Viva Tips - IELTS (Part 3)

IMPROVE YOUR READING

The reading exam is 60 minutes with 40 questions to answer.

There are usually three or four readings and they get harder as you go on.

There are different question types in the exam. These include, multiple choice questions, true/false not given and matching information such as headings to paragraphs.

TOP TIPS

1. Concentration is the key with the reading exam. The readings are often quite long and require you to be quick in pick out the answers. It is important to develop your skills of skimming, scanning and selecting information to pick out the key ideas.

2. It is not necessary to read the whole text in your exam. To quicken your reading pace, make sure you know what information you are reading for. Look at the exam questions and highlight the key words. Then skim and scan the text to find the answer.

3. Whilst reading, avoid reading the prepositions, articles or linking words, this again will quicken your reading pace.

4. Sometimes it is a good idea to highlight the topic sentence ( the first sentence) and the last sentence in each paragraph to get the general idea of the text and help you to navigate to the answers.

5. Practice reading longer texts, books, academic style magazine articles. This will train your brain to focus on longer readings and also broaden your vocabulary range.