Yes/No/Not Given looks like True/False/Not Given wearing different letters. Same three-way choice, same one-sentence statements, same trap-shaped "Not given". But officially they test different things — one checks statements against the text's facts, the other against the writer's opinions — and if you answer a Y/N/NG set the way you answer a T/F/NG set, you will get avoidable questions wrong.
Here is the official framing, side by side. ielts.org calls True/False/Not Given "Identifying information", asks "Do the following statements agree with the information in the text?", and says it tests your ability to "recognise specific information given in the text". Its definitions:
"'False' means that the statement contradicts the information in the text. 'Not given' means that the statement neither agrees with nor contradicts the information in the text."
Yes/No/Not Given is a separate type — "Identifying writer's views/claims". The task question is "Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer?" or "Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer?", and it tests your ability to "recognise opinions or ideas". Its definitions:
"'No' means that the statement contradicts the writer's view or claim. 'Not given' means that the statement neither agrees with nor contradicts the writer's view or claim."
Read those two blocks again and notice the swap: "the information in the text" becomes "the writer's view or claim". T/F/NG asks whether the text says something is so. Y/N/NG asks whether the author believes something is so. A passage can contain a view — quoted, reported, attributed to campaigners or critics — that the writer does not hold. In T/F/NG, "it appears in the text" settles the matter. In Y/N/NG, it settles nothing until you know what the writer did with it.
The failure
The characteristic Y/N/NG mistake is answering with the wrong person's opinion — usually yours, sometimes a quoted third party's. You read a statement, you find it reasonable (or you find a sentence in the passage that expresses it), and you write Yes. But you were never asked whether the statement is reasonable, or whether anyone in the passage says it. You were asked whether the writer asserts it — and writers routinely present views precisely in order to knock them down. Coaching, not an official rule: the skill this type rewards is tracking attribution. For every candidate sentence, ask whose view this is — the writer's own claim, or a view the writer is reporting — and then ask how firmly the writer commits to it.
A worked example
The passage below was written for this page — it is not from a real IELTS test — but the reasoning for each answer follows the official definitions quoted above.
It has become an article of faith among environmentally minded shoppers that buying local food is the surest way to cut the carbon cost of eating. Campaigners often insist that "food miles" — the distance food travels from farm to plate — are the single most important measure of a meal's climate impact. This is a comforting simplification. Transport typically accounts for a modest share of food's total emissions; what is grown, and how, matters far more than where. A tomato raised in a heated greenhouse ten miles away can carry a heavier carbon burden than one shipped from a sunnier country. Buying locally may still bring benefits — fresher produce, perhaps, and a closer connection to the people who grow our food — but the climate case for it is weaker than its advocates suggest.
Statement 1: Food miles are the most important measure of a meal's climate impact.
The trap is that the passage appears to say exactly this — "the single most important measure" is right there in the second sentence. But look at the attribution: campaigners insist on it. The writer's own verdict follows immediately: "a comforting simplification", and "what is grown, and how, matters far more than where". So is this No or Not Given? Walk the official definitions. Not given would mean the statement "neither agrees with nor contradicts the writer's view" — but the writer has a view here, stated plainly, and the statement contradicts it. Answer: No. Had the writer merely reported the campaigners' position and moved on without taking sides, Not Given would be right — a reported view, by itself, tells you nothing about the writer's own. It is the explicit rejection that turns this into No.
Statement 2: Buying local food gives shoppers fresher produce.
The passage mentions fresher produce — but hedged twice over: buying locally "may still bring benefits — fresher produce, perhaps". The statement is absolute; the writer commits only to a possibility. Does the writer's hedged view agree with the flat claim? No — "may, perhaps" is not an assertion that it does. Does it contradict it? No — the writer allows that it might be true. By the official definition, a statement that "neither agrees with nor contradicts the writer's view or claim" is Not Given. Coaching: treat hedging words — may, perhaps, can, some, often — as part of the claim. A writer who says "may" has not said "does", and upgrading a hedge to a certainty is one of the commonest ways to lose this mark.
Statement 3: The writer believes governments should subsidise local farming.
Nothing in the passage touches policy, subsidy, or what governments should do. You cannot infer a view from silence — however plausible it feels that a sceptic of food miles would hold some opinion about subsidies. The statement neither agrees with nor contradicts anything the writer says. Answer: Not Given. This is the easy kind of Not Given; the hard kind is Statement 2, where the topic is discussed but the writer's commitment falls short of the statement.
What is official and what is not
The quoted definitions, task questions, and the "recognise opinions or ideas" wording are official ielts.org text, and both types sit on the same official list of 11 Reading question types for Academic and General Training alike. Everything beyond that — the attribution test, the hedging rule, the reported-view logic — is coaching, consistent with the definitions but not published by IELTS. The official pages define each answer in a single sentence and say nothing about how trap statements are built. Where this page says "coaching", weigh it accordingly.
What actually costs you
- Answering from your own opinion. The question is what the writer claims — never whether you, or the examiner, or common sense agrees.
- Crediting a quoted view to the writer. "Campaigners insist" is not "I insist". Check what the writer does with a reported view before answering.
- Upgrading a hedge. "May help" does not assert "helps". An absolute statement built on a hedged claim is usually Not Given, not Yes.
- Hunting for evidence on an absent topic. If the writer expresses no view either way, stop looking — Not Given is a real answer, not a failure to search hard enough.
- Treating any one question as bigger than it is. Officially, "Each correct answer receives 1 mark" — a Y/N/NG statement you cannot crack is worth exactly one mark, the same as the easiest completion gap. Decide, mark it, move on.
Try one
[Try a Reading task →] — one full task, marked, no card required.