IELTS Reading Tip: Exam Skills Are Critical to Success: In the Reading test, time is precious. This post focuses on three key strategies that can help you save time, and improve your band score.
1. Focus on the questions
It’s essential that you make the questions the priority rather than the reading passage. Start by reading the questions so that you know what information you need to look for when you turn to the passages. As you find the information, note it down straight away. That way, you are using the time available in the most efficient way. The alternative is to read the passage, then read the questions, then go back to the passage to look for the information you need — but hat doesn’t make sense when time is limited.
Also, Read IELTS Reading Test Academic Module Samples 150+ Tests
2. Don’t worry about unknown words
Okay, you’re into the questions and you’re doing well… Suddenly, you see a word you don’t know and you start to panic. Calm down! The key here is not to worry and not to allow unknown words to distract you. Remember that even native speakers see words that they don’t know from time to time. As long as there aren’t too many of them, they do not stop you from understanding the passage. In any case, you’re already taking the test, so it’s too late to look the word up.
Your first strategy should be to ignore the word. Can you understand the sentence anyway? For example, it is easy to understand this sentence (with the unknown word shown by XXX):
Among the animals threatened by climate change are elephants, XXX and polar bears.
Your second strategy is to guess the meaning of the word from the other words around it. So in the sentence above, it is easy to guess that XXX is a kind of animal. If you are asked to name three animals that are threatened by climate change, it is reasonably safe to include XXX, even if you don’t know the word.
3. Move on!
If neither of these strategies works and you are still stuck, just move on to the next question and come back later if you have time. Time wasted on answers you don’t know is time lost on later answers that you might get right.
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