Reading tips

Timing is everything! Learn to scan. Look at blocks of text and scan for key words,
peoples names and places that are relevant, instead of trying to read each word
with equal attention. You simply may not have enough time to read the whole text
word-by-word and still answer the questions.
I strongly recommend that you quickly look at the questions first, and then scan
through the text. By doing this you will be reading with purpose and actually find
the required information easier. For instance, if you have to write something about
John Smiths opinion you can scan for John Smith and underline it. Then read
that paragraph looking for the answer to that specific question.
Except for the first few times, always practice under exam conditions, forcing
yourself to stop after 20 minutes per single passage or even after 60 minutes for 3
passages that you solve non-stop! Use a stopwatch alarm for this, if you have to.
True, False or Not Given
Very Important - This task has a statement, and your job is to say whether or not
it is True, False or Not Given according to the reading passage.
How do you attack this question type? First learn the rule:
If the statement clearly appears in the text it is True
If the text clearly says the opposite of the statement it is False
If you didnt find the statement to be either True or False it is Not Given
For example:
Smoking is dangerous and can lead to cancer T, F, NG
1) If the text clearly says that smoking is dangerous and leads to cancer then the
answer is T.
2) If the text says that No research showed evidence that smoking is dangerous
and leads to cancer then the answer is F.
3) If the text says The research included smokers of both genders of ages 30 to 45
and nothing else about smoking your answer is NG.
Dont make these mistakes:
Dont assume anything based on your knowledge and experience, read the
text! It is the oldest trick in the book and they use it a lot in IELTS exams.
Dont overthink your answer you could start building long logical
sequences that will lead you to the wrong answer.

Reading

Skim through each text to try to get a basic understanding of what it is about.
What is the text about? Who was it written for?

Carefully read the title and any sub-heading.

What is the main point of each paragraph? Each paragraph contains a single
main idea. The questions will focus on these main ideas.

Remember questions appear in the same order as the answers in the text.

1. Beat the fear read as much as possible

My first IELTS reading tip is to read as much as possible. By this I dont mean do
endless IELTS practice tests, I mean do as much general reading as possible. I
suggest you focus on reading short articles on topics that interest you or on topics
that are common in IELTS newspapers and magazines are a great resource here.
One reason why this is such a good idea is that many candidates freeze in the
reading believing it is too hard and so fail to get their band score. If, however, you
read enough native English before the exam, you will become more and more
confident in looking at texts where you dont understand every word. Confidence is
a very important concept in IELTS.
If you look at Daily Exercises, you will find lots of possible exercises for you. The
idea is to find something that interests you and read. Thats all.

2. Improve key skills skimming and scanning and reading in detail

A major problem in the exam is the length of the texts and you will not have time to
read them all carefully. You need to train your speed reading skills so that you can
read as efficiently as possible. 2 skills here are skimming which is reading quickly
for general meaning and scanning which is looking for specific information.
You may sometimes see advice saying that you dont need to read in detail.
Incorrect. Bad advice. You shouldnt read the whole text in detail but you will need
to parts of the text in detail if you want to get the right answer. Put simply,
skimming and scanning are useful skills to help show you where the answer might
be: reading in detail tells you what the answer is.

3. Time management experiment to see what works

Because the texts are so long you need to have a definite strategy for how you
manage your time in the exam to make sure you finish on time. This means
deciding:

how long you look at the text before answering questions

how long you spend on each question

how long you spend on each group of questions

how long you spend on each text

do you leave time at the end to go back at look at unanswered questions?

There is a lot to consider here. You will find books and websites that insist you do it
their way. They may claim to have a magic formula and that you must do this or you
must do that. Ignore them. Their advice may be good for some people but not for
you.
The key point here is that different learners have different styles and different
needs. Much the best advice here is to experiment and try different approaches and
see what works best for you.

4. Focus on the question avoid careless errors

The texts in IELTS are typically quite hard, so candidates spend as much time as
possible reading the texts. Mistake. Why? Well, a huge amount of mistakes are
made by not focussing enough on the exact question. It can be easy if you are in a
hurry to miss a word such as always or often: the problem is those sorts of
words can change the meaning of questions.
There is an easy solution to this problem: it is to go back and look at the question
before you write in the answer. Make sure that the question says what you think it
says. You will normally save yourself 2/3 marks this way.

5. Learn the exam know the different types of questions

There are 8/9 different types of reading question that examiners may use. Before
the exam, you should make yourself familiar with each type of question as they are
slightly different. The next stage is to experiment and see what techniques you are
going to use for each type of question.

This may mean that you approach different types of questions differently.
6. Train yourself, dont test yourself
One common mistake candidates make is to practice exam questions too much.
Exam practice is important to learn the timing (3 above) and learn the question
types (5 above), but that does not mean that every time you practise reading you
need to do it in exam conditions. My suggestion is that you do some open book
tests where you can see the answers as you do the questions. This way you will
learn how examiners set questions and how to find the answers. If you just test
yourself, this may not happen. How often and when you do this training will depend
on your preparation programme.

7. Learn how to underline

This is a very specific piece of advice. You may believe it is wrong to write in books
and generally Id agree with you, but IELTS is different. A very strong suggestion is
that you should underline words in the text in the exam. There are at least two
reasons for this:
1. if you underline key words in the text, it can help you organise the text and
this will save you time in the exam
2. if you find an answer, it is sensible to underline the part of the passage that
relates to the question as a check (see 4 above) and to write the number of
the question next to it in case you find a better answer later
How you do this will depend on you and your style. Some people underline different
types of words in different ways.Id only add that less is more: if you underline too
much, it can become confusing.
8. Beware word matching be careful with key words
One very common mistake is to match a word in the question with a word in the
text and to think you have found your answer. It is almost never that simple and I
am tempted to say that if the words do match, then that is not your answer. What
you are normally looking for are either synonyms (words with a similar meaning) or
paraphrases (short bits of text that say the same as the question.
One reason candidates make this mistake is that teachers (myself included) tend to
say look for key words in the question. This is helpful advice to show you where the
answer might be and which paragraph it might be in. After that you need to go back
and read the whole question carefully to see what the answer is.

9. The questions follow the text normally

This is a very practical piece of advice and could save you a lot of wasted time.
Typically, the questions will come in the order of the text: so the answer to question
3 will come after the answer to question 2. This can be very helpful in the exam if
you are a quick worker who goes through the questions once for the easy ones and
then a second time for the harder ones. If you have answer 4 underlined (see 7
above) and answer 6 underlined then you know where answer 5 must come.
One word of warning. In certain types of question (eg paragraph matching) the
order of the questions are jumbled.
10. The questions or the text which do you read first
There is no one right answer here.
Text books tend to advise you to read the text quickly first so that you know how the
text is organised. This helps as you will save time later by knowing which paragraph
will contain the answer. This can be a good approach, particularly for high level
candidates provided you dont spend too much reading and you have
notes/underlinings afterwards.
Many teachers say that you should read the questions first and not read the whole
passage. There is logic here too. Normally, you do not have to understand the
meaning of the whole passage to answer the questions, so why waste time reading
it? This approach can work, especially for lower level candidates who might not
understand too much of the passage anyway.
However, there is always a third way. Life is not black and white. It is quite possible
to decide to use different strategies for certain question types. In paragraph
matching you are going to have to read the whole passage, so you might decide to
read first then. In the short answer questions, you might decide you look at the
questions first. As ever, you decide.
The only bad piece of advice is the one that tells you you must do it their way.
Ignore them. The only right way is the way that works.
11. Fill out the answer sheet
Okay, this is an eleventh tip. Practice filling out the answer sheet before you gets to
the exam. Too many avoidable mistakes are made this way. Id go further: whenever
you practice IELTS reading, use an answer sheet. This is what I do with my classes.
Two points:

1. when you go through the answers in your practice book, make sure that you
have written the answer exactly as it is in the book anything else will lose
you the point
2. you need to fill out your answers in the 60 minutes. They dont give you any
more time.