Part 3 — Reading for Information

What you'll learn: how Part 3's lettered article works, a paragraph-index technique that avoids re-reading the whole article per question, and how to decide when a statement belongs to no paragraph at all.

What Part 3 gives you

Part 3 is an informational article, often on a general-interest topic (health, technology, history, workplace trends), split into four paragraphs labelled A, B, C and D. Each question gives you a statement, and you choose the paragraph that contains that information. There's a fifth option too: E, "not given," for a statement that none of the four paragraphs supports.

Option E is what makes this part hard. Most wrong answers here aren't careless; they're a paragraph picked because it's close to the statement when the honest answer was E.

Why re-reading the whole article per question fails

Re-reading from paragraph A every time you hit a new statement costs minutes you don't have. The fix is to build a lightweight index during your first skim, so each statement becomes a lookup instead of a search.

The paragraph-index technique

1. Skim each paragraph (10–15 seconds each) and note a 2–4 word topic tag per letter, e.g. "A: how it started," "B: who uses it," "C: costs," "D: criticism."
2. Read each statement and predict which tag it most likely belongs to before scanning.
3. Go directly to that paragraph and check the whole statement against it. Don't re-scan the others unless your prediction turns out wrong.
4. For a statement that doesn't obviously match a tag, scan for a specific keyword instead (a name, a number, a defined term).
5. If a paragraph covers the topic but not the statement's actual claim, check the other paragraphs once. If none of them supports it, choose E.

Worked example: a paragraph match

The article is about community tool libraries, where members borrow tools instead of buying them. Your tags from the skim:

A: how the first library started / B: who joins and why / C: running costs and funding / D: problems libraries face

Statement: "Some libraries struggle when borrowed items are returned damaged."

This maps to the "problems" tag, so you go straight to D, which says: "The most common headache is wear and tear. Members sometimes return drills with dead batteries or saws with broken blades, and replacing them eats into a small budget." The whole claim is there, not just the topic. The answer is D.

Worked example: when the answer is E

Paragraph C says: "Most tool libraries charge an annual membership fee of between $20 and $60. Many also receive small grants from their city, and local hardware stores often donate tools they can no longer sell."

Statement: "Hardware stores often give tool libraries money to cover their running costs."

Paragraph C is clearly the right neighbourhood. It mentions hardware stores, and it's the paragraph about funding. It's tempting to choose C and move on. Now check the claim itself, piece by piece:

• Who gives: hardware stores. C mentions them. Match.
• What they give: money. C says the stores donate tools. The money it mentions, the grants, comes from the city. No match.

The statement swaps "tools" for "money," and nothing else in A, B or D mentions hardware stores at all. No paragraph says what the statement says, so the answer is E, not given.

The rule for E versus a near-match

Choose a paragraph only if it supports every part of the statement: the who, the what, and any number, frequency or condition. If the closest paragraph matches the topic but changes or drops even one of those, and no other paragraph covers it, the answer is E.

Watch most closely for these swaps, because they're where a near-match hides:

• A different item or action ("tools" becomes "money," "recommends" becomes "requires").
• A different strength ("some" becomes "most," "may" becomes "will").
• A different group ("members" becomes "staff," "cities" becomes "the government").
• A detail the paragraph never mentions at all, attached to a topic it does cover.

E isn't a last-resort guess. It's a positive answer you reach when you've checked the closest paragraph and found a mismatch.

Part 3 checklist

• Built a short topic tag for each of the four paragraphs before answering
• Predicted a paragraph before scanning, then verified rather than searching blind
• For fact-specific statements (dates, names, numbers), scanned by keyword instead of topic
• Checked the who, the what, and any number or condition, not just the topic
• Chose E when the closest paragraph changed or dropped part of the claim

Common mistakes

• Matching a paragraph because it shares a keyword or topic with the statement, without checking that the full claim is there.
• Avoiding E because it feels like admitting you couldn't find the answer.
• Skipping the indexing step under time pressure and re-reading from the top for every statement.
• Confusing two paragraphs with similar topics because the tags weren't specific enough during the skim.

Recap

Part 3 asks you to match statements to paragraphs A–D, or to choose E when no paragraph supports the statement. Tag each paragraph first, predict before scanning, and then test the full claim: who, what, and any number or condition. A paragraph that matches the topic but changes one piece of the claim is a near-match, and the answer is E.