This type of question causes huge problems for some students. Mainly because they will not stop looking for the answer. Y/N/NG questions are still all about a particular topic and the same techniques can be employed to narrow down where any evidence for/against/or just not mentioned is. If you do not find positive or negative evidence to support Yes or No then it MUST be Not Given. You may have to look at two paragraphs if the main topic runs over both, occasionally three paragraphs in a section could potentially contain the answer. However, you do not need to read the whole text to establish that it is not there.

Here is a typical paragraph about rainforests:

There are many reasons why rainforests are being lost at such a high rate nowadays. Chief among these reasons is the never ending quest for new agricultural land. Secondary reasons of importance are timber extraction for profit and clearance to access the underlying resources just below the soil. Minor reasons include, man-made forest fires, expanding urban areas and flooding with associated landslides caused by changing and unusual rainfall patterns.

Now, answer this Y/N/NG question based on the paragraph.

Drilling for oil is a major factor in rainforest deforestation.  Y, N, Not Given

• Can you find positive proof that this happens?
• Can you find negative proof that this does not happen?
• Do you think that drilling for oil is not mentioned?

There is neither positive nor negative evidence for oil drilling.  Although access to resources was mentioned, oil was not specifically mentioned. Therefore the answer is Not Given. There is no need to read any more of the text, this is the section which deals with reasons for the loss of rainforests.

Another point to remember is that in a series of questions featuring Y / N / Not Given options, at least one of each will be used. Look at the series of answers below. If you are sure that questions 1-4 have been correctly attempted, then the final answer MUST be Not Given as it has not yet been used.

1. Y /  N  / Not Given
2. Y /  N  /  Not Given
3. Y /  N  /  Not Given
4. Y /  N  /  Not Given
5. Y /  N  /  Not Given

When we read there are some high frequency words which we know without having to ‘decode’ them. Words such as: and, because, sometimes, get, are most likely in everyone’s list of words which don’t need any effort to recognise. These words are in our sight vocabulary, those that we do not recognise, such as Madame Issac Periere, Asa Griggs Candler, 1896 AD, £14.6 million, are very often the answers to IELTS questions. We can use this to help to locate answers by scanning for either unrecognised words or specific words. See how quickly you can find the name of the place where the coldest temperature in the UK was recorded and what that temperature was?

The UK has what is known as a Northern Temperate climate. For its latitude it is relatively warm. The capital of Scotland, for example is Edinburgh, the temperature here varies from as low as -5°C for short periods to approximately 22°C in summer. This may not sound very warm; however, compared to Moscow, the capital of Russia, which lies on the same line of latitude as Edinburgh it is positively hot in winter. Moscow’s winter temperature regularly drops to below -10°C for weeks on end. There are, however, some places in the UK which do display more severe weather. The small town of Braemar, also in Scotland, regularly sees very low temperatures due to a freak of its geography. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the UK was in Braemar during winter 1982 when it plummeted to -27.2°C. Perversely, the town also regularly holds the record for both lowest and highest temperatures recorded in the UK during one day.