IELTS Reading

The IELTS Reading test requires you to answer 40 questions in 60 minutes, so you must be fully prepared before you book your exam. In this video, I’ll show you exactly how to get the score you need in IELTS Reading.

Top 5 Tips for IELTS Reading

1. Timing is key.

You will have just 1 hour to complete 40 questions, so you must use your time wisely. I advise my students to try and get each section finished in 20 minutes. This will give you 16-17 minutes to read and answer the questions and 3-4 minutes to transfer and check your answers. You’ll find more help with time management here.

2. Read the instructions carefully.

Many strong candidates lose marks in IELTS Reading because they don’t read the instructions properly. Pay close attention to the instructions you’re given to avoid losing easy marks.

3. Don’t panic.

Some of the questions will be easy and some will be extremely difficult. (I knew many IELTS teachers who had to check the answers to some questions because they are so challenging!)

The wrong thing to do is spend a large amount of time on a hard question. If the answer does not present itself, move on to the next one. You can always come back to the difficult questions later.

It’s important that you stay calm and keep your nerves under control. Accepting that you are probably not going to get all of the questions correct might help you to control your nerves and timing on test day!

4. It’s really a vocabulary test.

In many ways, IELTS Reading is more of a vocabulary test than a reading test. The reason is that you need a wide range of vocabulary to understand the passages of text given to you. You must also have an awareness of synonyms and paraphrasing if you wish to identify the information required to answer the questions correctly.

5. Don’t expect to understand every word.

If you don’t understand a word in the test, you should look at the words and sentences around it for clues as to its meaning. Alternatively, you can move on and forget about it.

Focus on the words that are related to the question and don’t worry about the words you don’t understand.

For more help with improving your reading skills, click the image below to join my free IELTS Reading challenge:

IELTS Reading Question Types

Click on any of the links below for a full step-by-step guide to answering each IELTS Reading question type:

• Short Answer Questions

This post will help you answer short answer questions more effectively by looking at a sample question, identifying common problems and giving you a strategy to use on exam day.

• Multiple Choice 

This article will help you answer multiple-choice questions more effectively. We look at common problems and how to fix them.

• Summary Completion

In these kinds of questions, you will be given a summary of information from the text and there will be some gaps in that summary.

• Matching Sentence Endings 

In this IELTS Reading question, you will be given a list of incomplete sentences with no endings and another list with possible endings. Your job is to match the incomplete sentences with the correct ending based on the reading text.

• Sentence Completion 

In this question type, you will be given a number of sentences with gaps in them and asked to complete the sentences with words from the reading text. Check out this article to learn how to do so strategically.

• True, False, Not Given 

‘True, False, Not Given’ questions requires you to identify if the information in a text is true or not. You will be given a number of factual statements and you have to check in the text if they are true or not. This is probably the most difficult question in the reading paper.

• Matching Headings Tips and Strategy

In the IELTS Reading test, you may be asked to match headings to sections of text. This type of question tests your ability to understand the main idea of each paragraph.

• Labelling a Diagram 

In the IELTS Reading test, you might get a question that asks you to label a diagram. This post will show you examples, look at common problems and provide you with a strategy for answering these questions effectively.

• Matching Information to Paragraphs

In this kind of question, you are asked to match statements to paragraphs in the reading text. This post will look at example question types and show you my step-by-step strategy for matching information to paragraphs.

IELTS Reading Essential Information

In the IELTS Reading exam, you must answer 40 questions in 60 minutes. The test is also divided into three sections of increasing difficulty.

There are two types of exam: Academic or General Training. Before you begin preparing, you need to find out:

1. What score you need; and
2. Whether you need to take the General Training IELTS or Academic IELTS exam.

You can get this information by contacting the institute that requires your IELTS certificate.

What’s the Difference Between the Academic and General Training Reading Test?

The types of question that you receive in the Academic exam are exactly the same as the question types that you get in the General Training exam. However, the passages of text that you must read are different.

General Training students will have to read a combination of long and short texts of both a general and work-specific nature. In comparison, Academic students must interact with three long texts of an academic nature.

IELTS Reading Time Management 

One of the most challenging parts of IELTS Reading is completing it within the time that you are allocated.

Learn how to complete IELTS Reading in less than an hour by reading our blog post here, or watch my video lesson here.

Reading Practice

It’s important that you use reliable materials when you practice IELTS Reading – this is the only way of getting an accurate idea of your current ability. The post below will show you how to find reading practice materials and improve your practice sessions from home:

IELTS Reading Practice

The links below will direct you to multiple reliable sources of IELTS Reading practice papers:

Cambridge Past Papers books

British Council

IELTS Essentials

IDP

IELTS Reading Lessons 

• The Secret to Getting a 9 on Your Reading Test 
• Top 10 Reading Tips 
• How to Improve Your Reading Skills
• How Jaswanth went from a Band 6.5 – 9 in IELTS Reading

FAQs

See the interactive tool below for the most commonly asked questions we receive about IELTS Reading: