Yes, No, Not Given IELTS Reading Questions – useful techniques and practice lessons to maximise your score and help you save time in your reading test. These questions are often difficult for people to tackle so learning the right way will help you score points.
See the key tips and practice lesson below.
IELTS Yes No Not Given Reading Tips & Techniques
Are YNNG questions the same as TFFN questions?
The difference is not in the question, it is in the reading passage. When the passage is about facts and information then the question type will be TFNG because these questions are about matching statements with information in the passage. But when the passage contains a writer’s opinion or claims, then the question type is YNNG because these questions are matching statements with what the writer thinks or believes as shown in the passage. To sum up:
TFNG = factual passage = matching statements with information
YNNG = an opinion passage = matching statements with a writer’s opinion/claims
You will approach these questions in the same way.
Understanding the YNNG Instructions
What do these answer options mean?
YES means that the full meaning of the question statement can be found in the passage and the meanings are the same.
NO means that the full meaning of the question statement is actually wrong and the passage shows it is wrong/incorrect/opposite/contradicted.
NOT GIVEN means that the information in the question statement isn’t found in the passage so we can’t say if it is correct or incorrect information. The passage doesn’t give enough information to choose Yes or No.
Your written answer must be YES or NO or NOT GIVEN. You can write these words in capital letters or lower case. But you can’t write True instead of Yes. If the answer is Yes, but you write True, then your answer is wrong. Always pay attention to that – don’t lose valuable points.
How to Tackle Yes No Not Given Questions
All these tips and techniques can be applied to TFNG questions as well. Click here for TFNG Reading Practice
- The same as TFNG questions, the YNNG answers will appear in order in the passage. This means you will find the answer to question 2 after the answer to question 1. This is useful to know because it will save you time searching through the whole passage. You will know that the answer to question 4, comes between the answer to question 3 and 5.
- Take time reading the question.
- Notice keywords in the question
- words that will help you locate the answer in the passage.
- words that might challenge the answer – words that make a subtle difference to the meaning.
- Notice keywords in the question
- Think about synonyms and paraphrases that could be used to describe the information given in the question statement. Synonyms are words that have the same or similar meaning. Paraphrasing is writing the same information in a different way. Be prepared for both in the reading passage.
- Paraphrases and synonyms will help you locate the answer in the passage.
- Scan the passage and pay attention to keywords and paraphrases from the question.
- When you find the area that the answer is located in, read around that area. Read the sentences before and after.
- Remember, you can highlight words in the passage to help you. In the computer test, right click on the mouse and an option to highlight will appear. In the paper test, circle or underline the words with your pencil.
- After reading the area where the answer is located in the passage, go back to the question and start comparing them for meaning.
- Do not try to match words only. IELTS reading is about deeper meaning.
- Your aim isn’t to understand the whole passage, but to locate answers and then analyse the deeper meaning of those few sentences relating to the question.
- Be careful of comparative questions. The comparisons need to be the same in the question and passage.
- Be careful of quantifiers, such as “all” and “some”. ALL means 100%, SOME means it is not 100%.
Now it’s time for you to try some Yes, No, Not Given questions in the passage below.
IELTS Yes No Not Given Reading Practice
YNNG Passage 1: Richard, the Lionheart
King Richard I of England is one of the most iconic kings of England, known as the Crusader King and also as Richard the Lionheart. He spent practically all his reign outside England fighting wars in the Middle East and France to the point that England must have seemed like a foreign, distant land to him. It seems strange to us today to consider a King of England so wholly detached from the country that he represented and ruled. To pay for his wars and crusades, he taxed the English so heavily that is caused widespread discontent amongst the populace. While it can be said that he was a peerless warrior in battle, he was a poor King of England. He has often been criticised not only for his neglect of England and the welfare of the common person, but also for squandering the lives of so many of his followers as they followed him into battles far from their homeland. And yet remarkably, many English people still remember him quite fondly as a chivalrous king who was the epitome of a knight with bravery and military skill.
Questions 1-8
Do the following statements match the views of the writer in the passage? Write Yes, No or Not Given as your answer.
- King Richard idolised fame.
- While King, Richard never resided in England.
- King Richard looked down on the English culture.
- Many English people did not agree with being taxed so much.
- He was a fighter beyond compare.
- The people who followed him into battle were common people from England.
- King Richard did not place much consideration on the value of a human life.
- King Richard is considered by all English people as a courageous knight.
Answers
Click below to reveal the answers.
Answers- NOT GIVEN
- NO
- He spent much of his reign outside England, but not all his reign.
- Not Given
- The passage shows that Richard probably didn’t connect much with the English culture because he spent so much time abroad, it doesn’t give any information about whether he lacked respect (looked down on) the English culture.
- YES
- the passage shows the population of England showed “widespread discontent” with the heavy taxes. “widespread” means many thought this, but not all.
- YES
- peerless = beyond compare (there were no peers who were his equal)
- NOT GIVEN
- the passage show King Richard did not care about the welfare of the common people. But we do not know who his followers were precisely.
- YES
- in the passage: “squandering the lives of so many of his followers” – meaning to waste people’s lives in battle.
- NO
- The challenge with this question was the word “all” in the question and “many” in the passage.
- reign = time in power / sovereignty
- to tax heavily = to take a lot of money in tax
- widespread discontent = many were not happy
- the populace = people living in a particular country
- peerless = unequalled / unrivalled
- warrior = fighter / soldier
- battle = war / conflict
- squandering = to waste something in a foolish or reckless manner
- the epitome of = the best possible example of
.
I’ll upload another YNNG reading passage soon for you. All the best, Liz
RECOMMEND FOR YOU
- True False Not Given & Yes No Not Given Questions
- Matching Sentence Endings Questions for Reading
- Matching Paragraph Information Reading Practice
- Diagram Completion Questions for Reading
- ALL IELTS READING PRACTICE LESSONS & TIPS
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Hi Liz,
What happen if we write T, F, NG instead of Y,N in the exam ? will it mark as incorrect?
As explained on the page above, it would be marked wrong.
Hi Liz,
My Question is about Statement No #4 , because there is no information about whether people agree or disagree with being taxed. They are just not satisfied right? I think its answer should be (no) . One more thing thanks for providing these practice tests for free .
When people voice “discontent”, it means they don’t agree with it. This is how it is expressed in English. If I say “I don’t like being taxed so much”, it means I don’t agree with the amount of tax I am paying.
Hi, Liz. I have a question about the difference between Many and All. “Many” represents a wide range of quantity, it does not give an exact quantity, i can not get it represents all, half, or less of half. But “All” means an exact quantity. I think the relationship is NOTGIVE in statament 8. The idea seems inconsistent with statament 8.
Looking foe your reply. Thank you!
The word ALL means 100%. So, if you see ALL in the question statement, you must find that it applies 100% in the passage. If the question statement is 100% confirmation, but that is not shown in the passage, then the answer is NO. It doesn’t matter if the word MANY means 90%, 70%, 50% or less, the only thing that matters is that the word MANY does not mean 100%. We never use the word MANY when referring to 100%. The word MANY implies a lot but not all.
Hi Liz
For no 8, bravery and courageous are not the same thing so why is the answer NO instead of NG
When someone is brave, they are courageous. Bravery and courage have the same meaning (courageous is the adjective and still holds the same meaning). So, these two words are synonyms. The answer is NO because of the word ALL. The passage shows that not all people thought he was courageous, only some people thought it (not 100% of people).
HI LIZ
i have a question for the order. answers for q6 and q7 are in the same line.
The answers to questions will always be in the same order in the recording. This means, you’ll hear the answer to number 6 and then the answer to number 7 after that.
this is truly awesome that how you help and reply to students or the enthusiasts in these chats. Just want to say you are doing a great job, your contents and suggestions are far more valuable than the sites people usually visit for feedback. yet i feel these contents are somehow easy as compared to original ilets. well i don’t know the ilets much, this is my first time i am appearing for a language test not being a native.
Thanks for your comment. I’m glad you’ve found the benefit of reading the comments. Some comments are almost like mini lessons. Good luck in your test!
For question 2, in the passage, they say he spent practically all his reign outside England, doesn’t it consider that he never resided in England?
The passage does not sat “he spent all his time outside England”. It says “he spent practically all his time outside England”. Did you check the meaning of each word? For example, did you check the meaning of “practically all” in comparison to “all”? Pay attention to each word to see what the entire meaning is. Don’t skip over a word. The word “practically all” mean “almost all, but not all”. So, he spent most of his time outside England, but not all his time outside England.
Hi Liz, just a day on your website and i am feeling confident and almost ready for the IELT. I appreciate a lot. thanks
I’m so glad you are starting to get to grips with IELTS 🙂
In question 1
Why the answer is Not give
One of the most iconic kings of england is not the same meaning of idolised fame ?
This is all about the difference between the word “iconic” and the verb “to idolise”.
An iconic king is on who is well-known, worthy of admiration. So, the passage show that as a king many people looked up to him.
But the verb “to idolise something” is about the thing that the person admires. For example, “the woman idolised tall men”. This means she really liked men who were tall. So, the question statement “King Richard idolised fame” means that he loved fame – he loved being famous. And of course, the passage does not show what he loved. It only shows that other people admired him, not what he admired.
Q7: His followers followed him far from their homeland.
So it means “all his followers were from his homeland, i.e., England, and they followed him everywhere he went, so they were far from their homeland, England, but followed him everywhere.”
So, it must be “TRUE” according to me. Please explain.
I think you might have got confused. Question 7 is “King Richard did not place much consideration on the value of a human life.” and the answer is True. Are you referring to question 6?
Sorry, yes, I’m referring to question 6.
Great. I thought so. Question 6 is a great example of paying attention to the precise meaning of the passage.
Question 6 is: “The people who followed him into battle were common people from England.” So, in this question, we have the idea of followers who entered battle with Kind Richard and that they were British and they were common people.”
The answer could be found in this sentence: “He has often been criticised not only for his neglect of England and the welfare of the common person, but also for squandering the lives of so many of his followers as they followed him into battles far from their homeland.”
This sentence has two clauses. The first clause is not relevant to the question. It is about his neglect of the common person in England. This contains words from the question, but it does not relate or have connection with the question.
The second clause is: “…squandering the lives of so many of his followers as they followed him into battles far from their homeland.” This is the only part of the whole sentence which relates specifically to question 6.
In this clause, we see that it is about followers going into battle with him. And it shows that the followers left their homeland. As you see the pronoun is “their homeland” – this means they left their country of birth / their country of origin. The problem is that we do not know precise what their country of origin was. It doesn’t say. The passage would need to state precisely what their homeland was and that the homeland of his followers was England – but it gives no information about their homeland.
The other problem with the question statement is that the passage doesn’t say if those followers who went into battle with him were common people or soldiers or another class of people. For the question to be True, it must show that those followers fighting with him in battle were common people – but it doesn’t. So, actually, there are two problems with the question statement and the passage doesn’t contain information about either problem.
I understand it now. Thank you, Liz. You are awesome!
1. Not given +
2. Yes –
3. Not given +
4. Yes +
5. Yes +
6. Yes –
7. Yes +
8. Yes +
Hello Liz Ma’am,
in Passage 1 The 5th question says “He was a Fighter Beyond Compare” This question found me very difficult and confusing after analysing it I wrote Not given as Answer
is my Answer Right Ma’am?
please reply ma’am,
Regards
“a fighter beyond compare” means that he was so good at fighting there was no one who could compare with him. This means no one was as good at fighting as he was. “beyond compare” is an expression in English: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/beyond-compare
In the passage, the word “peerless” means that none of his peers was close to his level of fighting, which made him “peerless”.
This means that peerless and beyond compare have the same meaning in this context.
Thank you so much Ma’am
Hi Liz! The second question is saying, “While King, he never resided in England”, and the passage does say “He spent practically ALL his reign (while being king) outside of England”. So shouldn’t this be a YES? I am so confused as to why this is a NO.
I’m so pleased you asked this question. It’s one of my favourite questions. You focused on the word “all” as the keyword, but the actual expression is “practically all”. “Practically all” means “nearly all”. Another close expression to this is “virtually all”, that also has the same meaning as “nearly all” or “almost all”. So, the real meaning in the passage is: “He spent almost all, but not all, of his reign outside England.”
Always look out for extra words in a sentence that change the meaning.
thanks alot for this explanation
Glad it was useful 🙂
The king was not a king from his birth. So, if we consider his whole lifetime, he lived in England at any time that was not given in the sentence. That’s why I chose the answer that was NOT GIVEN.
Note: the meaning of ‘practically all’ was not clear to me.
You absolutely can’t look so far beyond the passage for such information. Your answer must be based on the passage, not your logical deductions of possible facts well beyond the scope of the passage. You also can’t apply your own knowledge of the subject to your answer either. It must all be based on the words in the passage and direct implications – not the abstract, distant, possible implications. If the passage is about the reign of a king, you can’t then answer a question based on guesswork of his life as a child. The passage would have to give implications of his childhood for anything like that to be considered.
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 while he was King.” This means that during the time he was King, he didn’t live in England. It is an absolute statement.
The passage shows that “much of his reign” he was outside of English. The word “much” means that the majority of the time he was outside England. But that also means the rest of the time, he did live in England = there were periods when he did live in England but long period when he was fighting abroad. This makes the statement a NO answer.
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.
Ma, im Collins,
The No 2 Should be Yes, Because the passage said he spent his time in outside England. Please I need more clarification
Thanks
The question is about him NEVER living in England. So, we need to check with the passage to see if he lived ALL his time outside England or most of his time (ie some time was spent in England).
The passage shows he spent “practically all” his time outside England. “practically all” means nearly all, almost all – which means about 80 or 90% of his time. So, it means that he did spend some time living in England.
Thanks, Ma,
For the answer. Please do you have a free IELTS training I can attend?
This website contains hundreds of pages of free practice lessons and tips. Many people find that my free lessons are enough for their preparation. But I also have paid advanced lessons and e-books in my store: https://elizabethferguson.podia.com/
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
My question is why don’t we refer the key word ‘chivalrous king’ for Q. no. 7 as Q. no. 7 should come after Q. no. 6, but it seems Q. no. 7 is ahead while we refer to passage, according to your answer. Is this the exceptional case for YNNG ?
The word “chivalrous” in the passage relates to the final question 8, not to question 7.
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