- IELTS General Training Test
- • This includes extracts from books, magazines, newspapers, notices,
advertisements, company handbooks and guidelines.
- • These are materials you are likely to encounter on a daily basis in an English-
speaking environment.
- Golden Rules for IELTS Reading.
- • Answer the questions quickly and accurately. If you can’t do a question quickly,
leave it and come back to it later.
- • As the passages are long you don’t have to read them in detail. Skim and scan
them to find the relevant information.
- • The level, the test and the task become progressively more difficult. Therefore do
the earlier questions as quickly as possible, to give yourself more time for the
difficult questions.
- • You have roughly 1 ½ minutes for each question.
- • Do not panic if you can only do may be three questions out of seven. Go through
them again and again, but quickly.
- • When you finish one passage, check your answers and try to fill any gaps.
- • The questions generally follow the order of the information in the text. However
the question in one section can overlap the other and they may be jumbled.
- • The questions are generally paraphrases of the text, so look for the meaning in
the text, not the exact word.
- Types of Reading Test questions and their purpose
- • Multiple choice: Purpose – Testing General understanding or Specific details.
- • Identifying information – Testing General understanding or Specific details.
- • Identifying writer’s views/claims – Yes / No / Not Given – Testing General
understanding or Specific details.
- • Matching information – Testing Specific details.
- • Matching headings – Testing General understanding.
- • Multiple choice: Purpose – Testing General understanding or Specific details.
- • Matching features / sentences from a suitable list – Testing General
understanding or Specific details.
- • Matching sentence endings – Testing Specific details.
- • Sentence completion – Testing Specific details.
- • Summary, note, table, flow-chart completion – Testing General
understanding or Specific details.
- • Diagram label completion – Testing Specific details
- • Short-answer questions – Testing Specific details.
- Purpose of Test questions:
Some question types are used to check how you deal with specific information and
general details. For example multiple-choice questions can test for detail or
understanding of a whole test.
The Reading questions do not test your knowledge of English, but your ability to use
your English. The exam is testing whether you can use your English to find your way
around a written English text.
- Techniques to improve your Reading SPEED:
• Skimming – Skim the text to obtain general information. Think about the general
information not the detail. Don’t underline.
• Scanning – Scan for specific detail only. Don’t concentrate on the meaning of
the text. If you start to read or even to skim, you will find it more difficult to locate
your words.
• Skim and read – Skim a text, and stop at a particular point to look at the
meaning. Use the questions to guide you around the text.
• Scan and Skim – When you scan a text for a specific word, your eye touches
the other information lightly. Because your focus is on the scanning. Your eye
skims the text naturally and does not slow you down.
Learn to use the above techniques separately, to switch automatically and to use
several at one time.
You need to practice and practice to build your confidence.
