If you want to do well in the Reading section of the IELTS Academic test, make sure you practice doing different tasks: matching features, matching headings, true or false questions, multiple-choice, etc. Among more than ten question types you can be given in the IELTS Reading section note completion is one of the most frequently seen ones. Therefore, it is advisable to understand how to deal with such a type of question if you get in your test. In our today’s blog, we are going to guide you through the process of answering note completion questions step by step.
Understanding the task
In this type of task, you will have to complete a summary of some information in the text you will read. This summary may look like this:
- a table
- a diagram
- a flow-chart
- notes
- a paragraph
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You will have to fill in the gaps with the words and/or numbers from a part of the text. The task tests your ability to understand the details or main ideas of the reading passage. It is also required that you to know what type of words will fit into a given gap (for example, whether it is a noun or a verb, adjective or adverb, etc).
The passages for such types of questions are usually descriptive. The answers might occur in the same order as in the passage, but not necessarily. However, they will usually come from one part of the passage rather than being spread across the entire text.
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Steps for sentence / note completion
Step 1. Quickly read the title and the text.
You shouldn’t spend much time on this. Reading the text quickly will allow you to gain an idea of what it is about. Don’t worry about the words you don’t understand.
Step 2. Check the instructions.
The instructions not only give us a clue that you need to fill in the blanks, but they also provide us with very important information regarding the number of words you have to write in your answer. In addition, make sure you know what you can and cannot write for each gap.
For example, you can see the instructions worded like these:
- Write one word only.
- Write one word and /or a number.
- Write no more than two words.
- Write no more than two words and/ or a number.
- Write no more than three words.
If the instruction says, ‘WRITE NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS’ and you write three, the answer will be incorrect, and you will not get any points.
Step 3. Read the sentences. Underline keywords in them.
Keywords will allow you to understand the focus of the questions. They can include names, places, figures, nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
Step 4. Use the keywords to find the part of the text you need.
You will have to scan the text to find the right information for each sentence from the task starting from the first one.
Step 5. Predict what kind of word(s) you need for the gap.
By looking at the words before and after the gap, you can work out what part of speech is missing, whether it is a noun or a verb, an adjective or an adverb, etc. Try to predict the answer. After that, read the part of the passage attentively paying attention to the keywords.
Step 6. Find the word(s) for the gap.
As you read the paragraph, you will notice the keywords and some of them will be paraphrased. As you find the word in the text, copy it into the gap exactly as it is in the text. Check you spell it correctly because answers with the wrong spelling are counted as wrong ones.
Step 7. Read the sentence again.
Finally, you have to read the sentence again and check if it is grammatically correct. Make sure it makes sense. If so, move on to the next sentence and do steps 3 to 7.
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Summary completion
In summary completion, you will have to fill in the gaps in a summary that is a short text giving the main information about a longer text without giving all the detail. In order to complete the task, you should understand the main points of the text. The information in the summary may be about one paragraph or about a longer part of the text, but not about the whole passage.
The steps and tips for summary completion are pretty the same as the ones you have to do for sentence completion questions above.
However, sometimes, in summary completion, you have to use the words not from the passage, but from a list of suggested options.
In this case, you need to follow all the same steps as with the sentences or a simple summary completion. However, once you found the answer in the passage, compare it with the suggested options and choose a synonym.
There is another timesaving trick. You can predict the answers before reading the passage more easily. If you see that you are running out of time, this may be very handy.
Anyway, it is highly recommended that you read the passage and make sure you have answered correctly.
There are other types of completion: table, flow-chart, and diagram. Nevertheless, the same strategies that we’ve just learnt can easily be applied to them. Of course, some peculiarities depend on the type of visual you get. Go to our online complete IELTS Academic self-study course, if you want to do a detailed analysis of all types of IELTS Academic Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking tasks, do sample IELTS tasks, practice tasks with an automated checking system, get access to the exclusive Facebook community where we share more life-saving tips and tricks for IELTS Academic.
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