From my perspective, matching is always the most challenging question type and it takes considerable time to complete. In matching sentence endings questions, you will get a series of incomplete sentences and what you should do is matching them their correct endings using information from the text. Normally, there will be 5 or 6 sentences and 8 to 10 different endings. In this blog, I will show you the features of this question type and strategy to tackle it. Besides, I will also give you an illustrative example for clearer understanding.
Features of matching sentence endings questions
Before giving you the approach to solving these questions, I will show you 5 characteristics of them that you should bear in mind.
- This question type is designed to test your understanding of the main idea in a text
- The questions are shown following the order of the text.
- The questions may test part of the whole text, not all of it
- The sentence endings look grammatically similar
- You will not use all of the endings
Effective solution for Matching sentence endings questions
Similar to matching heading questions, this type of question also tests your understanding of the main idea, so you should basically use the keyword technique. Moreover, you should remember to focus on the sentence beginnings, not the sentence endings. This is because not all the endings appear in the text and you will waste time if you concentrate on them. Hence, take sentence beginnings as the heart of these questions and start solving questions with them.
Prerequisite before solving:
– Passage skimming and keywords underlining
– Question skimming and keywords underlining
Now I will show you the strategy to defeat this kind of questions. I call this strategy within 3 simple words: “Finding – Matching – Checking” which stand for 3 steps in this approach.
Step 1: Finding the correct section of the text
The first thing you have to do is locating information. In the other words, you must determine which paragraph of the text and which part of the paragraph contains relevant information. To find the correct part of the text that the questions related to, you should use the keywords in the questions (sentence beginnings) and scan them in the text (reading passage). Focusing on proper names and dates is often a good approach
Step 2: Matching keywords and find the answer
Now, after finding the correct part, you should continue scanning to match the keywords in the text with the ones in the sentences endings. The answer will normally be found by looking for words in the text that have the same meaning (synonyms) as one of the sentence endings, rather than using exactly the same words.
Before moving to the last step, I would like to summarize the flow of keywords by a graphic.
Figure explanation:
We start with the keywords determined in sentence beginnings. I call them main keywords because they will help us find the part with relevant information by scanning them in the text. After finding the correct part, we continue by matching the supporting keywords (words that provide us with key details) in the text with ones in sentence endings. By doing this, we could find the correct endings for the sentence beginnings.
Step 3: Checking back with sentence beginnings
Once you found the endings, what you should do next is checking whether your choice is correct. To do this, you should join the sentence beginnings and endings together to form a complete sentence. After that you, let’s do a mental checklist with the following items.
- Meaning: You should check whether the meaning of your complete sentence matches what you find in the text. If not, you may fall into word trap of examiner.
- Grammar: Make sure that the sentence you make is grammatically accurate. It is a mistake if you simply try to match words only.
- Check every ending with every beginning: Examiners will attempt to trap you by leaving some endings that seem correct.So, be careful and remember to look at every ending for each question. I know this will take a little more time, but it will help you avoid mistakes.
Now, I will give you an example.
Illustrative example
Questions
Complete each sentence with the correct letter A-H
1. The tourism industry in the UK suffered financially
2. There was a ban on burials of animals in quicklime
A. because footpaths were closed due to the foot and mouth outbreak.
B. because it also affected animals that were not affected by the disease.
C. because a similar program had worked well in The Netherlands.
D. because of the adoption of European legislation in the UK.
E. because many abattoirs were closed
Reading passage
The foot and mouth crisis
(I) One of the worst crises in agriculture in the United Kingdom was caused by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001 caused a crisis in British agriculture. The depth of the crisis can be judged by the fact that there were no fewer than 2,000 cases of the disease and that over 10 million sheep and cattle were killed in the attempt to halt the disease. The disease primarily the countryside and took root in many regions with Cumbria the worst affected area of the country, with 843 cases. There was also a profound effect on tourism industry due to the closure of public rights of way across land so as to prevent the spread the disease. Estimates vary as to the overall cost of the crisis to the UK economy, but it is thought that the final figure was in the region of £8 billion
(II) The 2001 crisis, serious as it was, was by no means the first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom. It was, however, notable for the way it affected the whole country. The last outbreak in 1967 had been confined to a relatively small area and The Northumberland report issued by the government after that outbreak recommended that speed was of the essence in dealing with any future outbreak of the disease. Priority should be given to the speedy identification of infected animals and those animals should be slaughtered on the spot within 24 hours, with their carcasses buried in quicklime. These recommendations were no longer in effect by 2001, partly thanks to changes brought about by farming practice and the closure of many local abattoirs which meant that animals had to be transported greater distances. More particularly, Britain’s accession to the European Union had meant that by 1985 new European Union legislation was in effect in the UK. This amended the rules on the treatment of foot-and-mouth in a directive that required confirmation of any diagnosis by laboratory tests and prohibited farm burials and the use of quicklime.
– First, after skimming the topic heading, I will exclude all of these words out of my keyword list.
– Secondly, I do question skimming and underline keywords
Main keywords:
Q1: tourism, suffered, financially
Q2: ban, burials, quicklime
– After that, I will skim through the passage and highlight keywords
P(I):
Main keywords: effect, tourism, cost, £8 billion
Supporting keywords: due to, closure, way accross land, prevent, spread.
P(II):
Main keywords: prohibited, burials, quicklime
Supporting keywords: European Union legislation, in effect
– Now, I will do finding using the main keyword of questions (sentence beginnings) and reading passage. I found the word “tourism” in paragraph (I) and “cost”, “£8billion” may be equivalent to “suffered financially”. So I find the part with relevant information is “There was also a profound effect on tourism industry due to the closure of public rights of way across land so as to prevent the spread the disease. Estimates vary as to the overall cost of the crisis to the UK economy, but it is thought that the final figure was in the region of £8 billion”.
– Next, I will use supporting keywords in paragraph (I) to scan in sentence endings and I find only (A) have some synonym matches: due to = because, closure ~ closed, rights of way accross land ~ footpaths, outbreak ~ spread
Finally, I will check back with sentence beginnings. The complete sentence is “The tourism industry in the UK suffered financially because footpaths were closed due to the foot and mouth outbreak.“. I compare this with the sentence in the text “There was also a profound effect on tourism industry due to the closure of public rights of way across land so as to prevent the spread the disease.”.Do you think it makes sense? Yes, the meaning is the same since they all talk about the negative effect on tourism caused by the methods to prevent the spread of the disease.I also check grammar and found no error and no other endings.
Now, let’s do question 2 by yourselves following my strategy. I hope you could find the correct answer 🙂
What we have learned so far?
In today post, I have shown you:
- 5 characteristics of matching sentence endings questions
- “Finding-Matching-Checking” strategy with 3 prerequisites. Finding means you use main keywords in questions (sentence beginning) to find the correct part of the text. After that, you use supporting keywords in text and match them with ones in sentence endings. Remember that the words you find may not be exactly the same. Actually, they are synonyms. Finally, remember to check your choice with the mental checklist of meaning, grammar, and make sure all endings are looked at.
Thank you for reading my blog
For your information, the answer for the question 2 is D.
Self Study Materials 