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IELTS Reading
Matching Paragraph
Information

Matching paragraph information questions

are another type of question that comes up
regularly in the IELTS Reading test. Unless
you have a good strategy for tackling this
kind of task, you can easily lose a lot of
time on it.

The information on this page will help you

to be well prepared for exam day. Here’s
what it covers:

Explanation of this question type

Skills needed

Key tips

The strategy

Examples from real test papers

Explanation of this question

type

You will be given a set of 3 to 6

statements.

You are required to match the

information in each statement to
matching information in a
paragraph in the reading text.

The type of information included in the

statements can vary widely. You could, for
example, be asked to match:

facts

descriptions

opinions

predictions

definitions

explanations

reasons

challenges

Here’s an example of instructions and

statements taken from a past test paper.

Source: Cambridge English Past Test Paper

Skills needed
This type of question tests your ability to:

Skim read for general meaning

Scan for specific information

Read in detail to find answers

Identify synonyms & paraphrasing

Matching information questions are a real

test of your paraphrasing skills as the
information will be expressed in different
ways in the statements and in the text.
Many synonyms will be used and sentence
structures often altered.

Key tips
1) The answers will not come in the same
order in the text as the order of the list of
statements.

2) Some paragraphs may not contain an

answer.

3) A paragraph could contain more than

one answer.

4) The answer will not necessarily be in

the main idea of a paragraph as in
‘matching headings’ questions. In
‘matching information’ questions, you will
be looking for specific information. Some
students confuse these two types of
question so be sure that you know which
you are answering.

5) Do the other questions on this text first.

Each text will have several types of

questions attached to it. If you do the
matching information question last, you will
have a good understanding of the passage
by the time you get to it. This will make it
easier and quicker to complete.

6) Expect lots of synonyms. Be particularly

aware of information that can be
represented in words and figures. For
example,

½ – a half

15º – fifteen degrees

69% – sixty-nine per cent

7) Usually, you’ll find the matching

information in a phrase or whole sentence,
not in an individual word.

8) Search for the easiest information to

match first. This will usually be in a
statement that contains key words that are
easy to find in the text such as names,
numbers, places and dates.

This way, if time runs short and you’re

forced to move on before completing the
question, you’ll at least have picked up the
easiest marks rather than wasting lots of
time on a difficult question.

9) You can narrow down the match of

statement and paragraph by a process of
elimination. For any specific statement,
there will be paragraphs that are clearly not
a match.

The Strategy

I’ll show you how to apply this strategy in

the example below but first, you need to
understand it.

# 1 Carefully read the instructions.

# 2 Read the statements before you read

the text. Take note of the main idea of each
statement and think about possible
synonyms that might be used in the
passage.

# 3 Skim read the text to get a general

understanding of what it’s about.

It will help you if you quickly identify the

main idea of each paragraph and note it in
a couple of words beside the paragraph.

Although the main ideas may not be the

information you need to match, doing this
will make it quicker to find relevant
paragraphs again.

# 4 Return to the statements. Read them

again and decide which one you think will
be the easiest to match. Since the answers
won’t come in the same order as the order
of the list of statements, it doesn’t matter
which you do first.

These criteria may help determine which

statements might be the easiest ones to
match.

There are names, numbers, places

and dates that will be easy to scan
for.

There are other key words that

should be easy to spot in the text.

Notes you made beside a

paragraph of its main idea match
information in one of the
statements.

I give detailed explanations on this step of

the strategy in the sample test below.

# 5 Once you’ve selected your statement,

scan the text for key words. When you
think you’ve identified the paragraph with
matching information, read it in detail to
check if you’re right.

Expect synonyms and paraphrasing to be

used.

# 6 If you are right and can confirm the

match, fill in the answer sheet and cross
through the statement to eliminate it from
further consideration.

If you’re wrong, continue scanning for the

correct paragraph.

# 7 Repeat this process until you have

matched all the statements to paragraphs.

Example with answers

This example comes from the official IELTS
website, www.ielts.org. Before checking
the answers, I strongly recommend that
you see if you can match the statements to
the right paragraph following the steps in
the strategy.

If you find this really challenging, go

straight to my notes below on how I
completed this sample test as I include lots
more information on answering this type of
IELTS Reading question than I could cover
in the basic strategy.

Source: Official IELTS website ielts.org - Matching

Paragraph Information Sample Test

Notes on how I answer the

questions

1) I read the six statements to get a

general understanding of what they're
about.

2) I skim read the text for general meaning

and write down a few key words beside
any paragraph where it's easy to identify
one or more key ideas, e.g.

3) I look at the statements again. There

are none with names, numbers, places or
dates that would be easy key words to
scan for and get me off to a quick start, so I
can’t use this strategy with this particular
question.

Instead, I read through the statements

again looking for information that matches
the topic of any of the notes I’ve made
beside the paragraphs or matching
information that I remember reading in the
text.

I’m immediately drawn to the second

statement (15) because I remember a
paragraph about the choices people make
regarding what car they buy and how they
drive.

15 how driving habits contribute to

road problems

I wrote ‘people’s choices – what car / how

drive’ beside the paragraph and this is a
close enough idea to ‘driving habits’ for me
to think that this could be the right
paragraph for a match.

Because of my notes, I’m able to find the

paragraph again quickly and now read it in
detail to see if the information really does
match.

I identify the following sentence as

containing the information I need:

But fuel consumption and exhaust

emissions depend on which cars are
preferred by customers and how they are
driven.

The information is a good match so I fill in

the answer – 15 F.

I then cross through the statement and

move on to another one.

4) I decide to try and find a match for

sentence 17 next.

17 the writer’s prediction on future

solutions

I choose this one because it's about the

future so I expect it to come near the end
of the passage. It’s a bit of a gamble but
one I think it’s worth taking to save time. I
can leave it and come back to it later if I
can’t find the answer quickly.

I also remember that I wrote notes relating

to ‘solutions’ next to two paragraphs (G
and H) so this is another strong clue as to
where the answer is.

I read paragraphs G and H in more detail.

Paragraph G starts, ‘Some argue…’ so it’s
about other people’s opinions about
possible future solutions. I skim read it to
confirm that it doesn’t change to talking
about the writer’s opinion part way through.
It doesn’t. I move on to paragraph H.

This begins, ‘A more likely scenario…’ This

is clearly expressing the writer’s view or
prediction about possible solutions. I
quickly skim to check that this is the topic
of the paragraph. It is, so the answer is 17
H.

5) I choose statement 18 to match next.

18 the increasing use of motor

vehicles

I select this one because of the word

‘increasing’. I guess that the text is likely to
mention numbers or percentages to give
information about the increase in the use of
motor vehicles. These should be very easy
to spot with a quick scan of the text.

Going back to the text, my eyes are

immediately drawn to the first paragraph
which contains lots of numbers. I also
notice that I’ve noted the words ‘more
vehicles’ beside paragraph A which could
be a paraphrase of ‘increasing use of
motor vehicles’.

I start reading the paragraph in detail and

find the information I need for the match in
the first sentence. The synonym the
‘number is rising’, which is used instead of
‘increasing’, is another clue that the
information matches. I don’t waste time
reading any further and mark the answer
18 A.

One of the challenges with matching

information questions in the IELTS
Reading test is that you need to search the
whole text for the specific information you
need. Don’t read more than you have to in
order to confirm the match of information.
This will only waste time and isn’t
necessary.

6) I now have three statements left to

match. I’ve crossed out the ones I’ve
already matched as I’ve gone along so it’s
easy to see which ones are left to do.

I read the three statements and decide

which has a key word that will be easy to
find in the text. I choose 16 because I
believe it should be easy to spot types of
public transport which will lead me to the
answer.

16 the relative merits of cars and

public transport

I think of some specific types of public

transport to scan for. The most likely are
‘bus’ and ‘train’.

I spot ‘bus’ in paragraph B but a quick skim

through the text tells me that this section is
not about public transport. I continue
scanning.

Paragraph E looks more hopeful. It

contains several references to types of
public transport.

I read the statement again to be sure that I

understand what it means. It mentions
‘cars’ as well as public transport and even
if I didn’t know what ‘relative merits’
means, I could probably guess that cars
and public transport were being compared
in some way.

Reading paragraph E in detail, I find a

sentence that contains the word ‘cars’ as
well as ‘trains’ and ‘buses’ so I’m sure the
answer will be here.

Yet cars easily surpass trains or buses as

a flexible and convenient mode of personal
transport.

The key word I need to understand in this

sentence is ‘surpass’ which means ‘to be
better than’. So, cars and types of public
transport are indeed being compared in
this sentence.

Again, if you didn’t understand this word,

you may still be able to guess the main
idea of the sentence from the rest of the
vocabulary. However, you can see how
important it is to have a good knowledge of
synonyms.

I’m confident that I have a correct match of

information and mark the answer 16 E.

7) I choose statement 14 to match next.

14 a comparison of past and present

transportation methods

This one is easy to match as there is only

one paragraph that talks about past forms
of transport and I made a note of this when
I first skimmed the text.

The answer is thus 14 C.

8) There is now just one statement left to

match.

19 the impact of the car on city

development

I haven’t written a note beside any of the

paragraphs that relate to this statement so
I’ll need to scan the whole text for the
match.

Although I can’t be sure that it will be in

one of the paragraphs I’ve not yet used for
an answer, I feel that this is a good place to
start.

First I think of possible synonyms of ‘city’

and ‘development’, such as, ‘urban’ and
‘improvement’, then scan paragraphs B, D
and G for these.

Paragraph B contains the word ‘city’ but

not information about ‘development’.
Paragraph D, on the other hand, contains
both ‘cities’ and ‘urban’. I can’t see the
word ‘development’ or immediately spot
any obvious synonyms so I read in more
detail to see how the statement might have
been paraphrased.

I identify the second sentence as

containing the information I’m looking for.

Adaptation to the motor car has involved

adding ring roads, one-way systems and
parking lots.

This clearly refers to situations where cars

have influenced, or ‘impacted’,
development in cities. The final statement
match is, therefore, 19 D.

Answers

14 C

15 F

16 E

17 H

18 A

19 D

IELTS Reading – How To Answer …

Want to watch the video of this page? Click

here.

I hope you’ve found these extra notes

helpful. If you work through the strategy
step by step, using any little clue you can
find as to the correct statement and
paragraph matches, you have every
reason to do well in this type of IELTS
Reading question.

The most important thing to do is to

practice. This is the only way to develop
your skills and get quicker at answering
matching information questions.

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Lessons On All Question

Types

1) Matching Headings 7)
Summary Completion

2) Multiple Choice 8)
Matching Sentence Endings

3) Short Answer
9) Sentence Completion

4) Name Matching 10)

Matching Paragraph Information

5) True/False/Not Given 11)

Table Completion

6) Yes/No/Not Given 12)

Diagram Labelling

For more sample questions with step-by-

step instructions, see the IELTS
Reading menu page.

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