Tips and advice on how to do well on the True, False, Not Given questions of the IELTS reading exam. For more English tutorials, please visit: https://www.thelecturette.com

1. True, False, Not Given Questions
Reading: Tips & Strategy

2. Reading
• Content
• What are they?
• Examples
• Common problems
• What do ‘True’, ‘False’ and ‘Not
Given’ actually mean?
• Tips and advice
• Strategy

3. Reading
• What are they?
• The questions consist of factual statements
about which you have to decide whether
they are true or not, based on the text.
• Many students consider these questions to
be the most difficult ones on the test.

4. • Example
Reading

5. Reading
• Common Problems
• The ‘Not Given’ option is quite uncommon,
so many students don’t know what to look
for.
• Students may fail to understand what the
statement really means and therefore can’t
say whether it is true or false. Many focus
on the keywords instead of on the entire
statement.

6. Reading
• More Common
Problems
• Some students just identify keywords from
the statement and then look for these in the
text without considering synonyms.
• Some students fail to understand what
True, False, and Not Given actually mean
and get confused.

7. Reading
• What do ‘True’, ‘False’
and ‘Not Given’ actually
mean?
• If the text confirms or agrees with the
information in the statement, the answer
is True.
• If the text contradicts the statement or
states the opposite, the answer is False.
• If there is no information, or it is
impossible to know, the answer is Not
Given.

8. Reading
• What do ‘True’, ‘False’
and ‘Not Given’ actually
mean?
• True means the same. If the statement is
just similar or nearly the same it is False. It
is all about factual information.
• Not Given does not mean there are no
keywords in the statement that match those
in the text.
• Exact matches between keywords in the
statement and the text often point to Not
Given answers and don’t supply enough
information for the question.

9. Reading
• Tips
• Base your answers on the text only. Ignore
what you already know about the subject.
• Pay extra attention to qualifying words like:
some, all, mainly, often, always, occasionally,
etc. They can change the meaning
completely.
• Watch out for qualifying statement like: claim,
believe, and know, etc. ‘The man claimed to
be Dutch,’ and ‘The man was Dutch,’ are two
different things.

10. Reading
• More Tips
• Don’t skim and scan to find the final answer.
Find the appropriate part of the text first and
then read it carefully to see what the author
really means.
• Don’t look for words in the text that exactly
match those in the statements. Look for
synonyms instead. Match meaning instead of
words.
• If you cannot find the information you are
looking for, the answer is probably Not Given.

11. Reading
• Even More Tips
• If you have no idea what the answer could be,
choose Not Given. It is likely that the answer is
not there.
• The answers are in the same order as they
appear in the text.
• Yes/No/Not Given questions deal with opinion.
True/False/Not Given questions deal with facts.

12. Reading
• Strategy
• Read the instructions carefully to check
whether you are answering True/False/Not
Given or Yes/No/Not Given questions.
• Focus on understanding the whole sentence
instead of focussing on just the keywords.
Watch out for qualifying words like sometimes,
usually, always, etc.
• To help you find the matching part of the text,
try to think of possible synonyms.

13. Reading
• More Strategy
• Match the statement with the correct part
of the text first.
• Reread the statement and the selected
part of the text to establish wether the
statement is True or False. Remember
that for the statement to be true it needs to
be an exact match.

14. Reading
• Even More Strategy
• To help you focus, underline the words in
the text that give you the answer. Be sure
to check for qualifying words in the text.
• If you are really unsure or cannot find the
answer, mark the question as Not given
and move on to the next one.