IELTS Tips: Summary Completion on the Reading Test
There are several different question types on the IELTS reading exam that you should be familiar with before your test date. Today let’s look at once such question type: summary completion.
In this style of question, you are given a summary of the text (or a part of the text) with gaps that must be filled in.
Sometimes you are shown a list of possible answers; these will be synonyms of words from the text. In these cases, the answer to the question will be A, B, C, etc. corresponding to the correct word on the list and the list will contain more words than there are questions. Other times, there is no list of possible answers, and you must fill the gaps with words directly from the text.
All of the information you need to answer these questions will be in the text; however, the same words are almost never used. You will need to use your paraphrasing skills as well as your scanning ability to find the answers.
Complications You May Encounter
· Don’t look for the same words in the text that you see in the summary. The test will use synonyms and paraphrasing to test your vocabulary.
· Don’t worry about getting an in-depth understanding of the reading. This will likely take too long and waste precious minutes of your time. Focus instead on understanding the summary.
· Don’t ignore grammar! Even if an answer seems logical, it must complete the summary in a grammatically correct way, so don’t forget to double check your answers.
· Be careful of distractors. Test creators will sometimes include a word from the reading as one of the options, trying to trick you into choosing that answer. However, these are often incorrect because the answers should be synonyms.
Summary Completion Tips
Fortunately, the answers most often appear in the same order in the text as in the questions.
Think about the type of word that is missing from the blank space. Do you need a noun, an adjective, an adverb, etc?
Don’t spend too much time on one question. You have roughly 90 seconds for each question on the IELTS reading test, so if a question is too difficult it’s best to skip it and come back at the end if you have time.
Make predictions before searching! Preparing your mind for what to search for will help you locate the answer faster.
Always be paraphrasing. Try to imagine several different ways to express the ideas from the summary, so that you aren’t overly focused on locating a single word.
If you are given a list of words, try to eliminate some possibilities based on grammar. For example, if you need a noun, all the adjectives can be eliminated.
Strategy for Summary Completion Questions
There is no one perfect way to answer IELTS reading questions, and you need to find out what works for you. But below, we have outlined a useful strategy that be used for this type of question.
Read the question carefully. Check how many words are acceptable for each blank space. (one, two or three) and whether you have been given a list or not.
Read the summary and try to get the gist of it.
Make predictions of the answers before looking into the reading. This is when we also think about the type of word (noun, verb, adjective) that we need.
If you have a list of words, eliminate the impossible ones and try to guess which 2 or 3 the answer could be.
Figure out which part of the reading the summary relates to by scanning the text for synonyms from the summary.
Look at that part in more detail and choose an answer.
Check if the word you chose makes sense grammatically.
Now you try!
If you’re looking for practice, click below for some IELTS readings that include summary completion questions.
Summary completion with a list
Summary completion without a list
Thanks for reading and good luck in your studies!
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