IELTS Reading Tips 1

IELTS Reading Tips 1

lesson 3

Are the IELTS reading papers the same for both Academic and General Training?

The reading skills required (prediction, finding specific information, identifying opinion etc.) are the same for both tests. The styles of question, for example, multiple-choice, sentence completion etc., are also the same for both the Academic and General Training papers.

Are the IELTS reading papers the same for both Academic and General Training?

The only difference is the type of text you will be given. This is to reflect the different expectations and motivations of both types of candidate. On the Academic paper, there will be three long academic texts that are similar to the type of reading you might expect at university. The readings are taken from academic journals, magazines, books and newspapers.

Are the IELTS reading papers the same for both Academic and General Training?

On the General Training paper, you will be given a mixture of long and short texts of a much more general nature and some related to work or social situations. The readings are taken from notices, flyers, timetables, documents, newspapers, instructions and manuals.

How much time will I have?

You will have one hour to complete 40 questions in full and write your answers on the answer sheet. You will NOT be given extra time to transfer your answers to the answer sheet as you do in the listening test.

What skills will be tested?

The reading paper will test a number of different skills, including:

• Completing a diagram, table or summary
• Tell the difference between main ideas and supporting details
• Find specific information
• Identify the writer’s opinion
• Follows key arguments
• Identify the writer’s purpose

What are the different question types?

1. Sentence completion
2. Summary, note, table, flow-chart completion
3. Short-answer questions
4. Diagram label completion
5. Multiple choice
6. Matching information
7. Matching headings
8. Matching sentence endings
9. True, false, not given

IELTS Reading- Sentence Completion Tips and Strategy

INFO

IELTS Reading- Sentence Completion Tips and Strategy

Common Problems

• The main problem is students trying to match words in the question with exactly the same words in the reading text. Instead, you should be looking for words that mean the same thing i.e. paraphrases and synonyms.
• Another common problem is not reading the instructions properly and then writing too many words or not writing the same words as in the reading text, as discussed above.
• Finally, students often start reading the text before the question. This is confusing for most people and wastes time. Read the questions first.

IELTS Reading- Sentence Completion Tips and Strategy

Paraphrasing and Synonyms Paraphrasing is simply rephrasing or saying the sentence again, so that it has the same meaning, but with different words. Example– Most men drive cars to work. The majority of males use automobiles to get to their jobs.

IELTS Reading- Summary Completion

IELTS Reading- Sentence Completion Tips and Strategy

IELTS Reading- Summary Completion Tips and Strategy

Common Problems

• This question does not expect you to have a detailed understanding of the text. Some students lose lots of time reading the whole text and trying to understand everything. You don’t need to do this, focus more on the summary in the question.
• Some students read the summary and then look for the exact same words in the reading text. You are unlikely to find these because the examiners use synonyms and paraphrasing.
• A common mistake is to ignore grammar rules when completing the summary. If the sentence does not make sense grammatically, then you have the wrong answer.
• The examiners also try to trick you by putting a word from the text as one of the options. Some students recognise this and think this is the correct answer. It is probably wrong because the answer will normally be a synonym rather than a matching word.

IELTS Reading- Short Answer Questions

IELTS Reading- Short Answer Questions

Common Problems

1. Synonyms and paraphrasing are the biggest problems. Students who are unaware of these tend to look for keywords in the text that directly match those in the questions. This wastes lots of time and good time management is essential in the reading test.
2. Word limit can also cause people to throw away easy marks. If you write over the stated word limit you will get the answer wrong.
3. You don’t have to read every word of the text. These questions test your ability to skim and scan for specific information. You also won’t have time to read every word.
4. Students often see a word they don’t understand in the question or text and either panic or spend too much time thinking about the meaning.
5. Some students try to write full sentences. Your answers don’t have to be grammatically correct so stay under the word limit.

IELTS Reading- Labeling a Diagram Tips and Strategy

IELTS Reading- Labeling a Diagram Tips and Strategy

IELTS Reading- Labeling a Diagram Tips and Strategy

Common Problems

1. The main problem with these questions is students focus too much on the diagram and try to understand everything about it. Unfamiliar diagrams can cause panic and lose you time. This is not a test of your technical knowledge but a test of your reading skills. You should try to understand generally what is happening in the diagram, but the relationship between the text and the diagram is more important.
2. Another big problem is failing to locate the paragraphs that contain the answers quickly and losing time reading the whole text.
3. Students also lose marks in this section by writing the wrong number of words or spelling words incorrectly.

IELTS Reading- Multiple Choice Questions

Example Questions There are three different types of MCQ question. You will either have to:

1. choose one answer out of four options
2. choose two answers out of five options
3. choose three answers out of six options

The first option is the most common. You may also have two different question forms. Either:

• completing a sentence or
• answering a question.

IELTS Reading- Multiple Choice Questions

IELTS Reading- Multiple Choice Questions

Common Problems

1. Reading the text before the questions– If you do this you are reading ‘blind’ because you are not sure what you are looking for. You also waste time because you will have to read the questions and then read the text again, so you have just wasted your time on the first reading.
2. Not answering questions– This seems like an obvious one but it would shock you how many people don’t answer the question at all.
3. Being tricked by the examiner– examiners love to try and trick you with ‘distractors’. Distractors are things that look like the correct answer but are actually incorrect. When you locate the correct section in the reading text, there will appear to be two or three plausible correct answers. A very common trick is matching lots of keywords from the question options to parts of the text. Just because there are lots of matching keywords doesn’t mean it is the correct answer. Also look at the context of the whole sentence and any qualifying words like most, all, always, sometimes.

IELTS Reading- Multiple Choice Questions

Common Problems

2. Not reading the whole sentence– The first part of a sentence might look correct but the second half of it might change the meaning. Words like but and however can change the meaning of a whole sentence. Examiners know you are trying to get the answers as quickly as possible and will try to trick you in this way.

Not reading the text carefully– Because there are so many ‘distractors’, some of the ‘correct’ answers will appear to ‘jump out’ at you. If you don’t read the text carefully, you will choose the incorrect answer. Take some time to really understand the meaning of each sentence.

IELTS Reading – Matching Information to Paragraphs

IELTS Reading – Matching Information to Paragraphs

Common Problems

1. The biggest problem is the fact that you need to look at the whole text. The answers could be anywhere in the text and they do not come in order, so it takes time.
2. Also, the answers might not be the main idea of each paragraph. Normally paragraphs contain one main idea and reading the first and last lines of the paragraph can help you understand this. With these questions, the answer could be in any part of the paragraph and you cannot therefore just quickly skim to find it.
3. There is also lots of irrelevant information that you do not need to consider. The strategy below will help you ignore much of this irrelevant information.
4. Finally, as stated above, not all paragraphs contain an answer and some paragraphs contain more than one answer.

IELTS Reading Matching Headings

Headings are short sentences that summarise the information in a paragraph. You have to pick the one that best summarises the information in a paragraph. You will be given between 5 and 7 headings and asked to match each paragraph in the reading text to one heading. There are always more headings than paragraphs.

IELTS Reading- Matching Sentence Endings Tips and Strategy

IELTS Reading- Matching Sentence Endings Tips and Strategy

Common Problems

1. Lots of people think that they can answer these questions by using logic and grammar and they don’t look at the reading text. They think this will save them time and they can work out the answer quickly just by looking at the answers and matching the sentences that make the most sense. Don’t do this. It is a test of your understanding of the reading text more than a test of how sentences generally go together.
2. The examiner will try and trick you by connecting ideas in the reading text to endings that are not the correct answer. Remember that you are matching incomplete sentences to endings, not endings to the text.
3. Many people look for the exact words contained in the question in the reading text. The examiners will probably use synonyms and paraphrasing instead of exactly the same words. Don’t waste your time looking for words that exactly match with the text, instead look for synonyms and paraphrases.

IELTS Reading- True, False, Not Given Tips and Strategy

IELTS Reading- True, False, Not Given Tips and Strategy

Common Problems

1. The biggest problem here is the ‘not given’ option. Most students are not used to answering questions like this and it causes them lots of problems because they are not sure what to look for. They also spend too much time making sure that it is ‘not given’ and this affects the rest of their test.
2. Students also fail to understand exactly what each statement means and therefore cannot identify if it is true or false. Many focus on keywords instead of understanding what the statement as a whole means.
3. Another common mistake is identifying keywords in the statements and then trying to find words that exactly match them in the text. You can do this, but more often the words will be synonyms.
4. Finally, some students fail to understand exactly what true, false and not given actually mean and get confused.

IELTS Reading Strategies

IELTS Reading Strategies

Reference:

www.google.comwww.youtube.com https://www.ielts-exam.net/ielts_reading/1089/ https://www.ielts-exam.net/docs/reading/IELTS_Reading_Academic_43.htm

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