IELTS Reading Tips and Techniques

IELTS Reading test, be it Academic or General, can be quite confusing for aspirants when they are to attempt as it contains three to four passages of increasing difficulty. Overall forty questions are given and in order to learn about format

Some IELTS reading tips are enlisted below to achieve good performance and techniques to attempt it in actual IELTS exam:

1. Read IELTS reading instructions carefully. They give you critical information about how many words the answer should have, what exactly is needed to score marks and so on. If you want to be clear about those instructions beforehand, search for previous IELTS reading tests.
2. Make sure you are able to grasp the intent of question. In many cases, questions follow the order of information which can be helpful in finding required answers.
3. Look out for titles, headings, special features such as capital letters, values, figures and graphs. These help to locate and interpret results.
4. Pay attention to timing. Most candidates spend too much of their time on one question or a passage which is wrong. IELTS reading practice is necessary to speed up your ability to read and make out the sole purpose of whole paragraph.
5. If you are unable to figure out the answer to a particular question, do attempt it anyway. Since, there are no penalties for incorrect answers but do not waste time on it.
6. Spelling matters. Do take care while writing short answers otherwise it’ll result in loss of marks. Take special care when copying words from passage as it should not change the form of the word mentioned in the text.
7. If you find a word, you’re unable to understand, avoid using it in your answer as much as possible. Read widely from a variety of sources to strengthen your general reading skills and enrich your vocabulary.
8. Grammar is analyzed for each and every sentence. If your grammar is good, you might be able to bag a whole band for it. If unsure about it, prefer IELTS coaching. They will be able to integrate grammar in your english efficiently.
9. In sentence completion tasks, aim on getting correct and practical answers. The result should be a meaningful fact. Be careful to use singular and plural correctly.
10. Keep word limit in mind. If you attempt less than required, you will lose marks. It is recommended to refer to IELTS reading tests in advance.