Dealing with True, False & Not Given Questions

 Dealing with T/F/NG (and Y/N/NG) questions 

Activities 

1. Introducing T/F/NG 

2. Using reading skills 

3. Ordering – a strategy for T/F/NG (and Y/N/NG) questions 

4. Test practice 

Aims 

• • To review key reading skills: surveying, skimming and scanning 
• • To help students develop a strategy for dealing with T/F/NG (and Y/N/NG) questions 

Learning outcomes 

• • Students will have reviewed and practised key reading skills. 
• • Students will have analysed a strategy for T/F/NG (and Y/N/NG) questions. 
• • Students will have practised answering T/F/NG questions. 

Information about this section of IELTS 

In the Reading test there are 40 questions, designed to test a wide range of reading skills. These include reading for gist, reading for main ideas, reading for detail, skimming, understanding logical arguments and recognising writers' opinions, attitudes and purpose. The test takes 60 minutes. The IELTS Academic Reading Test includes three long texts which range from the descriptive and factual to the discursive and analytical. These are taken from books, journals, magazines and newspapers. They have been selected for a non-specialist audience but are appropriate for people entering university courses or seeking professional registration. 

Extra information 

T/F/NG questions 

Test takers will be given a number of statements and asked: ‘Do the following statements agree with the information in the text?’ They are then required to write ‘true’, ‘false’ or ‘not given’ in the boxes on their answer sheets. It is important to understand the difference between 'false' and 'not given'. 'False' means that the passage states the opposite of the statement in question; 'not given' means that the statement is neither confirmed nor contradicted by the information in the passage. 

This task type assesses the test takers’ ability to recognise particular points of information conveyed in the text. It can thus be used with more factual texts. 

Y/N/NG questions 

Test takers will be given a number of statements and asked: ‘Do the following statements agree with the views/claims of the writer?’ They are required to write ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘not given’ in the boxes on their answer sheet. It is important to understand the difference between 'no' and 'not given'. 'No' means that the views or claims of the writer explicitly disagree with the statement, i.e. the writer somewhere expresses the view or makes a claim which is opposite to the one given in the question; 'not given' means that the view or claim is neither confirmed nor contradicted. 

This task type assesses the test takers’ ability to recognise opinions or ideas, and so it is often used with discursive or argumentative texts. 

For both task types, students need to understand that any knowledge they bring with them from outside the passage should not play a part when deciding on their answers. 

Material: Worksheet 1 Time: 5- 10 minutes Procedure: 

• • introduce the focus of the lesson – dealing with T/F/NG (and Y/N/NG) questions in the IELTS Reading Test. 
• • explain that these questions require test takers to recognise particular points of information (or opinions or ideas, in the case of Y/N/NG questions) conveyed in the text. 
• • tell students to look at Worksheet, Exercise 1. (This is just to give an idea). 
• • tell students to read the “passage” and work in pairs to answer question 1-3. 

Reading Skills – Dealing with T/F/NG questions 

Worksheet 1 

Differentiating between the options 

Read the passage and answer questions 1-3. 

Reading Passage: The Wifi code is Dublin. 

Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage? 

Write 

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information. 

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information. 

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this. 

1. London is the Wifi code. ………. 

2. The Wifi code has the letter ‘b’ in it. .……… 

3. Dublin is the capital of the Republic of Ireland. ………. 

Answers 

1. FALSE – the Wifi code is Dublin, NOT London (direct contradiction) 

2. TRUE – the third letter of the code is the letter ‘b’. 

3. NOT GIVEN – the passage does not mention whether Dublin is the capital of the Republic of Ireland or not. You can also use this opportunity to point out that even if you know Dublin is the capital, based on the information given in the TEXT/PASSAGE, the correct answer is NOT GIVEN. 

• round this exercise up by eliciting where students will find answers i.e. in the actual text, and not in their general knowledge of the topic. 

Exercise 2 

• • elicit from students what they remember/understand by skimming a text (reading first/topic sentences and final sentences to get an idea of gist and text organisation). 
• • tell students they have 3 minutes to skim the text and underline the topic/final sentences (highlighted in the text below). 
• • encourage students to write down the central idea of each paragraph in the margin using a couple of words / a phrase. 

  1) Chronobiology might sound a little futuristic – like something from a science fiction novel, perhaps – but it’s actually a field of study that concerns one of the oldest processes life on this planet has ever known: short-term rhythms of time and their effect on flora and fauna (Q1). 

  2) This can take many forms. Marine life, for example, is influenced by tidal patterns (Q2). Animals tend to be active or inactive depending on the position of the sun or moon. Numerous creatures, humans included, are largely diurnal – that is, they like to come out during the hours of sunlight (Q3). Nocturnal animals, such as bats and possums, prefer to forage by night. A third group are known as crepuscular: they thrive in the lowlight of dawn and dusk and remain inactive at other hours. 

  3) When it comes to humans, chronobiologists are interested in what is known as the circadian rhythm. This is the complete cycle our bodies are naturally geared to undergo within the passage of a twenty-four hour day (Q4). Aside from sleeping at night and waking during the day, each cycle involves many other factors such as changes in blood pressure and body temperature. Not everyone has an identical circadian rhythm. ‘Night people’, for example, often describe how they find it very hard to operate during the morning, but become alert and focused by evening. This is a benign variation within circadian rhythms known as a chronotype Q5). 

  4) Scientists have limited abilities to create durable modifications of chronobiological demands. Recent therapeutic developments for humans such as artificial light machines and melatonin administration can reset our circadian rhythms, for example, but our bodies can tell the difference and health suffers when we breach these natural rhythms for extended periods of time (Q6). Plants appear no more malleable in this respect; studies demonstrate that vegetables grown in season and ripened on the tree are far higher in essential nutrients than those grown in greenhouses and ripened by laser (Q7). 

  5) Knowledge of chronobiological patterns can have many pragmatic implications for our day-to-day lives. While contemporary living can sometimes appear to subjugate biology – after all, who needs circadian rhythms when we have caffeine pills, energy drinks, shift work and cities that never sleep? – keeping in synch with our body clock is important. 

  6) The average urban resident, for example, rouses at the eyeblearing time of 6.04 a.m., which researchers believe to be far too early. One study found that even rising at 7.00 a.m. has deleterious effects on health unless exercise is performed for 30 minutes afterwards. The optimum moment has been whittled down to 7.22 a.m.; 

  muscle aches, headaches and moodiness were reported to be lowest by participants in the study who awoke then. 

  7) Once you’re up and ready to go, what then? If you’re trying to shed some extra pounds, dieticians are adamant: never skip breakfast. This disorients your circadian rhythm and puts your body in starvation mode. The recommended course of action is to follow an intense workout with a carbohydrate-rich breakfast; the other way round and weight loss results are not as pronounced. 

  8) Morning is also great for breaking out the vitamins. Supplement absorption by the body is not temporal-dependent, but naturopath Pam Stone notes that the extra boost at breakfast helps us get energised for the day ahead. For improved absorption, Stone suggests pairing supplements with a food in which they are soluble and steering clear of caffeinated beverages. Finally, Stone warns to take care with storage; high potency is best for absorption, and warmth and humidity are known to deplete the potency of a supplement. 

  9) After-dinner espressos are becoming more of a tradition – we have the Italians to thank for that – but to prepare for a good night’s sleep we are better off putting the brakes on caffeine consumption as early as 3 p.m. With a seven hour half-life, a cup of coffee containing 90 mg of caffeine taken at this hour could still leave 45 mg of caffeine in your nervous system at ten o’clock that evening. It is essential that, by the time you are ready to sleep, your body is rid of all traces. 

  Strategy for True, False, Not Given questions 

  1 Put the following into the correct order to give you a strategy for dealing with T/F/NG questions. 

  a) Close read around those words to locate the piece of information that will help you decide whether the answer is TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN. 

  b) Based on your skimming, identify which paragraph/parts of the text are relevant to the question. 

  c) Read the statements and underline/highlight key words. 

  d) Turn the statements into Yes/No questions. 

  e) Scan the relevant paragraph/parts of the text and identify the key words or synonyms from the questions. 

  f) Think of synonyms of the key words or other ways they may be expressed. 

  g) Based on the answer to the Yes/No question, check the instructions and write down your final answer (for T/F/NG questions, Yes = TRUE, No = FALSE and NOT GIVEN = NOT GIVEN) 

  Questions 1–7 

  Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage? 

  In boxes 1-7 of your answer sheet, write 

  TRUE if the statement agrees with the information. 

  FALSE if the statement contradicts the information. 

  NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this. 

  Example: 1. Chronobiology is the study of how living things have evolved over time.	False
  2. The rise and fall of sea levels affect how sea creatures behave.
  3. Most animals are active during the daytime.
  4. Circadian rhythms identify how we do different things on different days.
  5. A ‘night person’ can still have a healthy circadian rhythm.
  6. New therapies can permanently change circadian rhythms without causing harm.
  7. Naturally-produced vegetables have more nutritional value