True False Not Given questions are considered to be the trickiest questions in IELTS Reading where candidates get confused a lot. Usually, most of the candidates find it confusing to identify whether the question is false or not given. Let us find out some tips on how to do true false not given type of questions in IELTS reading.

Read Instructions Carefully

The first thing to be kept in mind while doing true false not given questions in IELTS reading is to read the instruction carefully. You must observe to see whether the instruction is in the form of code T/F/NG or words True/False/Not Given. You must answer according to the instruction and for this, you can underline or encircle the instruction like a keyword so that you may not ignore it and may not be solving the question carelessly.

Verify Not Given Condition First

One silly mistake students do in true false questions of IELTS reading is to ignore not given condition. There are several statements in the question which they are keenly verifying and checking for true false condition. They get so much involved or busy in checking for true false conditions that they forget about not given condition completely.

You can mark a statement as not given, if the relevant information is not at all mentioned in the passage. Here, do not get confused with the keywords. It may so happen that words in the statement match with words in the IELTS reading passage but still, it can be a not given one. Hence, always match the meaning or information of the question statement with that in the passage. For a statement to be true, the information should exactly match with the information in the passage while it would be opposite in case of false statement.

Split Question into Parts

If the question statement is lengthy, you may get confused while verifying it. There is one solution to get rid of this confusion that you can split your question into two or more parts according to the information. Then for each part of the statement, you can verify true, false or not given conditions. For example, if you have divided the question statement into two parts, first check for not given conditions. If information for both parts is not given, then mark the complete statement as not given. On the other hand, if information for both parts is there, you can further verify the parts for true or false conditions.

Do Not Consume too Much Time on Single Question

You should never consume so much time trying to solve a question. If you go through a passage and could not find any information relevant to the question, you can mark it as not given statement rather than consuming a lot of time to verify it again and again. Remember that time is crucial in IELTS reading exam.

Notice Controlling Words

The most important tip for identifying whether a statement is false or not is to look for controlling words such as always, never, ever, sometimes, a little, all, some etc. These words can change the meaning of a statement completely and most of the times, these questions are false though not always. Hence, pay special attention to the questions where you find such controlling words.