Effective strategies for IELTS Reading
In this article we will be discussing about some strategies that will help you in your Reading module.The IELTS reading exam lasts for an hour, and it consists of three texts, or ‘passages. The passages are on topics of an academic nature, in other words they’re the kinds of text you might read as part of a university course. Generally, the first passage is easier as compared to other two. Each passage has a number of reading tasks, which include 10-12 question in every taskbut there are always forty questions in total. There are different types of questions, and we’re going to discuss some of the question types today. Before that, let’s talk about the issues that you might encounter in reading exam, and how you can tackle them.
Time is very critical when attempting your IELTS reading exam. Usually candidates face issues with reading and understanding the passage aswell. Also, it may seem very difficult to read the passages and find the answers to forty questions in sixty minutes. However, it’s important to be aware that you don’t actually need to read, or understand, every word of each passage. Instead, you need to understand what the question is asking you to do, and then identify the part of the passage where you will find the answer.
While reading the task you need to identify the key words in each question or statement. Underline these key words from the passage as these are the most important words which express the main ideas. One more thing to remember is that the language in the questions is not the same as the language in the passage. Here the paraphrasing skill will come very handy as you will need to paraphrase the questions in your head, in other words think of different ways of saying the same thing.
Let’s talk about two most important reading techniques that you’ll need to use are skimming and scanning. Skimming means looking over a text very quickly in order to get a basic idea of what it’s about. You can do this by glancing at the paragraph’s title andthe subtitle (if there are any) and the first and last sentences of each paragraph.
Scanning means looking through the text very quickly for a specific piece of information. This could be something like a name or date, or it could be an idea or statement, for example someone’s opinion.
Now let’s talk about the common mistakes that candidate makes:- The most common mistake is spending too much time looking for the answer to a single question, especially if it’s difficult. Instead of trying to find the answer to a difficult question, you could be answering two or three easier questions. Every question is worth one mark, so they are all equally important. If you can’t find the answer to a question, don’t waste any more time – just move on to the next one. You can always come back to it later, or you can guess. On average you have about 1.2 minutes to answer each question.
You will have 60 minutes to transfer the answers to the answer sheet so, keep in mind to leave some time to transfer your answer. If you have utilized all your time in solving the answers but haven’t transfer it to the answer sheet than you will end up with 0 score even if all your answers were correct. If in the end you have some time left than you can always go back to the questions that you have left and attempt it as leaving it blank will surely wont give you any score but give your best shot guessing it as there is no negative marking but if it got correct you may get a point for that.
Thank You 🙂
