IELTS Reading Advice

1. look out for the title, headings and any special features such as capital letters, underlining,
italics, figures, graphs and tables
2. make sure that you understand the questions and follow instructions carefully
3. pay attention to timing; do not spend too long on one passage or question
4. do not try and read every word; remember, you are reading for a purpose
5. if you do not know the answer to a question, attempt it but do not waste time; move quickly onto
the next one
6. do not panic if you do not know anything about the subject of the text; all the answers can be
found in the text
7. the word(s) you use must be taken from the Reading text; you must not change the form of the
word(s) in the text
8. do not worry if there is a word that you do not understand – you may not need to use it
9. check your spelling
10. be careful to use singular and plural correctly
11. focus precisely on what you are asked to do in ‘completion’ type questions
12. if the question asks you to complete the note ‘in the…’ and the correct answer is ‘evening’, just
use ‘evening’ as your answer; note that ‘in the evening’ would be incorrect
13. pay attention to the word limit; for example, if you are asked to complete a sentence using no
more than two words, if the correct answer is ‘silk shirt’, the answer ‘shirt made of silk’ would be
incorrect
14. attempt all questions; there are no penalties for incorrect answers, so you have nothing to lose
15. check your answers
 Lesson 1: Matching Paragraph Headings
Strategies to answer the questions
1. Quickly read through the paragraph headings so you can see what they say.
2. Then look at the first paragraph.
3. Often only the topic sentence needs to be read carefully because the main idea and
answer are there - you may be able to just skim the rest. Or read the first one or two
sentences and the last sentence of each paragraph to understand the general meaning of
the paragraph. Don’t worry about highlighting keywords in the test. Try to sum up the
general meaning of each paragraph in one or two words.
4. Sometimes, however, the answer is not in the topic sentence and the whole paragraph
needs to be read more carefully.
5. If a match is not immediately obvious, move on to the next one.
6. If you are unsure between two answers at first, put them both in, write 2 or 3 headings
beside the paragraph. Identify the difference between each of the headings. Establish if
there are any synonyms in the paragraph to keywords in the headings. You may be able to
eliminate one answer later if it fits another paragraph better.
7. If at the end you are still stuck between two answers for a question, pick which fits best.
Things to beware of
1. There are always more choices of paragraph headings on the list than paragraphs, so be
careful when matching them.
2. Watch out for synonyms - often words in the paragraphs and paragraph headings will not
be the same; they will be synonyms.
3. Having a noun from a heading that is in the paragraph does not guarantee they match - you
still need to read it carefully to check.
TIPS: A much better idea is just to write down a paragraph number at the end of each
option as you go. For each paragraph consider all the possible headings, and at this stage
don't worry if you have more than 1 paragraph number after each heading.
 Lesson 2:
IELTS Multiple Choice Questions
Objectives:
 To practice IELTS multiple choice questions
 To practice scanning techniques
 To look at the use of synonyms in IELTS reading questions
Strategies to answer the questions
1. Look through the questions first
2. Underline key words from the question
3. Then scan the text for those key words that you have underlined
4. The answer should be found close to that word
5. The answers will be found in the text in the same order as the questions
Identifying the question type
Before you start any reading pasage, you should firstly take a look at the question
stems to get an idea of what you may need to look out for.
So now look at the IELTS reading multiple choice questions below this reading.
If you look at the question stems, you will see that names are often mentioned
e.g.James Alan Fox, John J. DiIulio, Michael Tonry. So this immediately tells you it is a
good idea to underline 'names' as you read the text.
You will then be able to quickly scan the text later to find where the answers are.
Looking at the question stems first also gives you an idea of what the reading is about.
Underline / highlight key words
As you read the text, you should get into the habit of highlighting words that you think
may be important and will help you find answers later.
These are often nouns like names, dates, numbers or any other key words that stand
out as a key topic of that paragraph.
Looking at the IELTS reading multiple choice questions quickly first may help with this.
IELTS Reading Multiple Choice Questions
This type of question follows the order of the text. So when you have found one answer,
you know that the next one will be below, and probably not too far away.
When you start looking at the questions, you should underline key words in the question
stem to help you find the answers in the text.
Look at the IELTS reading multiple choice questions again - as you will see, key words
have been highlighted. You can use these to help you scan the text to find the answers
more quickly.
Reading in detail
When you read the text for the first time, you should focus on the topic sentences, and
skim the rest of the paragraph.
But once you start answering the IELTS reading multiple choice questions and you have
found where the answer is, you will need toread the text carefully in order to identify
the correct choice.
Tip: Do not think that just because you have found some words in the multiple choices
(a, b or c) that match the words in the text that this must be the right answer.
It's usually not that simple so you must read the section where you think the answer is
carefully.
 Lesson 3:
IELTS True False Not Given
Before looking at the questions for the reading, you should take a quick look at the
reading passage and get an idea of what it is about.
This will help you tackle the questions.
 Look at the title - what is the reading about?
 Look at the topic sentences - what topics does the reading discuss?
Tips
Remember with True, False, Not Given questions, you should first see if the statement
given agrees with the information in the reading.
If it does, it is true. Otherwise, it must be false or not given.
If the evidence is not there to say that it is false, that means that it could be true or false
but you don't know - you cannot know from the information you have been given, then
the answer is not given.
 If the fact you are given is clearly in the reading it is True
 If the reading says the opposite of the fact you've been given it is False
 If it is not true or false, it is Not Given
Strategies to answer the questions
 The questions follow the order of the text.
 Read the question carefully to make sure you fully understand what it is saying.
 Scan the text to find where the answer is using key wordsfrom the question
 When you find where the answer is, read the text carefully to identify if you think it is T, F or
NG.
 The questions will probably use synonyms rather than the words in the text.
 Look out for controlling words such as “only”, “all’, “never” etc. For example, if the fact in
the question says 'some' and the fact in the text says 'all', then it is F.
 Do not spend a long time looking for the answer to one question; it is probably NG, if you
cannot find it.
 Make sure you use the correct code; 'Yes', 'No', 'No Information' is sometimes used (these
question are slightly different and you look for opinions rather than facts).
What is the difference between False and Not Given?
Follow this link for some general strategies on IELTS true false not given reading
questions.
A particular problem, though, for students is spotting the difference between something
that is 'False' and 'Not Given'.
Firstly see if the statement agrees with what is in the reading. If it does it is true. If not, it
is obviously false or not given.
The important point is that if you can say 100% from what you are given in the text that
the statement you have been given is not true, then it is 'false'.
If the evidence is not there to say that it is false, that means that it could be true or false
but you don't know - you cannot know from the information you have been given.
 Lesson 4:
IELTS Sentence Completion
When doing this, various factors are important to keep in mind:
 Make sure the answer does not exceed the stated word limit - articles and unneeded
adjectives can sometimes be left out to achieve this.
 Make sure the answer fits into the statement grammatically.
 Be aware that the statement will not use the same words as the text.
As the statement you are given in IELTS sentence completion tasks will not be taken
exactly from the reading, you need to be aware of paraphrasing and synonyms.
These will both be used in the questions. This is what they mean:
Paraphrase: to repeat something written or spoken using different words
Synonym: a word or phrase which has the same or nearly the same meaning as
another word or phrase in the same language
So when you look at the question, you will need to find a paraphrase of that sentence
and probably some synonyms in the reading in order to find the right one, and then work
out the answer.

Reading Lesson 5:
Guessing meaning from context
Obviously you do not have a dictionary in the exam so there are likely to be a lot of
words from the reading text that you do not understand and you cannot check.
If you come across a word you do not understand, then you cannot spend a lot of time
working out its meaning because you only have 20 minutes for each reading.
Therefore, guessing meaning from context is necessary.
This means work out what it means (or have a good guess at least) from the words that
are around it and from the topic of the paragraph.
Take a look at this example:
It had been raining hard through the night so the ground was saturated.
What does 'saturated' mean?
You may already know, but if you do not, you should be able to have a good guess
from the rest of the sentence.
It had been raining which means the ground must be wet. It was raining 'hard' so this
means the ground is probably very wet.
saturated = completely wet
By doing this you are guessing meaning from context and you should try and use this
technique for words you do not know.
It may not always be clear from the actual sentence and you may have to look at other
sentences around the word.
However, only do this for words that seem important for an understanding of the
text. If it looks like they are not, then leave it and move on with the reading. You
probably won't have time to do it with every word, especially if you are at a lower
reading level.
 Lesson 6:
IELTS Short Answer Questions
Tips
 Read the instructions carefully - these tell you how many words you can use (a maximum of
three in this case).
 In IELTS short answer questions you should use words from the text rather than your own,
and don't change the words.
 Quickly read through all of the questions so you can get an idea of what information you will
have to find in the text.
 Use key words from the question to help you skim the text quickly to find the information. For
example, in the first one, you need to look for "type of care".
 Remember though that synonyms will also be used in the text, so you must be careful when
you look for the information.
 Read the section of the text where you know the answer is carefully to see which words will
answer the question.
 Your answer must make sense grammatically to be correct.

Using the above tips and advice, try to answer the following IELTS short answer
questions.
You can write your answer in the text box below each question. You can the click at the
end to reveal the answers.

The aim of this exercise is to develop your IELTS reading strategies in order to find
the answers to questions such as 'short answer' as quickly as possible.
The key to doing this quickly is to recognize the section of the text which relates to the
question.
However, it is usual to find that the question stem will include words that are synonyms
of the words rather than the words from the actual text, or if it is not synonyms there will
be phrases that have the same meaning as a phrase in the text.
If they did not do this it would be too easy to find the answers.
This text is shorter than the texts you will get in the test, but it is just an activity to
introduce you to the idea of using the question to help you find the answer and to
provide you with some IELTS reading strategies that you can put to use in the test.
This lesson provides advice on IELTS short answer questions and further practice on
True, False, Not Given questions.
 What can you predict from the title?
 Skim read the first paragraph. What is the topic?
 What are the aspects of the topic?
 What type of language do you expect to be in this passage?
 Does the writing include any examples? If so, what are they examples of?