IELTS Reading Matching Features: Match People, Places and Ideas

Matching features questions give you a list of statements and a list of features, usually people (such as researchers), but sometimes periods, places, organisations or categories. You match each statement to the correct feature by writing its letter.

In Academic Reading this often means matching findings or opinions to the experts who expressed them. The type appears in General Training too, for example matching rules to the services they apply to.

What it tests

• Scanning for names or other features across the whole passage.
• Understanding who said or did what when several people are discussed.
• Recognising paraphrase of claims, findings or descriptions.
• Following reference words (she, his team, the latter) back to the right person.

Step-by-step strategy

1. Check whether options can be reused. The instructions will tell you.
2. Scan the passage for every feature in the list and mark where each name, date or place appears. A person may be mentioned in several places.
3. Read the statements and underline the key idea in each.
4. Work from the features, not the statements. Go to the first marked name, read what is said about it, and check it against all the statements. Then move to the next name.
5. Follow the pronouns. After a name, she, the professor or this team may continue the same person's view for several sentences.
6. Match the claim, not just the topic. Two people may discuss the same topic and hold different views on it.

Common traps

• Same topic, different view. Two experts discuss the same question, but one supports a claim and the other questions it.
• A view that is reported, then rejected. A person describes an idea in order to argue against it. The statement matches the idea, not the person's own position.
• Pronoun confusion. After two people are mentioned close together, he or she refers to the second person, not the first.
• Names near the answer. The statement's information appears in a sentence that mentions one person, but the claim is attributed to someone else in the same sentence.
• Avoiding a repeat. Students change a correct answer because a letter is already used, even though the instructions allow reuse.

Try it: mini-example

This passage is original practice material written for Bee English.

Why do we forget dreams?

Most people remember only a small fraction of their dreams. Dr Amira Haddad believes this is because the brain gives dreams low priority when it stores memories during sleep. Professor Tom Lindqvist disagrees. In his view, people forget dreams mainly because they wake up slowly and are distracted by daily routines. He points out that people who keep a notebook beside the bed recall far more. A third researcher, Dr Yuki Sato, has found that people who wake up several times a night remember more dreams. She suggests that brief moments of waking give the brain a chance to store what it has just experienced, a view that Dr Haddad has described as promising.

Match each statement with the correct researcher. You may use any letter more than once.

• A. Amira Haddad
• B. Tom Lindqvist
• C. Yuki Sato

1. Writing dreams down can improve memory of them.
2. The brain treats dreams as less important than other experiences.
3. Interrupted sleep may lead to better dream recall.
4. Another researcher's explanation looks hopeful.

Answers and explanations

1. B. Lindqvist "points out that people who keep a notebook beside the bed recall far more".
2. A. Haddad says the brain "gives dreams low priority". Lindqvist is mentioned straight after, but he disagrees, which is the same topic, different view trap.
3. C. Sato found that people who wake several times a night remember more dreams. Watch the pronoun She, which continues Sato's view, not Haddad's.
4. A. Haddad called Sato's view "promising". The sentence is mainly about Sato, so choosing C is the names near the answer trap. Letter A is used twice, which the instructions allow.

Related guides

• IELTS Reading: complete guide
• Matching information
• Matching sentence endings
• Listening matching

Sources

• IELTS, Academic Reading format and question types
• IELTS, General Training Reading format