Matching sentence endings and short-answer questions

Two IELTS Reading task types that reward careful grammar and exact reading - how to match sentence halves and how to answer questions within the word limit.

These two tasks complete the set. Neither is long, but each has a particular danger: in sentence endings, choosing an ending because it is grammatical rather than because the passage says so; in short-answer questions, writing a perfectly sensible answer that is too long or not in the words of the text.

Part 1: Matching sentence endings

What the task looks like

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–G, below.

37 The sound that young apes make during play 38 Grooming among monkeys and apes 39 Spontaneous laughter

A is hard to imitate deliberately. B becomes more frequent as people grow older. C shows that rough behaviour is not meant seriously. …

There are more endings than beginnings. The sentence beginnings follow the order of the passage; the endings are in random order.

The method

1. Read the sentence beginnings and highlight their anchor words. They tell you where in the passage each answer is.
2. Do not read all the endings in detail yet. Glance at them to see the general topics.
3. Take the first beginning, find its place in the passage, and read closely. Decide in your own words how the sentence should end.
4. Find the ending that expresses that idea.
5. Check the grammar of the complete sentence, and move to the next beginning.

Use grammar to eliminate, never to choose

Grammar can quickly remove endings that are impossible:

The discovery of new fossils ________ ✗ ‘are found mainly in dry regions’ (plural verb after a singular subject) ✗ ‘because the climate changed’ (no main verb)

But the question writers make sure that several endings fit grammatically. In the example above, endings A, B and C all follow ‘Spontaneous laughter’ correctly. Only the passage can tell you which is true. An ending that fits the grammar, sounds sensible and agrees with your general knowledge can still be wrong.

Worked example

Flamingos are not born pink. A chick hatches with grey-white feathers and acquires its colour gradually from pigments in the algae and tiny shrimps it eats. For this reason, zoos that fail to provide a suitable diet find that their birds fade, and visitors complain. Colour matters to the flamingos too: studies of wild colonies show that the most strongly coloured individuals are the first to find mates and tend to secure the best nesting places.

1 A newly hatched flamingo 2 Flamingos kept in zoos 3 The brightest flamingos in a colony

A may lose their colour if they are fed incorrectly. B is a different colour from its parents. C live longer than birds in the wild. D are more successful at breeding. E turns pink within a few days.

• 1 – The passage: a chick ‘hatches with grey-white feathers’ and gains colour ‘gradually’. So it is not pink, unlike adult birds → B. Ending E is grammatical and tempting, but ‘within a few days’ contradicts ‘gradually’ and is not stated.
• 2 – Zoos that ‘fail to provide a suitable diet find that their birds fade’ → A. Ending C fits the grammar and is a common belief about zoo animals, but the passage says nothing about how long they live.
• 3 – The most strongly coloured ‘are the first to find mates and tend to secure the best nesting places’ → D.

Part 2: Short-answer questions

What the task looks like

Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

8 Apart from wood, what material was used for the frames of early umbrellas? 9 What shape was the cross-section of the rib designed by Fox?

These are direct questions about facts. They follow the order of the passage, and the answer is always a word or short phrase from the text.

The method

1. Note the word limit.

2. Identify the question word – it tells you what kind of answer is needed.

   Question word	Answer type
   Who…?	a person, a job, a group
   What…? / Which…?	a thing, an activity, a material
   Where…?	a place
   When…?	a date, a time, a period
   How many / much / long / far…?	a number or quantity
   Why…?	a reason (rare, because reasons are hard to give in two words)

3. Highlight the anchor words in the question and scan for the place.

4. Read closely, find the answer, and cut it down to fit the limit.

5. Check that what you have written actually answers the question that was asked.

Cutting an answer down

You do not need a full sentence, and you should leave out anything unnecessary.

Passage: The tunnel was finally completed in the spring of 1843, eighteen years after work had begun. Question: When was the tunnel finished? (NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER)

Acceptable: 1843 or spring 1843. Not acceptable: in the spring of 1843 (too many words).

Articles (a, an, the) can usually be dropped. If the limit is two words and the text says a wooden staircase, write wooden staircase.

Do not answer with a paraphrase

Passage: Each umbrella is constructed from mixed materials. Question: What are umbrellas made of that makes recycling them difficult?

Write mixed materials, not different substances, even though the meaning is the same. The instruction says ‘from the passage’.

Worked example

The stethoscope owes its existence to embarrassment. In 1816 the French physician René Laennec was asked to examine a young woman with a heart complaint. The usual method, pressing an ear directly against the patient’s chest, struck him as improper. Remembering that sound travels well through solids, he rolled a sheet of paper into a tube, placed one end on her chest and the other to his ear, and was astonished at how clearly he could hear. He went on to make instruments of wood, and spent the next three years listening to the chests of his patients and comparing what he heard with what was later found at autopsy.

Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage.

1. In which year did Laennec first use a tube to listen to a patient? → 1816
2. What did Laennec use to make his first listening tube? → paper (or sheet of paper would be three words – too long – so paper is the safe answer)
3. What material were his later instruments made of? → wood
4. For how long did he study the sounds made by his patients’ chests? → three years / 3 years

Key points

• Sentence endings: find the idea in the passage first; use grammar only to rule endings out.
• Beware of endings that are sensible and grammatical but not stated.
• Short answers: use the question word to predict the answer type.
• Take the words from the passage and trim them to the limit; drop articles and extra detail.

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