Recently I was asked by a student for some ‘valuable tricks’ for reading. In all honesty, there are NO tricks for reading. Just strong language skills, good technique and suitable strategies for answering the question well. ‘Tricks’ suggest short cuts and sadly there are no ‘short-cuts’ in IELTS. Remember IELTS tests your English language level and gives you a band based on how well you performed on the day. What you do with this band is up to you but it is a reflection of your performance on set tasks during a 3-hour or so period, nothing more, nothing less. The better your English level the better you should perform. Nerves are bound to ‘kick in’ on the day so an English level and IELTS practice that just about gives you Band 7 is probably not secure enough to guarantee the band you want – it needs to be higher.
Although there are no ‘tricks’, there are certain things that you can work on to make sure that you get your band 7 or 8 in IELTS Reading. Here they are:
English Level:
Make sure it’s high enough. If you want band 7 you need an English language level of advanced. Is your level advanced? If not then you will struggle to get the band. Improve your English skills generally vocabulary and grammar will help with reading as well as other parts of the test. Trying to get band 7 with a low language level is like trying to sit a driving test having only sat in a car once.
Read:
In my experience the students with the best reading scores are readers. I work with many students on all aspects of the IELTS test but those who need little help with reading are usually those who read frequently, not especially in English but in their own language. There are aspects of texts which are universal – organisation, relationship of ideas, exemplification, style to name a few. Understanding these when reading in your own language allows you to transfer them to English texts and then the questions become easier and more obvious. So start to become a reader in your own language and this will help.
Skim and Scan:
These tools are vital in a reading test like IELTS where you have to find small pieces of information from a large body of text. Learn how to do this effectively. Scan for specific words. Skim for an overall understanding. Once you can do this quickly and grab the information you need you will be able to improve your speed in reading.
Key Words:
Skimming and scanning without really knowing what you are looking for can be a fruitless task. Identifying the key words you need from the question to find the relevant place and information in the text is an important technique for IELTS Reading. You need to locate two types of key word. The first is something that will get you the location in the text – numbers, dates, names, technical information about the topic, topic words. The second type of key word will help to define the first word further, give you a better understanding of it – its past or future, an association with something else in the text, moderating words are also important – the quantity or quality, number or level. By combining all these words (generally 3 or 4) and then finding them (or their synonyms) together in the text will ensure that you have both the right place and all the information you need to answer the question.
Checking question with text:
It’s a good idea to go back to the question after you have located the place in the text just to check again exactly what the question is asking you. Failure to do this means that you may have forgotten exactly what the question is asking (this is really easy to do once you start to read the text) and answer a question that you assume is the one asked or one that you have created while reading the text. This final check will ensure that your answer is correct. I find that with YNNG and TFNG this final step is critical.
These are the skills that you require for IELTS reading and if you can do them efficiently then you’ll manage the time too.