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Do you know how many words you will have to read on the
IELTS reading test? About 900! When you think about having to
answer 40 questions, in an hour, in a foreign language, it seems
impossible. Don’t worry, there are lots of ways you can improve
both your exam technique and reading skills, so that you will
not only finish the exam, but also do really well.
Many students fail to finish the IELTS reading test because they
read at a very slow pace. The two main reasons for this are poor
exam technique and slow reading speed.
exam tips
out of time
wasting time on parts of the text that do not give you the
correct answers
sentence
Just like any other skill, speed reading can be learned and
perfected with practice. When you learn how to read faster you
will enjoy the following advantages:
quickly. This will help you find the correct answers more
effectively.
You will enter the exam with more confidence than you did
better.
You will have more time to think about your answers and
make sure they are the correct ones. You will also have
before you do the test. This will not only improve your
Don’t just read for the sake of it. Make sure you have a purpose
every time you read in the exam. For example, if you are just
trying to find the general meaning of a paragraph, just quickly
read the first and last sentences of that paragraph. If you are
looking for a particular word or phrase, just scan the text quickly
instead of reading the whole thing carefully. When you get to
finding out the correct answer, your purpose becomes reading
the text more slowly and in greater detail.
Speed Reading
Did you know that your brain does not process words
individually? Instead it processes them in groups of 3-5 words
together. These are sometimes called ‘chunks’. Unfortunately,
many of us are taught at school to read each word individually.
Also, when reading in another language we often read and think
about the meaning of every word.
This might seem unnatural at first, but with practice you will be
able to do it very naturally and increase your reading speed
dramatically.
Make a note of how many words you can read in 5 minutes and
after a week or two you will see a significant improvement.
The other big advantage of this is that you will really improve
your grammar and vocabulary because you will notice how
words and phrases group together. You will begin to see
patterns and collocations and this will help you improve, not
just reading, but your overall level of English.
I should say again that this takes lots of practice, but well worth
the time and effort.
Exam Tips
You don’t have to read the whole text for every question.
do see one you can either guess what it means from the
won’t understand.
questions are easier than others and some take more time.
process a word.
paper over the words you have just read. After time, you
will stop going back and forth and read in a more efficient
way.
Read the questions before you read the text. This will help