Approaching IELTS Reading - Paragraph headings

List of Headings

i Trying it yourself
ii Buying the right ingredients
iii Mixing your seafood
iv Watching the experts at work
v A changing student base
vi Rationale for a seafood school
vii Picking the fish for your dish
viii How to enrol
ix A range of levels

The reading passage has six paragraphs, A-F.
Choose the correct headings for each paragraph from the list of headings above.

Example Paragraph A Answer vi

Paragraph B v
Paragraph C ii
Paragraph D iv
Paragraph E i
Paragraph F ix

Everybody loves fish but do they love cooking it or know how to, for that matter?

A The Seafood School, located at the fish market, first opened its doors in 1989 to provide advice to consumers on how to prepare a wide variety of seafood dishes at home. The School is now widely regarded as one of the country’s leading cooking schools with over 10,000 students a year attending classes.

B The classes were initially aimed at the local residents who regularly shopped at the fish market, but more recently the school has found a market in teaching visitors from other states, as well as from overseas.

C While fish are still the main focus of most classes, recipes involving mussels, octopus, crabs and lobster are also very popular. Asian flavours are in high demand and one very popular class begins with a shopping expedition to Chinatown to find out where to purchase the best herbs and spices for each individual recipe.

D All classes commence with a demonstration of how the dishes are prepared. As anyone who has ever observed a good chef knows, it may look easy in their skilled hands but prove much more difficult at home.

E This is where the Seafood School is unique. After the demonstration, students roll up their sleeves, put on an apron and, in groups of five, recreate the dishes they have just seen being prepared. Under the watchful eye of the demonstrator and assistants, each student helps to create a meal to be proud of, and then they all sit down to sample their seafood feast.

F The Seafood School conducts a wide range of classes for all degrees of competency, from a four-session course in seafood basics to the more complex weekend workshops with some of the nation’s leading chefs taking the classes. A vast array of cuisines and cooking styles is covered, including the School’s most popular class, ‘Seafood BBQ’, which is scheduled up to four times a month to keep up with demand!

Tips

• There is one heading for each paragraph. You should use each heading only once. You do not need to read the paragraph which is given as an example or use the answer provided. There are always more headings than there are paragraphs.

• First look at the list of headings then read each paragraph as fast as possible. The faster you read the greater your understanding of the passage. You should try to understand the general meaning of the passage and not look for words that you can find in both the heading and the passage.

Sample reading passage taken from New Insights into IELTS - Student's Book p.81