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IELTS Reading Multiple Choice

Objective: IELTS reading multiple choice and skimming and scanning practice.

You won't have time in the reading test to carefully read the whole passage all of the way through, so you need to find the answers in the text quickly.

This lesson shows you how skimming and scanning can help with this in relation to answering multiple choice types questions.

Underline / highlight key words

Before you start any reading pasage, you should firstly take a look at the question stems to get an idea of what you may need to look out for.

Below is an example of one of the IELTS reading multiple choice questions you'll be looking at in this practice reading:

4. James Fox believes that the improvement in crime figures could

      (a) make us complacent in the fight against crime.
      (b) result in an increase in teenage violence.
      (c) result in a decrease in teenage violence.

If you look at the question stem, you will see that a name is mentioned: James Fox, and if you look at all the questions below, you'll see other names mentioned e.g. John J. DiIulio, Michael Tonry.

So this immediately tells you it is a good idea to underline 'names' as you read the text. You will then be able to quickly scan the text later to find where the answers are.

The things to underline when you read the text are often nouns like names, dates, numbers or any other key words that stand out as a key topic of that paragraph.

Order of Answers in the Text

This type of question follows the order of the text. So when you have found one answer, you know that the next one will be below, and probably not too far away.

So as noted above - when you start looking at the questions, you should underline key words in the question stem to help you find the answers in the text.

4. James Fox believes that the improvement in crime figures could

      (a) make us complacent in the fight against crime.
      (b) result in an increase in teenage violence.
      (c) result in a decrease in teenage violence.

In the computer based test, you have a highlight function so you can highlight words in yellow.

Reading in detail

When you read the text for the first time, you should focus on the topic sentences, and skim the rest of the paragraph.

But once you start answering the IELTS reading multiple choice questions and you have found where the answer is, you will need to read the text in detail in order to identify the correct choice.

IELTS READING TIP:

Do not think that just because you have found some words in the multiple choices (a, b or c) that match the words in the text that this must be the right answer.

It's usually not that simple so you must read the section where you think the answer is carefully.

IELTS Reading Multiple Choice - Practice

Now answer the questions for this reading. The words that are useful to underline have already been highlighted in bold so you can see which are the best to highlight.

Scan the reading to find those words in bold then answer the question.

IELTS Reading Multiple Choice Questions

1. Young children are making criminologists nervous because
(a) they are committing too much crime.
(b) they are impulsive and immature.
(c) they may grow up to be criminals.

2. The general crime rate in the US is

(a)increasing
(b)decreasing
(c)not changing

3. The age group which commits the highest rate of crime is

(a)14 - 17.
(b)18 - 24.
(c)24 +.

4. James Fox believes that the improvement in crime figures could

(a)make us complacent in the fight against crime.
(b)result in an increase in teenage violence.
(c)result in a decrease in teenage violence.

5. According to paragraph 3, the government

(a)is doing everything it can to solve the problem.
(b)is not interested in solving the problem.
(c)is not doing enough to solve the problem.

6. In comparison with James Fox, Michael Tonry is

(a)more pessimistic.
(b)less pessimistic.
(c)equally pessimistic.

7. Jonathan Kozol believes that

(a)there is no solution to the problem.
(b)employment and education are not the answer.
(c)employment and education can improve the situation.

8. Professor DiIulio thinks that spending on social programs

(a) should continue as it is
(b)should be decreased.
(c)is irrelevant to crime rates.

Score =
IELTS Reading Multiple Choice - Correct answers:


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Step-by-step Training Video:
Multiple Choice

If you want more practice with IELTS Reading Multiple Choice Questions then check out this training video which guides you through a reading text and gives you tips on how to find the answers:

< Sentence Completion

Guessing Meaning >

IELTS Reading Lessons:


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