Tips for Effective Reading Preparation
Are you having problems with the Reading test, such as the passage being too long, having a lot of academic vocabulary, can’t understand the content of the reading,…
Also, you do not know how to study effectively? The following article Aboutielts.com will share some Tips for Effective Reading Preparation to help you improve your score!
1. Read As Much As Possible – Tips for Effective Reading Preparation
Most people’s biggest fear when taking the IELTS Reading test is that this part is both long and challenging. Making learners unable to grasp the content, as well as the ideas to answer the questions in the test (Read first, forget later, read the question again, then look at the question again…).
To overcome this fear, you need to read a lot. However, in addition to reading in books or exam preparation materials, you can refer to other sources such as
New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/
Economist: https://www.economist.com/
BBC: https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese
VOA: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/
In addition to helping you expand and diversify your vocabulary, reading a lot also enables you to get used to the grammatical structures commonly used in writing. Furthermore, it makes you more confident when reading a passage containing many new words that you do not know.
You should not expect too much about understanding all the vocabulary initially because even native speakers are sometimes entirely unfamiliar with academic vocabulary. The most effective way to learn IELTS Reading is to familiarize yourself with the practice of thinking and writing sentences of native speakers.
2. Allocate Reasonable Time
Time-division is critical because the IELTS test is usually quite long, but time is limited. Therefore, you need to decide how to divide your time appropriately, such as:
How much time do you have to read the question before answering?
How much time for each question?
How much time at the end of the hour to check back and see the sentences you haven’t done…
There is no universal formula for allocating time for each question and passage. However, the advice is to do as many mock tests and try to complete the test within 50 minutes. Then, when taking the actual test, you will ensure that you can complete the IELTS test within the allotted time.
3. Read Questions Carefully
Sometimes just confusing one or two words can change the order, tense, and meaning. Hence you need to pay close attention to the question to avoid errors.
To overcome this mistake, you should go through the question once before choosing the answer. That will ensure you don’t fall into a trap during the test.
4. Get Acquainted With Underline keywords
Underline keywords: Find and underline important keywords
Highlight keywords to help you visualize the order of main ideas more quickly, saving you time in the test. Keywords for you to highlight, including words containing content to answer the question or comments with proper names, years, scientific names, synonyms…
However, please underline so that it is reasonable, do not underline too much; it will confuse you.
5. Learn By Lesson Format
IELTS Reading test has many types of tests; every test will have different questions. In general, it can be seen that the strategy of making cards is still quite similar, following the basic steps:
- Read the question + underline keywords
- Scan + Skim to find that keyword in the article
- Read the passage containing the keywords and find the answer
However, each type of card will have its strategy that you need to pay attention to, you should learn according to the post format to understand the tactics for each form, so when doing 1 test (combining many types of cards), you will be less stressful.
Here are the main types of IELTS Reading that you need to practice:
- Short Answer Questions
- Sentence Completion
- Summary Completion
- Table/Flow-chart/Plan/Map/Diagram Completion
- True/False/Not Given – Yes/No/Not Given
- Matching Features
- Matching Sentence Endings
- Matching Headings
- Which paragraph contains …
- Multiple Choice
6. Improve Paraphrase Skill
What are paraphrases? Paraphrasing is a simple way of rewriting a sentence (using synonyms or other structures, …) without changing the meaning of the original sentence. If you need to learn more about paraphrasing, you can read the following articles What is a Paraphrase? 5 ways to paraphrase in IELTS.
In IELTS Reading, test takers often create questions by taking out a piece of information from the passage and paraphrasing that piece of information. If you have a large synonyms vocabulary, you can easily find the passage containing the answer. And if your paraphrase skills are weak, you will spend a lot of time looking for the solution, and maybe you can’t even find the paragraph!
Therefore, practicing paraphrasing skills every day is vital for every student preparing for the IELTS exam. So how do you practice?
After solving an IELTS Reading passage, instead of just looking for the answer and then moving on to another problem, let’s take the time to re-analyze the question + the path containing the solution to note synonyms.
7. Practice Skimming, Scanning skills
Skim: Look through the passage’s main ideas (for example, read the topic sentences and concluding sentences to get the passage’s main idea).
Scan: Read articles quickly to find data and specific information (such as numbers, names of people, etc…)
Skimming, scanning are skills that you should know and practice every day. Skimming and scanning are two of the most critical skills while taking the IELTS Reading test.
Especially for those just starting to learn IELTS, you should know these skills instead of trying to read the whole lesson or try to understand all the vocabulary of that passage.
8. Improve vocabulary
As you know, vocabulary and grammar play a significant role in the IELTS Reading test, helping you increase your reading comprehension and helping you answer grammar questions quickly.
Therefore, you should constantly add and repeat the words you have learned daily by reading a lot and taking notes.
Besides, you should connect the learned words with phrases and make sentences… it will help you understand the content and use vocabulary better. It also supports the IELTS Writing test. So work hard, collect every day, guys!
You can visit Ielts.tools to practice more Reading tests. This is a completely free website!