Reading practice
IELTS Reading Matching Headings practice
Match headings to the correct paragraphs.
This page is for doing Matching Headings questions: start the drill, then use the routine and the checks below to make each attempt count. For the strategy behind it, read the Matching Headings guide.
Practise Matching Headings only
6 Matching Headings questions from Academic Practice Test 2, with the passage and instructions they were written for. Your answers are saved and marked exactly as in a full section.
- Questions
- 6 questions
- Time
- 10 minutes
No account needed — sign in later to keep this attempt in your history.
What Matching Headings looks like on screen
A list of headings, usually numbered with small Roman numerals, sits beside a passage whose paragraphs are lettered, and each paragraph has a space for one heading. You place a heading into a space and can move it again if you change your mind. The list always holds more headings than there are paragraphs, so some are never used.
Where you will meet it
Matching headings covers a whole passage or most of one, so it gives you the paragraph-by-paragraph picture that the passage's other questions rely on. It is set in Academic and General Training, and one paragraph is sometimes done for you as an example.
A routine for doing a set against the clock
Reading gives you 60 minutes for 40 questions — about 90 seconds a question, including the time spent reading. Decide the set's share before you start, then work it like this:
- Read the heading list once, quickly, so you know what kinds of idea are on offer.
- Take each paragraph in turn and sum it up in five or six words of your own before you look back at the list.
- Place the heading that matches your summary; if two compete, place one, flag the question and move on.
- Do the short, clear paragraphs first — each one you settle removes a heading from the list for the hard ones.
- Stop at your time budget, even if a paragraph is unsettled; the passage's other sets still need you.
Traps when the clock is running
Rereading the whole list for every paragraph. Scanning eight or ten headings again and again is the slowest way through. Summarise the paragraph first, then look for that idea in the list once.
Reading every word of every paragraph. You are matching main ideas, not answering detail questions. A slow, careful read of every sentence can use most of the time the whole passage deserves.
Leaving the hardest paragraph empty. When time runs low, one of the unused headings is still a better bet than an empty space, which cannot score.
Check yourself after the drill
Mark the drill first, then answer these honestly. A pattern across two or three attempts tells you more than any single score.
- For each wrong match, did your own summary point to the right heading, or did you skip the summary?
- Did the paragraphs you left until last get easier once the list was shorter?
- If the set had an example, did you place the example's heading again by mistake?
- How much of the passage's time did this one set use?