Reading practice
IELTS Reading Sentence Completion practice
Fill gaps with words from the passage.
This page is for doing Sentence Completion questions: start the drill, then use the routine and the checks below to make each attempt count. For the strategy behind it, read the Sentence Completion guide.
Practise Sentence Completion only
16 Sentence Completion questions from GT Test 1 · Reading, with the passage and instructions they were written for. Your answers are saved and marked exactly as in a full section.
- Questions
- 16 questions
- Time
- 24 minutes
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What Sentence Completion looks like on screen
Each sentence has a gap with a box, and you type the missing word or words into it. The instruction above the set gives a word limit, such as NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS, and the words must come from the passage. Spelling counts, so the box is where reading and typing accuracy meet.
Where you will meet it
Sentence completion is set in Academic and General Training, and the questions follow the order of the passage. Like every typed answer in Reading, the time it takes to type comes out of the same 60 minutes as the reading itself.
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:
- Check the word limit, and whether a number is allowed, before the first gap.
- Read the whole sentence around the gap and decide what kind of word belongs there.
- Find the matching lines, moving forward from your previous answer.
- Type the words as the passage spells them, then read the sentence through with your answer in it.
- If a gap is not coming, type your best candidate from the right paragraph, flag it and move on.
Traps when the clock is running
Typing from memory. Once you have read the line, it is quicker to type the word you remember than to look back. That is where letters drop out and plurals go missing.
Leaving a gap blank to save time. A blank never scores. A likely word from the right paragraph sometimes does, and flagging it lets you check it later.
Leaving no time to check. Reading has no transfer time at the end, so the only checking you get is the time you leave yourself. A minute at the end of the passage catches most spelling slips.
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.
- Is every answer spelled exactly as it is in the passage?
- Does each completed sentence read as correct English?
- Did any answer go over the word limit?
- Did you leave any gap empty?