GT Reading Section 3: General Interest

Section 3 is the most challenging part of the GT Reading test. It presents a single long text on a topic of general interest — similar in length and complexity to an Academic Reading passage. This is where your reading ability is truly tested, and where the difference between Band 6.5 and Band 7 is often decided.

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What to Expect

Section 3 contains one long text (approximately 700–1000 words) with 13 questions. You should allocate approximately 25 minutes to this section.

Common Topics

The text covers a general interest topic that does not require specialist knowledge:

• Psychology and behaviour (e.g. why people procrastinate, the science of habit formation)
• History and culture (e.g. the origins of a tradition, the development of a technology)
• Science and nature (e.g. how memory works, the impact of urbanisation on wildlife)
• Society and trends (e.g. the rise of remote working, changing attitudes to education)
• Health and wellbeing (e.g. the benefits of sleep, the psychology of exercise)

Band 7+ Tip: You do not need prior knowledge of the topic. Everything you need to answer the questions is in the text. If you find yourself using outside knowledge, stop — you may be falling into a trap.

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How Section 3 Differs from Sections 1 and 2

Feature	Sections 1–2	Section 3
Text length	Short to medium	Long (700–1000 words)
Text type	Functional/practical	Discursive/analytical
Vocabulary	Everyday/workplace	Academic and formal
Structure	Lists, tables, notices	Paragraphs, arguments, examples
Reading approach	Scan for specific details	Read for understanding and inference

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Common Question Types in Section 3

1. Matching Headings

Selecting the best heading for each paragraph from a list of options.

Advanced strategy for long texts:

• Read paragraph 1 carefully, then skim the rest to understand the overall structure.
• Assign the easiest headings first — the ones where the match is obvious.
• Return to the more difficult paragraphs and choose from the remaining headings.

2. Matching Sentence Endings

You are given the beginning of a sentence and must choose the correct ending from a list.

Strategy:

• Read all the sentence beginnings first.
• Locate each one in the text.
• The correct ending will be a paraphrase of what follows in the text.
• Eliminate endings that are factually correct but do not match the specific sentence beginning.

Matching Sentence Endings: Example
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Sentence beginning: "The researchers concluded that sleep deprivation..."

Endings:
A) ...can improve short-term memory performance.
B) ...has no measurable effect on cognitive function.
C) ...significantly impairs decision-making ability.
D) ...only affects physical health, not mental health.

Text says: "The study found that participants who slept fewer
than five hours showed a 40% decline in decision-making accuracy."

Answer: C

3. True / False / Not Given

These operate the same way as in earlier sections, but the language is more complex and the distinctions are more subtle.

Advanced strategy:

• Do not be swayed by a statement that is "probably true" based on the text. Unless the text explicitly states it, the answer is Not Given.
• Watch for absolute language in the statement ("always", "never", "all", "none") — the text usually uses more qualified language ("often", "rarely", "most", "few"), which makes the absolute statement False.
• Watch for scope shifts: the text discusses one country, but the statement generalises to all countries — this is typically Not Given.

4. Multiple Choice

More complex than in Section 2 — questions may ask about the writer's purpose, the main idea of a paragraph, or the overall message of the text.

Strategy:

• For "main idea" questions, eliminate answers that are too narrow (covering only one detail) or too broad (going beyond what the text says).
• For "writer's purpose" questions, ask: Why did the writer include this information? To persuade? To inform? To compare?

5. Summary/Note/Flow-Chart Completion

Filling in gaps in a summary, typically of one section of the text.

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Advanced Reading Skills for Section 3

Identifying the Writer's Purpose and Tone