Specific Skills for Completion Questions

In the previous topic, you saw your course trainer demonstrating how to answer a summary completion question and he gave some useful
before and while listening strategies. As you have already learnt, there are five types of completion questions, so let's see other skills and
strategies specific to this question type.

Predicting parts of speech

For all completion questions, it is important that the missing words fit into the gaps in the summary both grammatically and logically. It
is helpful to spend some time analysing the gaps and predicting the part of speech needed. By part of speech we mean noun or noun
groups, verb or verb groups, adjectives or adverbs.

Let’s practise this skill with the following two activities.

Activity

Look at the following note sample completion questions:

Questions 5 – 10

Complete the notes. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS in each gap.

Two causes of salinity

 5 _______________
 6 _______________

Problem

 7 _______________ are cut down for agriculture

 Too much salt in the soil 8 _______________ the plants to die.

Impact

 Destruction of agriculture
 9 _______________
 Extinction of plant species

Solution

 Put native plants back in the ground

 10 _______________ the native forests

Complete the questions below relating to part of speech.

Activity
 Look at the following sample summary completion questions:

Questions 1 – 4

Complete the summary. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS in each gap.

Salinity

Salinity is the greatest 1_______________facing Western Australia. The area of salt affected land has already had a serious impact on
biodiversity, 2_______________, and agriculture. Salinity also 3_______________people through loss of business and increased health
problems due to stress on families affected by change. One way of monitoring salinity is to measure 4_______________.

Complete the questions below relating to part of speech.

Predicting possible answers from context

Once you have predicted the part of speech of the answers, something else you could do is to predict possible answers from context. You
can do this by looking at the title (if there is one, for example, in tables), headings and words within the questions.

It is unlikely that you will guess the specific answer to a question, but this skill will help you to be better prepared when you listen to the
passage.

Let’s practise this strategy with the following three activities.

Activity

Let's consider the same note completion questions:

Questions 5 – 10

Complete the notes. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS in each gap.

Two causes of salinity

 5 _______________
 6 _______________

Problem

 7 _______________ are cut down for agriculture

 Too much salt in the soil 8 _______________ the plants to die.

Impact

 Destruction of agriculture
 9 _______________
 Extinction of plant species

Solution
  Put native plants back in the ground
 10 _______________ the native forests

Answer the questions below considering the context.

Activity

Consider the same sample summary completion questions we used for the previous skill:

Questions 1 – 4

Complete the summary. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS in each gap.

Salinity

Salinity is the greatest 1_______________facing Western Australia. The area of salt affected land has already had a serious impact on
biodiversity, 2_______________, and agriculture. Salinity also 3_______________people through loss of business and increased health
problems due to stress on families affected by change. One way of monitoring salinity is to measure 4_______________.

Answer the questions below considering the context.

Activity

Look at the following table completion questions:

Look at the headings of the table and the other words and answer the following questions.

Gathering information before listening

 For table and flow-chart completion questions, something else you can do before you hear the recordings is to gather information about
the table or flow-chart (such as the title, the number of questions/headings) and checking how the questions are organised. In the case of
tables, check if the questions are organised in ascending order by column (top to bottom) or by row (left to right). Remember that the
answers will appear in the same order as listening passage, so this is important to determine before the recording is played.

Let’s practise this strategy with the following two activities.

Activity

Consider the following sample table completion question:

Questions 11-15

Complete the table below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND / OR A NUMBER for each answer.

Answer the questions below about the table.

Activity

Look at the following sample flow-chart questions:

Questions 11-14

Complete the flow-chart below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Answer the questions below using the flow-chart.