IELTS Reading — Academic:
IELTS academic reading test is different from the other main type. This module is designed to test the reading skills including your ability to understand complex academic content and recognizing the purpose and main ideas of the content provided.
The maximum time given to solve this module is sixty minutes, containing 40 questions in total with each question worth 1 mark.
The content provided in the IELTS Academic reading test is divided into three long texts taken from newspapers, magazines, course books and journals.
Each long test will have questions for you to answer the given text however the questions will be in the form of eleven different task types. Such as, multiple choice question, information identification, writer’s claim identification, matching information, features, headings, sentence endings.
Other than these task types, summary completion, sentence completion, table and note completion, flowchart completion, short question answers and diagram label completion are also included.
IELTS Reading — General Training:
This module is different from the one in IELTS Academic.
The task types remain the same however, the content you will be tested upon will be much easier to understand and solve.
This module will contain texts and paragraphs from magazines, newspapers, advertisements, company handbooks, notices and guidelines, things you will usually encounter in your daily life.
This module has three sections called social survival, workplace survival, and generally reading.
Section one will have three short text paragraphs.
Section two will have two text paras.
Section three comprises one long paragraph.
The time provided is the same as IELTS academic which is one hour to be exact. Poor grammar and spelling mistakes can also lose you marks if you have repeated the same mistakes over and over again. 40 questions in total and each carries 1 mark.
Tips To Follow In Order To Do Well In IELTS Reading Test
The best tip you can follow to score a great band in IELTS reading is practice. Before you go for your final test, make sure you practice a lot and attempt several mocks for self-assessment and time management.
Preparing beforehand for the whole test is highly efficient and a great tip to score a great band in the first attempt. However, following are some of the tips you can follow for a great band in IELTS reading.
1. Practice Skimming
You will have three long passages to read with several questions attached to each passage. A great tip to practice skimming the main idea of the passage and the details instead of reading slowly the whole paragraph.
Since you will only have an hour, the time will pass by real quick so make sure that you are good at skimming the important points or keywords out of the passage in a glance rather than reading the whole passage slowly.
2. Learn To Manage Time
Time management is everything considering you will have forty questions to solve correctly in only an hour.
This means that you need to attempt a lot of self-assessment IELTS tests before your final test to know which passage is more time consuming for you.
3. Read The Questions First
This is a super handy tip but you can always try and test it on yourself so you know if it works for you or not.
What you should do is read the questions first and then go for the passage so when you read the passage you know what is the correct answer.
You can easily detect the important points then and mark them before finally transferring your answers to the answer sheet.
4. Specific Time For Each Passage
When you practice the tests before your final IELTS test, here is how you should manage the time.
Assess how much time each paragraph take for you to solve all the answers for. The best time management would be 17 minutes for the first passage, 20 minutes for the second passage and 23 minutes for the last passage.
However, this is not important and you can manage the time yourself but the whole point of the above mentioned times is that the first passage is the easiest, therefore, it should take lesser time as compared to the last passage which is the most difficult one.
5. Put Some Time Out For Transferring Your Answers
Out of the one hour you are given, make sure you manage some time out for the transferring of your answers. This is where most of the students go wrong.
They spend the entire hour only solving the questions only to find out in the end that there is no time left to transfer their answers on the answer sheet.
When you practice the mocks, remember to leave out the last ten minutes for the transferring of the answers.
6. Follow The Instructions
One of the most important tips is to follow the instructions given on the IELTS test. Do not skip reading the instructions no matter how many times you have attempted the test.
Sometimes, the answers are marked as wrong even when they are right all because of the number of words used.
For example, there are instructions that tell you to write three words or less for the final answer but some students write more than three words and so their answer is considered wrong.
Please be careful in following the instructions.
7. Proper Spellings
The best tip to improve your spellings is to make your own spelling book.
Each time you write anything and have trouble spelling a word out correctly, make a small separate notebook and write all the words that you often cannot spell.
Practice them later by filling up a page with just one word and memorize the spellings so you remember them the next time that word comes up.
Even though it is IELTS reading, please remember that most part of the reading module is about writing down your answers.
8. Grammar
Give extra attention to the singulars and plurals in the IELTS test. Overall, punctuation and grammar matter just as much as the spellings.
If you make a mistake once or twice, your marks will not be deducted however if you make several grammatical and spelling mistakes all through-out the test, you will lose a potential amount of marks which will result in a low band score to make sure to keep an eye on your grammar as well as spellings.
9. Read Books
Since this module is called reading hence you should practice reading books. The faster your reading skills get, the better it will be for you when you take the IELTS test.
Read books on a daily basis. This will not only help you in your IELTS test, but this habit will also gain you wisdom, knowledge, and serve you as a great hobby as well.
Read a lot of books so that you are quick in reading the passages in IELTS test without a problem.
10. Underline The Important Details
Since you are allowed to write on your question paper.
Once you detect the correct answers in the passages, underline them or star them quickly so when you are transferring your answers, you can quickly scan them up and transfer your answers.
This tip will make you clear the module much earlier than the usual time it will take for you to complete it.
11. Fill Everything In
Do not waste time on questions you are unsure about. Move on quickly and answers the questions you are certain about.
Remember to fill every box in and do not leave any of the boxes.
You can put a star beside the questions you have not answered and then you can always come back to solve them later but do not leave any of the blanks empty.
12. Writing speed
This tip will not only work for your reading module but also for your writing module too. Practice writing as much as you can.
Copy down long passages from textbooks using a stopwatch.
This is a very great tip to not only complete all the forty questions in one hour but also save yourself time to transfer the answers without panicking at the last minute.
