IELTS Reading Matching Sentence Endings: tips and strategy
Complete sentences from a list.
IELTS matching sentence endings gives you the first half of several sentences and asks you to choose the correct second half from a longer list. It tests whether you understand how ideas in the passage connect, such as cause and result or a claim and its limits. Candidates lose marks by choosing endings that sound grammatically right but join two ideas the passage keeps separate.
What you see on screen
Each sentence start has a dropdown of possible endings, with more endings than starts. Your pick must complete the sentence both grammatically and factually.
How it is marked
One mark per completed sentence; starts follow passage order though the endings are shuffled. Grammatical fit alone does not guarantee a correct match.
How long to spend
Budget about one minute per sentence start, and keep the whole passage within about 20 minutes of the 60-minute test. If two endings still seem possible after you have read the relevant lines twice, pick one, flag the question and come back only if time remains.
Strategy
- Complete the sentence from the passage first, then find the ending matching your version's meaning.
- Use grammar to discard impossible endings fast, like tense or article mismatches.
- Locate by the start's keywords, because starts mirror passage order while the ending list is shuffled.
- Reread the finished sentence; the match must hold for its whole meaning, not half.
Traps that cost marks
Choosing an ending that is grammatically tidy but claims something the passage never says.
Matching on a repeated text word while the ending quietly twists the original meaning.
Worked example
For decades, the village of Marrowby protected its fields with a concrete sea wall. When the wall began to crack, engineers proposed rebuilding it higher, at considerable cost. Instead, the council chose to let the sea through at two points and allow a salt marsh to form behind the old line. Marsh plants slow incoming waves and trap mud, so the ground gradually rises by itself. Critics pointed out that several hectares of farmland would be lost, and the first winter brought more flooding to the lane nearest the breach than residents had been told to expect.
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-E, below. 1 The council in Marrowby decided 2 Salt marsh plants are useful because they 3 Residents living closest to the breach found that A the flooding was worse than predicted. B to rebuild the sea wall to a greater height. C to allow sea water onto part of the land. D reduce the force of waves and collect sediment. E protected the farmland at little cost.
Answer: 1 C, 2 D, 3 A
Ending B fits sentence 1 grammatically and mentions the sea wall, but rebuilding it higher was the engineers' proposal, and the word 'Instead' shows the council rejected it; the council let the sea through, which is C. Sentence 2 needs a present-tense verb phrase, and D paraphrases 'slow incoming waves and trap mud'. Sentence 3 matches A, because flooding was greater 'than residents had been told to expect'. E is never used, since the passage says farmland would be lost.
An original example written for this guide, not taken from a published test.
Questions candidates ask
- Can the same sentence ending be used more than once?
- Normally no. In this task each sentence start has one correct ending, and there are more endings than starts, so some options are never used. The instructions do not usually include a note allowing letters to be reused, unlike some matching features tasks. If you find yourself giving the same ending to two starts, one of those matches is wrong; go back to the passage and check both.
- How is matching sentence endings different from sentence completion?
- In sentence completion you type words taken from the passage into a gap, so spelling and the word limit matter. In matching sentence endings you choose a ready-made ending from a list, so there is nothing to spell, but the endings are paraphrased and several are designed to look plausible. The skill being tested shifts from copying precise words to judging which complete idea the passage supports.
- How do you answer matching sentence endings on computer-delivered IELTS?
- Depending on how the task is set up, you either choose a letter from a drop-down list beside each sentence start or drag an ending into the gap. You can change your choice at any point before the Reading test ends. Use the review screen to check that every sentence start has an ending selected, because an empty gap scores zero and a guess costs nothing.
Now try it under exam conditions.
Practise Matching Sentence Endings questions