IELTS Reading question type

IELTS Reading Matching Sentence Endings: How to Answer, with Practice

In IELTS Reading matching sentence endings, you get the first half of several sentences based on the passage and choose the best ending for each from a lettered list. There are always more endings than beginnings, and the beginnings follow the order of the information in the text. Most wrong answers come from endings that fit the grammar but not the passage — so the method is: grammar to narrow the list, meaning to decide.

Updated 3 October 2026 · LingoLeap IELTS Content Team

IELTS Reading matching sentence endings at a glance

What you do: Complete each sentence beginning by choosing the best ending (A, B, C…) so the full sentence matches what the passage says.
Where it appears: Listed as a question type for IELTS Academic Reading, where it can come with any of the three passages. ielts.org's General Training Reading page does not list it separately, so expect it mainly in Academic.
Number of questions: Varies — ielts.org lists the number for every question type as variable. There are always more endings than beginnings, so some endings are not used.
How you answer: Write the letter of the ending. You do not copy words from the text, so there is no word limit.
Order: The sentence beginnings are in the same order as the information in the text (ielts.org). The list of endings is not.
Marking: One mark for each correct answer. The task tests your understanding of the main ideas in the text.

Because the beginnings follow the text, the answer to question 3 is between the places you found questions 2 and 4.
Several endings usually fit each beginning grammatically, and some state things that sound true in real life. Only one says what this passage says.
The endings are paraphrased. The ending that repeats the passage's exact words is often a distractor taken from a different paragraph.

Practice: matching sentence endings questions with a short passage

An original passage and questions written by LingoLeap in the IELTS style — shorter than a real section, so you can practise this one question type. Give yourself about 9 minutes.

What Is a Public Library Worth?

Public libraries are among the few services that almost every town offers free of charge, yet they are often among the first to lose funding when local budgets tighten. Part of the reason, economists suggest, is that the value of a library is unusually hard to measure. A hospital can count the patients it treats and a road can count its vehicles; a library's benefits are spread across thousands of small, private moments that leave no record.

The most common approach has been to count loans. Councils compare the number of books borrowed each year with the library's running costs and calculate a cost per loan. The method is simple, but critics argue that it understates the library's role, because a growing share of visitors come not to borrow but to use computers, study, attend classes or simply find a warm, quiet place to sit.

To capture this wider use, some researchers have turned to a technique known as contingent valuation. Residents are asked how much they would be willing to pay in tax to keep their library open, or how much they would need to be compensated if it closed. Studies using this method have often produced figures several times higher than the library's budget. Sceptics respond that people tend to exaggerate when answering hypothetical questions, since they will never actually be asked to pay.

A third approach estimates what users would have to spend if the library did not exist: the cost of buying the books they borrow, paying for internet access, or hiring a room for a community group. This “substitute cost” method has the advantage of resting on real market prices. Its weakness is that many users would not in fact buy these things; a family that borrows twenty picture books a month would probably buy two.

Some benefits resist all of these methods. Libraries are among the main places where people without internet at home can apply for jobs or government services online, and early-years reading sessions may improve children's literacy long before they start school. Such effects are real, but they appear years later and in other budgets — in employment figures or exam results — so a library rarely receives credit for them.

For this reason, a number of economists now recommend combining several measures rather than searching for a single figure. A library that is judged only by its loans, they argue, may look expensive precisely because it is succeeding at things a loan count cannot see.

Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A–J, below. Write the correct letter, A–J.

Libraries are often among the first services to lose funding partly because
Critics say that calculating a cost per loan
Contingent valuation studies ask residents
Sceptics think contingent valuation figures may be too high because people
The substitute cost method has the advantage that it
The substitute cost method may overstate a library's value because many users
A library rarely receives credit for some of its benefits because they

Aappear years later in other areas of public spending.
Bwould not actually buy everything they borrow.
Cthe value of what they offer is unusually hard to measure.
Doverlooks visitors who do not come to borrow books.
Euses prices that exist in real markets.
Fto say how much they would pay to keep their library open.
Gexaggerate when answering questions about imaginary situations.
Hare mainly enjoyed by families with young children.
Irelies on figures supplied by publishers.
Jthey cost more to run than hospitals or roads.

Answers explained

Show the answers and why

1. C — Paragraph 1: libraries lose funding early, and “Part of the reason… is that the value of a library is unusually hard to measure.” Trap: J fits the grammar and mentions hospitals and roads, which are in the same paragraph — but the passage only says hospitals and roads are easier to count, not that libraries cost more to run.
2. D — Paragraph 2: critics say the cost-per-loan method understates the library's role because many visitors “come not to borrow”. E and I also fit the grammar after “calculating a cost per loan”, but real market prices belong to the substitute cost method (paragraph 4), and publishers are never mentioned.
3. F — Paragraph 3: “Residents are asked how much they would be willing to pay in tax to keep their library open.” F is the only ending that can follow “ask residents” grammatically (ask someone to do something).
4. G — Paragraph 3: “people tend to exaggerate when answering hypothetical questions”. Hypothetical = about imaginary situations. Trap: B also fits after “people”, but it describes the weakness of the substitute cost method in paragraph 4, not of contingent valuation.
5. E — Paragraph 4: the method “has the advantage of resting on real market prices”.
6. B — Paragraph 4: “many users would not in fact buy these things” — the family borrowing twenty books would probably buy two. Trap: G fits after “many users” grammatically, but exaggerating in answers is the criticism of contingent valuation in paragraph 3. Because the beginnings follow the text, question 6 must come from paragraph 4.
7. A — Paragraph 5: the effects “appear years later and in other budgets”, so the library rarely gets credit. Trap: H is tempting because the paragraph mentions early-years reading sessions for children, but job seekers are mentioned too, and the passage never says these benefits mainly go to families.

How to answer IELTS matching sentence endings questions, step by step

1
Read all the beginnings first and underline the key idea
Underline the content words in each beginning (“cost per loan”, “contingent valuation”, “substitute cost”). They are your search words, and because the beginnings follow the text, they also tell you roughly where each answer is.
2
Sort the endings by grammar
For each beginning, decide what must come next: a verb (“calculating a cost per loan” needs a singular verb like overlooks), a clause with its own subject (“because” needs a subject like “the value…”), or a structure such as “ask residents to…”. Cross out endings that cannot follow. This usually leaves two to four candidates.
3
Locate the sentence in the passage
Scan for the beginning's key idea, paraphrased if necessary, and read the sentence it is in plus the sentence after. Endings often come from a sentence that starts “Its weakness is…” or “Sceptics respond…”, just after the idea is introduced.
4
Choose by meaning, not by word overlap
Of the endings that fit grammatically, pick the one that says what this sentence says, in other words. Check the paraphrase: hypothetical = imaginary; resting on real market prices = uses prices that exist in real markets.
5
Use the order to check yourself
Your answers should move forward through the passage. If question 6's chosen ending comes from an earlier paragraph than question 5, one of them is probably wrong.
6
Read the full sentence back
Join the beginning and your ending and read it as one sentence. It should be grammatical, it should be true according to the passage, and it should not add anything the passage doesn't say.

Common traps

Endings that are true but not in the passage

Some endings sound reasonable — libraries probably do cost more than some services — but the passage never says so. If you can't point to a sentence that states it, it's a distractor, however sensible it seems.

Right idea, wrong paragraph

The most effective distractors are real ideas from the passage attached to the wrong beginning: in the practice set, B and G are both true of the passage but describe different methods. Check that the ending belongs to the same part of the text as the beginning.

Grammar alone

Grammar narrows the list, but usually two or three endings still fit. Candidates who stop at “it sounds right” lose marks on exactly these questions.

Ignoring the order

ielts.org states the beginnings follow the order of the information in the text. If you don't use this, you'll search the whole passage for every question and run out of time.

More practice

Try this question type on the free official IELTS samples next, then a full timed Reading section. LingoLeap's AI-graded practice covers IELTS Speaking and Writing.

Free official IELTS sample questions

FAQ

Are IELTS matching sentence endings questions in order?

Yes. ielts.org says the sentence beginnings are in the same order as the information in the text. The list of endings is not in order.

Can the same ending be used twice?

ielts.org says only that there are more endings than beginnings, so some endings are not used. Each beginning has one best ending. If two beginnings seem to need the same ending, read both sentences again in the passage — usually one of them belongs to a different idea.

Is there a word limit in matching sentence endings?

No. You write the letter of the ending (A, B, C…), not words from the text, so word limits only apply to completion types such as sentence completion.

What is the difference between matching sentence endings and sentence completion?

In matching sentence endings you choose a ready-made ending from a list. In sentence completion you fill a gap with words copied from the passage, within a word limit such as NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS.

How do I get better at matching sentence endings?

Practise on the free official samples, and after each set check why every wrong ending was wrong — usually it was grammatically possible but came from a different part of the text, or wasn't stated at all.

Sources

Format, instructions and marking rules are from IELTS (ielts.org). The passage, questions and advice are LingoLeap's own.