In this lesson we're going to look at
IELTS reading multiple choice questions. Now this reading and the questions are
taken from a reading that's on the British Council website so it's a proper
IELTS reading. You'll find a link to this reading at the bottom of the video
underneath in the comments in case you want to do the reading before we go
through the exercise. In IELTS reading multiple choice questions you're given a
question or statement and then you're given four choices and you have to
decide which is the correct one to answer it. They can vary slightly. For
example, if you look at question eight, this is a question: "What did researchers
identify as the ideal time to wake up in the morning" and then you need to choose
which is the correct answer. In number nine you're having to finish
the sentence: "In order to lose weight we should" and then you need to choose which is the correct one to finish the sentence. Or in number ten: "Which is NOT mentioned as a way to improve supplement absorption" so in this case one of these
is not in the reading so that means three of them will be in there and one
will not be there. So as you can see, they can vary slightly and there can be slight differences between what you have to do for each one. This is the reading and it's called 'Making time for science'. If you saw one
of my previous videos you'll know that this is the same reading and in that
previous video we looked at IELTS true false not given questions and they
came from just..the answers were all in these first four paragraphs. So now we're
going to look at these IELTS reading multiple-choice questions which are for the same reading so the first thing that we want to do is find out where the
information will be to get the answers for these
questions. So what you want to do is start underlining or highlighting some
keywords from each of the questions or statements that will help you to find
the answers. So for example so let's go through each one, in the first one, what
did researchers identify as the ideal time to wake up in the morning, so for
this one we're going to be looking for a time because you can see the answers
here are 'times' so that's what we'll use to try and scan the reading to find the
answer. Number nine is gonna be something about weight so we'll look for something
about "losing weight" to try and find the answer. We could also maybe look for
"carbohydrates" to clarify we're in the right place. Number 10, Which is NOT
mentioned as a way to improve supplement absorption so we could use this to try
and find the answer. Number 11, The best time to stop drinking coffee, so we want
to find something about "drinking coffee" and about "stopping". Maybe there's
something about "feeling anxious" could help us to clarify that. In question 12,
In the evening we should "stay away from carbohydrates" "exercising" "eating as much as possible" "eating a light meal" so something about the "evening" Now it's up to you the way you do that
what you could do is one question at a time so you could do question eight
underline "time" see that you've got to look for times and then go to the reading and try and find the answer and then you could go to question
nine look for "losing weight" so you could do it that way or you could go through
each question turn highlights and key words and then start looking for the
answers, so that's really up to you, just choose the best way that you think suits
you. Something you should remember when you're looking to find the answers in
the text is that you won't necessarily find the information exactly as it is
because they will often phrase things differently in the reading to what you
see in the IELTS reading multiple choice questions. In this first one obviously they can't phrase times
differently so you're gonna look for times in the reading but for this one for example number nine "lose weight" you might not see the words the words "lose weight" in there it might be rephrased in
a different way, so you have to be very careful when you look for the answers. Now the technique you use to find the
answers is called scanning. Scanning is when you go through a reading quickly
and you're just looking for some key looking for some key information so
you're not reading the whole text. So let's have a look at how we do this for
the first question to find out where the answers are. So for the first one we said
we're looking for times so you want to scan through the reading and look for some
times somewhere so if you go to the start of the reading, so we would do this very
quickly go through the first paragraph there's no times there, the second one
there's no times there, the fourth one there are no times - this is 24-hour day but that
doesn't look right. Go to the next paragraph there are no times there . This
paragraph there are no times forget to this
paragraph you can see there's times. So that's telling us that the answer is
very likely to be in this paragraph. Now for the purposes of this exercise
because it's a training video I'm going to copy and paste each set of IELTS reading multiple choice questions
below where you'll find the answer in the paragraph. Now of course you can't do
this yourself in the actual test. What you'd need to do is either mark out the
number of the question next to the paragraph or if you're doing each
question in turn obviously you would find the paragraph and then answer the
question. If you remember we found the first answer in the fifth paragraph here
this has the times in so that means all these paragraphs are not going to be
used the reason the reason for that is with IELTS reading multiple choice
questions the questions will follow the reading in chronological order so once
you've found the answer to the first question you know that the questions
that follow are going to come in the underneath that first question somewhere. So for the purposes of this IELTS reading multiple choice training
exercise let's do each question in turn. So we'll take
the first one number eight here. Now we found out then that was in this
paragraph here so let's look and try and see from the find out what the answer is. While we go through these if you haven't
already done the reading and what you might want to do is pause it each
time to get to a new question and you can read the paragraph and have a go at
answering the question yourself then you can start it again and see if you've got
the question right when I go through it. So let's look
at the question: What did researchers identify as the ideal time to wake up in
the morning - so that means the best time to wake up in the morning.
Now you scan to find the answer but now you need to read the paragraph in more
detail to decide which one of these is correct. So the average urban resident
for example rouses - which means wakes up - at the eye blearing time of 6:04. Researchers believe this is far
too early - so that it's "too early" - so it's not that one. One study found that even
rising at 7 a.m. has deleterious effects on health
issues - deleterious means negative or bad - unless exercise is performed for 30 minutes. So it's not 7. The optimum moment - optimum means the best - has been whittled down to 7:22 a.m. so it looks like is this one. But just read the rest of the paragraph
to check. Headaches and moodiness reported to be lowest by participants in the study who awoke then. 7:30 is not even mentioned so the answer is C, 7.22. So now we're on to
question 9 so we'll copy and paste that and in the text and in the text we're
looking for "lose weight" or "carbohydrate." We know it's gonna follow down from
question 8. So once you're up and ready then what if you're trying to shed some
extra pounds - shed extra pounds - that means "losing weight" and if you carry on
we can see they mention "carbohydrates" here, so it looks like this is where
question 9 is. So now we look at answering the question. So for question 9,
In order to lose weight we should "avoid eating breakfast" "eat a low carbohydrate breakfast" "exercise before breakfast" or "after breakfast" so
if you're trying to shed some extra pound so if you're trying to "lose weight"
diet dieticians are adamant never skip breakfast that means they're sure that
you should not skip breakfast so this one says to lose weight you should "avoid
eating breakfast". Well no they're saying you should HAVE breakfast you shouldn't
miss it. So this disoriented orientates your
circadian rhythm. The recommended course of action - so what you should do - is
follow an intense workout with a carbohydrate breakfast, so that
means do some exercise then have a carbohydrate-rich breakfast. Carbohydrate-rich means have a lot of carbohydrates in your breakfast. This says "a LOW
carbohydrate breakfast" so it can't be B. This says "exercise before breakfast"
this one says "exercise after breakfast". This one says the other way round which
means exercising after breakfast means weight loss results are NOT as
pronounced which means not so good. So that means the answer for this then this
one then is C. So now we can look at question ten. Now
we know that nine was in this paragraph here so we know that ten is very likely
to follow in the next paragraph, so we'll put ten down here and then we can start
looking for the answer. Now for this one remember it is which is NOT mentioned as a way to improve supplement absorption so that means three of these will talk
about ways of improving supplement absorption but one will not be mentioned.
So now we want to look at the paragraph and talk about where can we see about
improving supplement absorption, so if we go through the paragraph - skim through
and you can see here "improved" so what for "improved absorption" means what you can do to improve the absorption so she suggests "pairing supplements with a food in which they are soluble and steering clear of caffeinated beverages". This is
where you need good vocabulary - pairing means having something together -
so having supplements with a food which is soluble. "Steering clear" means 'not to
have' and 'not having' caffeinated beverages so let's see what it says here:
"avoiding drinks containing caffeine" - yes that's what it says - "while taking
supplements". "While" is the same as "pairing" so they're saying the same thing. So that
one is in there so it's not A. Next it says: "Stone warns to take care with
storage" so be careful about storage. "High potency is best for absorption
and warmth and humidity are known to deplete the potency of a supplement" -
"taking supplements at breakfast". Well that's not connected to that. "Taking
supplements with foods that can dissolve them". Well that's not connected to
that last bit we read. "Storing supplements in a cool dry
environment". Well that's what it says here: "Take care with storage warmth" and "humidity are known to deplete the potency" means and 'make them worse' so you need to keep them in a cool dry environment. so she does mention this one. So it's either going to be B or C. Now "taking supplements with foods that could
dissolve them". If we look again in the first part - improves absorption - it
says they need to be "soluble". That means the same thing as being "dissolved" so
that means C is in there. So that leaves us with B. If you have a look it doesn't
actually mention anywhere about taking supplements at breakfast -so the answer
is B. You do always always have to be careful with these questions because it
does say at the beginning: "Morning is also great for breaking out the vitamins",
so it could make you think that it does discuss B which is taking supplements at
breakfast, but remember this is the section here where it talks about ways to improve supplement absorption so that first bit is actually not connected. So we saw that number 10 was in this paragraph when we
looked through the whole paragraph, so we can be fairly sure that question 11 is
going to be in the next paragraph and question 11 was about the best times
to stop drinking coffee so if we have a quick skim through the paragraph
here we can see it starts talking about caffeine consumption so we can be sure
that this is probably the paragraph where it is. And as I said the questions
follow in chronological order so it can be fairly sure it's in this paragraph. So
the "best time to stop drinking coffee" - when is it? Mid-afternoon / 10 p.m. / when you're anxious / or after dinner. Now if you look
through the paragraph you can see that there's quite a few things in here that
appear in these points here: "mid-afternoon", talking about "3 p.m."
"10 p.m." it mentions "10 o'clock". "Only when feeling anxious" we see it
talks about being "nervous" here. "After dinner" well it talks about after
dinner up here. So that does bring us to another point that it's worth mentioning
with these type of IELTS reading multiple choice questions - that these don't necessarily follow in the same
order in the paragraph, so the main questions do follow in chronological
order but these could these could appear in different places in the
paragraph so you have to be a bit more careful. Let's look at trying to find the
answer, so when is the best time to stop drinking coffee. If you look: "After dinner
expressos are becoming more of a tradition - we had the Italians
to thank for that - but to prepare for a good night's sleep we were better off
putting the brakes on caffeine consumption as early as 3 p.m. To "put
the brakes" on something means to 'stop doing something' so we're better off
stopping drinking caffeine consumption as early as 3:00 p.m. so if you look so
if we look through these we can already see that it's looking very likely it
might be A because "mid-afternoon" is "3 p.m". But we need to check the others
just to check that we haven't made a mistake with that. "10 p.m." -
what's it say about 10 p.m.? "With a 7 hour half-life a cup of coffee
containing 90 milligrams of caffeine taken at this hour could still leave 45
milligrams of caffeine in your nervous system 10
clock" so that's just saying the caffeine could still be in your system - it's
nothing to do with stopping drinking coffee. Should we stop
drinking coffee "only when we're feeling anxious". Well it mentions "nervous" here
but that's talking about the "nervous system" - that's a different thing to do with "feeling anxious" - the nervous system is obviously talking about the
nerves in your body but that's not to do with feeling anxious. Is it best to stop
drinking coffee "after dinner"? Well we've already seen the best time is as early
as 3 p.m. The only time it mentions dinner is here when he's talking about
after dinner expressos, so that means the answer is A - mid-afternoon. Now for question 12 we're on the last paragraph so we know that the answer is
going to be in this paragraph and we can see "In the evening" and it's about
"Evenings" so we know we're in the right place here. So "In the evening" what should we do" Should we stay away from carbohydrates / stop exercising / eat as
much as possible / or eat a light mea.l Only one of these will be true. "Dietician
Geraldine Georgeou warns that's an after five carbohydrate-fast is more
cultural myth than chrono- biological demand" so this is obviously
referring to A. A says "stay away from carbohydrates" but she says 'fasting on
carbohydrates' which means 'not having them' after five o'clock is a "cultural
myth" that means it's NOT true, so that is different to this - this is saying "'stay
away from carb carbohydrates" she's saying if you stay away from them it
will "deprive your body of vital energy needs" so it can't be A. So we look at the
next part. "Overloading your gut could lead to
indigestion, though." "Overloading your gut" - your gut is your stomach - "overloading" it means having too much of something, so if you eat too much you could get
indigestion so you shouldn't eat too much. If we look through here, we haven't seen
anything about exercising but it says "eat as much as possible". What she's saying you shouldn't eat too much, so it doesn't look like it's C either. "Our
digestive tracts do not shut down for the night entirely, but their work slows
to a crawl as our bodies prepare for sleep. There's not anything about that
in here. "Consuming a modest snack should be entirely sufficient" - so what we
should do is eat a little - "modest" means "not too much" so we should eat a small
snack. Here D - "eat a light meal" so that fits this one, so it looks like the
answer then is D. There's nothing about exercising so we can't say if that's
something we should or should not do so it can't be B, so the answer then is D. Now we'll look at some IELTS reading
multiple-choice tips . Now firstly remember there are different question
types so we saw that you might get a question where you have to answer... choose A B C or D. You might get a statement where you have to choose which of A B C or D is the
answer but you may also have to decide what information is NOT there. So you'll get A B C and D. Three of them will be there but one won't be there. The next
tip is to underline key words to locate the answers. So go through the questions
and the statements at the beginning and underline any key words which could be
nouns or numbers, people's names, things like that so you can then find the
answers in the text. The next IELTS reading
multiple-choice tip is to read in detail to work out the correct answer so when
you've scanned to find the keywords to find the answers you
then have to read in detail because as you saw some of them are quite complex
and the A B C and D don't necessarily follow in order, Yyou have to read very
carefully to find out what the answer is. Remember as well the questions are in the same order as the text so you might find one question in each paragraph and then
the next question in the next paragraph but sometimes you get much larger
paragraphs so you might get more than one question in one paragraph but it
will still follow in chronological order. And remember also to look out for
synonyms and paraphrasing. When you do these IELTS reading multiple choice
questions or any questions in the IELTS reading you often will not get the same
words in the questions that you see in the text - they'll either be synonyms or
they might be paraphrased - so you have to be careful for that when you're looking
for the answers. And finally as is important for any type of questions in
the IELTS reading is improving your vocabulary. As you saw from doing this
training exercise there are some very difficult words in there so you have to
make sure you've got good vocabulary. If you look at the bottom of this video
you'll see there is a link to a page on the IELTS buddy website and that gives
you some good exercises for learning a lot of high-level vocabulary. you
