Matching headings: a report on school start times
You can find the main point of a paragraph and pick the heading that covers all of it.
In a matching headings task you get a list of short headings and a passage in lettered paragraphs. You choose a heading for each paragraph.
The list always has more headings than paragraphs, and some of them are written to catch a quick reader. Here the passage is about why schools start so early, and what happens when they start later.
Warm-up
Main point or detail?
Read this short paragraph and decide what it is mainly about.
Read thisOur town library now opens on Sundays. It also stays open later on weekdays, and there is a new study room upstairs. Staff say the changes were made because many students had nowhere quiet to work.
What is the paragraph mainly about?
How it works
The reading 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, next to each paragraph.
- iThe price of school transport
- iiA change inside the body
- iiiPractical reasons for an early start
- ivWider effects of lost sleep
- vWhy teachers prefer afternoon lessons
- viA familiar scene in morning lessons
- viiWays to change without changing everything
- viiiThe results of a later start
- ixHow much sleep adults need
- 1Paragraph A1
- 2Paragraph B2
- 3Paragraph C3
- 4Paragraph D4
- 5Paragraph E5
- 6Paragraph F6
When a passage has a matching headings task, it comes first, before the other questions on that passage.
The method
- 1Read the headings first
They are short. Read them all once, and notice any that look alike. When two headings are similar, one of them is usually a trap.
- 2Read each paragraph for its main point
The main point is often in the first or second sentence, and sometimes at the end. The middle usually gives examples and details.
- 3Say the point in your own words
Before you look back at the list, sum up the paragraph in five or six words. Then find the heading closest to your summary.
- 4Check the heading covers the whole paragraph
A wrong heading usually matches one detail, one word or one name. The right one sums up what the whole paragraph is about.
- 5Do the easy ones first
Each heading can be used only once, so every paragraph you are sure of makes the list shorter for the hard ones.
The passage
Sleep and the school day
A In many secondary schools, the first lesson of the day has a familiar look. Some students are yawning, a few have their heads on their desks, and teachers find that questions are met with silence. It is easy to blame late nights spent on phones or games. Sleep researchers, however, argue that something else is also going on, and that the timing of the school day may be part of the problem.
B During adolescence, the body clock moves later. The hormone that makes people feel sleepy, melatonin, is released later in the evening than it was in childhood, so many teenagers do not feel tired until around eleven o'clock at night or later. Their bodies then want to sleep until well into the morning. A student who has to get up at half past six is therefore losing sleep that their body still needs, however sensible their evening routine.
C The effects of this lost sleep are not limited to the first lesson. Tired students find it harder to concentrate and to remember what they have learned, and lack of sleep is linked with low mood. It also matters outside school: older teenagers who drive are more likely to have accidents when they are short of sleep. For this reason, some doctors describe early start times as a health issue as well as an educational one.
D So why do so many schools start early? The answers are mostly practical. In areas where one fleet of buses carries children to several schools, the schools must start at different times, and secondary students are often collected first. Many parents need to leave for work early and want their children out of the house at the same time. After-school sport and part-time jobs also need daylight hours at the end of the day, and changing any of these arrangements costs money.
E When schools have moved their start time later, the results have generally been encouraging. Students do not simply stay up later: most use the extra time to sleep. Schools that have made the change often report better attendance at the first lesson and fewer students arriving late. Some also report small improvements in marks, although these are harder to measure, as marks depend on many things besides sleep.
F For schools that cannot change their whole timetable, there are other options. Some start the day later for older students only, whose body clocks are furthest out of step with an early start. Others keep the building open early but begin lessons later, so that students whose parents leave early have somewhere to go. Neither solution suits everyone, but both show that the school day does not have to follow the bus timetable.
Watch me do one
I'll take paragraph D, because it has a trap in it.
The first sentence is a question: So why do so many schools start early? The paragraph is going to give answers, and the next sentence says they are mostly practical.
The middle lists them: buses, parents' working hours, after-school sport and jobs, and money.
Heading i, The price of school transport, looks good at first. Buses and money are both in the paragraph. But they are two details out of four, and the paragraph never says what transport costs.
Heading iii, Practical reasons for an early start, covers all four. It shares the word practical with the paragraph, so I check where that word is: in the sentence that gives the main point. I write iii.
Practice with Elita5 questions
Now the other five paragraphs. Each shows the paragraph and four headings from the list.
Paragraph A
Read paragraph A and choose its heading.
Read thisIn many secondary schools, the first lesson of the day has a familiar look. Some students are yawning, a few have their heads on their desks, and teachers find that questions are met with silence. It is easy to blame late nights spent on phones or games. Sleep researchers, however, argue that something else is also going on, and that the timing of the school day may be part of the problem.
Which heading fits paragraph A?
Paragraph B
Read paragraph B and choose its heading.
Read thisDuring adolescence, the body clock moves later. The hormone that makes people feel sleepy, melatonin, is released later in the evening than it was in childhood, so many teenagers do not feel tired until around eleven o'clock at night or later. Their bodies then want to sleep until well into the morning. A student who has to get up at half past six is therefore losing sleep that their body still needs, however sensible their evening routine.
Which heading fits paragraph B?
Paragraph C
Read paragraph C and choose its heading.
Read thisThe effects of this lost sleep are not limited to the first lesson. Tired students find it harder to concentrate and to remember what they have learned, and lack of sleep is linked with low mood. It also matters outside school: older teenagers who drive are more likely to have accidents when they are short of sleep. For this reason, some doctors describe early start times as a health issue as well as an educational one.
Which heading fits paragraph C?
Paragraph E
Read paragraph E and choose its heading.
Read thisWhen schools have moved their start time later, the results have generally been encouraging. Students do not simply stay up later: most use the extra time to sleep. Schools that have made the change often report better attendance at the first lesson and fewer students arriving late. Some also report small improvements in marks, although these are harder to measure, as marks depend on many things besides sleep.
Which heading fits paragraph E?
Paragraph F
Read paragraph F and choose its heading. Some of the wrong headings borrow words from the paragraph.
Read thisFor schools that cannot change their whole timetable, there are other options. Some start the day later for older students only, whose body clocks are furthest out of step with an early start. Others keep the building open early but begin lessons later, so that students whose parents leave early have somewhere to go. Neither solution suits everyone, but both show that the school day does not have to follow the bus timetable.
Which heading fits paragraph F?
Words to keep
The body's natural timing for sleeping and waking. A teenager's body clock runs later than a young child's.
The years when a child grows into an adult, roughly 10 to 19. Sleep patterns change during adolescence.
Keep your attention on one thing. It is hard to concentrate in a first lesson after five hours of sleep.
How often people are present, at school or at work. Attendance at the first lesson improved after the change.
Not matching something else. An early timetable is out of step with teenagers' body clocks.
Plans for how and when things happen. Changing the bus arrangements costs money.
Before you go
Read the list of headings before the passage, and notice the ones that look alike.
Find each paragraph's main point, usually near the start, and say it in your own words first.
Choose the heading that sums up the whole paragraph. A heading that matches one word or one detail is usually a trap.
Answer the paragraphs you are sure of first. Each heading is used once.
Next: In the next lesson you listen to a phone call to a college and fill in an enrolment form.