 Hi everyone Chris here again with a lesson on matching headings. So I'd say true false not given is the one that students worry about the most and then a close second is probably matching headings. Now as you probably know I don't teach any tips or tricks or anything like that but I'm going to show you a very very powerful, I wouldn't call it a trick I'd call it a very effective method for getting matching headings correct or nearly all of them correct and I'm going to share this with you today and I'm going to show you live how to actually do this so I'm going to look at a real question and I'm going to show you how I would do this technique and how we're going to do it. So this type of question tests your ability to understand the main idea of each paragraph so it's always important to understand what they are testing. Each of the different types of question tests a different sub skill. One of the sub skills that they're testing is your ability to look quickly at a paragraph and understand the main idea, the key idea in that. Headings are short sentences that summarize the information in a paragraph. You have to pick the one that best summarizes the information in a paragraph. When you look at the real question you'll understand what this means. You'll be given between five and seven headings and asked to match each paragraph in the reading text to one heading. There are always more headings than paragraphs so this is one of the things that they're testing also is can you tell the difference between the headings so it's really testing your ability to understand meaning. So what skills are tested? Understanding the main idea of each paragraph but not only that they're also testing how to quickly understand the general meaning of the paragraph without reading every word. Now a quick bit of information on skimming. Skimming does not mean reading something really really really quickly. It means strategically looking at certain parts of the paragraph so that you can understand the general meaning. We'll look at this. It's easy to say this but it's more difficult for you guys to understand what it actually means without me showing you a real question. So if you don't understand what that means don't worry we'll look at a real question in a second. And how to differentiate between two or more similar headings. In other words how to differentiate between different meanings. Okay so you might get two headings that are very similar and that what they really want you to do is understand what each means and be able to determine which one matches with the paragraph. So let's look at some common problems. Lots of information to process and not enough time. I'm going to show you some ways to cope with that. Many students panic when they see these questions and they get overwhelmed with the amount of information that they see. So we'll look at a technique that will help you with that. Not understanding the statements as a whole. Many people look for keywords. Alright this comes down to bad teaching. Alright simply bad teaching. Many teachers say to their students if you skim and scan and look at keywords you'll get you'll get high marks. It's a lot more complicated than that. It's not complicated as in really really really difficult. As always IELTS is over complicated by poor teaching and misunderstanding of what these questions are and what they're not. Some of the headings may appear to have the same meaning. Students do not spend enough time reading the statements. So the actual headings you need to spend time actually understanding what these mean. And these will make everything much much easier. We'll look at that in a second. Not understanding the main idea of each paragraph in the text. Obviously the main thing that they are testing is do you understand the general meaning, the main idea. If you don't know that you won't be able to get the questions correct. So here's some general advice before we look at the actual questions. Do this question first. I don't mean look for this question and do this first but I mean if this is in part two or part three of the of the reading test. And you have you know let's say you have a multiple choice true false not given a matching headings all in the same part. Do the matching headings one first. Because by doing this you'll be able to get the general meaning of the text as a whole. And this will help you with the rest of the question which requires you to take a more detailed look at the text. So this is not really about detail. And the way to understand a text is to generally quickly look at it first, then go into more detail. It's where it's a lot more difficult to look at the detail first, and then the general meaning. So if you do see this question do it first because it's much easier to do it that way. You're not expected to read every word of the text. However, that doesn't mean that you should skim really really really quickly. Okay, so that there's a balance here is a balance between not reading every single word. And what some students do is just read the first sentence, or just read the first sentence and the last sentence is not really about that. Read the first one or two sentences and the last sentence of the paragraph. You can also briefly look at the rest of the paragraph, but you don't have to read every word. Alright, so it's not just about reading the first sentence and the last sentence. That's not what it is. Might be reading the first sentence and the second sentence, maybe even the third sentence, and the last sentence. But also, you might need to read in between quickly. Don't listen to people who tell you very, very strict rules about what you can and can't do. You want to give yourself flexibility. Why do you want to be flexible? Because the questions will be different, the text will be different. So you need to have that flexibility. If there are words you don't understand, don't worry about this. Again, you should only worry about the general meaning of the paragraph as a whole, not individual words. I've worked with some students and they see this type of question. And they see one word they don't understand. They're like, Oh, I don't know. I don't know anything about this paragraph. It's like, you don't need to understand every single word in a paragraph to understand the general meaning. If there are two or three headings that are similar, write them beside each other, beside the paragraph, and try to find out the difference if you have time to do that. If you still can't decide which one suits best, move on and come back later. Okay, so this is a detailed strategy for matching headings. And then we'll talk about how to simplify this a bit. So let's get into the detail first. Because I don't want anyone to miss out anything. And then we'll get into a more detailed strategy or simpler strategy. Sorry. If this type of question is on the test, do it first. Don't look at the headings. Don't look at the headings first. Look at the text first. Read the first one or two sentences in the last sentence of each paragraph to understand the general meaning of the paragraph. Don't worry about highlighting keywords. Try to sum up the general meaning of each paragraph in one or two words. That is the key. Okay, try to sum up the general meaning of each paragraph in one or two words. It might not be one word, it might not be two words, it might be three or four words, but just try and add your own heading to each paragraph. And I'm going to do this for you so it'll make more sense when I show you this to you. Look at the headings and identify key words within each heading. Match any headings that are very obvious and you're sure about. For the others, write two or three headings beside the paragraph. Identify the difference between each of the headings. Establish if there are any synonyms if the paragraph. If you still can't pick one, move on. The answer will often reveal itself later. Repeat until finished. So if I could summarize this in a very simple, easy to understand way it would be. Create headings for each of the paragraphs. So look at the paragraphs first. Create headings for them. Match these to the list of headings. It's keeping it very, very simple. And what I'd like to do is I like to give people a detailed strategy first. If it's a little bit complicated, just do this. Okay, let's look at some real questions. Okay, so here we have matching headings question. So first thing is do not look at these. Okay, don't look at the list of headings. Do not read them. They'll confuse you. Do not read them. Read this carefully. Questions one to five. Sample page passage six has six sections A to F. Okay, choose the correct heading for sections A to D and F from the list of headings below. So this is very important. What does this tell you? A, B, C, D, E, F, E is missing. Okay, they're not trying to trick you. They're actually trying to help you. So if you look down below here, what they've done is they've given you the answer for E already. Okay, so E is six. So what you can do is you can just remove this one. Immediately, you could stroke that one out because that's already been done for you. Okay, so you need to get section A, B, C, D, and F. And that means that E, you can delete that. Okay, because it's already been done for you. So that's going to save you time. And it's also going to save you thinking about it. Okay, so let's read this again. Write the correct number one to nine in the boxes. So we got our options here. So don't read these. Okay, so now what we need to do is we need to read these. Okay, so how are we going to read these? And what are we doing? So what we're doing is we're creating our own headings. All right, and there are a number of ways that we can do this. And some people say read the first two sentences. Some people say read the first sentence. And the last sentence. Some people say, quickly read everything. And what I would say is give yourself flexibility. What I would say is read enough to understand the main idea. Remember, we're looking for the main idea. That could mean the first sentence, the second sentence allows it could mean you have to read everything. And give yourself that flexibility. But what we're doing is we're trying to come up with our own heading. Okay, so we're reading this and trying to create our own heading. And then when we have like our own headings, what we can do then is go up here and see if they match anything here. But you do not want to read these list of headings. Because what they'll do is they will influence you. And they will mean that you are really not creating your own headings. It means that you're really just copying headings. And that's going to lead to disaster. Do not do that. So why do we create our own headings? We create our own headings because it's impossible to create your own heading without fully understanding the main idea of the section of the paragraph. So it means you need to read it enough. And then once you've done that, it's very easy to match them with this. Okay, so one other thing that I would like to say is topic sentences. What are topic sentences? Topic sentences are, as you should know from the writing course, a way of making it clear to the reader what the paragraph is about. In other words, what is the main idea? So what are we looking for? The main idea. Where should that be in the topic sentence? So the most important sentence is normally, normally, not always, normally the topic sentence, which is the first sentence. Okay, so what I would do is read the topic sentence. Okay, the role of the role of governments in environmental management is difficult, but inescapable. Okay, so probably this it's about this. Okay, but let's have a quick read through it. Sometimes the steer tries to man. Okay, so government, so it's still about government. Quickly, range policies, growth and actually politicians, politicians, government have the courage to go around the best. Okay, so I'm going to say this is government policy, government environmental policy. That is my heading. Okay, so I'm not going to go back up. I'm not going to check it. Okay, I'm just going to keep going. Alright, so let's read the topic sentence. No activity affects more of the Earth's surface than farming. Okay, so it's probably about farming. It shapes a third of the planet's land area, not counting on Antarctica on the proportion is rising. Higher yields have been achieved by increased irrigation yields and doubling and the use of pesticides. Okay, so it's I want to quickly read this. So this is really about growth, farming food. I put looking at all this, it's all kind of about that. Okay, so that's going to be and you see that I'm not getting into too much detail. I'm just moving on pretty quickly. Okay, so this is a longer one. So with the longer ones, reading the first sentence in the last sentence is probably not going to be enough. You're probably going to look have to look a little bit more. Okay, all these activities have damaging environmental impacts. Okay, so I'm going to bet that because this topic sentence is very clear. This is going to be about environmental impacts. Okay, these activities, what are what activities food growing food growing farm. So I say farming activities, agricultural activities, environmental impact of those. So then you can see what they do here is they started off with for example. So from the writing course, you should understand that what what is an example they're supporting their main idea. So this should just be more examples of environmental impacts. Okay, so let's see if it is land clearing, chemical fertilizer, intensive farming, soil erosion. Okay, so what this is is environmental impact of farming. Why why am I so quick to do that? Because they told you what it was in the topic sentence. And then they just gave you lots and lots and lots of examples. So by guy scanning, you're talking about land clearance fertilizers, all of these different things soil erosion, it's all just environmental impacts is talking about the same thing over and over and over and over again. So let's move on. Government policies have frequently compounded the environmental damage that farming can cause. So it's by government policies. So this is a really long one in rich country subsidies for growing crops and price support for my put subsidies subsidies, talking about subsidies, subsidies, subsidies. So it's mentioning. So subsidies, if you don't know what that is, a subsidy is when the government pays someone to do something. And so for example, paying a farmer to use if you use fertilizer will give you money. Or if you grow corn will give you money. But if you grow bananas, we won't give you money. So it's it's government support for farmers basically. And so it's talking about government policies. So subsidies are an example of a of a of a government policy. So I'm going to say because it mentions subsidies so many times, I'm going to say this one is about subsidies. So that's my one. We can delete e. Okay, let's move on. A result of the result of the Uruguay round of World Trade negotiations is likely to be a reduction of 36% in the average levels of farm subsidies. Okay, so a result. So it's a consequence of these World Trade Organized negotiations. So what are they? What does the topic sentence say? The topic sentence is saying the writer of this is saying, now I want to talk about the consequences, the results of World Trade organizations, and these what that this is what they are. So did they continue to talk about them? Results? Yes, talking about what they are going into detail going into explanation. It will mean results. It will mean this. Farmers need every incentive to do. Okay, not really related, but I'm going to say result of World Trade negotiations. Okay, so just bear in mind that I could do this. I can do this and you can do this much, much, much, much quicker than I'm doing this right now. It's because I'm really, I'm really talking through everything. But don't worry if it seems like it's taking a longer time. No, just a word of warning. This is a very, very, very effective technique. It really does help. However, it does not work 100% at the time for 100% of the answers. Most of the time, most of the answers, you'll be able to match them pretty quickly. But there will be times when something just doesn't match up and you need to come back and have a look. Okay, so don't get frustrated if this doesn't work for you 100% of the time. There is no 100% foolproof way of doing these. This is giving you the best possible chance. But don't worry too much about it. Also, do not create a heading and then look for the exact words in the heading in the thing. It won't match exactly. You have to think of synonyms, you have to think of different slightly different meanings, keep an open mind. Okay. So first one, government environmental policy. So what you'll do is come up here. Now, you need to read these and understand them. Okay, so you need to take the time to read these and understand them. The probable effects of the new International Trade Agreement. Okay, I understand that. The environmental impact of modern farming. I understand that farming and soil erosion. I understand that the effects of government policy in rich countries. Okay, government and management of the environment. Okay, farming and food output. Okay, the effects of government policy on food output, the new prospect of World Trade. Okay, fine. So government environmental policy. No, no, no. Okay, this one's quite specific. It's about rich countries. No, governments and management of the environment. Maybe. So we'll put a, I can't put a tick. So let's put a Y for, or let's put an M for maybe farming and food output. No, the effects of government policy and food output. Let's have a look. No, the new prospects of World Trade. No, so the only one that it really matches is this one. So Section A, I'm going to say is five. So remember, we're on the clock. Okay, we need, we need to get going. And what I would do also is I would remove this one. Because it doesn't match my heading exactly. Government environmental policy, governments and management of the environment, management environment, government policy, it's kind of the same thing. And none of the, none of the rest of them match up. So what I'll do is just bang, remove that. And oh, but in case we get it wrong. And so let's just put X here. So we've removed these two. And so I don't look silly. All right. So B, growth of farming and growth of farming and food output. So to make it easy. So we don't have to go scrolling up and down for the purposes of this lesson. I'll move this up here. Okay, growth of farming. No, maybe no, no, farming, farming food, output, nearly exactly the same. Maybe the effects of government policy growth on food output, maybe the new prospects of world trade. No. So what we've done now is we've got two that are very, very similar meaning. Okay, very similar meaning, farming and food output, the effects of government policy on food output. So the differentiating the difference between is this is the effect of government policy. Okay, so what we need to do now is we need to go back to B and see if it says anything about this, if it says anything about this, then it is eight. If it doesn't, then it is seven. Okay, so it says nothing about government policy, nothing. Okay, so if we go up here, it is seven, I think, let's hope. Okay, so see environmental impacts of farming, probable effects, new trade agreement, no environmental impact of farming, environmental impact of farming, probably. Why did that? Why did that happen? Oh, you know, okay, maybe we can move this here. That's better. Okay, farming and soil erosion. No, no, no, no. This is what it is. Okay, boom, boom. Let's move on. So you can see it becomes much easier. Sorry. This is the first time I've used Adobe Acrobat where you can change a PDF. And I'm obviously not very familiar with it, but forgive me. Okay, D. What was D? Very long one. Subsidies. So subsidies, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, so this is one that just doesn't match up. Okay, so what we need to do is we need to go back. And we need to have another look. But another little bit of advice, if you got one like that, okay, so you thought you were really sure that it was subsidies, I was really sure that it was subsidies, it's just not here. What can happen is you can go in here and get lost and all of this information and panic and be like, oh, it's not subsidies. What is it? What is it? What is it? Okay, don't panic. What I would do is just mark that as, you know, put something to indicate that you haven't answered it yet. So let's put question mark and try and find F because F might be an easy one. And that means that you've knocked out another another option, making it much easier for yourself. Okay, so let's skip that one. Let's go to F because I also noticed that there's ones that are talking about trade negotiations. So this might be an easy one to do. Result of World Trade Negotiations. World Trade Agreement negotiations, very similar. No, no, no new prospects for World Trade. Okay, so we've got two that are very similar, the probable effects of the new International Trade Agreement, the new prospects for World Trade. So what we need to do is we need to look at each of these and look at the difference between them. Okay, so this one is about effects. Okay, so effects, results, consequences, things like that. This is about prospects. All right, future. What's it going to be like in the future? And guesses speculating. International Trade Agreement. World Trade. So two different things. International Trade Agreement is an agreement. It's a document. It's a contract between countries. World Trade is just general trade between countries. So let's have a look. Result, World Trade Negotiations. Let's have a look at the topic sentence. Result, World Trade Negotiations, effects. Okay, result, effects, synonyms. Boom, it's this one. Okay, so this in as well, where did that go? This in as one. And then we go back to delete this one. So you obviously won't be able to delete this in the real test, but you can, you know, some sort of mark to to you could you could delete it, don't delete it completely, as you might make a mistake and you need to read it later. So this means that we're left with four things. Farming and soil erosion, effects of government policy in rich countries, the effects of government policy on food output, the new prospects for World Trade. So let's have a look to see, let's have a look at the topic sentence. Okay, so why did we choose subsidies? Because it says subsidies, subsidies, subsidies, subsidies, subsidies, all these different things. Okay. So let's have a look at the topic. Government policies are frequently compounded the environmental damage that farming can cause. So government policies affect on the environment. So it's nothing to do with soil erosion. Delete that one. It's not talking about new prospects for World Trade. Delete that one. The effects of government policy in rich countries, the effects of government policy on food output, rich countries. Okay, so what? Talking about government policies. And then talking about rich countries. Okay, so this is a topic sentence. And then this is modifying the topic sentence and said, okay, we're talking about government policies. This is what the whole, the whole next three paragraphs are going to be about. But I'm only going to talk about rich countries. So let's see rich countries, Denmark, rich country, New Zealand, rich country, European Union, rich country. Okay, so it's not subsidies. It is hopefully for rich countries. Why is it not effects of government policy and food output? Let's just double check that. This is not really talking about food output. Okay, so we're pretty certain it is what we say it is. Okay, so now let's look at the so the answers to see if I'm correct. And hopefully I don't have to make this video again, because if I'm wrong, I'll do it all again. Or we might be able to learn some lessons if I'm wrong. And okay, a five. Let's see. Yay. B seven. Yay. C two. Yes, or yeah, three to yeah. For a D four, four, and five one. Yes, thank I don't have to I can go home early. I don't have to make this video again. Okay, so what did we learn from doing that? And we learned that a, this method of creating your own creating your own headings is very effective. However, it is not foolproof. There will be times like my subsidies thing. And that wasn't a mistake, by the way, that wasn't a evidence that this this doesn't work. This is just evidence that sometimes you need to look a little bit harder. Also, what we learned was sometimes you will get two things that are look very, very similar. But you just keep calm, look at the difference between the two, look at the paragraph. And normally you'll be able to tell that we also looked at the importance of topic sentences. But also, sometimes it might modify things it might be a modifier after there. I hope that helped and made it and as simple as possible. It's not easy. But they are simple. If you just follow the simple procedures in this video, and hope you enjoyed it. And let me know if you have any questions. So what I'd like you to do is, you know, if you do have any questions, let me know if there's anything that's still confusing. And I think the best thing to do is get some practice questions of your own, try and do them, start off slowly, and build up your speed. And things will come much, much easier for you. Thanks very much. Bye bye.