Why do IELTS candidates make mistakes in the reading paper? Time and the difficulty of the texts are two reasons. Another reason is that they do not read in the right way and they focus on key words only. Key words can help but only if used correctly. Used incorrectly, they can in fact cause more mistakes, not fewer. In fact, my belief is that not knowing how to use… Continue reading
Reading is the most challenging paper for many IELTS candidates and indeed it can be difficult. Some of the texts are really tough and the questions can be tricky, but time is the real problem. How can you read and process 3 texts of 800-900 words in 60 minutes? One answer is skimming, another is scanning and it is this that I am going to look… Continue reading
For many academic IELTS candidates reading is the hardest paper and the one which requires most training. Here I suggest some different ways to make that training as efficient as possible. These pieces of advice are fairly general and are designed to help you think about the best way to train yourself in IELTS reading and how to avoid some common mistakes.
This is a brilliant reading resource for IELTS candidates. It is far more than a reading practice test rather it is a complete tutorial on the reading paper. It explains how to approach the reading paper and the different types of question you can expect to find there. It shows examples of 9 different types of question and then explains the different reading skills needed for each question type. For me… Continue reading
I have just come across a great reading resource for IELTS candidates – especially if you are a General Training candidate or are an Academic IELTS candidate at level 4-5. The site is
Do not be put off by the fact that the readings are not as per the IELTS exam. If you work through this site you are sure to improve the key… Continue reading
Newspapers are an excellent free online resource for IELTS students both for reading practice and vocabulary and you will find below a list of links to some newspaper sites. To get the most out of these so that your language actually improve, here are some tips on how to use them.
For me, this is key. Language is a skill and skills are learnt through practice and… Continue reading
On the writing and reading papers time is your enemy. Sometimes it can seem fairly straightforward to complete an IELTS essay in 40 minutes, but can you do it under exam circumstances when you have just spent 60 minutes doing three readings?
Perhaps the obvious thing to do is to do all your writing and reading timed. I disagree. In fact, I think it’s a big mistake. If you… Continue reading
One standard piece of advice on the reading paper is to read the questions before looking at the reading passage itself. The grounds for this are that few if any of the questions require an understanding of the passage as a whole and, since time is short, you want to concentrate on finding the details you need to answer the questions.
I’d question this advice for… Continue reading
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