Ielts reading

1. It’s really a vocabulary test In many ways, the reading test is more of a vocabulary test than a reading test. They will use synonyms and paraphrase sentences to test how wide your vocabulary is. To prepare for this I advise my students to do three things: read, note, and review. As mentioned in tip number 2, reading is the best way to improve your vocabulary. Memorising lists of words is not as effective as seeing words in context. When you see a new word you don’t understand, try to guess the meaning from context. This means that you try to guess the meaning based on the words and sentences around it. You will be expected to do this in the exam so it is a good idea to get practicing now. Only when you have done that should you check the meaning. Next, you should put all of your new words in a special IELTS vocabulary notebook. Record not only the meaning but also things like synonyms, antonyms, collocations, form, examples, pronunciation and pictures. You don’t hav...

IELTS READING SECTION  The IELTS academic and general training tests each have their own reading papers. The main difference between the two is the subject of the reading passages. The academic reading paper features three academic texts, while the general training reading section includes 5-6 texts, most of which are shorter and intended for wider readerships. The timing (one hour), number of sections (three), and number of questions (40) are the same on both versions, but there are slight discrepancies of structure. Each section of the academic test will have between 12 and 14 questions, but the sections of the general training test have exact sets of questions (14 for part 1 and 13 each for parts 2 and 3). The academic reading paper has 11 different types of exercises, while the general training test has 12. Test-takers are not given additional time to transfer their answers to the answer sheets on this section of the IELTS.