rock rises and “sinks back into the Earth”, but there the movement goes upward, sideways and down, not round in circles. The two descriptions differ in exactly the way the statement is worded.

Step 3: A statement you cannot place

If, after about a minute, a matching information statement has no obvious home, the Band 8 reader moves on and returns to it last. Each answer already given helps: it uses up a paragraph and shows how the passage is organised. For question 5, for instance, a reader who has already placed the age comparison, the military technique and the reason for rejection can see that the remaining paragraphs are mostly about people and processes, so the only place likely to hold named species is the paragraph that gathers Wegener’s evidence. That is why this task is best done after the others.

Answer key

What to take from your own result

• Did you pick the right paragraph but the wrong researcher? You matched a topic and ignored the verb. Ask what each person did: noticed, proposed, showed, suggested.
• Did you change an answer because a letter had been used twice? Do not. “You may use any letter more than once” means exactly that.
• Did you run out of time on questions 1 to 7? Do the features task first, then the information task, and skip any statement that takes longer than a minute.
• Did you choose paragraphs by keyword (fossils, war, rock)? Each of the traps in questions 3, 5 and 7 was a paragraph that shares a word but not the information.

Key points

• Matching features first: names are easy to find, and they give you a map of the passage for the harder matching information task.
• In matching information, translate each statement into a kind of information and a signal word (a comparison, a reason, a number) before you search.
• The statements in matching information are in random order; the paragraphs are not used once each, and some may be used twice or not at all.
• When two paragraphs seem to fit, ask which one gives the information in full and which only mentions it in passing.
• In matching features, check the claim, not only the name, and watch the verb: suggested, showed, noticed and proposed are different.
• Never change an answer because a letter has appeared before.

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