标题配对题在雅思考试中一直以来都占据重要地位，对于初涉雅思的学生来说尤其困难。虽然该题型在最近的考试中比重有所降低，但是由于其每个选项只能被选一次导致大片连环错的可能性，考生仍不能对其轻视。
标题配对题本身的做题步骤并不复杂，比较容易掌握。难点在于步骤中要求能够通过略读段落(skimming)得到该段主旨大意，即最多读过一二末三句话后就需要总结出大意，这样skimming的质量也就决定了正确率。而skimming的质量不仅依赖于对段落句子的理解，更为重要的是其中思考的过程。那么如何去思考就是最重要的问题了。
雅思文章是将原版报刊杂志上的原文进行过省略编辑过才可以拿来用作考题，真正考试时的阅读文章里每句话对于整个篇章都有自己不可或缺的作用，绝不会有一句话是无关紧要的。因此，skimming的过程除了要理解每句话的意思，更需要去联系前后句思考作者欲通过该句向读者传递什么信息。
但是，对于一个初学雅思的学生来讲，思考每句话的作用听来容易，但是真正实际操作起来却有很大的难度，因为这里需要的是在理解的基础上去主动归纳而不是客观选择。建议此类学生可以采用有效话题法去思考。所谓话题法就是读完第一句话就去思考它所谈论的话题是什么，得到结论后再去看第二句话，倘若发现两句话谈论话题没有变化，那么该句便可以跳过不看。读完最后一句话，如果话题仍然一样便可十分确定该段话题，如若不同便可联系上下文和整篇文章主题做出判断。
以下就以剑桥雅思1 Practice Test 4中的Reading Passage 1(Glass: Capturing the dance of light)为例解释上述有效话题方法如何进行：
该篇阅读文章A段主题已给出，以下从B段开始分析每段的一二以及末句
B. On the horizon are optical computers. These could store programs and process information by means of light - pulses from tiny lasers - rather than electrons…….... It is the surge in fibre optic use and in liquid crystal displays that has set the U.S. glass industry (a 16 billion dollar business employing some 150,000 workers) to building new plants to meet demand.
在这里发现一二两句话题一样，无需讨论，末句话题发生变化，而且在意义上包含了一二句的话题，因为optical computers是fibre optic use的一种用法，分总类型。所以最后该段的主旨定义为fibre optic use方面的发展。
C. But it is not only in technology and commerce that glass has widened its horizons. The use of glass as art, a tradition spins back at least to Roman times, is also booming.…………He now has a new commission - a glass sculpture for the headquarters building of a pizza company - for which his fee is half a million dollars
本段只在第二句话中出现有效话题，那么本段的主题就是本句中的art
D. But not all the glass technology that touches our lives is ultra-modern. Consider the simple light bulb; at the turn of the century most light bulbs were hand blown, and the cost of one was equivalent to half a day’s pay for the average worker…………In this way, the envelope of a light bulb is made by a single machine at the rate of 66,000 an hour, as compared with 1,200 a day produced by a team of four glassblowers.
本段一二句话题出现为由大到小，由泛指到具体，本段主旨可以是泛泛而谈的非ultra-modern科技，也可以是具体的light bulb，通过最后一句没有提到此类科技，所以确定主题为后者。
E. The secret of the versatility of glass lies in its interior structure. Although it is rigid, and thus like a solid, the atoms are arranged in a random disordered fashion, characteristic of a liquid………….. This looseness in molecular structure gives the material what engineers call tremendous “formability” which allows technicians to tailor glass to whatever they need.
本段一二末三句话的话题一直保持一致，那么本段主旨极为interior structure导致多样性。
F. Today, scientists continue to experiment with new glass mixtures and building designers test their imaginations with applications of special types of glass. A London architect, Mike Davies, sees even more dramatic buildings using molecular chemistry…………Mike Davies’s vision may indeed be on the way to fulfillment.
首句提出两个话题，但是后文只说了一个，有效话题只是后者。因此本段的话题也就是architect.
当然，到此标题配对题只做了一半，后面还需要将归纳出的主题与选项配对，这其中还涉及到关键词和出题者的陷阱问题，考生还需要多加注意。