IELTS Academic Reading · Scanning and reading in detail · Lesson 5 of 12
Sentence completion
Complete sentences with words from the text, within a strict word limit. Learn to predict the answer and check that it fits.
In this lesson you will
- learn the rules for sentence completion, especially word limits
- predict the type of word that fills each gap
- complete sentences with words from the text
- check that each answer fits the grammar of the sentence and the word limit
The question type
What is sentence completion?
You complete a gap in each sentence with words taken from the text. The instructions give a word limit, for example NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER.
| Word limit | Read it carefully every time: it can change from task to task. If you write more words than the limit, you lose the mark, even if the information is correct. |
| Counting words | A hyphenated word (e.g. check-in, twenty-foot) counts as one word. Contractions such as they're are not tested. A number can be written in figures (16) or words. |
| Words from the text | Copy the words exactly as they are in the text. Don't change them, and check your spelling. |
| Order | The questions follow the order of the information in the text. |
| What it tests | Finding detail and specific information. |
Based on the official IELTS description of the Academic Reading test (ielts.org) and Cambridge English guidance.
Check the rules
The instructions say NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER. Is each answer acceptable?
- dock workers
- the dock workers
- 16 cents
- city-centre docks
- twenty-foot equivalent units
- very large cranes
- the dock workers is three words. Leave out the if the sentence still works without it.
- 16 cents is a number and one word. That is allowed by “two words and/or a number”.
- city-centre docks is two words, because city-centre is hyphenated.
- twenty-foot equivalent units is three words. Use the short form the text gives (TEU) instead.
- very large cranes is three words. Usually the extra word is not needed.
Practice
Predict, find, check
The Box That Changed the World
A Before the 1950s, loading a cargo ship was slow, expensive and labour-intensive. Goods arrived at ports in sacks, barrels and wooden crates of every possible size, and teams of dock workers carried them on board one item at a time. A single ship could spend a week or more in port, and theft and damage were common.
B The solution came not from a shipping company but from a trucking businessman, Malcolm McLean. In 1956 he loaded 58 metal containers onto a converted oil tanker, the Ideal X, in New Jersey and sent it to Houston. Because each container could be lifted directly from a truck onto the ship by crane, loading took hours instead of days. McLean later calculated that the cost of loading had fallen from about $5.86 per ton to just 16 cents.
C The idea did not spread immediately. Ports needed expensive new cranes, and early containers came in many different sizes, which meant that a container designed for one company’s ships could not be used by another. The breakthrough came in the late 1960s, when an international agreement set standard sizes. The most common unit became the ‘twenty-foot equivalent unit’, or TEU, a measure still used today to describe a ship’s capacity.
D Standardisation transformed world trade. Today’s largest container ships can carry more than 24,000 TEU, and the cost of shipping goods across the world has fallen so far that it often represents only a small fraction of a product’s final price. Many economists argue that the container did more to encourage globalisation than any trade agreement.
E There were losers, too. As ports became automated, the number of dock workers fell dramatically, and many old city-centre docks closed because they had no room for the huge cranes and storage yards that containers required. In cities such as London and New York, former docklands were later redeveloped as offices and housing.
Original text written for Tips4IELTS.
Step 1: predict the answer
Before you look at the text, read each sentence and decide what type of word is missing. Look at the words just before and after the gap.
- 1 Before the 1950s, goods were carried onto ships one item at a time by ______.
- 2 Malcolm McLean had worked in the ______ business before he began shipping containers.
- 3 The containers on the Ideal X were lifted from trucks onto the ship by a ______.
- 4 McLean calculated that loading cost only ______ per ton using containers.
1 by ______ + carried: someone did the carrying, so it is probably people (plural). 2 the ______ business: a word that describes the business. It works like an adjective, though it may be a noun or an -ing form (e.g. trucking). 3 a ______: a singular noun, probably a machine. 4 cost only ______ per ton: an amount of money.
Step 2: Questions 1–6
Complete the sentences below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
- Before the 1950s, goods were carried onto ships one item at a time by
- Malcolm McLean had worked in the business before he began shipping containers.
- The containers on the Ideal X were lifted from trucks onto the ship by a
- McLean calculated that loading cost only per ton using containers.
- Today, the capacity of a container ship is described using a unit called the
- Many old docks closed because there was no space for cranes and
- dock workers “teams of dock workers carried them on board one item at a time” (A). Teams of dock workers is four words, which breaks the limit.
- trucking “a trucking businessman, Malcolm McLean” (B).
- crane “lifted directly from a truck onto the ship by crane” (B).
- 16 cents “to just 16 cents” (B). $5.86 was the cost before containers.
- TEU “the ‘twenty-foot equivalent unit’, or TEU, a measure still used today to describe a ship's capacity” (C). The full name is three words, so it breaks the limit.
- storage yards “no room for the huge cranes and storage yards that containers required” (E).
Step 3: check your answers
A student wrote these answers. What is the problem with each one?
- 3 …lifted from trucks onto the ship by a cranes.
- 4 …loading cost only $5.86 per ton…
- 5 …a unit called the twenty-foot equivalent unit.
- 6 …no space for cranes and storage areas.
Always read the whole sentence again with your answer in it. Ask: Is it grammatical? Is it within the limit? Is it the exact word from the text? Does it give the right information?
Strategy
A strategy for sentence completion
Put the strategy in order
- Predict the type of word that fills each gap (noun, number, adjective…).
- Read the instructions and circle the word limit.
- Scan for the key words or synonyms. The answers are in text order.
- Skim the text so you know what each paragraph is about.
- Read that part closely and copy the missing words exactly.
- Underline the key words in each sentence.
- Read the complete sentence again: check grammar, spelling and the word limit.
Top tip: the sentence in the question is a paraphrase of the text, but the word in the gap is not. It is copied exactly. So look for a sentence with the same meaning as the question, then copy the missing word from it.
Lesson and passage written for Tips4IELTS, based on the official IELTS description of this task type (ielts.org).