Which question types should I do first in the Reading test?
Time management is an essential skill for the Reading test, and choosing to complete different question types based on how easy it is to find the answers in a passage saves you some time when looking for answers. Your choices depend on which question types are the easiest to locate in the reading passage and which answers can be found quickly while reading closely.
Completing a set of questions makes you more familiar with the information contained in the passage. It is then a bit easier to find the location of answers to the more difficult questions because you have narrowed down the unfamiliar places in the text where the remaining answers could be.
Here are some general guidelines for deciding which questions to answer first.
1. The matching headings task should always be done first. By doing this, you will get the general meaning of the passage as a whole. This will not only help you find the answers to this question type by matching the headings to the paragraphs in the text, but it will also help you to locate the answers to the other questions because you will be more familiar with the ideas contained in each paragraph.
2. Answers to question types which are located in a particular section of the passage are easier to locate than those that could be found anywhere in the text. The location of answers to summary completion, sentence completion, table completion, short answer, multiple choice and matching sentences questions can be found relatively quickly because they are contained in specific sections of the text and can be found quickly by scanning. The answers to these question types are also in order in the text, so it is not as time-consuming to read closely to find them once the location of the first answer has been determined.
3. Although the location of the answers to labelling a diagram and matching names questions can be found by scanning for key words such as names or diagram information, these answers are sometimes difficult to find because they are not in order in the text. Some readers find it confusing to jump back and forth in text to find answers.
4. True/ False/ Not Given and Yes/ No/ Not Given answers can be difficult to locate because they can appear throughout lengthy sections of the passage. It is also possible to spend a lot of time looking for an answer that is “Not Given” because the question statement does not actually appear in the text. However, these questions are in order in the text, so it is possible to narrow down the search for answers once the answer to the first question has been found.
5. Matching information questions can also be very difficult to locate because they can appear in any paragraph and are often not the main idea of the paragraph; instead, they are specific details that require a close reading of an entire paragraph. This question type should always be left until last.
