In IELTS Reading, matching sentence endings gives you the first half of several sentences and a longer list of endings. For each beginning, you choose the ending that makes the sentence say what the passage says.
Several endings usually fit the grammar, and the wrong ones often sound true. In GoPrep Reading mocks it had the highest error rate of any question type: 62% of answers were wrong (6,871 of 11,013 answers, 28 August to 26 September 2026).
This guide gives you a method for every ending: find the anchor, predict the ending, then run 3 checks (Fit, Place, Same). You will see it work on a practice passage, then try it yourself.
What the task looks like
The instructions usually read: Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A to G. You get numbered beginnings (4. The researchers found that the new material...) and lettered endings (C ...was easier to recycle than plastic.).
Three facts from the official format shape your strategy:
- There are more endings than beginnings, so you will not use all of them. The extra endings are there to distract you.
- The beginnings are in passage order. If you are stuck on beginning 3, its answer sits between the answers to 2 and 4.
- It tests main ideas. You match what a sentence means, not the words it uses.
Each correct answer is worth 1 mark, like every Reading question. ielts.org lists this type in Academic Reading. The General Training page does not list it separately, but IDP's guide to General Training Reading question types does, and ielts.org's General Training multiple-choice questions can give the first half of a sentence with four possible sentence endings, so the skill pays off in both tests.
Where sentence endings ranked in GoPrep mocks
We compared every answer in GoPrep Reading mocks over one month by question type. Matching sentence endings had the highest share of wrong answers.
| Question type | Answers | Wrong answers |
|---|---|---|
| Matching sentence endings | 11,013 | 62% |
| Matching headings | 15,972 | 59% |
| Sentence completion | 23,012 | 57% |
| Summary completion | 60,972 | 53% |
| Yes/No/Not Given | 28,184 | 51% |
| True/False/Not Given | 66,268 | 42% |
| Table completion | 44,160 | 40% |
| All Reading question types | 387,866 | 49% |
17% of sentence endings answers were left blank (1,882 of 11,013). The other 4,989 wrong answers were a letter the student chose. These records do not show whether time pressure played a part, but they do show that most lost marks here had an ending written in the box. The type also stays at the top at higher levels:
| Band of the mock | Sentence endings wrong | All Reading questions wrong |
|---|---|---|
| 5.0-5.5 (536 students) | 69% (607 answers) | 53% |
| 6.0-6.5 (533 students) | 44% (636 answers) | 35% |
| 7.0-7.5 (293 students) | 32% (335 answers) | 20% |
At 7.0 to 7.5, readers missed 1 in 5 Reading questions overall, but about 1 in 3 sentence endings: the highest rate of any question type with at least 200 answers in that group. The endings are built to trap careful readers too: one repeats words from the passage, another is true about a different paragraph, a third says a little more than the text does.
How to answer: anchor, predict, then 3 checks
Work on one beginning at a time, in order, and do not read the endings first: they shape what you think the passage says.
Step 1. Find the anchor. Pick one concrete detail in the beginning that is easy to scan for:
- a name
- a place
- a year
- a number
In The researchers in the 2021 trial..., the anchor is 2021 trial.
Step 2. Predict. Scan to the anchor, starting from your last answer. Read the 1 or 2 sentences around it and say in your own words how the sentence should end.
Step 3. Run 3 checks on each ending. The right ending passes all 3:
- Fit. Can it follow the beginning grammatically? Look at verb forms, singular or plural, and words like would, to or because. Fit can remove endings and sometimes leaves only one. Always confirm that one against the passage, because several endings are usually written to fit.
- Place. Is it about the same person, thing and time as the beginning? An ending can be true about another paragraph, group or year. That does not make it right here.
- Same. Does the passage say exactly this? Not more (always, all, the main reason), not the opposite, and not something it never mentions. The right ending usually says the same idea in different words. A wrong one often repeats words from the text.
Step 4. Write the letter and move on. Do not use a letter twice unless the instructions allow it. If 2 endings still look possible, pick the one that passes Same more clearly. There is no negative marking, so never leave a box empty.
Practice passage: try the method
Practice material written for this guide, not taken from a real IELTS test; the city is invented. Give yourself 6 minutes, then read the walkthrough.
Painting the city white
In the summer of 2019, the city of Valtera covered the roofs of 40 public buildings with a white reflective coating. On sunny afternoons, the coated roofs were about 30 degrees cooler than the dark roofs next to them, and the top floors became 2 to 3 degrees cooler inside.
The coating was cheap to apply, but it did not stay white for long. Dust and bird droppings dulled the surface, and after three years many roofs reflected only half as much sunlight as at the start. The city now cleans the roofs every spring, which costs more each year than the paint did.
Not everyone was pleased. Several residents complained about glare, and a group of local shop owners argued that the money should have gone on planting trees along the main street. A survey in 2022, however, found that most residents wanted the scheme extended to schools.
The team that monitored the project is careful about what it proved. The white roofs reduced the electricity used for air conditioning inside the buildings, but there was no measurable change in the temperature of the surrounding streets. To cool a whole district, the team says, white roofs would need to be combined with trees and water.
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A to G.
- In their first summer, the coated roofs...
- After three years, many of the roofs...
- Some local shop owners...
- The team says that to cool a whole district, white roofs would...
Endings
- A ...stayed much cooler than dark roofs on sunny afternoons.
- B ...lowered the temperature in the surrounding streets.
- C ...reflected far less sunlight because their surface had become dirty.
- D ...had to be repainted with a stronger type of paint.
- E ...would have preferred the money to be spent on trees.
- F ...were against extending the scheme to schools.
- G ...need help from trees and water.
Walkthrough: answers and tempting wrong endings
1 = A. Anchor: first summer, paragraph 1. Prediction: they were much cooler than normal roofs. A says that in other words. The tempting wrong ending is B: cooler roofs should cool the street. It fails Same, because paragraph 4 says the streets did not measurably change. C fits the grammar and is true about the roofs, but it fails Place: it describes them after three years, not in their first summer.
2 = C. Anchor: three years, paragraph 2. Prediction: they reflected less light because they got dirty. Dust and bird droppings dulled the surface becomes their surface had become dirty. The tempting wrong ending is D, a sensible thing for a city to do. It fails Same: the passage says the roofs are cleaned, never repainted.
3 = E. Anchor: shop owners, paragraph 3. Prediction: they wanted trees instead. E matches the money should have gone on planting trees. The tempting wrong ending is F, because the same paragraph mentions schools. It fails Same: the passage gives the shop owners' preference for trees, but says nothing about their views on extending the scheme to schools. The survey reports what most residents wanted, not what the shop owners thought.
4 = G. Anchor: whole district, end of paragraph 4. Here Fit does most of the work: after would you need the base form of a verb, so stayed, lowered, reflected, had to, would have and were are all out. Grammar leaves only G, so confirm it: G passes Same, combined with trees and water becomes need help from trees and water. B is the word-match trap: it repeats surrounding streets and says the opposite of what the team found.
B, D and F are never used: they are there to catch readers who match words instead of meaning.
Two habits checked against the mock data
We looked at every sentence endings set in GoPrep mocks in the same month: 2,622 sets in 2,398 mocks by 1,653 students.
Writing the same letter twice. In GoPrep mocks, no ending is ever the answer to 2 beginnings in one set. Yet in 219 of 2,622 sets (8%), the same letter was written for 2 or more beginnings, which guarantees a lost mark. Those sets were weak overall: 28% of their answers were correct, against 47% in fully answered sets with no repeated letter. If you catch yourself reusing a letter, run Place and Same again on both beginnings.
Expecting the last beginning to be easy. A common tip says the first beginning is the hardest because all the endings are still available, and the last is the easiest. The mocks do not support it:
| Beginning in the set | Answers | Correct |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2,622 | 45% |
| 2nd | 2,622 | 36% |
| 3rd (sets of 4 or 5) | 2,038 | 36% |
| 4th (sets of 5) | 1,109 | 26% |
| Last in the set | 2,622 | 37% |
The last beginning had a lower correct-answer rate than the first: 37% versus 45%. These are observed results from different tasks, so they do not separate question difficulty from position. Still, by the last beginning the letters left include the distractors. Run all 3 checks on the last beginning too, and do not write the remaining letter just because it is there.
Check yourself: 4 sentence endings
A new short passage, the same method. For each beginning, pick the ending the passage supports.
FAQ
How do you answer matching sentence endings in IELTS Reading?
Take one beginning at a time. Find a detail to scan for, read the sentences around it and predict the ending in your own words. Then keep only the ending that fits the grammar, is about the same person, thing and time, and says exactly what the passage says.
How is matching sentence endings different from sentence completion?
In sentence completion you write words from the passage into a gap, within a word limit. In matching sentence endings you choose a whole ending from a lettered list, and the wrong endings are written to fit the grammar. So the skill is recognising the same idea in different words, not copying the right words.
Are matching sentence endings in the same order as the passage?
Yes. ielts.org says the sentence beginnings are in the same order as the information in the text. If you are stuck on one beginning, look between the answers to the beginnings before and after it.
Can you use the same ending twice in matching sentence endings?
Normally no. Each beginning has its own ending and the extra endings are distractors, so a repeated letter means at least one answer is wrong. Reuse a letter only if the instructions say you may.
Is matching sentence endings in General Training Reading?
It can be. IDP's guide to General Training Reading question types lists it. The ielts.org General Training format page does not list it separately, but its multiple-choice questions can give the first half of a sentence with 4 possible endings, so the same method helps.
Should I guess if I am not sure of the ending?
Yes. There is no negative marking in IELTS Reading, so a wrong answer costs nothing more than a blank. Remove the endings that fail the grammar or say something the passage does not, then choose from the rest.
What to practise next
The Same check is also the core of True/False/Not Given. Matching headings had the next highest share of wrong answers in the same mocks, and summary completion loses the most marks overall because it appears so often. If blanks are your bigger problem, start with the IELTS Reading tips; the Reading band score table shows how many answers your target needs.
The full lesson on this question type and its practice exercises are in the GoPrep course. To get a personal study plan, tell the quiz your target score, exam date and the part of IELTS you find hardest.
GoPrep Team
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