Table of Contents
BEST IELTS General Reading Test – 325
IELTS GENERAL READING TEST – PASSAGE – 2
IELTS GENERAL READING TEST – 325
READING PASSAGE – 2
WRITING THE RIGHT RESUME
Hiring managers and recruiters alike say they’ve seen more poorly written resumes cross their desks recently than ever before. Attract offers for more interviews and ensure your resume doesn’t eliminate you from consideration by following these six key tips
1. Format Your Resume Wisely
No matter how well written, your resume won’t get a thorough reading the first time through. Generally a resume gets scanned for 25 seconds. Scanning is more difficult if it is hard to read, poorly organized or exceeds two pages.
– Use a logical format and wide margins, clean type and clear headings
– Selectively apply bold and italic typefaces that helps to guide the reader’s eye
– Use bullets to call attention to important points (i.e. accomplishments)
IELTS General Reading Test
2. Identify Accomplishments not Just Job Descriptions
Hiring managers, especially in technical fields like engineering, seek candidates that can help them solve a problem or satisfy a need within their company. Consequently, you can’t be a solution to their problems without stating how you solved similar problems in other companies and situations.
– Focus on what you did in the job, NOT what your job was: there’s a difference.
– Include a one or two top line job description first, and then list your accomplishments.
– For each point ask yourself, ‘What was the benefit of having done what | did?”
– Accomplishments should be unique to you, not just a list of what someone else did.
– Avoid using the generic descriptions of the jobs you originally applied for or held.
IELTS General Reading Test
3. Quantify Your Accomplishments
Q: What’s the most common resume mistake?
Making too many general claims and using too much industry jargon that does not market the candidate. A resume is a marketing document designed to sell your skills and strengths rather than just portray a bio of the candidate.
– Include and highlight specific achievements that present a comprehensive picture of your marketability.
– Quantify your achievements to ensure greater confidence in the hiring manager and thereby generate interest; use percentages, dollars, number of employees, etc.
– Work backwards to quantify your accomplishments by asking, “If | had not done X, what could have happened?
IELTS General Reading Test
4. Cater Your Resume for the Industry
Unlike advertising and design professionals who have greater creative license in designing their resume for those fields, the mechanical engineering industry won’t be impressed and may be turned off by distinctive resume design.
– Err on the side of being conservative stylistically.
– Your accomplishments, error-free writing, grammatically-correct, clean, crisp type and paper will make the impression for you.
5. Replace your Objective” with a “Career Summary”
A Career Summary is designed to give a brief overview of who you are and what you do. Most Objectives sound similar: Seeking a challenging, interesting position in X where | can use my skills of X, Y, and Z to contribute to the bottom line. Not telling at all
– Grab a hiring manager’s attention right from the beginning, remembering you have only 25 few seconds to make a good impression.
– spend time developing a summary that immediately gets their attention, and accurately and powerfully describes you as a solution to their problems.
IELTS General Reading Test
6. Network. Network. Network.
For unemployed candidates, handing out resumes should be a full-time job. The majority of mid-to senior-level positions are filled through networking, so contact absolutely everyone you know in addition to recruiters who are in a position to hire you or share insights. Networking can include
Personal business contacts, people you’ve worked for or who worked for you.
Vendors and sales representatives you’ve dealt with in the past five years.
People listed in the alumni directory of your alma mater.
IELTS General Reading Test
Questions 15-21
Use NOT MORE THAN ONE WORD from the text above to fill in the blanks.
15. If your resume is not written poorly, and you follow the guidelines given in this article, you will be able to get called for more ………….. .
16. Using different ………….. helps to guide the reader on to specific parts of the resume.
17. Candidates who can solve problems are sought after in the ………….. field.
18. A resume is not just a list of positions held; it should be written such that it helps to …………… the candidate.
19. All organizations have challenges, and they look for people who are a ………….. to these problems.
20. If your resume is well written, without spelling mistakes, mistakes of tenses or usage of verbs, and punctuated correctly, it will make a good ………….. .
21. It is important to ………….. all those you have worked in the past as part of your net-working effort in your search for a job.
IELTS General Reading Test
Read the text below and answer Questions 22-27.
ALL ABOUT BEARS
Understanding bear behaviour is an essential part of creating safe environments for both bears and people. More often than not, bear behaviour is misinterpreted. To truly understand bear behaviour, you must interpret bear postures and vocalizations in terms of what the bear fears.
The more you can learn about bears and how they behave, the less likely you will be to have a negative encounter or misinterpret interactions. Bears are predictable. In fact, bears are usually more predictable than people. If you learn more about bears and how to interpret their behaviour, you will be able to react appropriately if you bump into them and avoid a negative encounter.
IELTS General Reading Test
Bears, like humans and other animals, have a “critical space” — an area around them that they may defend. Once you have entered a bear’s critical space, you have forced the bear to act — either to run away or be aggressive. The size of the critical or personal space is different for every bear and every situation.
Although black bears and grizzly bears do share some common traits, it’s important to understand the difference in the way they react to perceived threats. Each species has evolved different strategies for survival. Black bears, for instance, are usually less aggressive and more tolerant of people. They often live near human settlements, whereas grizzly bears prefer to stay away from human settlements and are often extirpated from heavily used or populated areas.
When a black bear is threatened he usually runs from the perceived threat or goes up a tree. With cubs out of danger, female black bears don’t have to make vigorous defences that risk potential injury. Brown (or grizzly) bears tend to live in coastal or mountain forests, but they evolved in treeless habitat that influenced their behavioural response to perceived threats. As such, they are not good tree climbers, though it is important to note they can climb trees. A black bear’s first line of defence is retreat, but grizzlies, especially sows with cubs, can be very aggressive towards other bears and people they perceive as threats.
IELTS General Reading Test
Bears are often described as asocial when compared to wolves, chimps or lions, but to use the term “asocial” to describe bears is incorrect. While bears do not live in extended family groups or join in hunts, they can co-exist in very close proximity to each other and in fact form alliances and friendships.
Bears live in a dominance hierarchy based on age, size and temperament. Mature males are at the top of the hierarchy, and sub-adults and cubs at the bottom. Bears establish and maintain their social position and place in the hierarchy by posturing or acting aggressively. Single females and sub-adults are almost always submissive to mature males but have a loose hierarchy within their own group.
Bears are not always aware. Bears, particularly adult brown bears, are not always aware of what is going on around them. A bear following a trail doesn’t always look ahead. He may be distracted by a yummy food source or may not be able to hear over the loud sounds of rushing water or blowing wind. A bear can literally blunder into an unsuspecting person.
IELTS General Reading Test
Questions 22-27
Choose the correct letter, A, B or C:
22. If you are familiar with how bears behave:
a) More often than not, you will misinterpret their behaviour.
b) You are less likely to have a bad experience if you come across a bear.
c) You can avoid bumping into them.
23. Bears are
a) Fond of retiring early.
b) Wary of the critical space around them
c) Very shy and will not react under provocation.
24. Under threat, the most likely action of a bear is:
a) Run away.
b) A grizzly bear may climb a tree.
c) A black bear will opt to back-off.
IELTS General Reading Test
25. As far as social interactions of bears are concerned
a) They are not as social as wolves or lions.
b) They form alliances when they go hunting together.
c) Bears of a region are usually familiar with each other, while those from different regions are
not.
27. When walking down a track in the forest
a) A bear may not be conscious of his surroundings
b) A bear does not look straight ahead
c) A bear is unable to hear clearly.
IELTS General Reading Test
IELTS Academic Reading Test
IELTS General Reading Test
ANSWERS
15. INTERVIEWS
16. TYPEFACES
17. ENGINEERING
18. MARKET
19. SOLUTION
20. IMPRESSION
21. CONTACT
22. B
23. B
24. C
25. A
26. A
27. A
IELTS General Reading Test