Basics
You are given a list of names (of people, researchers, theories, periods, etc.) or features and a set of statements. Your task is to match each statement to the correct name or feature from the list.
Key Characteristics:
The list of names/features is usually labelled with letters (A, B, C, D…).
The questions are statements numbered (i, ii, iii, iv…).
You write the letter (e.g., A, C, G) next to the question number on your answer sheet.
Crucially: There are usually more statements than names/features. This means you will use some names/features more than once. The instructions will explicitly say: “You may use any letter more than once.“
Types and Variations
This question type comes in a few flavors:
Matching Names to Statements: Most common.
*e.g., “Look at the following researchers (A-D) and match them to the theories listed in questions 1-5.”*
Matching Features to Statements:
e.g., “Look at the following features (A-E) of the new shopping centre. Which feature is mentioned in relation to each of the following benefits?”
Classification:
This is structurally identical. You classify statements into predefined categories.
e.g., “Classify the following statements as referring to / as occurring in: A – the Pre-Industrial period, B – the Industrial period, C – the Post-Industrial period.”
Tips
This question type is all about efficient scanning and paraphrasing. Do NOT try to read the whole passage first.
Step 1: Read the Instructions Carefully.
Note the names/features (A, B, C…).
Confirm if you can use any letter more than once.
Step 2: Underline Keywords in the Question Statements.
For each statement (i, ii, iii…), identify the core idea, names, dates, or unique concepts. These are your “search terms.”
Step 3: Locate the Names/Features in the Passage.
Scan the entire passage quickly, circling or underlining every single mention of the names (e.g., Smith, Chen, Patel) or features. They will be easy to find because they are proper nouns or capitalized key terms.
This gives you a “map” of where the relevant information is.
Step 4: Read Around Each Name/Feature.
Go to the first mention of a name (e.g., A – Dr. Lee). Read the sentence where it appears and the sentences before and after. Look for ideas that match the meaning of your first question statement.
Paraphrasing is key! The statement will not use the same words as the passage. You must match meaning.
Statement: “believed that early training was detrimental.”
Passage: “argued that formal lessons before age seven could be harmful.”
Step 5: Eliminate and Match.
Once you find a match, write the letter (A) next to that statement.
Cross out that statement so you can focus on the remaining ones.
Move to the next name or the next statement.
Step 6: Be Systematic.
Don’t jump around randomly. Work through the names or statements in a logical order.
If a statement seems impossible, skip it and come back after you’ve done the others. The process of elimination helps.
Traps
Reading in order. The information for the statements will not come in order in the passage. Statement v might be answered near the name mentioned first.
Looking for word-for-word matches. This is the biggest mistake. Always think about synonyms and paraphrasing.
Missing multiple uses. Remember, one name/feature can be the answer to multiple statements.
Watch for pronouns. After a name is first introduced (e.g., “Professor Davies”), the text may later refer to them as “he,” “she,” “the researcher,” “his team,” etc. You need to follow this thread of who is saying what.
Venus in transit
June 2004 saw the first passage, known as a ‘transit’, of the planet Venus across the face of the Sun in 122 years. Transits have helped shape our view of the whole Universe, as Heather Cooper and Nigel Henbest explain.
A On 8 June 2004, more than half the population of the world were treated to a rare astronomical event. For over six hours, the planet Venus steadily inched its way over the surface of the sun. This ‘transit’ of Venus was the first since 6 December 1882. On that occasion, the American astronomer Professor Simon Newcomb led a party to South Africa to observe the event. They were base at a girl’s school, where – it is alleged – the combined forces of three schoolmistresses outperformed the professionals with the accuracy of their observations.
B For centuries, transits of Venus have drawn explorers and astronomers alike to the four corners of the globe. And you can put it all down to the extraordinary polymath Edmond Halley. In November 1677, Halley observed a transit of the innermost planet, Mercury, from the desolate island of St Helena in the South Pacific. He realized that, from different latitudes, the passage of the planet across the Sun’s disc would appear to differ. By timing the transit from two widely-separated locations, teams of astronomers could calculate the parallax angel – the apparent difference in position of an astronomical body due to a difference in the observer’s position. Calculating this angle would allow astronomers to measure what was then the ultimate goal: the distance of the Earth from the Sun. This distance is known as the ‘astronomical unit’ or AU.
C Halley was aware that the AU was one of the most fundamental of all astronomical measurements. Johannes Kepler, in the early 17th century, had shown that the distances of the planets from the Sun governed their orbital speeds, which were easily measurable. But no-one had found a way to calculate accurate distances to the planets from the Earth. The goal was to measure the AU; then, knowing the orbital speeds of all the other planets round the Sun, the scale of the Solar System would fall into place. However, Halley realized that Mercury was so far away that its parallax angle would be very difficult to determine. As Venus was closer to the Earth, its parallax angle would be larger, and Halley worked out that by using Venus it would be possible to measure the Sun’s distance to 1 part in 500. But there was a problem: transits of Venus, unlike those of Mercury, are rare, occurring in pairs roughly eight years apart every hundred or so years. Nevertheless, he accurately predicted that Venus would cross the face of the Sun in both 1761 and 1769 – though he didn’t survive to see either.
D Inspired by Halley’s suggestion of a way to pin down the scale of the Solar System, teams of British and French astronomers set out on expeditions to places as diverse as India and Siberia. But things weren’t helped by Britain and France being at war. The person who deserves most sympathy is the French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil. He was thwarted by the fact that the British were besieging his observation site at Pondicherry in India. Fleeing on a French warship crossing the Indian Ocean, Le Gentill saw a wonderful transit – but the ship’s pitching and rolling ruled out any attempt at making accurate observations. Undaunted, he remained south of the equator, keeping himself busy by studying the islands of Mauritius and Madagascar before setting off to observe the next transit in the Philippines. Ironically after travelling nearly 50,000 kilometres, his view was clouded out at the last moment, a very dispiriting experience.
E While the early transit timings were as precise as instruments would allow, the measurements were dogged by the ‘black drop’ effect. When Venus begins to cross the Sun’s disc, it looks smeared not circular – which makes it difficult to establish timings. This is due to diffraction of light. The second problem is that Venus exhibits a halo of light when it is seen just outside the Sun’s disc. While this showed astronomers that Venus was surrounded by a thick layer of gases refracting sunlight around it, both effects made it impossible to obtain accurate timings.
F But astronomers laboured hard to analyse the results of these expeditions to observe Venus transits. Johann Franz Encke, Director of the Berlin Observatory, finally determined a value for the AU based on all these parallax measurements: 153,340,000 km. reasonably accurate for the time, that is quite close to today’s value of 149,597,870 km, determined by radar, which has now superseded transits and all other methods in accuracy. The AU is a cosmic measuring rod, and the basis of how we scale the Universe today. The parallax principle can be extended to measure the distances to the stars. If we look at a star in January – when Earth is at one point in its orbit – it will seem to be in a different position from where it appears six months later. Knowing the width of Earth’s orbit, the parallax shift lets astronomers calculate the distance.
Cambridge 09, Test 2, Passage 2