Question types in the Academic Reading test

The Academic Reading test includes three long texts which range from descriptive and factual to discursive and analytical. The texts are authentic and are taken from books, journals, magazines and newspapers. These have been selected for a non-specialist audience but are appropriate for people entering university courses or seeking professional registration. 

In this question type, you are required to complete labels on a diagram, which relates to a description contained in the text. The instructions will make it clear how many words or numbers you should use in your answers, e.g. ‘NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage’, ‘ONE WORD ONLY’ or ‘NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS’. If you write more than the number of words asked for, you will lose the mark. Numbers can be written using figures or words. Hyphenated words count as single words. The answers do not necessarily occur in order in the passage. However, they will usually come from one section rather than the entire text. 

The diagram may show some type of machine, or of parts of a building or of any other element that can be represented pictorially. This task type is often used with texts describing processes or with descriptive texts. 

Diagram label completion assesses your ability to understand a detailed description, and to relate it to information presented in the form of a diagram. 

In this question type, where you have to identify a writer’s view or claim, you will be given a number of statements and asked: ‘Do the following statements agree with the views/claims of the writer?’. You will then select ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Not given’. 

It is important to understand the difference between 'No' and 'Not given'. 'No' means that the views or claims of the writer explicitly disagree with the statement, i.e. the writer expresses the view or makes a claim which is opposite to the one given in the question; 'Not given' means that the view or claim is neither confirmed nor contradicted. 

Be careful when deciding on your answer that you are not influenced by your own knowledge on the topic area. 

This question type assesses your ability to recognise opinions or ideas, and so it is often used with discursive or argumentative texts. 

When you have to identify information, you will be given a number of statements and asked: “Do the following statements agree with the information in the text?”. When you answer the questions, you write “True”, “False” or “Not given” in the answer boxes. 

It is important to understand the difference between “False” and “Not given”. “False” means the passage states the opposite of the statement in question. “Not given” means that the statement is neither confirmed nor contradicted by the information in the passage.

You are required to match a set of statements or pieces of information to a list of options. The options are presented as a group of features from the text with each one identified by letters. For example, you may be required to match different research findings to a list of researchers, or characteristics to age groups, events to historical periods, etc. It is possible that some options will not be used, and that others may be used more than once. The instructions will tell you if you can use the options more than once.  

Matching features will assess your ability to recognise relationships and connections between facts in the text and your ability to recognise opinions and theories. It may be used both with factual information, as well as opinion-based discursive texts. You will need to be able to skim and scan the text in order to locate the required information and then to read for detail to match the correct feature.