IELTS Reading: Matching features
You match statements to a short list of options — usually researchers, sometimes places, countries or time periods. It is the most mechanical type in the paper, and the one where a little preparation makes the whole set fall at once.
Map first, then answer
The options are almost always proper nouns, which the passage cannot paraphrase. So before answering anything, scan the passage and mark every place each name appears. That map takes a minute and turns the rest of the set into checking two or three sentences per question.
- Mark every occurrence of every listed name in the margin.
- Take each statement and go straight to the marked lines for its likely owner.
- Confirm the sentence genuinely makes the claim rather than mentioning the name near it.
- Remember options may be used more than once unless the instructions say otherwise.
The trap
Two names in one sentence. "Unlike Ferreira, Okonkwo found that…" contains both, and the finding belongs to one of them. The mark goes to whoever owns the verb, and the comparison is there precisely to make you take the first name you see.
Where a name appears only once in the whole passage, that sentence is almost certainly an answer. It is the cheapest mark in the set.
Matching features — FAQs
2 questions
No. One researcher can appear in paragraph two and again in paragraph seven, which is why the map is worth building first.
Yes, where the instructions say so. Check before eliminating.
Practise Matching features
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Sources
Written from the test board's own published material and checked on 1 October 2026.