A Proud Owner of IELTS
and IELTS UKVI
8 IELTS
Reading Test Tips
1. Don’t READ too much in the READING TEST!
SKIM & SCAN!
One of the biggest mistakes that many candidates make is that they
spend too much time reading the text. Remember you have around
60-70 seconds per question so you need to perfect your SKIMMING
and SCANNING skills. It’s only when you use these skills to find your
information do you actually read anything in detail.
2. Every Question Type Needs a Specific Method.
There is no correct way to do all the different question types. For ex-
ample, finding short answers is much faster and easier than choosing
YES, NO & NOT GIVEN or Matching Paragraphs. There are many
websites that focus on specific steps you should take to get accurate
and fast answers. These steps will require a lot of practice, and you
might need to change them slightly to work for you.
So take some time to experiment to find the best for you!
3. “NOT GIVEN” The first and last answer you consider
choosing when doing “Yes/No/Not Given” questions.
After analyzing the statement in these questions, if we can’t find the
keywords or the information in the text, then we need to consider NOT
GIVEN first. Also, if we do find parts of the information but not all, our
choice will be between NO and NOT GIVEN. So, if the statement is dif-
ferent or opposite to the text, then we choose NO. However, if we can’t
accurately say it is different or opposite – then we must consider NOT
GIVEN again!
4. The best way to prepare for the
Reading exam… is to read more!
Many people do multiple Reading practice exams and wonder why
they are not improving their scores! Really, one of the only methods to
increase your reading score is to read every day.
One great way is to read 3 news stories on 1 topic. Choose 1 about the
world, 1 about your region (Asia) and 1 about your country (Vietnam).
This way you can compare the different issues from each story and you
will also see lots of vocab repeating which makes it easier to learn.
5. Use headings in the text to help you find
where your information is
Some reading texts will use headings to organize the information.
Always try to use these headings to predict what information you will
find within the follow paragraphs. Also, if you are lucky enough to get
a “Matching Headings” question in the beginning of your test, you can
use these in the same way to help your quickly and efficiently find your
keywords and answers.
6. How to do the “Matching headings” question
in the reading test
Often candidate will find a keyword or two in the paragraph and think it’s
the main idea of the paragraph. However, it’s important that when you
match a heading, you need to make sure the idea is consistent throughout
the paragraph. To check this, read the topic sentence and consider how
many heading match it. Then read the concluding idea of the paragraph
and also try to match more headings.
You’ll end up with a list of suitable headings. After this, simply scan the
middle for more keywords and read in more detail to help you quickly
delete any headings that aren’t consistently matched in allparts of the
paragraph.
7. Technical words are often explained
in Reading texts
Often when there are words that you don’t know in the text (especially
technical words), look for the explanation either directly after the word
in the sentence or inside (brackets) or try looking at the bottom on the
page to see if there is some kind of glossary. Generally, the reading
test will not use technical words in the text since it is designed for
people who have no specialist knowledge in the given topic.
8. Watch the time!
You only have 60 minutes for the Reading Test, so it’s important to
spend the right amount of time for each part. Many people say that it’s
better to spend 20 minutes on all 3 parts, however, since the exam
gets harder with each part, it’s usually better to spend less time on
part 1 and more time on the other parts. Our suggestion is to spend no
more than 15 minutes on part 1, 20 minutes on part 2, and 25 minutes
of part 3.
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and IELTS UKVI
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