Identifying
the main idea
In the IELTS Reading paper, you may be asked to
match a list of headings with the correct paragraph
or section of a passage. The headings
summarise the main idea of the paragraph or section.
The passage may be divided into paragraphs or sections (i.e. with more than one paragraph in a section). Matching headings questions are always
placed before the
passage on the question paper.Read
Paragraph A and choose the best summary:Planned communities: garden cities
A The notion of planning entire communities
prior to their construction is an ancient one. In fact, one of the earliest such cities on record is Miletus,
Greece, which was built in the 4th century BC. Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, various planned communities
(both theoretical and actual) were conceived. Leonardo da Vinci designed several cities that were never
constructed. Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, the architect Christopher Wren created a new master plan for the
city, incorporating park land and urban space. Several 18th-century cities, including Washington D.C., New
York City, and St Petersburg, Russia, were built according to comprehensive planning.