Ielts course

(Some) Types of texts
A newspaper article is written for a general audience and may have short paragraphs, simple structures and informal language. The writer will want to encourage readers to read it and so may start with an amusing headline or a question to get them interested. The question will tell the reader what the text is going to be about.
A report is a formal text and may contain complex grammatical forms or statistics. It may be organised so that each paragraph deals with a certain aspect of the topic.
In a historical account, the information is likely to be organised in chronological order.
A description of a process will probably contain a lot of passive structures and be organised according to the order of the stages.

In the Matching headings tasks candidates are given a list of headings and have to choose the best one for each paragraph or section of the text. The list of headings always comes before the text and there are always more headings than paragraphs.

Having used their previewing and predicting skills to look at the heading of the text, if there is one, and the first paragraph, it is a good idea to read through the possible headings. This will give you more of an idea about how the text will develop and it will focus your mind on the main ideas that you have to look for. This is why the list of headings comes before the text.
The important thing to note is that each heading will capture the main idea of the paragraph rather than focusing on one particular detail. So when you start reading the text, you will be skimming the text to find the main idea in each paragraph.
Aims:

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  to help students develop previewing and predicting skills
  
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  to help students read for main ideas (skimming)
  
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  to introduce students to the Matching headings task