Part 1

How do I get started?

As a reader you need to have strategies to help you understand a text quickly. The first step is to predict what the text will be about by reading the TITLE and SUBHEADING.

How can I form a quick overview of the text?

You can form a quick overview by asking yourself certain questions as you read. You need to pay attention to paragraph themes and key words.

These are critical questions that can help you orientate yourself to a text: What is the introduction about? Why was the text written? Who was it written for?

I. Using titles and subheadings

Nearly all articles that you read in journals, magazines and newspapers will have a title. Many will also have a subheading.

You can ask yourself these types of questions when you first read a text. They should form part of your reading strategies.

What will the article be about? (What is the topic?) What kind of person would be interested in this article? What would you expect to read in the first paragraph? What is the writers purpose? Is there a sentence that best summarises the main idea in the paragraph?

TEST TIP!

Sometimes if a passage in the IELTS Reading does not have a title or a subheading, this is because one of the questions will test your understanding of the theme of the whole passage or the reason why the writer wrote the passage.

II. Using paragraphs and main ideas

As you read through each paragraph of a passage, you gradually build on your understanding of what the writer is trying to say.

TEST TIP!

Underlining the main idea in each paragraph will help guide you to the information you need to find.

Finding information in paragraphs

Some IELTS questions ask you to decide which paragraph contains certain information. It is best to start by reading the first paragraph and then deciding whether it contains the information in any of the statements. Note how the statements begin and note the key words.

III. Dealing with unfamiliar words

You are unlikely to understand all the words in the IELTS Reading passages, but often you can work out the meaning of difficult vocabulary.

a. Think about what part of speech it is

It helps to know what type of meaning the unknown word carries. For example, minute, translucent and ethereal in the paragraph are all adjectives. You do not need to understand these adjectives in order to understand the idea about the dead worms and where they are found.

b. Look at how the word is formed

Sometimes it is possible to guess what a difficult word means. For example, the word echolocation is a noun formed using echo and location. The two parts of the word help you understand that it probably has something to do with echoes coming from a place.

c. Read the word in context

You can also look at the text that comes before and after the word. It is not necessary to understand all the words in the passage but you do need to recognise which words are important because they give you key information.

Choosing headings for paragraphs

Read the title and subheading of the passage. Decide what it is about. Read the article and underline the sentence which contains the main idea(s) in each paragraph.

TEST TIP!

Match ideas NOT words. You may find words from the list of headings in the passage but they may be in a different paragraph from the one that is the answer.

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