The reading section of the IELTS exam is a scoring part for the students. However, IELTS Reading Diagram Completion questions are challenging for the test takers. But, if you put more effort and practice more for this particular task, then it would become a scoring task. Therefore, please read this blog to learn the diagram completion in IELTS, its samples, and tips to score high. Therefore, read till the end to know more about this.
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In the IELTS reading diagram completion types of questions, you will get a diagram with the details relating to the passage. Here, you have to label the diagram referring to the information presented in the passage. In this task, your ability to remember the information and analyze it properly. Therefore, it becomes important for you to practice the diagram labelling questions with complete concentration and presence of mind.
In the labeling diagram questions, there are 3 types that make a small difference between each other. Therefore, the 3 types of questions are:
In this type, you are given a diagram with blank spaces that you have to fill directly from the passage. Here, the question form that you will see is “Label the parts of the machine using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage."
Here, the list of possible options is given with the question that you have to identify where it matches in the passage. The question format that you will see in this IELTS reading diagram completion question is “Select the correct label (A-F) for each part of the diagram.”
The question may describe different parts or processes, and you must identify the corresponding section in the diagram. Moreover, the format of the question asked here is “Which part of the diagram represents the filtering process?”
These are the types of questions in the diagram completion in IELTS. This description of each type will make it easy for you to identify the question on the exam day.
In this section, you will get two samples of IELTS reading passages carrying the IELTS reading diagram completion questions. These samples will help you understand the tone of answering these questions with perfection.
This is the first sample for the diagram completion IELTS reading questions. Use it to understand the tone of the answers.
IELTS Reading Passage - How to Spot a Liar Reading Answers
Paragraph- A: However much we may abhor it, deception comes naturally to all living things. Birds do it by feigning injury to lead hungry predators away from nesting young. Spider crabs do it by disguise: adorning themselves with strips of kelp and other debris, they pretend to be something they are not – and so escape their enemies. Nature amply rewards successful deceivers by allowing them to survive long enough to mate and reproduce. So it may come as no surprise to learn that human beings- who, according to psychologist Gerald Johnson of the University of South California, or lied to about 200 times a day, roughly one untruth every 5 minutes- often deceive for exactly the same reasons: to save their own skins or to get something they can’t get by other means.
Paragraph- B: But knowing how to catch deceit can be just as important a survival skill as knowing how to tell a lie and get away with it. A person able to spot falsehood quickly is unlikely to be swindled by an unscrupulous business associate or hoodwinked by a devious spouse. Luckily, nature provides more than enough clues to trap dissemblers in their own tangled webs- if you know where to look. By closely observing facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice, practically anyone can recognize the tell-tale signs of lying. Researchers are even programming computers – like those used on Lie Detector -to get at the truth by analyzing the same physical cues available to the naked eye and ear. “With the proper training, many people can learn to reliably detect lies,” says Paul Ekman, professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, who has spent the past 15 years studying the secret art of deception.
Paragraph- C: In order to know what kind of Lies work best, successful liars need to accurately assess other people’s emotional states. Ackman’s research shows that this same emotional intelligence is essential for good lie detectors, too. The emotional state to watch out for is stress, the conflict most liars feel between the truth and what they actually say and do.
Paragraph- D: Even high-tech lie detectors don’t detect lies as such; they merely detect the physical cues of emotions, which may or may not correspond to what the person being tested is saying. Polygraphs, for instance, measure respiration, heart rate, and skin conductivity, which tend to increase when people are nervous – as they usually are when lying. Nervous people typically perspire, and the salts contained in perspiration conducts electricity. That’s why sudden leap in skin conductivity indicates nervousness -about getting caught, perhaps -which makes, in turn, suggest that someone is being economical with the truth. On the other hand, it might also mean that the lights in the television. The studio is too hot- which is one reason polygraph tests are inadmissible in court. “Good lie detectors don’t rely on a single thing,” says Ekma, but interpret clusters of verbal and non-verbal clues that suggest someone might be lying.”
Paragraph- E: The clues are written all over the face. Because the musculature of the face is directly connected to the areas of the brain that process emotion, the countenance can be a window to the soul. Neurological studies even suggest that genuine emotions travel different pathways through the brain than insincere ones. If a patient paralyzed by stroke on one side of the face, for example, is asked to smile deliberately, only the mobile side of the mouth is raised. But tell that same person a funny joke, and the patient breaks into a full and spontaneous smile. Very few people -most notably, actors and politicians- are able to consciously control all of their facial expressions. Lies can often be caught when the liars true feelings briefly leak through the mask of deception. We don’t think before we feel, Ekman says. “Expressions tend to show up on the face before we’re even conscious of experiencing an emotion.”
Paragraph- F: One of the most difficult facial expressions to fake- or conceal, if it’s genuinely felt - is sadness. When someone is truly sad, the forehead wrinkles with grief, and the inner corners of the eyebrows are pulled up. Fewer than 15% of the people Ekman tested were able to produce this eyebrow movement voluntarily. By contrast, the lowering of the eyebrows associated with an angry scowl can be replicated at will but almost everybody. “ If someone claims they are sad and the inner corners of their eyebrows don’t go up, Ekmam says, the sadness is probably false.”
Paragraph- G: The smile, on the other hand, is one of the easiest facial expressions to counterfeit. It takes just two muscles -the zygomaticus major muscles that extend from the cheekbones to the corners of the lips- to produce a grin. But there’s a catch. A genuine smile affects not only the corners of the lips but also the orbicularis oculi, the muscle around the eye that produces the distinctive “crow’s feet” associated with people who laugh a lot. A counterfeit grin can be unmasked if the corners of the lips go up, the eyes crinkle, but the inner corners of the eyebrows are not lowered, a movement controlled by the orbicularis oculi that is difficult to fake. The absence of lowered eyebrows is one reason why the smile looks so strained and stiff.
Questions 11-14
Answers of the Passage with Explanation
1. In the fourth line of paragraph D, it is written that one of the most effective ways to collect ants is to gather the leaf litter in which they are foraging and extract the ants from it. Mostly it is done by ‘placing leaf litter on a screen’, or ‘over a large funnel’ often under some heat. So, the accurate answer is heat.
2. The last statement of paragraph C says that the most successful way to collect ants is to gather the leaf in which they are foraging and extract the ants from it. This is most commonly done by placing leaf litter in the picture represented by the shade on the top of the litter. So, the answer is leaf litter.
3. In the fourth line of paragraph D, it is written that the common but effective ways of collecting ants are mostly done by placing leaf litter on a screen and over a large funnel often under some heat. So, the correct answer is a screen.
4. The fifth line of paragraph D states the methods of collecting ants which is to gather the leaf litter in which they are foraging and extract the ants from it. As the litter dries from above ants and other animals move downward and fall out the top and are collected in alcohol placed below the funnel. Therefore, alcohol is the accurate answer.
This is the second sample of the IELTS Reading Diagram Completion questions for you practice.
IELTS Reading Passage: Keep a Watchful Eye on the Bridges
Paragraph 1: Most road and rail bridges are only inspected visually, if at all. Every few months, engineers have to clamber over the structure in an attempt to find problems before the bridge shows obvious signs of damage. Technologies developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and Texas A&M University may replace these surveys with microwave sensors that constantly monitor the condition of bridges.
Paragraph 2: “The device uses microwaves to measure the distance between the sensor and the bridge, much like radar does,” says Albert Migliori, a Los Alamos physicist “Any load on the bridge – such as traffic induces displacements, which change that distance as the bridge moves up and down.” By monitoring these movements over several minutes, the researchers can find out how the bridge resonates. Changes in its behaviour can give an early warning of damage.
Paragraph 3: The Interstate 40 bridge over the Rio Grande River in Albuquerque provided the researchers with a rare opportunity to test their ideas. Chuck Farrar, an engineer at Los Alamos, explains: “The New Mexico authorities decided to raze this bridge and replace it. We were able to mount instruments on it, test it under various load conditions, and even inflict damage just before it was demolished.” In the 1960s and 1970s, 2500 similar bridges were built in the US. They have two steel girders supporting the load in each section. Highway experts know that this design is “fracture critical” because a failure in either girder would cause the bridge to fail.
Paragraph 4: After setting up the microwave dish on the ground below the bridge, the Los Alamos team installed conventional accelerometers at several points along the span to measure its motion. They then tested the bridge while traffic roared across it and while subjecting it to pounding from a “shaker”, which delivered precise punches to a specific point on the road.
Paragraph 5: “We then created damage that we hoped would simulate fatigue cracks that can occur in steel girders,” says Farrar. They first cut a slot about 60 centimetres long in the middle of one girder. They then extended the cut until it reached the bottom of the girder and finally, they cut across the flange – the bottom of the girder’s “I” shape.
Paragraph 6: The initial, crude analysis of the bridge’s behavior, based on the frequency at which the bridge resonates, did not indicate that anything was wrong until the flange was damaged. But later the data were reanalyzed with algorithms that took into account changes in the mode shapes of the structure – shapes that the structure takes on when excited at a particular frequency. These more sophisticated algorithms, which were developed by Norris Stubbs at Texas A&M University, successfully identified and located the damage caused by the initial cut.
Paragraph 7: “When any structure vibrates, the energy is distributed throughout with some points not moving, while others vibrate strongly at various frequencies,” says Stubbs. “My algorithms use pattern recognition to detect changes in the distribution of this energy.” NASA already uses Stubbs’ method to check the behavior of the body flap that slows space shuttles down after they land.
Paragraph 8: A commercial system based on the Los Alamos hardware is now available, complete with the Stubbs algorithms, from the Quatro Corporation in Albuquerque for about $100,000. Tim Darling, another Los Alamos physicist working on the microwave interferometer with Migliori, says that as the electronics become cheaper, a microwave inspection system will eventually be applied to most large bridges in the US. “In a decade I would like to see a battery or solar-powered package mounted under each bridge, scanning it every day to detect changes,” he says.
Questions 5-8
Filling the blanks in the diagram labels.
Write the correct answer in boxes 5-8 on your answer sheet.
Answers to the Passage with Explanation
1. The first sentence of the fourth paragraph states that the microwave dish was positioned on the ground beneath the bridges to gather data on the bridge's structural behaviour. Hence, the answer is “Microwave Dish”.
2. The first sentence of the fourth paragraph explains conventional accelerometers were strategically placed at many locations along the bridges to monitor their movement and vibrations. Hence, the answer is “Accelerometers”.
3. The fifth sentence of the third paragraph refers to designs with two steel girders per section, which were vital for supporting and distributing the load across the pattern. These played a crucial role in maintaining the bridge’s stability and strengths. Hence, the answer is “Steel Girders”.
4. The last sentence of the fifth paragraph shows the researchers intentionally created damage by cutting a slot in the girder, and extending it downwards until it reached the flange, which is the horizontal section at the bottom of the girder’s ‘I’ shape. Hence, the answer is “Flange”.
These two samples will be helpful for you to understand the proper way of solving the diagram completion questions in the IELTS reading section.
Here, 10 more passages are mentioned that have IELTS reading diagram completion questions for your practice.
Check these passages and you can also take the help of the IELTS reading practice test, which will help you understand the exam syllabus and format and practice accordingly.
There are several strategies and tips that will help you score well in the diagram labelling questions. They are:
This was all about the IELTS Reading Diagram Completion. There are 2 samples of the questions that are useful for you to prepare for this task. Moreover, there are some tips and strategies that will help you improve your IELTS band score, especially in the reading section. Further, you can also reach out to our academic experts, who will help you prepare well in all the sections of the IELTS exam. Thus, enroll in the classes today and get your desired score to study at your dream university abroad.
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