IELTS Reading Strategies

Reading

- 60 minutes

- 3 sections

Increasing difficulty

- 40 questions, 1 mark each

Section 3

Section 2

Section 1

2-3 short texts relevant to everyday-life

1 long text about a general topic

2 texts about work situations such as applying for a job, staff training, payment conditions, etc.

Bands

Skimming

Reading in detail

Scanning

Read the text quickly in order to understand the general meaning. Headings, subheadings, topic sentences.

Reading a text quickly in order to find specific information. Key words, names, dates, synonyms, etc.

When you read the section of the text, maybe the whole paragraph, word for word to understand exactly what it says

Skimming: Title, subtitles, first paragraph, first sentence of the rest of the paragraphs, last paragraph.

Scanning: look for keywords of the question in the text. Names, dates, places and synonyms. The question normally does not have the same words that appear in the text.

Reading in detail: once I've scanned, I read the sentence(s) carefully.