Reading practice
IELTS Reading Summary Completion (Word Bank) practice
Complete a summary using choices from a word bank.
This page is for doing Summary Completion (Word Bank) questions: start the drill, then use the routine and the checks below to make each attempt count. For the strategy behind it, read the Summary Completion (Word Bank) guide.
Practise Summary Completion (Word Bank) only
3 Summary Completion (Word Bank) 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
- 3 questions
- Time
- 10 minutes
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What Summary Completion (Word Bank) looks like on screen
A short summary with numbered gaps sits on the right, with a box of words or phrases beneath it. You fill each gap by placing a word from the box into it, and you can move a word to another gap if you change your mind. The box usually holds more words than there are gaps.
Where you will meet it
Summary completion is set in Academic and General Training. The summary usually condenses one part of the passage rather than all of it, and its gaps may not follow the order of the text, so the first job is to find which part it covers.
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:
- Use the summary's opening sentence to find the part of the passage it condenses, then read that part once.
- Fill the gaps you can answer straight away from that reading.
- For each remaining gap, narrow the box to the two or three words that fit the sentence, then check them against the passage.
- Read the finished summary from start to end with your words in it.
- Flag any guess and leave it; come back only if there is time at the end of the passage.
Traps when the clock is running
Searching the whole passage. The summary is drawn from one section. Looking for its ideas across the whole text wastes the minutes this set should save you.
Expecting the passage's own words. Words in the box are often synonyms or different forms of the passage's words, so scanning the text for an exact match can fail even when you are in the right place.
Freezing on the last gap. When one gap is left and two words could fit, choose the one that keeps the summary's logic intact and move on.
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.
- Did you find the section the summary covers before filling any gaps?
- Does the completed summary make sense read from start to finish?
- For each wrong answer, was your word the right type of word but the wrong meaning?
- Did the set finish inside your time budget?