Reading
Finishing sentences with words from the passage, and the grammar test hiding inside it. With a practice exercise and answers.
IELTS sentence completion gives you separate sentences with a gap in each, to be filled with words taken from the passage. It appears in reading and listening, and it is one of the question types where preparation pays back immediately.
The key point is that the completed sentence has to be grammatically correct as well as true. Candidates who find the right idea but the wrong form of the word still lose the mark.
How it works
Two things at once: whether you found the information, and whether you can fit it into English.
The answer must come from the text, in the form it appears there. You cannot substitute a synonym of your own.
Usually one, two or three words. Going over the limit makes a correct answer wrong, so count before you move on.
Answers appear in the order of the passage, which means each answer is somewhere after the last one you found.
Read the completed sentence back. If it does not make sense grammatically, you have taken the wrong words from the right place.
The stem will not use the passage's wording. You are matching an idea, then supplying the exact words the writer used.
The wrong answer is often in the same sentence as the right one. Reading the whole sentence, not just around the keyword, prevents this.
Method
Six steps, and the second one does most of the work.
In each stem, mark the proper noun, number or unusual term most likely to appear in the passage unchanged. That is your scanning target.
Look at the words either side of the gap. After an article you need a noun. After a preposition, usually a noun. After to, often a verb.
Move down the page looking only for that word, and do not read the sentences you pass over.
When you find it, read the entire sentence and the one after. The answer is often a few words further on than you expect.
Put your words into the stem and read it aloud in your head. Wrong grammar means wrong answer.
Then move on. Do not spend a fourth minute deciding whether a hyphenated word counts; write it and go.
Practice
Read the passage, then complete each sentence with words from the text.
The adult education programme returns next month, and this year the courses will run for ten weeks rather than the usual eight. Classes are capped at eight students, which is lower than in previous years but has been kept deliberately small after feedback about the size of last year's groups.
The cost of each course depends on income, and anyone receiving a benefit pays a reduced rate. Those interested should contact Mike Edwards on the number below, and note that all evening courses will be held at the town hall rather than at the college, which is being refurbished.
1Courses will run for ______ .
ten weeks. The passage contrasts ten weeks with the usual eight, and the distractor sits in the same sentence as the answer.
2There is a maximum of ______ students per class.
eight. Classes are capped at eight students. Note that eight also appears as the old course length, which is why reading the whole sentence matters.
3The cost of a course depends on ______ .
income. One word, taken directly. The gap follows on, so a noun is needed, which rules out most alternatives before you search.
4Those interested should contact ______ Edwards.
Mike. The gap sits before a surname, so a first name is the only thing that fits grammatically. Mr appears nowhere in the passage and cannot be invented.
5Evening courses will be held at the ______ .
town hall. The college is named in the same sentence but is the place the classes are not being held, which is the classic distractor.
That is the commonest failure in sentence completion, and it happens because the distractor usually sits in the same sentence as the answer.
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Multiple choice makes this easier than the real thing, where you supply the words yourself and the grammar has to work.
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Yes. The answers appear in the order of the text, so each one is later in the passage than the last. If you find a later answer first, you have missed one.
No. The answer must appear in the passage exactly as you write it. If the grammar does not work, you have chosen the wrong words rather than the wrong form.
Whatever the instruction line says, usually one, two or three. Going over the limit makes a correct answer wrong, so count every time.
Sentence completion gives you separate sentences, each with its own gap. Summary completion gives you a connected paragraph summarising part of the passage.
Because that is where it catches most people. Reading the whole sentence, rather than the few words around your keyword, is the reliable defence.
Full membership
A word over the limit, a distractor from the same sentence, a form that does not fit. Each one is half a mark, and together they are a band.
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