How to Attempt Writing Short Answer Questions in IELTS Reading

Short Answer questions are also known as Comprehension questions. These types of questions are found to be most common in English examinations around the world. Students find these IELTS questions to be extremely easy. All one is required to do is to read through the paragraph or the comprehension and answer the questions in two to three words. Thus, people are often found to be rushing through these questions. However, one is required to be careful in answering these and not lose marks on silly mistakes.

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Skills Tested

Some of the skills that are tested through the IELTS reading short answer questions are;

• Skimming through the passage: A candidate should be able to skim through a passage quickly and understand the general or the overall meaning of the passage to answer the short answer questions. This tests the candidate’s ability to identify the key information provided in the passage in the first reading of the same.
• Identifying the keywords: It is essential to identify the keywords used in the passage that gives away the key information. Identification of the keywords makes it easy to understand the passage quickly and scan through it for the answers.
• Understanding the question: In order to answer the questions in two to three words it is essential that one understand the question properly. By understanding the answer the questions demands, it becomes easy to answer them precisely.
• Possible synonyms and paraphrases: Identification of the keywords would also help a candidate to think of the possible synonyms and paraphrases for the keywords.

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Common Mistakes

Some of the common mistakes that are made by the candidates while answering the short answer questions are:

• Synonyms and Paraphrases: Not knowing the synonyms and paraphrases can lead the candidates to lose valuable time and marks during the exams. Often the students read a word within the question and try to look for an answer in the passage with the same word. This not only leads to wastage of time but can also cause the candidate to panic and end up with wrong answers.
• Not understanding the meaning of a word can also lead to panic. Hence, it is essential to regularly build upon vocabulary to avoid such situations.
• Word Limit: Inability to identify the keywords and the overall theme of the passage can also lead the candidates to write verbose answers for these types of questions. Elaboration of the answers often exceed the prescribed word limit causing the students to lose marks. Some of the students also write answers in full sentences to make grammatical sense. It is important to understand that the objective is to write short answers which do not necessarily have to be grammatically correct.

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Key Tips and Strategies

Below we have mentioned some of the key tips and strategies that could help a candidate to answer these types of questions with ease.

Strategies

A step by step strategy can help tackle these type of questions;

1. Read the instructions provided in the section carefully and take a note of the prescribed word limit.
2. Note down the keyword used in the question. Understand the information that the question demands.
3. Think about all the possible synonyms and paraphrases of the keyword found in the question.
4. Skim through the passage carefully to find the segment where the keyword can be found.
5. Understand the information that the passage is trying to give, match it with the information that the question demands and write the answer being extremely careful about the prescribed word limit.
6. Repeat the steps for other questions.

Key Tips

Some of the key tips that can be beneficial while answering these questions are:

• Skim through the passage first to understand the main idea of the passage.
• Read the questions next and note down carefully what it asks for. This would help the candidate to relate the information demanded by the question to the passage read before.
• Usually the answers of these questions are to be found in order of the paragraphs of the passage. Thus, once you know the paragraph of the first question you know where the answer for the next question can be found.
• Be extremely careful of the word limit. Exceeding the word limit would lead to losing marks in the exam.
• Use as far as possible the exact words from the text. Make changes only if required to make grammatical sense.
• Look for the keywords in the questions and think of all the synonyms and paraphrases to find the answer from the passage.

Types of Questions

Some of the common types of short answer questions that are found in such examinations are;

• Sentence Completion
• Summary, note, table, flow chart completion
• Diagram label completion
• Multiple Choice
• Matching information
• Matching headings
• Matching sentence endings
• True, false, not given

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Sample Question

The Endangered African Rhino

The rhinoceros is Africa’s armoured giant – like a tank on legs – and has been on our planet for millions of years. But right now they need our help. Poaching of rhinos for their horns and habitat loss are huge threats to both white and black rhinos.

White rhinos (the name doesn’t come from their colour but originally a reference to their ‘wide’ mouths) have had mixed fortunes. Sadly there are no ‘northern’ white rhinos left in the wild, and only a handful in captivity. But the ‘southern’ white rhino is a conservation success story – it’s been helped back from under 100 in 1895 to over 20,000 in the wild today.

For the black rhino (slightly smaller, with a more pointed top lip) the worst period was between 1970 and 1992, when around 96% of them were lost to wide-scale poaching. Only 5,000 are left in the wild today.

Poaching of rhinos for rhino horn is still a huge threat, and the poachers have got increasingly better equipped. To ensure that these incredibly precious creatures survive, more action needs to be taken against this Illegal wildlife trade.

Questions

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the text for each answer.

1. What are African rhinoceros compared to? (tank on legs)
2. Which type of rhino fell in number to below a hundred? (Southern White Rhino)
3. What percentage of black rhinos had been illegally killed by 1992? (96%)
4. How have the criminals improved their success? (Better equipped)