Your exam technique
Locate evidence → test every part of the claim → move on when stuck → return and check.
Give difficult questions a limit
Academic Reading gives sixty minutes for the whole test. A roughly twenty-minute budget per passage can be a starting practice plan, but adapt it to difficulty and your own results. When a question stops yielding new evidence, mark it to return to and move on. Leave time to check unanswered items and completion instructions.
Check scope and comparison
Before deciding that a claim matches, inspect words such as all, most, only, before, and more than. A study in two centres cannot automatically support a claim about every centre. A comparison also needs evidence for both sides. Treat an unmentioned explanation as missing information, not automatically as a contradiction.
Review the decision that failed
After a timed practice, record your chosen answer, the evidence, and the exact word or inference that led you astray. Separate language gaps from time-management problems. Rework the decision slowly, then apply the same check to a different passage. Simply repeating a familiar test can hide the original weakness.
See it in practice
Starting point
Text: The service improved in two pilot centres. Claim: It improved in every centre nationwide. → True
Using this skill
The pilot result does not establish a nationwide result. Look for further evidence before choosing True, False, or Not Given.
The claim changes the population being described. Limited evidence does not settle a broader claim by itself.