IELTS Genel Okuma Stratejileri ve İpuçları - IELTS General Reading Strategies & Tips

IELTS general reading strategies & tips

• There are usually 40 questions.
• There are reading texts with a total 1500 – 2500 words.
• The texts can be on various topics.
• At least one of the texts will contain a detailed logical argument.
• The texts become progressively more difficult to understand.

Key to success

• Because the passages are long, you don’t have to read them in detail. Read the questions first, this will help you not waste your time on the details and enable you to skim and scan to find relevant information.
• The level the texts and the tasks become progressively more difficult so do the early questions as quickly as possible. So that you will have more time for the harder questions.
• You have roughly one and a half minutes for each question.
• If you don’t understand a word, skip it; don’t waste your time.
• When you finish a paragraph check your answers quickly.
• The questions usually follow the order of information in the text. However, the questions in one section can overlap another and they may be jumbled.
• There is no extra time to transfer your answers on the answer sheet.
• Before the exam read widely as you can (newspapers, magazines, journals, etc. ). Don’t limit yourself about what to read, read articles with an academic style whenever is possible.
• Try and predict the content of the texts from the headline and the first sentence. Headlines usually contain the most general information of the texts topic.

Types of questions

• Matching headings (general understanding)
• Multiple-choice questions (both general understanding and specific details)
• Summary/ flow-chart/table completion (both general understanding and specific details)
• Classification (both general understanding and specific details)
• Matching sentences from a suitable list (both general understanding and specific details)
• Answering YES, NO, NOT GIVEN (both general understanding and specific details)
• Matching stems to sentences endings (specific details)
• Sentence completion (specific details)
• Short answer questions (specific details)

Specifically, three key reading skills will help you do the above most effectively:

1. Skimming
2. Scanning
3. Reading for detail

The first two strategies, skimming and scanning, involve reading very quickly, but each strategy has a different purpose. Skimming means reading quickly to get the main idea of a text; scanning means reading quickly to look for a specific piece of info or specific words. The third approach, reading for detail means reading every word in order to really understand the message of the text.

Try these techniques with texts you study before the exam. If you are a slow reader, then practice to make sure that you are fast enough.