Matching Features: When an Option Repeats and When It Is Not Used

You match a set of statements to a list of options. The options are a group of features from the text. For example, you may match descriptions of inventions to the people who invented them source: ielts.org.

In practice, the options are often people, places, studies or theories named in the passage.

The two rules about the options

On matching information, some paragraphs may be used more than once. On matching headings, no heading may be used more than once source: ielts.org. So matching information has the same rule as this type, and matching headings has the opposite one.

This matters for crossing off, which means drawing a line through an option you have used. It works on headings, but here it costs marks. Giving option B to question 2 tells you nothing about question 3. Read the instructions before you start, because they tell you which rule applies.

What the type tests

This type tests two skills. The first is recognising relationships and connections between facts in the text. The second is recognising opinions and theories source: ielts.org.

The second skill is the harder one, and it is why this type is more than a scanning exercise. When the options are researchers and the statements are findings, the passage rarely says "Okonkwo found that". It may say that a common view was challenged in 2003 by a survey of coastal sites. The researcher's name may sit two sentences away from the finding.

You need to skim and scan the text to find the information quickly. Then you read that part more carefully for detail source: ielts.org.

Finding the place is quick. Deciding who holds the claim takes longer.

A worked example

Here is a short passage written for this page, with three questions and three options.

The answers are A, B and B.

Question 1 is Pryce. The silts are the whole of that argument. Dalgleish's objection is that the silts are dated wrongly. But her own account depends on the salt trade, not on the silts, so she is not the answer. The passage never says "Pryce's account depends on the silts". You have to see that it does.

Question 2 is Dalgleish, from the last sentence. The name and the comment are in the same sentence, so this one is quick.

Question 3 is Dalgleish again, and this is the point of the example. Two questions have the same answer. If you had crossed B off after question 2, you would now be choosing between A and C. Both are wrong.

Onyeka is never the answer. An unused option does not mean you missed something.

Common mistakes

Three habits cost marks on this type. The first, crossing off, is covered above.

The second is choosing the nearest name. In a passage like this, every sentence has a name in it. The name closest to the words you recognised may not be the one the question belongs to.

The third is not checking who said what. "Dalgleish accepted the silts" is not the same as "Dalgleish found the silts". And "Dalgleish has since said that Onyeka's evidence is the strongest objection" does not mean she agrees with Onyeka. The passage says she does not.

The format pages say nothing about whether these answers follow the order of the text. So use the order as a place to start looking, not as a rule.

How to answer matching features questions

Reading the options first is the reverse of the advice for matching headings. These options are labels rather than claims, so they cannot mislead you in the same way.

Answer every question. A wrong answer loses only the mark for that question, and with a short list of options, a guess has a real chance.

Marks and scoring

The number of questions of each type is "variable" source: ielts.org.

Each correct answer gets one mark. On average, band 7 takes 30 marks out of 40 on Academic Reading and 35 on General Training source: ielts.org. So you can lose about ten marks on Academic and still reach band 7. A set of these questions that costs you three marks has used a third of them.

Work out how many marks you can lose with the Reading band score converter. IELTS Reading raw score to band score explains how a raw score becomes a band on both papers.

You will meet matching features on both papers source: ielts.org. For the other ten types, start from IELTS Reading question types.

The Reading improvement plan lists this type in its band 7 to 8 step.

The task description, the two rules about the options, the wording of the repeat instruction and the two skills tested come from the IELTS Academic and General Training Reading format pages on ielts.org, last checked on 28 September 2026. The average marks for band 7 come from its IELTS scoring in detail page, checked the same day. The example passage, its options and its questions were written for this page and are not from any test.