IELTS Reading question type

IELTS Reading Matching Headings: How to Answer, with Practice

In IELTS Reading matching headings questions, you get a list of headings (i, ii, iii…) and choose the one that best sums up the main idea of each paragraph or section. There are always more headings than paragraphs, so some are never used, and no heading can be used twice. The skill being tested is telling a paragraph's main idea apart from its supporting details.

Updated 3 October 2026 · LingoLeap IELTS Content Team

IELTS Reading matching headings at a glance

What you do: Choose the heading from a list that summarises the main idea of each paragraph or section of the text.
Where it appears: IELTS Academic and General Training Reading; it can come with any of the three sections.
Number of questions: Varies — ielts.org lists the number for every question type as variable. A set usually covers several paragraphs of one passage.
How you answer: Write the Roman numeral of the heading (i, ii, iii…). There are always more headings than paragraphs, and no heading may be used more than once.
Order: The questions follow the paragraphs (A, B, C…) in order, but the list of headings is in no particular order.
Marking: One mark for each correct answer, like every IELTS Reading question.

Sometimes one paragraph is done for you as an example; cross that heading off before you start.
Headings are usually paraphrases: they rarely repeat the paragraph's key words, and the ones that do are often traps.

Practice: matching headings 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 8 minutes.

The Rise of Vertical Farming

AIn a converted warehouse on the edge of a city, lettuces grow in trays stacked ten levels high. There is no soil and no window: the roots sit in a shallow stream of nutrient-rich water, and the only light comes from rows of purple-tinted LED panels. This is a vertical farm, and versions of it now operate in a growing number of cities, producing crops on land that was never farmland.

BThe idea of growing food indoors is not new, but several changes have made it practical in recent years. Cities have grown, and so has demand for fresh food that has not travelled for days. Extreme weather has made outdoor harvests less predictable. Above all, the price of LED lighting has fallen sharply, while the lamps have become far more efficient at producing exactly the colours of light that plants use.

CYet light is also the industry's greatest weakness. A field receives its energy free from the sun; a vertical farm must buy every unit of it as electricity. For many operators, power is the largest single cost, larger even than wages, and when energy prices rose steeply, several well-funded companies were forced to close. A farm can control almost everything about its crops except its electricity bill.

DCost also decides what can be grown. Leafy greens and herbs suit the system well: they are small, they grow quickly, and almost the whole plant is sold. Staple crops such as wheat and rice are another matter. They need months of light to mature, much of the plant is inedible, and grain sells for so little per kilogram that no indoor farm could cover its costs. Even strawberries and tomatoes remain difficult.

EWhere vertical farms do succeed, the gains for the environment are real. Because water circulates in a closed loop, a farm can use a small fraction of the water needed in a field, losing little to evaporation or run-off. Sealed growing rooms keep out most insects, so pesticides are rarely needed. Pumps, fans and air conditioning do add to the electricity demand, but these savings in water and chemicals are hard to match outdoors.

FEngineers are now looking for ways to make the economics work. Some designs combine glass roofs with LEDs, so that artificial light only tops up the sun. Others place farms beside power stations or data centres to use their waste heat, or run the lights at night when electricity is cheapest. Whether these changes will be enough is uncertain, but they suggest the future may lie in smarter buildings rather than ever taller stacks.

The passage has six paragraphs, A–F. Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i–ix.

List of Headings

iA narrow range of suitable crops
iiRising wages in the farming sector
iiiFresh produce without fields or sunlight
ivChanges that made an old idea workable
vClear benefits for the environment
viThe history of LED lighting
viiDesign changes that could reduce costs
viiiPaying for a substitute for the sun
ixWhy indoor farms will replace traditional agriculture

Paragraph A
Paragraph B
Paragraph C
Paragraph D
Paragraph E
Paragraph F

Answers explained

Show the answers and why

1. iii — Paragraph A describes what a vertical farm is: trays stacked indoors with “no soil and no window” and only LED light, on “land that was never farmland”. That is fresh produce without fields or sunlight.
2. iv — B opens with “several changes have made it practical in recent years” and then lists them: city growth, extreme weather and cheaper LEDs. Trap: vi (the history of LED lighting) matches one detail — the falling price of LEDs — but B never explains how LEDs were developed, and lighting is only one of three changes.
3. viii — C says a vertical farm “must buy every unit” of its energy as electricity instead of getting it free from the sun, and that power is the largest cost. Trap: ii (rising wages) is there because “wages” appears, but C only uses wages as a comparison — it never says they are rising.
4. i — D's first sentence, “Cost also decides what can be grown”, introduces the main idea: greens and herbs work, while wheat, rice and even strawberries and tomatoes do not.
5. v — E begins “the gains for the environment are real” and supports it with water and pesticide savings. Trap: the sentence about pumps and air conditioning adding to electricity demand might pull you towards viii, but it is a concession inside the paragraph, and viii is already the heading for C.
6. vii — F is about ways “to make the economics work”: glass roofs, waste heat and night-time lighting. Heading ix is wrong because F says success is “uncertain”, and D shows indoor farms cannot grow staple crops economically.

How to answer IELTS matching headings questions, step by step

1
Read the headings first and spot the pairs
Before reading the passage, read all the headings and notice ones that look similar (here, iv and vi both touch on technology; ii and viii both touch on costs). Those pairs are where the traps are.
2
Read each paragraph for its point, not its facts
Read the first one or two sentences closely and skim the rest. Ask: what is this paragraph doing — explaining a cause, a problem, a benefit, a solution? Sum it up in four or five words of your own before you look at the list.
3
Match your summary to a heading, not the words
Look for the heading that means the same as your summary. A heading that repeats a word from the paragraph (wages, LED) is not more likely to be right; it is often a distractor built on a detail.
4
Check the whole paragraph supports it
A correct heading covers the whole paragraph. If it only fits one sentence — a concession like “Pumps… do add to the electricity demand” or an example — it is a supporting idea, not the main idea.
5
Do the easy paragraphs first and cross off
Each heading can only be used once, so answer the paragraphs you are sure of first and cross those headings off. The remaining choices shrink for the hard paragraphs.
6
Never leave a blank
If you are stuck on a final paragraph, pick the best remaining heading. A wrong answer loses nothing extra, and a blank cannot score.

Common traps

Word matching

The most common mistake is choosing a heading because it shares a word with the paragraph. In the practice set, “wages” in paragraph C points to heading ii, which is wrong. Headings paraphrase the main idea; matching words usually signals a distractor.

Choosing a supporting idea

A heading can be true of one sentence in a paragraph and still be wrong. IELTS designs this type to test whether you can tell a main idea from a supporting one, so check the heading against the paragraph's opening and its overall purpose.

Overstated headings

Headings with strong claims (“will replace”, “always”, “the only”) need equally strong support. Paragraph F says the future is “uncertain”, so heading ix overstates it.

Spending too long on one paragraph

Matching headings can eat time because each paragraph must be read for its gist. If one paragraph takes more than a couple of minutes, guess from the remaining headings and come back if time allows.

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

Can the same heading be used twice in IELTS matching headings?

No. ielts.org states that no heading may be used more than once, so each heading you use is crossed off the list.

Why are there more headings than paragraphs?

IELTS always gives more headings than paragraphs or sections, so some headings are not used. The extra headings are usually close to a detail in one of the paragraphs, which is what makes them tempting.

How many matching headings questions are there in IELTS Reading?

It varies. ielts.org lists the number of questions for each Reading type as variable, and not every test includes matching headings. The whole Reading test has 40 questions in 60 minutes.

Should I do matching headings first?

If the heading questions come first on a passage, some candidates prefer to answer other questions on that passage first so they already know the text; others do headings first as a way of skimming. Either way, give each paragraph a quick gist reading rather than reading every detail.

Is matching headings in IELTS General Training too?

Yes. Academic and General Training Reading use the same question types, including matching headings; the difference is the kind of text.

Sources

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