This lesson is about how to answer sentence completion questions in the Reading section of the test.
What does this type of question look like?
Example:
Complete the following sentences with no more than two words from Reading Passage 1. Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.
- The 30 children were Coe’s ________.
- The seats of London’s competitors were filled with ________.
- The IOC was shown an example of London’s ________.
What do I have to write in the answer sheet?
You will write the exact words from the text which complete the sentences. The sentence beginnings have been paraphrased but the words you select to complete them must be exactly as written in the text. Be careful to spell correctly and write clearly. You will lose marks for misspelled words or if the examiner cannot read your writing.
For example, to answer question 1, above, the text tells us that ‘Sebastian Coe brought with him a secret weapon: 30 children.’ So the answer you must write in the answer sheet is ‘secret weapon’.
What am I being tested on?
This type of question tests your ability to locate details and specific information in the text.
How should I approach this question?
- Pay attention to the instructions in BLOCK CAPITALS. You may be asked to complete with one word, or two, or three, or a combination of words and numbers. If you write more words than are allowed you will lose the mark.
- Numbers can be written using figures or words: for example seven or 7.
- Hyphenated words count as single words. So in the phrase ‘middle-aged man’ there are only two words.
- You will find the information in the passage in the same order as the questions.
- Identify the key words in the sentence beginnings and think of possible synonyms. For example, in question 2 the word ‘competitors’ is used. The synonymous word that is used in the text is ‘rival’.
- Skim through the passage and scan for keywords or their synonyms. Once you have found them read very carefully, comparing the text with the sentence beginning.
- The completed sentences must be grammatically correct. This can help you to identify the correct answer. When reading the questions try to predict what part of speech the answer might be.
- For example, in question 1 the apostrophe tells you that answer is something belonging to Coe. The answer is most likely to be a noun, or a noun phrase.
This question type also appears in the Listening test. There is an practice listening test in this unit on the Open University which uses sentence completion questions.
Exercise
Now open the practice test and attempt questions 23 - 26