During the IELTS academic reading task, your reading comprehension skills will be assessed based on how you answer different types of questions related to 3 reading passages. Each of these passages is around 700 to 800 words long. These questions range from fill in the blanks, MCQs to the more difficult types of questions like matching headings or true, false not given questions. True, false not given questions can be very tricky. In this article, you learn the steps about this reading question type as well as the steps needed to solve this type of question.
What Is The True, False Not Given Question?
This is a question type which asks you to decide if certain statements agree with the text or not (true/ false) or if they are not mentioned in the text at all (not given). The answers appear in the same order as the text and there will be at least one of each answer type.
What Does “True, False And Not Given” Actually Mean?
True- means that the statement is a fact that is clearly mentioned in the passage even if it is paraphrased.
False – Information found in the text contradicts the question statement.
Not Given refers to information/ opinions that may have only been partially mentioned or not mentioned at all.
Students often fail to answer correctly for two main reasons. Firstly, they might use their own personal opinion to answer. We might know that a certain statement is correct but if it is not mentioned within the passage, it must be considered as not given. It is also important to not waste time searching for correct statements as that information might simply be not given in the passage as well.
How Can You Solve A True False Not Given Questions?
- Skim through the passage to get a general understanding of the main ideas.
- Underline keywords within the passage, especially those keywords which are unique or difficult to paraphrase (names, places, numbers etc.). These will act as guides to find the relevant location in the text.
- Underline the keywords in the question statements. Try to think about synonyms for these keywords, as they will not always be mentioned in the exact same way within the text.
- Match your keywords to a spot in the passage.
- Read that particular part of the text to see if the statement is within the text or if it is contradicted.
True, False, Not Given Practice Question
Let’s look at the following example to illustrate the above mentioned points:
| Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet, write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information. FALSE if the statement contradicts the information. NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this. 38 Both businesses and people aim at order without really considering its value. 39 Innovation is most successful if the people involved have distinct roles. 40 Google was inspired to adopt flexibility by the success of General Electric. |
Q39 Corresponds to the following paragraph.
39 Innovation is most successful if the people involved have distinct roles.
| F
In fact, research shows that, when innovating, the best approach is to create an environment devoid of structure and hierarchy and enable everyone involved to engage as one organic group. These environments can lead to new solutions that, under conventionally structured environments (filled with bottlenecks in term of information flow, power structures, rules, and routines) would never be reached. |
We can clearly see that the passage talks about workers working together as a unified group, is the best approach rather working in a hierarchal setup, therefore the statement is false.