One form of questions in reading IELTS is multiple
choice. The kinds of questions that are given can be various as well. Purpose
of the text can also be the question in this part. Have a look at the following
example:
Question 1
1. In ‘Building houses out of earth’, the writer’s main aim is to.........
A. Provide
an overview of earth building
B. Promote
the building of earth houses
C. Review
the history of earth building
D. Examine
the variety of earth building
To make it easier for you to answer the above
question, you can analyze type of text for the following reading passage.
Now, match the passage with the options. Let us
start with choice D. In choice D, you see that the point of discussion are in
the word ‘examine’ and ‘variety’. If you have a look at the text carefully, you
will find out that this option does not fit as the answer because this passage
does not discuss about the variety of earth building. That is why, choice D is
not the best option.
In choice C, there are two words that should be
highlighted. The first is review and the second is history. The word ‘review’
is used only when we are dealing with a reading text about a work of art. It
can be in form of novel, movie, song album, and many other work arts. When the
text talks about the positive and negative sides of those works of arts then
the word ‘review’ will be suitable to state the purpose of writing the text.
That is why, it is clear that choice C is not appropriate as the answer.
In choice B, you can see the word ‘promote’ as the
main verb. If you see that the reading passage offers something that is
expected to attract the readers, you might choose ‘promote’ as the answer. In
this case, text such as advertisement and hortatory exposition will match this
word. But in the passage above, we can not choose ‘promote’ as the answer
because the passage does not lead the reader to do certain action or buy a
product. Therefore, choice C can not be the answer.
Different from choice B, C, and D, choice A uses the phrases ‘provide an overview’ that
suit well with the above passage. The word ‘overview’ is reflected in the
passage as it tells about the general information about earth building. So,
choice A best answers question 1.
Reference: IELTS to Success Preparation Tips and
Practice Tests by Erick van Bemmel (Melbourne, 1997)
