IELTS Reading Multiple Choice Questions

In both Academic as well as a General Training Test reading paper MCQs’ are likely to be asked. In IELTS MCQ you are supposed to choose the accurate answer from 3 or 4 proposed answers. This article deals with the useful information, objectives. Strategies, and the common problems that are met by aspirants while solving multiple choice questions.

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Useful Information about MCQs 

1. In these types of questions, the order is followed.
2. Questions here repeat keywords or their synonyms from the given text.

Some types of answers in the MCQs option provided-

Option 1: There’s an irrelevant option given that gives information that is not at all written or mentioned in the text.

Option 2: Answers which give exact opposite information.

Option 3: Correct answer

Option 4: The answer here does give information about the given text, but not what you are asked for.

The sequence changes, it's not always the same.

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Objective of MCQ in IELTS

1. To practice scanning techniques.
2. To get aware of the synonyms used in the questions.
3. To scan for specific information.
4. To understand and know the main idea about passages mentioned.
5. To use the detailed reading to differentiate between several possible answers.

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Strategies to Answer MCQs

1. Candidates are first of all supposed to go through the question paper and read the questions properly.
2. Then they are supposed to underline the keywords from the passage or text.
3. Then they are supposed to scan the passage and look for those words they have underlined.
4. The answers are to be found close to those words underlined.
5. There will be a lot of synonyms used in the passage for the same words, but the words in the IELTS MCQs may not be the same as mentioned in the text.
6. The answers for the questions will be in order in the text which is not the same as all other questions.

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7. Candidates are supposed to watch for distractions.
8. Candidates are not at all supposed to leave any blank answers.
9. Skim read the questions to just get the general meaning.
10. The options given will be confusing so the candidate’s job is to decide between similar answers. There are some tricks one can use to compare the words-

• To identify the distractors such as qualifying words which state different meanings.
• To paraphrase everything in their own words.
• To compare the synonyms and keywords between questions and them.

11. The time for sure will be against you. If by any chance the candidate gets stuck with any question, they are supposed to take an educated guess so that something can be written on the paper. If the candidate comes down to two possible answers, then they have a 50% chance of writing the correct one.

Common Problem Faced by Aspirants While Solving MCQs 

1. The candidates read the text before reading the questions which means they’re reading blind as they are not sure about what they are looking for. It also wastes time.
2. Not answering questions is also a problem which is faced by candidates a lot. This problem generally arises because they don’t read the questions and passages carefully.
3. Aspirants are being tricked by the examiner with ‘distractors.’ These look exactly like the correct answer but they’re not.
4. Generally, candidates do not read the entire sentence carefully which often leads to the assumption that the first part which they read might sound correct to them but the second part which they left might change the entire meaning. Examiners are well aware of the fact that candidates try to get the answers as soon as they can so they trick the students in this way.