How to nail Ielts? (Reading)

  Many great universities require at least band 7 (7 or 7.5) in Ielts, for instance Oxford, Stanford, and Yale etc.  Even though Ielts is not a demanding test, it is still not easy for one to get band 7. In 2019, I took Ielts for the first time and luckily got a band 8 (Overall). After the test, I summarized my tips of achieving such a grade, and hoped those tips can benefit other people as well.

***Listening, writing and speaking sections will be covered in my next articles, don't worry : ) ***   

  To start, in my opinion, time is certainly not your friend in Ielts . As all the test-takers know, you've only got 60 minutes for the reading section and the writing section. Thus, you really need to manage your time well.

  

  Let's talk about the reading section. There are 3 articles on the test, and usually the last one is the hardest. Here is my suggestion about the allocation of time, do the reading section backward (meaning the 3rd article first, and then the 2nd, and finally the first article)! I know you are wondering about why right now, but trust me, I have my reasons. First, since you know the 3rd article is the most difficult, you won't be too anxious if you find it hard (being calm during the test is never a bad thing).  Second, after finish dealing with the 3rd article, you will only find the reading section easier and easier. However, it is important to note that, you gotta time yourself. You must force yourself to read different articles after 20 minutes.  That means, even if  you do not finish the 3rd article within 20 minutes, you still need to start coping with the 2nd article. Chances are that, you can complete the articles left each with less than 20 minutes (perhaps 15 minutes), as the 1st and the 2nd articles are really much easier compare with the third one. I personally spent 10 minutes on both the 1 st and the 2nd articles (so I had extra 20 minutes for the 3rd article).

  Okay here comes the more specific tips toward different question types.

Matching heading questions:
For these questions, scanning is certainly not the most ideal trick in my opinion (unless you are running out of time), because the options can sometimes be tricky.

Here are the two common types of tricky headings, try to avoid choosing them: (  Ur Welcome : )   )

1. The one that repeats the last sentence of a paragraph
2. The one that talks about an idea that appeared but not the main focus of the article

My tips:
Take your time to read each paragraph. Make sure you understand the paragraph you are reading,  think of a suitable heading for the paragraph by yourself, and then you pick the suitable answer for the paragraph. Remember: one paragraph at a time. (But surely you can jump to the next paragraph first if you really have no clue). The biggest advantage of doing this kind of questions is that you don't need to understand the overall picture of the article. Instead, you only need to understand one paragraph at a time.

Bonus tips: if you really run out of time, look at the topic sentence of each paragraph (usually the first sentence), then select the answer. Chances are, you'll be correct.

True/False/Not given (Yes/No/Not Given) questions:
Perchance these are the most demanding type of questions on IELTS. People usually can't distinguish the False and Not Givens.

My tips:
Underline lines that support your answers. If you cannot find any place to underline, it is highly likely the answer is a NOT GIVEN.  (Very concise suggestion, but trust me, pretty useful :) )

Matching Paragraph Information Questions:

My tips:
These kind of questions, in my opinion, are not hard because like the match heading questions, you  do not need to understand the overall picture of the article. Moreover, this time, scanning is a great option, because there is no distractor. Usually the questions provided use synonyms of the information. For instance, if a question says "which paragraph suggests that the author is happy about certain events", when words such as "satisfied" "content" "joyful" show up, well...congrats, you might have found the answer.

Sentence Completion Questions:
In the past, you might need to change the grammatical structure or the tenses of the words you found, but I don't think you longer need to be aware of that (at least according to my experience). Thus, this part of reading becomes my favorite part because you can directly scan and copy words from the articles.
My tips: scan and copy XD

Summary Completion Questions:
These kind of questions are pretty similar to the sentence completion questions, but this time you are given a list of words to use in the blank.

My tips: Try to eliminate choices by checking the grammar.  If your grammar sucks...ummm...
Try to use common sense and see if the words can fit the scenarios given. Finally, scan the article to confirm your answers.

Multiple Choice Questions:

Multiple choice questions usually test about the overall picture of the article, and quite often are the last type of questions to appear. By doing questions such as match heading questions first should already give you the basic understanding of the overall article...so multiple choice questions shouldn't be hard XD

My tips: Paraphrasing the options given and make sure you understand their meanings is a good way to deal with this type of questions.

Short Answer Questions:
Make sure you know clearly about the word limits. If the instruction says no more than three words, it means you cannot write 4 words! Sounds easy? Then, make sure you don't lose marks because of it!

My tips: Similar to sentence completion questions, the tips are scan and copy. Yet this time, you need to be careful about the types of words (verb, noun, adjective etc) you use to answer the questions.


Above are my tips toward different types of questions...hope these are helpful...and remember...practice makes perfect...if you want to score at least a 7.5 on reading...knowing these tips are certainly not enough...so...GO PRACTICE READING!!!