Tips to Answer Paper 1

1. Read the questions before reading each text. This way you know what to look for.
2. Mark, highlight, underline relevant information on texts. Repeated ideas may be important.
3. Be sure to read every text at least twice. Even after you have completed the questions for a text, you can go back
and re-read the text, keeping the questions in mind.
4. Be careful with true and false questions. If only part of the statement is true, you must still consider if false.
5. Before you answer a question, you may want to underline the two most important words in the question. What is
the question really asking? Provide the specific information the question asks for.
6. When working with fill-in-the-blank questions, write in the text booklet. Write your answer in the actual blank to
see how it reads. Ask yourself how different words might change the meaning of the sentence, depending on which
words you insert.
7. Do not spend all your time on the difficult questions and miss marks on the easier ones. Instead, save the most
challenging texts and questions for last.
8. With matching activities that test your knowledge of vocabulary, it helps to know which words are adjectives,
nouns or verbs.
9. Be careful to base your answers on evidence from the text and not “common sense” or your background
knowledge on the topic.
10. Some exam questions may ask you to fill in gaps with appropriate heading. For such activities, it is useful to find
words from the headings or their synonyms in the paragraphs of the main text.

Tips to Answer Paper 1

11. Read the questions before reading each text. This way you know what to look for.
12. Mark, highlight, underline relevant information on texts. Repeated ideas may be important.
13. Be sure to read every text at least twice. Even after you have completed the questions for a text, you can go back
and re-read the text, keeping the questions in mind.
14. Be careful with true and false questions. If only part of the statement is true, you must still consider if false.
15. Before you answer a question, you may want to underline the two most important words in the question. What is
the question really asking? Provide the specific information the question asks for.
16. When working with fill-in-the-blank questions, write in the text booklet. Write your answer in the actual blank to
see how it reads. Ask yourself how different words might change the meaning of the sentence, depending on which
words you insert.
17. Do not spend all your time on the difficult questions and miss marks on the easier ones. Instead, save the most
challenging texts and questions for last.
18. With matching activities that test your knowledge of vocabulary, it helps to know which words are adjectives,
nouns or verbs.
19. Be careful to base your answers on evidence from the text and not “common sense” or your background
knowledge on the topic.
20. Some exam questions may ask you to fill in gaps with appropriate heading. For such activities, it is useful to find
words from the headings or their synonyms in the paragraphs of the main text.