IELTS Preparation Materials

Aim: to provide practice in the use of synonyms and paraphrase

Relevance: specifically to academic reading and listening, though more generally the use of synonyms is also relevant to academic writing

Materials: white board / worksheet

Procedure

1. Warmer. In pairs or groups students brainstorm the different task types in the academic reading paper. Students or teacher write types on the whiteboard. Teacher elicits 'summary completion' if the students have not come up with this task type.

2. In pairs or small groups students discuss the requirements of this task (if they know) and strategies for answering it. They may not have encountered this task type before in which case these materials will be a useful introduction.

3. Teachers may want to lead into the text by asking students to discuss what they know (if anything) about Sigmund Freud or some questions about their own dreams: e.g. Do you remember your dreams? What was your last dream? Etc. Teachers may also want to pre-teach some vocabulary from the text depending on the level of their group.

4. Hand out worksheet which focuses on the summary completion task. Discuss the rubric if necessary. Stress that the answer in each case is a SINGLE word and that it must come from the text without alteration. Give the students some time to attempt to answer the questions individually or in pairs.

5. Before giving students the answers ask them to try to match words/phrases in the summary which have a similar meaning to parts of the text, i.e. are synonyms. Doing this will help them check whether they have the right answer, or help them find the right answer if they've been unable to complete the task.

Summary Text

book published The Interpretation of Dreamsfuture research generations of later scientistsevents experiencesas a consequence as a resultunhappiness tormentreflect things that happened be moulded by eventsthe distant past our formative years

6. Answers1. inspiration 2.childhood 3.cure 4.yesterday

1

WORKSHEET

Reading Passage 2

Dreams

More than a century ago, Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, a

milestone work that would be the inspiration for generations of later scientists. Freud

called our dreams the 'road to the unconscious'. His idea was that the content of our

dreams is shaped by experiences in childhood, creating the hope that psychoanalysis

could use our dreams to reveal these early miseries, and as a result provide a cure for

our inner torment. But a recent study of dreams by Harvard University researchers has

come to the conclusion that Freud was incorrect. According to this study, although

dreams are often very strange and other-worldly, they are as likely to be moulded by

the events of yesterday as by those of our formative years.

Questions 1 – 4

Complete the summary below.

Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

Dreams

Sigmund Freud's book was the 1 ….................. for future research. Freud believed

dreams are based on events during 2..................... and as a consequence there might

be a 3 …................. for unhappiness. Research at Harvard, however, suggests dreams

reflect things that happened 4 …............... rather than events in the distant past.

2