Reading Comprehension Part B: Matching, Ordering and Headings
Part B is the new question type: five items worth 10 points, set in one of three formats. In the 7-choose-5 matching task you place five sentences or paragraphs into gaps in a text, with two distractors left over. In the ordering task you arrange scrambled paragraphs, some positions already fixed. In heading matching you choose a heading for each paragraph from a list. All three test the same thing: discourse coherence, traced through pronouns, lexical chains, connectives and the given-new flow of information.
Cohesion signals to trace
- Pronouns and demonstratives (this, these, such, it, they): the referent must already exist in the preceding text.
- Lexical chains: repetition, synonym, antonym and superordinate terms such as vehicle → car.
- Connectives: however, therefore, for example, in contrast; the relation must match the surrounding argument.
- Tense and time: a sentence about a future event cannot follow 'the resulting backlog'.
- Given-new order: a sentence usually opens with old information and introduces new information at its end.
Worked example
Before the gap: 'The agency had underestimated how many permits would be required.' After the gap: 'The resulting backlog delayed construction by nearly a year.' Candidates: A) Construction finally began in 2019. B) Each application had to be reviewed by three separate offices. B is correct. 'The resulting backlog' needs a stated cause of delay, and B supplies multiple applications and multiple reviews. A gives a date but creates no backlog, and 'resulting' would have nothing to refer to. The link is causal, not verbal repetition.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing the option that repeats the most words from the passage.
- Ignoring a singular/plural mismatch between a pronoun and its supposed referent.
- In heading tasks, choosing a heading that matches the topic but not the paragraph's claim or scope.
- Placing a definition before the term it defines.
- In ordering tasks, failing to identify the only paragraph that can open: no anaphoric pronouns and a general statement.
- Forcing a link with a connective that signals the wrong relation, such as contrast where the text needs addition.