An IELTS reading practice exercise for Yes/ No / Not Given questions. This is quite an easy practice lesson to help you develop your techniques. Both GT and academic students ca benefit from this lesson.
Here is a quick review of what the answers mean:
Yes = the statement agrees with the writer
No = the statement contradicts the writer
Not Given = the information is not found in the passage
Richard, the Lionheart
Richard, the Lionheart, King of England had spent much of his reign outside England fighting wars in the Middle East and France. To pay for these he had taxed the English heavily. Richard was considered a good King by the people. In 1199, Richard died and his brother, John became king.
John continued to fight in France but he kept losing the battles. He needed more money so his government in England ruthlessly demanded more taxes from the nobility who were expected to pay tax if the King asked.
The Barons became very unhappy about John exploiting their loyalty and belief in his complete power. They rebelled and took over London and forced John to negotiate.
Question 1-4
Do the following statements match the information in the passage? Decide Y/N/NG for the following statements.
- Richard did not live in England while he was king.
- The people had to pay King Richard a lot of tax.
- John was a better king than Richard.
- John was not successful at war.
Answers
Click below to reveal the answers.
Answers1. N
2. Y
3. NG
4. Y
All reading exercises on ieltsliz.com have been written by myself to help you prepare for your IELTS test.
Liz
- reign = time in power / sovereignty
- battle = war / conflict
- exploit = take advantage of
- ruthless = cruel / cold-blooded / pitiless
Recommended
True False Not Given & Yes No Not Given Questions
I marked the first question as yes. As during the time he was king, he spent time outside the England. Could you please clarify?
The statement says “He did not live in England as King.” This means he never lived in England – not for three weeks, not for three years – never. Now, that I have highlighted the real meaning of the statement question, do you think it is yes or no? Remember this is about meaning behind words.
Thank u so much Liz,
It is really helpful, GOD bless you.
may i copy this exercise pages and share to my student ?
cause this will be a really great example to let them know the answer ” not given “
Sorry my materials are not for use in classrooms. I hope to have materials ready to share for teachers next year.
I m satisfy your answers….
Hi Liz,
The tips helped me a lot.Thank you so much.
Regards
It was easy.
4/4
Thank you
Thanks again Liz….
I have given all the answers correctly.
This is really helping me in gaining confidence.
Best Regards,
Pooja
Hi Liz,
I find the Q4 pretty confusing – would you care to explain it please? It is commonly known that battles =/ wars and you can lose many battles yet win the war (I believe it is used as a common expression, often in proverbial sense) therefore I answered NG as the text says that John continued to fight wars in France, but kept losing the battles = there is no indication therefore that he kept losing the wars, hence IMHO the answer should be NG rather than Yes. Please explain if my thinking is flawed. Many thanks, Joanna
NG means there is no information about wars or anything like that in the passage. Remember, you are not trying to match words. NG means there is no information related and FALSE means the information is contrary. Keep that in mind when you do TFNG. No synonym will be 100% the same that is why it is a synonym – similar meaning.
Hi Liz,
I appreciate your good work.
It was not stated whether Richard did or did not live in England. But it was stated that much of his reign was outside of England. I think the answer should have been ”NG”.
kindly explain why i’m wrong.
Thanks
Much of his reign was spent outside of England. This means he was abroad. So, it clearly shows that he did not live in England all the time. Don’t look for synonyms – look for meaning and implication.
In the passage ( John needed more money ) why don’t we answer Q.3 (NO ) as he spent more money then Richard ?
Q 3 = John was a better king than Richard. The answer is NG because the passage does not offer a comparison of who was better.
In question 2 states “The people” while in the passage “The English” Why the correct answer is Yes ?
Because the term “the people” is commonly used when referring to “the people of a particular country”. In other words, it is a paraphrase of citizens.
Hi liz!! I recently watch your videos on youtube and my of mind refer this website, my friend find very useful. Im so very thankful that you have this kind of lesson on this page. Thank you so much! God bless always!
-arnie
You’re welcome 🙂
Thanx a lot mam for providing us your lessons .they are very much useful.
Dear Liz,
What you are doing is valuable and deep and heart thanks for you.Please, it will be better if the reading exercises in PDF to be easier for us.Thanks a lot.
Khalid
Yes, I’ll try to put more up but I just don’t have time at present.
Hi Liz,
Thanx soo much for ur useful, systematic videos n lessons. Feeling happy that I got all right today…literally I need to score atleast 7 in reading, don’t know how. So I decided to practice each section from ur lesson and found that writing task is unite hard to get a standard scorE.
Thanx n regards
Shafin Zaman
Hi,
By comparing the first and last paragraphs, don’t you consider question 3 should be N.
first para says that Richard was a good king and the last para says that the Barons were unhappy with Johns, that concludes the question 3 to be N instead of NG.
Thanks
Regards,
Hassan Abbas
https://ieltsliz.com/liz-notice-2015-2016/
why did u answered 2 question as Yes whyn’t No.. please help me out with explanation. thank you in advance.
https://ieltsliz.com/liz-notice-2015-2016/
you can see in the second line written “to pay for these he had taxed the English heavily
Hi dear Liz,
I Hope you can reply me before my exam ,
your tips and replies have been of great help to me , I hope I’m not bothering you with my questions, my exam is after 3 days and I’m just concerned about a little thing :
if the passage says for example: Many nations were influenced by the British culture
and the (T,F,NG) questions says: British culture was influenced by other nations
shall I say F because it is the reverse , the other nations were affected by British culture
Or, shall I say NG because we do not know whether the British culture was influenced by others or not.
Thanks in advance,
Ewadh
You need to write down the meaning of False before you look for the answer. If it says “Many nations were influenced by the British culture” then the False statement needs to contain information: “Many nations were NOT influenced by the British culture” or “Many nations were influenced by a different culture (ie not the British).” So, in this case it gives no information about what many nations were influenced by.
All the best
Liz
Thank you very much teacher, you are very helpful
Hi
I have gone through all of your explanations for q-1 and 3. In 1 you are concentrating on the half of the sentence. If we consider half I understand your explanation. But If I read the full sentence, which says ” Richard spent much of his time outside England fighting wars with …..” Now say he spent 80% of his time outside England fighting war and the remaining 20% in England. Since you are assuming that 20% of his time he spent in England, why don’t you assume that he spent remaining 20% of his time outside England negotiating or doing something else but not fighting? Please explain.
For q-3, I loved your explanation for this question. You said we can’t assume anything but we have to look for the claim of writer. If that is the case why are you assuming something in q-1. In nowhere in the passage writer is claiming that Richard spent any single moment living in England. However, we can assume that he might live but not sure.
Besides, If the q-3 is T/F/NG, by following the definition of T/F/NG can’t we say the answer is False. Please help to understand.
The passage is easy but I think question is tricky. There is ample scope to learn from q-1 and 3. Please explain how my thinking strategy should be for these two in the light of both Y/N/NG and T/F/NG.
“much of his reign outside England” means some of the time he was in England.
All the best
Liz
Perfect score! An easy one. Hope I could encounter tests like this in the real IELTS exam.
The best teacher I’ve ever met.
Hi Liz,
actually i didn’t understand why its ‘ NO” for the 1st answer ? because its mentioned that he spent most of his reign outside England… so I put NG.
would you please give the clarification.
“much of his reign” means that about 80% was outside England. Therefore, about 20% was in England. So, the answer is “no”.
All the best
Liz
hi liz why the 2nd answer is yes I didnot understand because in reading it say” he had taxed……..”so can you explain it ..
“To pay for these he had taxed the English heavily.” and the question states: “The people had to pay King Richard a lot of tax?”. Both are past tense and both mean people paid a lot of tax to the king.
Liz
Hi liz,
Are such questions easy or after learning your constructive tips and grasp meaning of true false not given and distinction between these lead to i answer correct ?i am honestly a bit confuse but delight .
Sorry, I don’t understand your question.
Liz
Dear Liz,
i wish to know if i can write in the exam answer sheet true false not given as T, F, NG as i have done this stubid thing and am worried to affect my results thanks in advance
Yes, you can write either the word or letter.
Liz
Hi Liz,
I have a question for you. So in Listening exam in the first Section if we make a spelling mistake does our half band gets deducted right away or it all depends on the answers that how many total answers do we got right in the exam and then the band calculation is done?
If you make a spelling mistakes, that answer is marked wrong. That’s all. Your band score is calculated by the number of correct answers you have. Please see my listening page for all information.
Liz