IELTS Reading
Multiple Choice Questions
The Task
You will be asked to:
1) Read the first half of a sentence, a statement or a question about the text.
2) Choose the most appropriate sentence ending, response or answer from a choice of a number of options
(usually 4). Only one is correct although several could appear to be the right one on first reading, so
beware.
•Key Tips
Read the questions first. If you do this, you’ll know what you’re looking for when you read the text which
will save you loads of time.
The answers will be in order. It’s very helpful to know that the answers come in order in the text which
isn’t the case with all question types. This makes it easier to find them. So, if you’ve found answer 1 in
paragraph 1 and answer 2 in paragraph 3, you’ll know that answer 3 won’t be too much further on in the
text.
Read in detail. For some question types, you’ll be mostly skimming and scanning the text for the answers.
You’ll need these skills here too but with multiple choice questions, the detail is important.
Watch out for distractors. Be aware that the test setters love to include ‘distractors’ in the answer options
to try and catch you out. A prime example is qualifying words such as every, all, most, a few. They are only
small words but they can completely change the meaning of a sentence.
•E.g. Everyone who ate the prawn sandwiches at the party was ill.
• Most people who ate the prawn sandwiches at the party were ill.
Don’t leave any blank answers. If you really can’t decide which answer is right, then guess. There’s at
least a chance that you’ll guess correctly and get the mark. If you don’t put an answer, the question will be
marked ‘wrong’ by the examiner.
False Answers
•It’s also useful to know the types of incorrect answers that might be included. Be alert for answers that give:
•1) Almost the correct information. (Watch out for those distractors.)
•2)The opposite information. (It’s easy to be fooled by these.)
•3) Information that’s included in the same paragraph as the true answer but not relevant to the question.
•4) Information related to the question which is not included in the text.
• Strategy For Answering Multiple Choice Questions
•1) Read the questions
•Carefully read the questions. Don’t worry if there are words you don’t understand. If they appear in the text, you
may be able to work them out in context. Alternatively, synonyms that you do understand may have been used.
•If unfamiliar words appear in incorrect answer options, they don’t matter so much, although you’ll need to make
an educated guess at them in order to eliminate the answer.
•2) Skim read the text
•On this first reading of the text, you are aiming to get just the general meaning.
•3) Identify key words
•Return to the questions and underline key words in them. These will help you find the location of the correct
answer in the text.
•This is question 1 from the sample test
•In the text, synonyms will almost certainly be used for some of them, so think about what these might be as you
pick out the key words.
4) Think about meaning
Your other task while looking at the answer options is to try and work out the difference in
meaning between them. Two may be very similar. Don’t spend too much time on this but
doing it will save you precious minutes in the next step.
•5) Predict the correct answer
•From your general understanding of the text, you may be able to make a reasonable prediction of the right answer to some of the
questions. Put a mark next to your prediction in pencil. You may not be right, but this will help you to narrow down the options.
•6) Read the text again
•Now re-read the text a paragraph at a time, particularly scanning for the key words you identified and likely synonyms. Remember
that the answers will be in order so you can expect the first one to be in paragraphs 1 or 2.
•In our sample test paper, the first question helpfully states that the answer is in paragraph 1:
• 1 In paragraph one, the writer suggests that companies could consider
•Once you’ve located the section of text containing the answer, read in detail to fully understand it. Now go back and read the
answer options again.
•Usually, one or two options will clearly be wrong. Cross them out to eliminate them once you are sure they’re incorrect.
•Continue to study the detail in the remaining answers until you've identified the right one.
•If one answer jumps out at you as obviously correct, double-check it in case the examiner has succeeded in tricking you in the way
I suggested in my key tips. It’s also worth going through the process of eliminate the other answers before finally deciding just to
be sure.
•7) Deciding between similar answers
•It’s common to end up with two very similar answer options that it’s difficult to decide between. In this case,
you need to study them in even more detail to identify the difference.
•First, write them out one under the other unless they already appear like this on the sheet.
•Here are a couple of tactics you can then use to compare them:
Paraphrase each one in your own words.
Identify distractors such as qualifying words that give them different meanings.
Compare keywords and synonyms between them and with the question.
•8) Move on
•Time will always be against you. If you get really stuck with an answer, you’ll need to take an educated guess
so you at least write something on the answer paper. If you’re down to two possible answers then you have a
50% chance of picking the correct one.
•Do this and keep moving on through the test.