Tips and Tricks for Yes No and Not Given Questions
- Ignore anything you already know about the topic and don’t make assumptions. Base your answers on the text-only.
- The answers appear in the same order in the text as the order of the statements.
- Identify any words that qualify the statement, for example some, all, mainly, often, always and occasionally. These words are there to test if you have read the whole statement because they can change the meaning.
- Be careful when you see verbs that qualify statements, such as suggest, claim, believe and know. For example, ‘The man claimed he was a British citizen,’ and ‘The man is a British citizen’ mean two different things.
- Watch out for distractions. Know that the test setters love to use ‘distractions’ to test you. A prime example is qualifying words such as:-Ram often goes to the gym.Ram occasionally goes to the gym.
- There will be at least one of each answer type – Yes, No, Not Given. So, if you don’t have at least one of each when you’ve completed the question, you’ve made a mistake.
- You don’t need to read the whole text. First, you will scan for keywords and then you’ll read in detail the section in which they’re located to find the answer.
- Don’t look for words that exactly match those in the statements. You should also look for synonyms. Remember that you are matching meaning, not words.
- If you can’t find the information you are looking for, then it is probably ‘not given’. Don’t waste time looking for something that is not there.
- If you have no idea what the answer is put ‘not given’. You probably have no idea because the answer is not there.
Yes/No/Not Given questions test whether you can identify and understand the writer’s views. You need to differentiate the writer’s viewpoint from that of others mentioned in the text. Let us develop some Tips and Tricks for Yes, No, and Not Given IELTS questions.
Yes/No/Not Given vs True/False/Not Given questions
The difference is in the type of information contained in the text.
Yes/No/Not Given – the text will contain the opinions, views or beliefs of the writer or other people who are mentioned.
True/False/Not Given – the text will contain factual information about a topic.
Remember that while True/False/Not Given questions test your ability to understand facts, Yes/No/Not Given questions usually test your understanding of the writer’s or others’ opinions.
Notice the difference in the instructions between True/False/Not Given and Yes/No/Not Given questions:-
Do the following statements agree with the information in the passage? Write:
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Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer? Write:
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Tips and Tricks for Yes No and Not Given Questions
What is the Process?
Let’s take one question and a passage to understand the process in detail.
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Question:- The report from the National Medical Research Council was biased. |
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| A In 1967, in response to widespread public concern aroused by medical reports of asbestos-related deaths, the National Medical Research Council instituted a commission of enquiry to investigate the health hazards associated with the use of asbestos in the building industry. The commission made a series of important safety recommendations.
B The report of the Council stated that if its recommendations were strictly adhered to, the onset of asbestosis in a normal working life should not develop. |
C Critics of the report pointed out that insufficient longitudinal studies had been carried out to determine that the report’s recommended safety levels were acceptable.
D If, as some as yet unconfirmed data suggest, even minimal exposure to asbestos may result in disease, then clearly the report should have stated that the employment of asbestos was unacceptable in any form. |
Now step by step process
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Step 1 Underline key words in the question.Finding key words in the Yes/No/Not Given question will help you to find the answer in the reading passage. The key words are the main content words. This means they will usually be nouns or noun groups, verbs or verb groups and adjectives. |
The National Medical Research Council report should have stated that the use of asbestos was unacceptable.
The key words in this example include:
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Step 2 Scan the passage to find the part where the writer is discussing the topic or idea given in the question. Scan for the specific keyword underlined before. |
Passage with keywords D If, as some as yet unconfirmed data suggest, even minimal exposure to asbestos may result in disease, then clearly the report should have stated that the employment of asbestos was unacceptable in any form. |
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Step 3 Decide whether the writer’s viewpoint agrees (YES) or disagrees (NO) with the viewpoint stated in the question, or if the viewpoint stated in the question is not mentioned (NOT GIVEN) in the passage. |
The answer to this question is YES, because the writer presents the same viewpoint in the passage. |
Compare the viewpoint in the passage to the viewpoint in the question. The viewpoint in the question will either be:
- the same as the writer’s viewpoint in the passage (YES)
- different or opposite to the writer’s viewpoint in the passage (NO)
- not mentioned in the passage. (NOT GIVEN)