Matching information and matching features

What the exam asks

Matching information

Which paragraph contains the following information?

You get a set of statements (usually 4–7) and a passage with lettered paragraphs. For each statement, you choose the paragraph where that specific piece of information appears: an example, a reason, a description, a comparison, a suggestion, a reference to something.

• The statements are not in passage order.
• The instructions usually add NB You may use any letter more than once. Some paragraphs are then the answer twice, and others are not used at all.
• You are matching a detail, not the paragraph’s main idea. That is the key difference from matching headings.

Matching features

Match each statement with the correct researcher, A–E.

You match each statement to a feature: usually a person (researcher, writer, expert), sometimes a date, place, theory, product or category.

• The list of features usually follows the order in which they first appear in the passage. The statements do not.
• The same NB often applies: one person may be the answer twice, and another may not be used.
• The statements paraphrase claims. You must decide who says what, not just who is mentioned near a keyword.

General Training Section 1 often has short texts (adverts, notices) labelled A–D with the instruction For which ... is each of the following statements true? It is the same skill: find the text that meets the statement’s exact condition.

Core ideas

Name the information type before you scan

Each statement begins with a noun phrase that tells you what kind of information to find. Name it, predict the language that would express it, then scan.