Many candidates, despite having good grammar, vocabulary and knowledge, do not get a high score in IELTS Reading. You can't do this as you don't know the test-taking tips. The tips below can help you achieve what you want.

 

An overview of IELTS Reading
IELTS Reading includes 3 passages, 40 questions in different formats and exam time is 60 minutes. This is a difficult test, requiring you to know the test structure, tactics, and tips beside grammar, vocabulary and background knowledge, so that you can achieve Band 9.0.

 

IELTS Reading score
For each correct answer, you will get 1 score and this is called raw score. The total score will be converted to the official IELTS score. For example, if you answer 10 - 12 questions correctly, your conversion score is 4.0 (Band 4.0) or if you answer 27 - 29 questions correctly, your conversion score is 6.5 (Band 6.5) and if you answer correct 39 - 40 questions, your conversion score is 9.0 (Band 9.0).

 

 

In the IELTS Reading, you will encounter the following types of questions: Multiple Choice, Sentence Completion, Summary, Note, Table, Flow-chart Completion, Short-answer questions, Diagram Label Completion, Matching Information, Matching Headings, Matching Sentence Endings, True/False/Not Given. Each type has its own test-taking tips that you need to know. Below are some important general tips to help you get a high score:

 

Tip 1: Don't try to understand everything in your reading!
When practicing IELTS Reading in class or at home, you have time to look up the dictionary, but when taking the test you are not allowed to do this. So you get confused and keep trying to find the meaning of words you don't know. This is just useless because if you don't know the meaning of the word, no matter what you do, you won't know. Therefore, what you need to do is look at the words and sentences around it to guess its meaning or you don't care about that word. You don't need to know all the meanings of words. You should only focus on words related to the questions and don't worry about words you don't understand.

 

 

Tip 2: Read the exam requirements and instructions carefully.
Each group of questions in the IELTS Reading has different requirements. Therefore, you must read the question carefully to answer correctly. For example, the question asks “Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS”. This means you will have to choose a maximum of 2 words. If you choose more than 02 words you will lose points even though you get the right idea.

 

Tip 3: Control your test-taking time.
As you know, 40 questions spread over 03 reading passages with 60 minutes. Thus, each passage you read, answering is 20 minutes. If you do not control the time, you cannot complete the 40 questions on time. Therefore, you should control your time by doing the easy questions first, and the difficult ones later. An easy question is one that you can answer immediately after reading it without wasting much time. Difficult questions are more challenging and require you to invest more time. It is reasonable to save time on easy questions to invest in difficult questions.

 

Above are general tips to help you understand how to take the IELTS Reading, control your test-taking time and do not panic when taking the test. If you want to know more detailed tips to get high scores in Reading, please register at BIET Center!