The Strategy in Answering True or False and Not Given Questions in IELTS | Academic Reading

Identifying the writer's view or simply the true or false and not given question is probably the most difficult to answer in IELTS academic reading.

This type may ask whether the given statement agrees with the view or claim of the writer, or whether the statement agrees with the information in the text. The purposes of these question types are to determine the examinee's ability to identify opinions or ideas or to recognize particular points of information that a passage conveys. In this type, the candidate is usually confused on which answer to give.

What is the best approach to break this confusion?

One way is to find the keywords in the statement. These keywords will help you to identify the area in the passage that possibly contains the answer. Then, skim the passage and read the first statement carefully and thoroughly. Having done this, scan the passage again for the area that will confirm (true) or deny (false) the given statement.

In the case of not given, this would probably your answer if the information in the passage neither confirms not denies the statement.

This question type may be hard but there is one thing that you should be happy about. The areas in the passage that confirm or deny or neither of the two (not given) are in order in the passage.

So you will save much time because you don't need to return at the beginning to check each statement.