IELTS Reading Exam - 10 hot tips for success!

What is the IELTS Reading Exam about?

• The academic reading module takes 60 minutes.
• There will be 3 reading texts with a total of 1500 to 2500 words.
• There are usually 40 questions starting easy and getting harder.

What do you need to know about the texts?

• There can be a wide range of topics that are used in the test
• One text or more will have a detailed logical argument
• The texts become more and more difficult to understand.

Answering questions

Answer questions as quickly and correctly as you can. If you are not sure or do not know the answer, leave it and come back later.

Remember that the questions get harder, so try to work very quickly on the early questions so you have more time for the harder ones later.

Skim and Scan to find relevant information.

The reading passages for this test are long. In 60 minutes you do not have time to read them in detail.

Learning to skim and scan will help you quickly find the information you need to answer the questions quickly and accurately.

Skimming involves reading very quickly for the general idea of the text. Mostly you will read the nouns and verb in addition to connecting words such as therefore, however and because. Skimming should be very fast. A good way to practice is to run a pencil down the middle of the page to train your eyes to move quickly to keep up with the pencil.

Scanning involves looking for key words. Check what words are in your questions, and scan for particular words, they might be nouns or verbs or people. It is important when you scan, not to read the text - you are only looking for words. If you start to read, then look at each line of print from right to left so you do not read.

Finish the early questions quickly.

The questions in the test get harder as you go. Therefore, you need to give yourself more time for the harder questions later in the test.

Also remember that the harder questions carry more marks, so use the early questions to get yourself warmed up by working quickly.

If you have time left over, you could go back and check them at the end of the test.

Time yourself

The test is 60 minutes long, and there are 40 questions, therefore you have about one and a half minutes for each question.

However, that is an average, and you need to leave extra time for the harder questions. The faster you work on the early questions, the more time you gain for the harder ones.

Go through the questions quickly.

You may need to go through the questions again and again. Maybe you were only able to answer 4 out of 7. Do not worry about this. Go over the questions again and again.

The skill is in doing this quickly and without any panic. Read the questions that you are finding difficult, then scan for the key words in the text.

Check your answers before you move on.

When you finish one passage, check your answers quickly and try to fill any gaps that you might have. This is because the passage is still fresh in your mind, and you may not have time to re-read the passage again when you come back later.

By spending one or two minutes checking before you move on, you may just find the answer for your gaps and uncertainties.

The questions usually follow the order of the text.

Most questions will follow the order of the text, but in one section the questions can overlap each other and also may be jumbled so that they are in any order.

This means that the answer to the first question will probably be quite close to the beginning of the text, and the last one may be close to the end. So you should look in these places first.

If you cannot find the answers where you look, then remember that it might be jumbled or overlapping another part of the text.

Understand the question by understanding paraphrasing.

Questions usually paraphrase the text, so when you are looking for the answer, you need to look for the meaning, not the exact words in the text.

Paraphrasing means that the text has been written using different words, and sometimes a different order to make the same meaning.

The same meaning can be made by using different words or a slightly altered order of the words in a text to paraphrase.

See what I mean?

Testing general and specific understanding

Different question types generally test different understanding of general or specific understanding of the texts.

General Understanding is often tested with matching headings.

General and Specific understanding use multiple choice, summary or flow chart or table completion, classification, matching sentences, answering yes, not, not given and true, false, not given

Specific understanding use matching beginning and end sentences, sentence completion or short answer questions.

Overall, the reading exam is testing how you are able to use your English rather than your knowledge of English.

To do well in the exam, it is important to practice your speed and accuracy when reading.

The only way you can read quickly is to practice reading often and learn the skills of skimming and scanning to use your English to find information.

Good luck!