IELTS General Reading Summary Completion

Table of Contents

1. IELTS General Reading Summary Completion 
2. IELTS General Reading Summary Completion - Strategies & Tips to Solve 
3. Summary Completion Practice Exercise 1 
4. Answers for practice Exercises
5. Conclusion 

IELTS students struggled to answer IELTS general reading summary completion questions as they were not equipped with proven tips. In this task, you will be given summarized information of the text with some gaps. You are required to fill those gaps with exact words from the reading text. Sometimes, you need to pick the answer from the given list of options.  

Summary completion is a frequently asked question type in the IELTS Exam. To answer these questions effectively, you need to read the text with the aim of finding the details in the text and to grasp the main ideas. The answer can be found mostly in one part of the text.

When we asked the IELTS trainers what is the most important IELTS general reading question type, they answered summary completion. In this blog, you will get 12 expert proven tips and 3 skill building exercises to tackle the IELTS general reading summary completion questions well. Additionally, It can gear your performance in the IELTS general reading test. 

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IELTS General Reading Summary Completion - Strategies & Tips to Solve 

IELTS experts recommended 12 IELTS general reading summary completion tips and strategies to crack the questions effectively. Implement these tips while you are answering to perform better.

• Read the instructions properly. First of all, understand the organisation of the summary, it will help you to which part of the text you must focus on to answer the questions. 
• Highlight the words which are close to the blanks. These are the words you can easily identify in the text. 
• Underline the signpost words to help you navigate the passage. Words like “In addition/and/also” indicate the information in continuation. “However/though/In contrast/but” etc. denotes the shift in opinions or ideas. It guides you to identify the required part of the passage. 
• Generate possible answers in your mind which help you to choose the appropriate word to answer. It could also help you to consider the necessary grammatical accuracy. Both basic grammar concepts and vocabulary will be tested in this task. 
• Scan the passages to locate the words which you have highlighted. 
• Don’t spend too much time on one question. Skip the question and move on to answer the other questions. Return back to the question that you have not answered
• Check your answers whether it is grammatically correct or not. If it is not correct, it will affect your score. 
• In this question type, your task is to complete a summary with words and/or a number from the reading passage.
• Make sure you do not exceed the given word limit.
• Read the heading of the summary and skim the passage to understand  what it is about. It also helps you to understand whether the summary covers a part of the passage or the entire passage. 
• Try to recognise what type of information is required to fill the blank. It can be a noun, an adjective, etc.,
• Do not write your own answer to the question. You have to pick the words from the reading passages. 
• Make sure you do not change the word form. It needs to be exactly the same as presented in the passage. 

These IELTS general reading summary completion tips and strategies can help you to answer the questions without any trouble. 

Also read: IELTS reading tips

Skills required to solve summary completion question

• Scanning skill to locate the required information.
• Able to identify the keywords.
• Paraphrasing skill to understand the summary
• Able to predict the appropriate word which completes the sentence.

Common challenges faced while answering summary completion question

• One of the mistakes that students constantly make is not reading the instructions properly.
• You might change the grammatical structure of the sentences which should not be done. 
• You may spend too much time on a single question to answer. 

Summary Completion Practice Exercise 1

Answer questions 1-7 which are based on the reading passages below.

Light Pollution Reading Passage

In the Nevada desert, if you drive for hours in the south, you’ll find a dome of hazy gold on the horizon. And, you’ll confront a road sign which shows Las Vegas 30 miles away. The Big Dipper will be harder to find if you look skyward, which you found easily an hour ago.

For the past 15 years, light pollution has become more problematic across the country. Light pollution essentially means an artificial light illuminates more than the intended target of the zone. One can find lots of overlit shopping malls in the suburbs, 200 of the Milkyway’s 2,500 stars can only be seen in clear night. Both in big and small cities, light beams conceal the street itself. Street lamp’s 50 percent of the light is reaching more than the intended target. And, other over-illuminated things are billboards, shopping centres, skyscrapers and private homes. 

In satellite images of the United States, the outline of America becomes visible as it has an excess of lights. Some of the major cities which illuminates as a clusters are, New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Houston etc., Superintendent of the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, Mark Adams says that lights are visible on high is proof of its wastefulness - “When you’re up in an airplane, all that light you see on the ground from the city is wasted. It’s going up into the night sky. That’s why you can see it.”

Light engineers deny the idea that these lights can ensure our safety. Elizabeth Alvarez of the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) explains that neighbours could shut their door because of the overly bright security lights. In this way, the criminal activity that occurs in the street may go unnoticed. Bright lights reducing criminal activity is not an actual truth. The Department of Justice reported that no correlation between the light level and crime level is found. Even more crimes are happening in the broad light than at night. 

Lights actually create problems for drivers. Glaring lights, even, blind the drivers temporarily which increases the probability of accidents. Some of the cities and states prohibit the use of light which impairs the night vision. For example, New Hampshire has a law which forbid the use of any, “any light along a highway so positioned as to blind or dazzle the vision of travelers on the adjacent highway.”

Questions 1-7

Complete the summary below.

Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.

Light pollution means an 1______ light which illuminates more than the intended target. Overlit shopping malls are there in suburban areas and 50 percent of the 2________ light is reaching more than what is actually intended. In 3________ images of the United states, the outline of America becomes clearly visible as it has a surplus of lights. Superintendent of the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, 4_______ says that lights are visible on high is proof of its wastefulness. Elizabeth Alvarez of the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) explains that neighbours could shut their door because of the overly bright 5______.  By this way, the 6_______ that occurs in the street may go unnoticed. Lights actually create lots of problems for drivers. 7_______ , even, blind the drivers temporarily which may increase the probability of accidents. 

Check answer for this exercise

Answers for Practice Exercises

Find the answers with explanations given below for the above practice exercise and check your answers. 

Light Pollution Reading Answers

(Note: The text in italics is from the reading passage and shows the location from where the answer is taken or inferred. The text in the regular font explains the answer in detail.)

1.   Artificial

Explanation: Light pollution essentially means an artificial light illuminates more than the intended target of the zone

2.   Street lamp

Explanation: Street lamp’s 50 percent of the light is reaching more than the intended target. 

3.   Satellite

Explanation: In satellite images of the United States, the outline of America becomes visible as it has an excess of lights.

4.   Mark Adams

Explanation: Superintendent of the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, Mark Adams says that lights are visible on high is proof of its wastefulness 

5.   Security lights

Explanation: Elizabeth Alvarez of the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) explains that neighbours could shut their door because of the overly bright security lights

6.   criminal activity

Explanation:  In this way, the criminal activity that occurs in the street may go unnoticed.

7.   Glaring lights

Explanation: Lights actually create problems for drivers. Glaring lights, even, blind the drivers temporarily which increases the probability of accidents. 

Also check IELTS general reading matching sentence endings 

Conclusion

IELTS Students, just like you, tripled their performance rate by using the tips and skill-building exercises given in this article. You can practice these mock test to boost your IELTS score.