True/False/Not Given: Telling 'False' Apart From 'Not Given'

What this question type is actually testing

True/False/Not Given (Academic and GT factual passages) and Yes/No/Not Given (writer's opinions, usually in argumentative passages) both test one skill: can you judge a statement strictly against what the text actually says, resisting the pull of outside knowledge, plausibility, or assumption?

'Not Given' is not a trick answer squeezed in to make the task harder — it is the honest, correct answer whenever the passage simply never addresses a claim, one way or the other. A statement can be completely true in the real world and still be Not Given, because the passage in front of you doesn't say so.

Why people get it wrong

The dominant error is collapsing two genuinely different questions into one. 'Does this sound like something the passage would agree with?' is not the same question as 'does the passage actually state this?' — but under time pressure, candidates answer the first question and record it as if they'd answered the second.

This shows up two ways. First: a statement that is plausible and consistent with the passage's general tone gets marked True even though the specific claim is never stated — that should be Not Given. Second, and more dangerous: a candidate who knows the topic well from outside reading answers using that outside knowledge rather than the passage, which can produce a confidently wrong answer even when their real-world knowledge is completely accurate.

Yes/No/Not Given adds one more layer: it tests the writer's own stated opinion specifically, not general facts. A passage can present both sides of a debate fairly without the writer ever taking a position — in that case, a statement claiming the writer holds one side's view is Not Given, even though both sides are genuinely discussed at length.

What to do instead

1) Underline the statement's strongest, most specific word or phrase — the exact claim you need to verify, not the general topic. If the statement says 'the policy reduced costs by more than half', your target word is 'more than half', not just 'costs'.

2) Ask, in order: does the passage discuss this specific topic at all? If no — stop immediately. The answer is Not Given. Do not reach for outside knowledge or plausibility at this step.

3) If the passage does discuss it, find the exact sentence that addresses your underlined claim, and check only what that sentence actually says — not what you'd expect it to say.

4) Only a genuine contradiction (the passage says the opposite, or a fact that rules the statement out) is False. Agreement is True. Anything else — including 'the passage is silent on this specific point' — is Not Given.

5) For Yes/No/Not Given specifically: find the sentence stating the writer's own view, not just a view the writer describes someone else holding. If you can't point to one sentence that is the writer's own position, the answer is Not Given.

Worked example

Passage extract: "When the city introduced its bike-share scheme in 2019, ridership grew steadily for the first two years before levelling off in 2021. Critics have argued that the scheme mainly benefits commuters who already had access to private transport, rather than reaching lower-income residents who might have benefited most from cheaper mobility. The city council has not yet published data on the income profile of scheme users."

Statement 1: 'Ridership fell after 2021.' Underlined claim: 'fell'. The passage says ridership 'levelled off' in 2021 — that means it stabilised, not that it fell. This directly contradicts the statement's specific claim, so the answer is False.

Statement 2: 'Lower-income residents have benefited less from the scheme than wealthier commuters.' Underlined claim: 'benefited less'. The passage reports that critics argue this, but never states it as a confirmed fact, and explicitly says the council hasn't published the income data that would prove it either way. This looks plausible — it's exactly the kind of claim a candidate might assume must be true — but the passage never actually confirms it. The correct answer is Not Given, not True.

The second item is the harder one precisely because critics 'argue' something close to it — but reporting a criticism is not the same as the passage confirming the criticism is correct, which is the exact distinction this lesson's procedure is built to catch.