Reading: Summary & Sentence Completion with Words from the Passage

Some candidates see these tasks as a simple "fill the gap" and lose easy marks. In fact both formats test the same three skills: fast searching, recognising paraphrase and grammatical accuracy.

The golden rule is that answers are taken from the passage word for word — you may not invent your own synonym. An instruction like Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer says that every answer must be copied unchanged and must not exceed two words.

Understand the difference: a gapped summary usually condenses a large part of the text into a few sentences, while sentence completion often reflects separate sentences. The strategy is the same either way: predict the type of the missing word, find the matching idea in the passage, and copy the words without changing anything.

The word limit is the "cheapest" way to lose marks: even if the content is correct, one extra word makes the answer zero. The main formats:

• ONE WORD ONLY — only one word.
• NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS — a maximum of two words.
• NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER — up to three words, a number, or both.

Counting rules:

1. A hyphenated expression counts as one word: well-being is one word.
2. If you write an article (a/an/the), it counts as a word too.
3. A number is allowed only when the instruction says "AND/OR A NUMBER"; a figure such as 1998 or 12 counts as a separate "number", not as a word. Under "ONE WORD ONLY" the answer is one word from the passage — do not write a number.

Practical rule: choose the minimum complete answer. If the passage says it dried almost instantly and the question is The ink dried ______., then almost instantly fits the limit exactly; an invented variant like very quickly indeed is not accepted. Always count before copying — one extra word cancels the whole answer.

Before starting the search, determine which part of speech the gap requires. This helps you recognise a word of the right type in the passage at once and reject nearby "trap" words:

An article or possessive starts a noun phrase, but the gap need not be the noun itself: check the rest of the sentence to see whether an adjective or another modifier is missing. Linking words are clues too: in through shading and ______, the parallel with shading and the cooling context point to a noun here; "and" alone does not determine the part of speech. Remember — changing the form of a word from the passage is forbidden. If the word you found does not fit the sentence grammatically, either you are looking in the wrong place or you have met a deceptive word: go back and trace the paraphrase chain again.