HEADING SELECTION

Strategies to answer the questions

>Quickly read through the paragraph headings so you can see what they say.

>Then look at the first paragraph.

>Often only the topic sentence needs to be read carefully because the main idea
and answer are there - you may be able to just skim the rest.

>Sometimes, however, the answer is not in the topic sentence and the whole
paragraph needs to be read more carefully.

>If a match is not immediately obvious, move on to the next one.

>If you are unsure between two answers at first, put them both in. You may be
able to eliminate one answer later if it fits another paragraph better.

>If at the end you are still stuck between two answers for a question, pick which
fits best.

Tips and Solutions

Do this question first. By doing this you will be able to get the general meaning
of the text as a whole and this will help you with the rest of the question that
requires you to take a more detailed look at the text.

You are not expected to read every word of the text. This will take too long and
you don’t have time for this. In this kind of question you are only expected to
understand the main idea of each paragraph. A good way to do this is to read
the first one or two sentences and the last sentence of the paragraphs. You can
also briefly look at the rest of the paragraph but you don’t have to read every
word.

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. Even native speakers will fail to understand every word in the
IELTS reading test.
Be aware of synonyms. Many students look for words that match exactly with
words in the text and ignore synonyms. For example, a keyword in the heading
might be ‘Beautiful’, however the word you’re looking for could be many
different synonyms of ‘beautiful’ like ‘attractive’, ‘pretty’, ‘lovely’ or ‘stunning’.

If there are two or three headings that are similar, write them beside the
paragraph and try to find out the difference between the two headings. What
are the keywords? How does this change the meaning? Which one matches the
paragraph best?

If you still can’t decide which one suits best, move on and come back to it later.
The answer will normally be easier to find after you have matched some more
headings.

Ignore anything you already know about the topic. You are being tested on the
text only.

Don’t read too quickly. Some teachers advise that students should just ‘skim’
the text because you don’t have much time. In my experience, this leads to
students not understanding most of the text and making mistakes. It is better to
do this a little slower and actually understand what is in front of you.

Don’t panic if you know nothing about the general topic of the reading text. The
IELTS reading test is not a knowledge test and you are not expected to have
prior knowledge of the topic.

Don’t look at the headings first. This will automatically make you look for
specific words in the text rather than the main idea. Remember it is your ability
to find the main idea that is being tested, not your ability to find specific
information. Instead of reading the headings first, ignore them and get the
general meaning of each paragraph first by reading the first and last sentences.

Strategy

If this type of question is on the test, do it first.

Don’t look at the headings.

Read the first one or two sentences and the last sentence of each paragraph to
understand the general meaning of the paragraph. Don’t worry about
highlighting keywords in the test. Try to sum up the general meaning of each
paragraph in one or two words.

Look at the headings and identify keywords within each heading.

Match any headings that are very obvious and you are sure about.

For the others, write 2 or 3 headings beside the paragraph. Identify the
difference between each of the headings. Establish if there are any synonyms in
the paragraph to keywords in the headings.

If you still can’t pick one, move one. The answer will often reveal itself later.

Repeat until finished.

SAMPLE EXERCISES

Paragraph 1- Big trees are incredibly important ecologically. For a start, they
sustain countless other species. They provide shelter for many animals, and
their trunks and branches can become gardens, hung with green ferns, orchids
and bromeliads, coated with mosses and draped with vines. With their tall
canopies basking in the sun, they capture vast amounts of energy. This allows
them to sustain much of the animal life in the forest.

Paragraph 2- Only a small number of tree species have the genetic capacity to
grow really big. The mightiest are native to Norther America, but big trees grow
all over the globe, from the tropics to the boreal forests of the high latitudes. To
achieve giant stature, a tree needs three things: the right place to establish its
seedling, good growing conditions and lots of time with low adult mortality.
Disrupt any of these, and you can lose your biggest trees.

Match the two paragraphs with one of the following three headings:

1.How wildlife benefits from big trees

2.Factors that enable trees to grow to significant heights

3.How other plants can cause harm

EXPLANATIONIf you look at the above paragraphs you will see that they are full
of difficult words like ‘bromeliads’, ‘basking’ and ‘stature’. If you try to read and
understand every word you will get nowhere.

Instead we just look at the first and the last sentences and with some
highlighting of keywords and an awareness of synonyms it is apparent that the
answers are:

ANS:

Paragraph 1- How wildlife benefits from big trees

Paragraph 2- Factors that enable tree to grow to significant heights

EXERCISE 1

A. The Yoruba people of Nigeria classify their towns in two ways. Permanent
towns with their own governments are called “ilu”, whereas temporary
settlements, set up to support work in the country are “aba”. Although ilu tend
to be larger than aba, the distinction is not one of size, some aba are large,
while declining ilu can be small, but of purpose. There is no “typical” Yoruba
town, but some features are common to most towns.

B. In the 19th century most towns were heavily fortified and the foundations of
these walls are sometimes visible. Collecting tolls to enter and exit through the
walls was a major source of revenue for the old town rulers, as were market
fees. The markets were generally located centrally and in small towns, while in
large towns there were permanent stands made of corrugated iron or concrete.
The market was usually next to the local ruler’s palace.

C. The palaces were often very large. In the 1930’s, the area of Oyo’s palace
covered 17 acres, and consisted of a series of courtyards surrounded by private
and public rooms. After colonisation, many of the palaces were completely or
partially demolished. Often the rulers built two storey houses for themselves
using some of the palace grounds for government buildings.

D. The town is divided into different sections. In some towns these are regular,
extending out from the center of the town like spokes on a wheel, while in
others, where space is limited, they are more random. The different areas are
further divided into compounds called “ile”. These vary in size considerably
from single dwellings to up to thirty houses. They tend to be larger in the North.
Large areas are devoted to government administrative buildings. Newer
developments such as industrial or commercial areas or apartment housing for
civil servants tends to be build on the edge of the town.

E. Houses are rectangular and either have a courtyard in the center or the rooms
come off a central corridor. Most social life occurs in the courtyard. They are
usually built of hardened mud and have roofs of corrugated iron or, in the
countryside, thatch. Buildings of this material are easy to alter, either by
knocking down rooms or adding new ones. And can be improved by coating the
walls with cement. Richer people often build their houses of concrete blocks
and, if they can afford to, build two storey houses. Within compounds there can
be quite a mixture of building types. Younger well-educated people may have
well furnished houses while their older relatives live in mud walled buildings
and sleep on mats on the floor.

F. The builder or the most senior man gets a room either near the entrance or,
in a two storied house, next to the balcony. He usually has more than one room.
Junior men get a room each and there are separate rooms for teenage boys and
girls to sleep in. Younger children sleep with their mothers. Any empty room are
used as storage, let out or, if they face the street, used as shops.

G. Amenities vary. In some towns most of the population uses communal water
taps and only the rich have piped water, in others piped water is more normal.
Some areas have toilets, but bucket toilets are common with waste being
collected by a “night soil man”. Access to water and electricity are key political
issues.
LIST OF HEADINGS

List of Paragraph Headings

i. Town facilities

ii. Colonisation

iii. Urban divisions

iv. Architectural home styles

v. Types of settlements

vi. Historical foundations

vii. Domestic arrangements

viii. City defenses

ix. The residences of the rulers

x. Government buildings

Match the heading with the paragraph

Example: Paragraph A

Answer: v

Reading Exercises. Matching headings.

Exercise 1

Read the text and answer the questions below.

Simplicity reigns at London's biggest design festival.

(A) With upwards of 300 product launches, installations and exhibitions,

London's annual nine-day design festival is a showcase of head-spinning choice.
In many ways that's the beauty of the extravaganza, everyone has a different
experience and takes something unique away from it. There were however
some intriguing themes and trends in this year's edition that spoke to larger
social or cultural preoccupations.

(B) One was the launch of two consumer electronics products designed to
simplify and beautify our technology-addled lives. Both chose the new London
Design Festival venue of Somerset House to show their wares. The first was a
mobile phone launched by Swiss company Punkt and designed by Jasper
Morrison that allows users to make calls and texts only (well, it has an alarm
clock and an address book too). Punkt founder Petter Neby doesn't believe it
will replace your smart phone but suggests users fit it with the same SIM card as
your main phone and use it in the evenings, weekends and on holiday.

(C) The other electronics launch came from the unlikely French sibling duo of
the Bouroullec brothers. Though tech companies like Samsung are usually
prescriptive about their products the Bouroullecs (who admitted they found
most TVs sad and ugly) seem to have been given free rein. Their new television
for the mega Korean brand looks more like an item of furniture than an ultra-
large and ultra-slim piece of tech. More importantly, it comes with simplified
on-screen interaction and a 'curtain mode' that turns your screen into a
shimmering pattern during ads or half-time. Again, their focus was on dialing
down digital insanity.

(D) Customizable online furniture was also very much in vogue at this year's
festival. But rest assured, weird and unreliable software or off-the-wall designs
sent to a 3D printer somewhere and arriving months later, seem to be a thing of
the past. Customization may finally have come of age. Two examples were
Scandi-brand Hem that combinded good design by the likes of Luca Nichetto,
Form Us With Love and Sylvain Willenz with affordable price points. The fact
that the brand opened a pop-up store in Covent Garden during the festival is a
recognition of the importance of both physical and online spaces that work
seamlessly together.

(E) Another online configurable brand to make its debut after years in
development was Warsaw-based Tylko. Like Hem, Tylko has spent time and
money on very powerful and easy-to-use software, but with only three designs -
a table, a shelf and salt and pepper mills - it has a way to go. Its augmented
reality app is simple to use however and its table has been developed with a
nano-coating option that really does appear to keep pesky stains at bay. Craft
and 'making' in all its forms was once again a big hit and nowhere more so than
at TENT, the East London design event that gets better every year.

(F) A definite highlight was the massive space taken over by the Design & Crafts
Council of Ireland and filled with weavers and potters doing their thing and
showing their wares. Irish Design had another delectable stand over at the
Rochelle School in East London too. The Souvenir Project was a series of nine
non-cliché 'souvenirs' made in Ireland and included a rainbow plate by Nicholas
Mosse Pottery that featured rows of animals, flowers and watering cans and
commemorated the legalization of same-sex marriage in Ireland in May 2015.

(G) If there was one material that could be said to define the festival it might
just be Jesmonite, the wonder man-made building composite. Lighter and more
sustainable than concrete, its dramatic capabilities were brought to life by
London-based design studio PINCH and their tour-de-force limited edition Nim
table and Swedish artist Hilda Hellström's giant colorful volcano made for the
restaurant in London's Ace Hotel. A show called Matter of Stuff near Covent
Garden was in on the jesmonite act too, but even more intriguingly was
presenting vases made out of Propolis, a resinous material collected by bees
and used to seal gaps in hives that, according to their designer Marlene
Huissoud, behaves like glass.
(H) Finally, this was the year that Chinese Design finally displayed a well-edited
and inspired showcase of products. Despite the mouthful of a title, Icon
Presents: Hi Design Shanghai stand at 100% Design was a meaningful selection
of designers exploring materials and ideas. Young design duo Yuue's offerings
were the most representative of a new conceptual approach to design that
seems to be emerging. Their lamps were functional but also thought-provoking
and humorous. What more could one want from the stuff that surrounds us?

uestions 1-8

The text has eight paragraphs A-H. Which paragraph contains the following
information? Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.

1. Examples of customization

2. Unusual keepsakes

3. A new approach

4. A simple cell phone

5. Unbelievable material

6. A strange TV

7. Number of products shown on the festival

8. Three designs of a software

Exercise 2

A .From the comfort of our modern lives we tend to look back at the turn of the
twentieth century as a dangerous time for sea travellers. With limited
communication facilities, and shipping technology still in its infancy in the early
nineteen hundreds, we consider ocean travel to have been a risky business. But
to the people of the time it was one of the safest forms of transport. At the time
of the Titanic’s maiden voyage in 1912, there had only been four lives lost in the
previous forty years on passenger ships on the North Atlantic crossing. And the
Titanic was confidently proclaimed to be unsinkable. She represented the
pinnacle of technological advance at the time. Her builders, crew and
passengers had no doubt that she was the finest ship ever built. But still she did
sink on April 14, 1912, taking 1,517 of her passengers and crew with her.

B .The RMS Titanic left Southampton for New York on April 10, 1912. On board
were some of the richest and most famous people of the time who had paid
large sums of money to sail on the first voyage of the most luxurious ship in the
world. Imagine her placed on her end: she was larger at 269 metres than many
of the tallest buildings of the day. And with nine decks, she was as high as an
eleven storey building. The Titanic carried 329 first class, 285 second class and
710 third class passengers with 899 crew members, under the care of the very
experienced Captain Edward J. Smith. She also carried enough food to feed a
small town, including 40,000 fresh eggs, 36,000 apples, 111,000 lbs of fresh
meat and 2,200 lbs of coffee for the five day journey.

C. RMS Titanic was believed to be unsinkable because the hull was divided into
sixteen watertight compartments. Even if two of these compartments flooded,
the ship could still float. The ship’s owners could not imagine that, in the case of
an accident, the Titanic would not be able to float until she was rescued. It was
largely as a result of this confidence in the ship and in the safety of ocean travel
that the disaster could claim such a great loss of life.

D. In the ten hours prior to the Titanic’s fatal collision with an iceberg at
11.40pm, six warnings of icebergs in her path were received by the Titanic's
wireless operators. Only one of these messages was formally posted on the
bridge; the others were in various locations across the ship. If the combined
information in these messages of iceberg positions had been plotted, the ice
field which lay across the Titanic’s path would have been apparent. Instead, the
lack of formal procedures for dealing with information from a relatively new
piece of technology, the wireless, meant that the danger was not known until
too late. This was not the fault of the Titanic crew. Procedures for dealing with
warnings received through the wireless had not been formalised across the
shipping industry at the time. The fact that the wireless operators were not
even Titanic crew, but rather contracted workers from a wireless company,
made their role in the ship’s operation quite unclear.

E. Captain Smith’s seemingly casual attitude in increasing the speed on this day
to a dangerous 22 knots or 41 kilometres per hour, can then be partly explained
by his ignorance of what lay ahead. But this only partly accounts for his actions,
since the spring weather in Greenland was known to cause huge chunks of ice to
break off from the glaciers. Captain Smith knew that these icebergs would float
southward and had already acknowledged this danger by taking a more
southerly route than at other times of the year. So why was the Titanic
travelling at high speed when he knew, if not of the specific risk, at least of the
general risk of icebergs in her path? As with the lack of coordination of the
wireless messages, it was simply standard operating procedure at the time.
Captain Smith was following the practices accepted on the North Atlantic,
practices which had coincided with forty years of safe travel. He believed,
wrongly as we now know, that the ship could turn or stop in time if an iceberg
was sighted by the lookouts.

F .There were around two and a half hours between the time the Titanic
rammed into the iceberg and its final submersion. In this time 705 people were
loaded into the twenty lifeboats. There were 473 empty seats available on
lifeboats while over 1,500 people drowned. These figures raise two important
issues. Firstly, why there were not enough lifeboats to seat every passenger and
crew member on board. And secondly, why the lifeboats were not full.
G. The Titanic had sixteen lifeboats and four collapsible boats which could carry
just over half the number of people on board her maiden voyage and only a
third of the Titanic’s total capacity. Regulations for the number of lifeboats
required were based on outdated British Board of Trade regulations written in
1894 for ships a quarter of the Titanic’s size, and had never been revised. Under
these requirements, the Titanic was only obliged to carry enough lifeboats to
seat 962 people. At design meetings in 1910, the shipyard’s managing director,
Alexander Carlisle, had proposed that forty eight lifeboats be installed on the
Titanic, but the idea had been quickly rejected as too expensive. Discussion then
turned to the ship’s décor, and as Carlisle later described the incident … ’we
spent two hours discussing carpet for the first class cabins and fifteen minutes
discussing lifeboats’.

H. The belief that the Titanic was unsinkable was so strong that passengers and
crew alike clung to the belief even as she was actually sinking. This attitude was
not helped by Captain Smith, who had not acquainted his senior officers with
the full situation. For the first hour after the collision, the majority of people
aboard the Titanic, including senior crew, were not aware that she would sink,
that there were insufficient lifeboats or that the nearest ship responding to the
Titanic’s distress calls would arrive two hours after she was on the bottom of
the ocean. As a result, the officers in charge of loading the boats received a very
halfhearted response to their early calls for women and children to board the
lifeboats. People felt that they would be safer, and certainly warmer, aboard
the Titanic than perched in a little boat in the North Atlantic Ocean. Not
realising the magnitude of the impending disaster themselves, the officers
allowed several boats to be lowered only half full.

I. Procedures again were at fault, as an additional reason for the officers’

reluctance to lower the lifeboats at full capacity was that they feared the
lifeboats would buckle under the weight of 65 people. They had not been
informed that the lifeboats had been fully tested prior to departure. Such
procedures as assigning passengers and crew to lifeboats and lifeboat loading
drills were simply not part of the standard operation of ships nor were they
included in crew training at this time.

J. As the Titanic sank, another ship, believed to have been the Californian, was
seen motionless less than twenty miles away. The ship failed to respond to the
Titanic’s eight distress rockets. Although the officers of the Californian tried to
signal the Titanic with their flashing Morse lamp, they did not wake up their
radio operator to listen for a distress call. At this time, communication at sea
through wireless was new and the benefits not well appreciated, so the wireless
on ships was often not operated around the clock. In the case of the Californian,
the wireless operator slept unaware while 1,500 Titanic passengers and crew
drowned only a few miles away.

K. After the Titanic sank, investigations were held in both Washington and
London. In the end, both inquiries decided that no one could be blamed for the
sinking. However, they did address the fundamental safety issues which had
contributed to the enormous loss of life. As a result, international agreements
were drawn up to improve safety procedures at sea. The new regulations
covered 24 hour wireless operation, crew training, proper lifeboat drills, lifeboat
capacity for all on board and the creation of an international ice patrol.