Section 3: The Longer General-Interest Text
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Lesson overview
Handling the single longer text of GT Reading Section 3 — headings, detail and the writer's views — and using the GT band conversion to plan your marks.
Go to lesson quiz →Exam guidance · IELTS Band-Descriptor Lens
Pacing
Strict section timing; Writing Task 2 carries twice the weight of Task 1.
How IELTS GT marks this
Task Response, Coherence & Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range & Accuracy.
Watch out for
True / False / Not Given: 'False' contradicts the text, whereas 'Not Given' has no textual proof either way.
Lesson content
Overview
Section 3 of GT Reading is called 'general reading'. It is one longer, more complex text on a topic of general interest — the history of an everyday object, a community project, a change in how people travel or work — usually with about 13 questions. It is the closest GT Reading comes to an Academic passage, and its questions are the hardest: matching headings, Yes / No / Not Given on the writer's views, multiple choice and sentence endings. Section 3 matters more in General Training than many candidates realise, because of the way GT Reading is scored. The texts in Sections 1 and 2 are easier than Academic passages, so IELTS asks for more correct answers for the same band. A candidate who answers Sections 1 and 2 well but rushes Section 3 often lands half a band or a full band below their target.
What the conversion means for you
Look at the gap between the two lines. Thirty correct answers is band 7 in Academic but band 6 in General Training. Near the top, every single answer counts: 33 correct is band 6.5 and 34 is band 7. If your migration route asks for band 7 in Reading, you can afford to lose only six questions in the whole paper. In practice, that means two things. First, Sections 1 and 2 must be close to perfect, because those are the questions most candidates at your level answer correctly. Second, you need enough time for Section 3, where the marks that separate band 6 from band 7 are found. A good target is to start Section 3 with at least 22 minutes left.
Key concept: main ideas and the writer's views
Main idea: what a whole paragraph is about. A heading must fit the paragraph as a whole, not one sentence in it. The main idea is often, but not always, in the first or last sentence. Supporting detail: an example, number or name that illustrates the main idea. Distractor headings are often built from a detail. Writer's view: what the writer thinks, signalled by evaluative language — 'in my view', 'unfortunately', 'rightly', 'this seems unlikely', 'with hindsight'. Reported view: what someone else thinks — 'critics argue', 'some experts claim'. In Yes / No / Not Given, a reported view is not automatically the writer's view.
Worked example 1: matching a heading
Paragraph: 'At first, the town's bicycle-sharing scheme struggled. Bikes were stolen or left in rivers, and in the first year fewer than half were still working. The council responded by fitting every bike with a GPS tracker, moving docking stations to busier streets and charging users a small deposit. Within two years, thefts had almost disappeared.' Headings: i Why cycling is good for health ii How early problems were solved iii The cost of running the scheme iv A scheme that failed
Active Worked Example · Predict Step 1
4 stepsWrite down the formula, rule, or first move you would make before revealing Step 1.
Worked example 2: Yes, No or Not Given
Text: 'Some economists predict that self-service checkouts will replace shop assistants entirely within a decade. This seems unlikely: many customers, particularly older ones, still prefer to be served by a person, and shops have found that unattended machines lead to more mistakes at the till.' Statement A: 'Shop assistants will disappear within ten years.' → NO. The prediction belongs to 'some economists'; the writer calls it 'unlikely'. Statement B: 'Older customers tend to prefer being served by a person.' → YES. The writer states this as a reason for their view. Statement C: 'Self-service checkouts are cheaper for shops to run.' → NOT GIVEN. The writer mentions mistakes, but says nothing about running costs. 1. Find who holds each view. 2. Decide whether the writer agrees, disagrees or is silent. 3. Answer for the writer only.
Worked example 3: where the marks are won
A candidate's practice paper: Section 1, 12 of 14 correct; Section 2, 10 of 13; Section 3, 7 of 13.
Active Worked Example · Predict Step 1
5 stepsWrite down the formula, rule, or first move you would make before revealing Step 1.
Common traps
• Choosing a heading from the first sentence only. Read to the end of the paragraph. • Treating a reported opinion ('critics say') as the writer's own view. • Bringing in outside knowledge on a familiar topic. Answer from the text alone. • Arriving at Section 3 with ten minutes left. Pace the paper from the start. • Expecting Academic scores. A raw score that would be band 7 in Academic may be band 6 in General Training.
Summary
• Section 3 is one longer general-interest text with about 13 of the hardest questions. • GT needs more correct answers than Academic for each band: about 23 for band 5, 30 for band 6, 34 for band 7 and 38 for band 8. • Headings must fit the whole paragraph; distractors are built from details. • Yes / No / Not Given is about the writer's view, not views the writer reports. • Finish Sections 1 and 2 in about 33 minutes so Section 3 gets more than 20.
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