Matching headings and paragraphs skills practice acupuncture

Matching headings and paragraphs skills practice acupuncture

This is the next in my series of practice exercises for IELTS reading. The focus on this lesson is on the skills you need to answer the paragraph/headings matching type of question. One of the best ways to develop these skills is to begin by focussing on shorter texts so that you can see how the questions work, then when you are confident of your skills more on to longer texts. Here you will find a one paragraph exercise to do online and a longer text to download.

Key skills

Avoid the trap

The most common trap here is the examiners try and catch people who try and match key words in the question with words in the paragraphs. The way to avoid this is:

read the whole paragraph

dont just focus on key words

Look for the main point of each paragraphLook at the first few sentences of the paragraph to try and find a topic sentence that sums up the main idea of the para. You can only do this if you read the WHOLE paragraph.

Focus on the whole heading do NOT use key words

You need to understand the meaning of the heading in the question as a sentence: it is unlikely that the words in the question exactly match the words in the paragraph. If you focus on key words you will make many mistakes by word matching and falling into the examiner traps.

Start with the paragraphs, not the headings

Remember that some of the headings are only there to confuse you. Do not try and match a heading to a paragraph, as there may be no matching paragraph. Rather start with the paragraphs and try to find the matching heading.

Understand how the text is organised

If you understand how the text is organised by skimming it first for general meaning, this will help you in predicting which paragraphs match which headings

Dont guess, be specific

Even though you are looking for general meaning, there should always be something in the paragraph normally a sentence that gives you the answer.

All the questions in the quiz along with their answers are shown below. Your answers are bolded. The correct answers have a green background while the incorrect ones have a red background.

Choose the correct heading for this paragraph

A. The dangers of acupuncture - its possible fatal consequences B. A review of acupuncture effectiveness for pain relief

C. The limitations of acupuncture as a treatment

D. A comparison of acupuncture and conventional medicine

Question was not answered

A. This is wrong because the fact that acupuncture may cause death is one minor point towards the end of the paragraph:

"it could be dangerous when performed by untrained practitioners and even lead to death."

B. This is wrong because the paragraph is not just about whether acupuncture works for pain relief, but also for nausea:

"whether acupuncture is effective for anything other than the relief of some pains and the feeling of nausea."

You should also be careful of word matching "review" in the text:

"The general consensus can best be summed up by looking at a paper published in 2011 that reviewed all the latest literature and review articles on acupuncture."

This is a detail. Not the main point of the paragraph.

C. The correct answer. You find this by looking at the sentence at the beginning of the paragraph:

"It remains to be established whether acupuncture is effective for anything other than the relief of some pains and the feeling of nausea."

From this, you need to understand that acupuncture works as a treatment but in a limited way.

D. This is wrong. Conventional medicine is mentioned in the paragraph:

"as more conventional treatments, such as antiemetic drugs."

This is, however, only an example not the main point.

It remains to be established whether acupuncture is effective for anything other than the relief of some pains and the feeling of nausea. In the case of nausea, a number of studies have demonstrated that the technique of acupuncture the stimulation of one particular point is equally effective as more conventional treatments, such as antiemetic drugs. There is less agreement about its effectiveness for pain relief. Whatever evidence there is points only a very small and temporary effect for a restricted number of types of pain, and even this is disputed by a large body of physicians who maintain that this is simply due to a placebo effect where the patients belief in acupuncture leads them to believe that the treatment has worked. The general consensus can best be summed up by looking at a paper published in 2011 that reviewed all the latest literature and review articles on acupuncture. Its conclusion was that it was of value in the treatment of neck pain, but was of dubious effectiveness for other types of pain. More than that, it was noted that while acupuncture is safe when administered by trained professionals using sterile needles, it could be dangerous when performed by untrained practitioners and even lead to death.

The task

1. The task is to match between 5 and 7 headings to paragraphs in the text.

2. There are always more headings than paragraphs

3. You may need to read the whole text or only a part of it

The reading skill skimming

The main skill tested here is your ability to read quickly and get the main meaning of a paragraph. This means that:

1. If you find a word you dont understand: ignore it you are looking for meanings of paragraphs not words

2. Dont simply match a word in the question with a word in the text read the sentence/paragraph to see how it is being used

3. Concentrate on the openings and closings of paragraphs that is where the writer normally makes the main point

Some problems and their solutions

This can be one of the easier types of question but it is also easy to get them all wrong! Here are one or two difficulties:

1. You may need to read the whole text or a large part of it anyway. Make this problem into a virtue. I suggest you do this task first even if it is not the first set of questions. This allows you to understand what the text is about.

2. You simply match words in the heading with words in the text. Remember there are too many headings and it may not be as simple as matching words. Think meaning, not words.

3. Some of the headings seem quite similar. Make sure you spend time reading them all and try every heading with every paragraph. This may take time but you will avoid a lot of mistakes.

4. You guess the meaning from the first few lines of the paragraph. The meaning you need is in the last few lines of the paragraph. Dont stop reading too quickly and read the whole paragraph. The problem isnt time, its making mistakes.

5. You waste time because the first paragraph is the hardest to match. Easy. Write in 2/3 headings it could be and move on. When you come back after doing the other questions, it may seem obvious. Dont guess immediately. Do the task twice.

The procedure

1. Look at the headings first. Dont spend too much time on this, as at least some of them will be wrong.

2. Look at the first paragraph. Try to ignore the detail and look for the main point. Does it match any of the headings? Try all the headings. If it could be heading a) or b) write down a) or b). Dont guess yet. Come back at the end.

3. Make sure you underline the words in the text that best match the heading. If you do this, you can easily check your answer, if you want to use the same heading for another paragraph later on.

4. Move onto the next paragraph and repeat the process. Dont expect to complete all the paragraphs first time around.

5. Go back at the end and make a decision about the paragraphs you didnt do first time. Try and be as careful as possible. Dont rush.

6. If you are uncertain, it sometimes makes sense to use the same heading for 2 paragraphs. You will get one wrong and one right. If you guess, you may get two wrong (or two right!)

How to practise

This is a very simple practice suggestion. When you are reading texts (for IELTS and otherwise), when you get to the end of the paragraph try to summarise what that paragraph was about.

Top of Form

ADifferent relationships between cats and men1

Where the relationship between cat and man began2

The feline origins of the domestic cat3

DHow the cult of the cat moved East4

How man turned against the cat5

The birth of the show cat6

Different cultural beliefs about the cat7

Bottom of Form

The cat

A.We are all familiar with the domestic cat, an animal that is now the most popular human companion in the world. The image we have, however, of the Burmese or the Siamese curled up in a basket before a fire or gently purring on the lap of its human owner is in historical terms deeply misleading. In fact the cat, or Felis Catus as it is correctly termed, has a long and complex relationship with mankind stretching back over approximately 9,500 years and in that time it has taken on a variety of different roles from hunting companion, protector of crops, good luck charm, religious icon and seer to shipboard rodent catcher.

B.Traditionally, it was always supposed that it was the Egyptians who first domesticated the cat. The primary evidence for this are the depictions of cats in paintings and statuary in Egypt from over 3,500 years ago and it is indeed the case that the ancient Egyptians had an extraordinarily close relationship with cats. One of the major deities in the New Kingdom, Bast, was a cat-goddess symbolising fertility and motherhood and the Greek historian Herodotus tells how cats were often mummified and given a funeral, sometimes with the mummified remains of mice so that they could enjoy the afterlife. This traditional view has been overturned, however, by the discovery in 2004 of a grave in Cyprus that was 9,500 years old in which the remains of a cat were found next to a human. Clearly, the human association with cats predates the ancient Egyptians by many millennia. It is now thought that it was in the Fertile Crescent, modern-day Iraq, that humans first domesticated the cat. Agriculture was invented in this region and the likelihood is that cats were used to control the rodents and other vermin that fed on the crops and raided the grain stores.

C.The cat family is a close one and the housecat is so closely related to feral and wildcats to the extent that it is able to interbreed with them. It is still uncertain what the exact genesis of the domestic cat was but informed opinion suggests that it would appear to have more than one ancestor in the cat family. In ancient Egypt, there were two different species of cats, the Jungle Cat and the African Wildcat, which eventually fused together into Felis Catus. In the initial phases of the domestication process, it is likely that the Wildcat was more significant, because, despite its name it was a great deal more docile than the Jungle Cat. More evidence for this is that the Cypriot cat, the earliest cat associated with man, was a Wildcat.

D.While we cannot be certain of the early history of the cat, we do know that they quickly became popular in many different cultures. They spread from the Fertile Crescent through the Indian sub-continent and into China by 500 BC. Just as had happened in Egypt, magical properties were ascribed to them and they were even occasionally revered as deities. That they were initially given as gifts to Emperors and that only later were the nobility and commoners allowed to own them is a sign of the special status they held.

E.Their progress westwards was, however, less smooth. Initially, they were brought to Europe by the Greeks and the Romans, despite the attempts by the Egyptians to protect their deity from export. As in other parts of the world, the cats were highly prized for their rodent catching ability and while they were not worshipped, they were brought into the house from the farmyard and began to be kept as pets. This was a highly practical measure as they helped to reduce the impact of the Black Death by killing the rats that were responsible for the spread of the plague. Despite this, in the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory VII proclaimed that the cat was the work of the devil and the superstition arose that people who kept cats were witches and those that cats were not burnt alive with their owners were driven from the towns and villages.

F.By the 1800s the reputation of the cat had been re-established and, as it became an ever more fashionable household companion, the concept of the pedigree cat breed appeared in the United Kingdom. By 1871 a large show was held at Crystal Place the site of the Great Exhibition twenty years earlier for British Shorthair and Persian types. A little later in New England in the United States of America, the Maine Coone breed was shown. This trend increased to the extent that a further 25 breeds of pedigree cats appeared in addition to the 16 naturally occurring breeds. Cat fanciers now compete on a regular basis all over the world in an attempt to prove that their animal is the pre-eminent exemplar of the breed. A far cry from the days when the humble moggy's duty was to ensure that no rats entered the grain store.

G.Superstitions, legends and mystical beliefs about cats abound all around the world. Some of these can be traced back to the religious awe in which cats were held by early cultures. The modern-day Japanese belief that a cat washing its face is a sign that a visitor will soon arrive can be directly linked to the Maneki Neko a traditional lucky charm in the form of a sculpture or ceramic figure of a cat beckoning with its paw. Likewise, in Europe there are people who still cross themselves at the sight of an unlucky black cat because of Pope Gregorys edict against cats, centuries before. Other beliefs have a far more rational basis and result from the physical qualities of the cat. So the cats remarkable agility that allows it to escape from potentially life-threatening situations leads the British to suppose that the cat has nine lives, the Spanish that it has six and the Turkish seven.