I’ve been thinking about reading a lot this week (did you see the video I posted?) – mostly because I have been working on this area of IELTS with a few students and looking at some of the things that they are doing which are stopping them from getting a good result.
I thought I would share some if these things with you so you can improve your performance too.
So here goes:
1. Stop doing any unnecessary reading
- If the title and subtitle give a good explanation of the topic there is no need to skim or read anything else - go straight to the questions
- Don’t skim the passage and underline words – in fact, I NEVER underline anything in the passage at all (DO underline words in the questions)
- If you find a good answer – write it down and move on , don’t start going into other paragraphs ‘just checking’ this wastes a lot of time and often causes students to change perfectly good answers for incorrect ones
2. Make sure you keep the question in mind while searching
- Students often pick the wrong answer because they have forgotten the question when scanning the text – go back and make sure you have really remembered the question and that your chosen answer really fits it
- If you get stuck ALWAYS go back to the question – everything you need is there.
- Don’t try and squeeze an answer into the question – if you can’t find something appropriate maybe there is another place in the text
3. Don’t get into a panic, there is plenty of time – use your brain as well as your eyes
- Try not to panic – it doesn’t help - take a deep breath and THINK – have I seen something about this, which paragraph? if you don’t remember anything then think about which paragraphs you haven’t looked at yet?
- Think about where it might be – a definition is most likely to be at the beginning so start in the first paragraph, if the question asks about numbers (costs, most/many, the biggest etc.) then look to see where the numbers are first – it’s less random
- Be aware of how the passage develops and where certain bits of information are located – this can save a lot of time – if you get headings this is great for understanding the whole passage and useful for all the other questions (this is why it’s often the first question – the exam setters really do know what they are doing!)
If you follow this advice then you will cut down on a lot of wasted time, be far more efficient in your scanning for keywords and generally improve your ability to do the reading resulting in far higher score – I know - this is what I teach all my students.