9A Skills Practice: Opinions

Some tasks in IELTS require us to identify a writer’s opinions or claims by
asking whether a statement agrees or disagrees with the information a
reading text.

In principal, these are very similar to “Identifying Information” questions
(See 8A and 8B) in that the information is usually paraphrased, and that you
are required to decide whether or not statements agree with the text.

There are differences however. Opinions are subjective and not based in
fact. They can’t be proved or disproved. For this reason, we have to pay
special attention to how ideas are phrased. Also, instead of writing true,
flase or not given, you have to write YES, NO or NOT GIVEN instead.