Hi, my name is Jay and in this
video, I'm going to give you 15 super important tips that will help you to get
a higher score in IELTS reading much faster. Now, there's a lot of terrible advice out there on
YouTube. So I suggest that you stick with E2 for your IELTS prep from beginning to end, we've
helped over 1.5 million students just like you get the scores they need with trustworthy quality
materials. So click that subscribe button for more great videos. All right, let's look at the
first IELTS Reading Tip. The first tip is to understand the 11 different question types.
This tip is probably the most fundamental, and that is to understand the 11 different IELTS
reading question types well before your test. So if you're new to IELTS, then this is your
first task. Whether you're taking the computer delivered test or the paper based test, you need
to understand how these various questions will look on the screen or on the paper, how they're
laid out, their format. The last thing you want to do on test day is spend precious time trying
to figure out how to actually answer the question, because some of them are bamboozling. Take,
for example, the paper based match features question type. Imagine you'd never seen
this question before and it's test day, you would spend a lot of time figuring out how
to answer this question, rather than actually reading to find the answers. Again, become
familiar with each and every question type prior to test day so your attention and energy is
spent on understanding the meaning of the words, not the question format itself. Have you signed
up to E2 Test Prep yet? You should. It's a website that prepares people for IELTS. On the
E2 website, you'll find video lessons that take you through all 11 reading question types and give
you amazing tips on how to find the right answers. You can sign up to E2 by going to
www.E2testprep.com or clicking the link in the description below. We've helped over one and
a half million people pass their English exams. Tip number two is that the questions follow the
same order as the text except for one of them. It's really important and kind of reassuring to
understand that the questions follow the same order as the paragraphs. That is the answer to
question one will be located towards the top of the text. And the answer to question two
will be located just below that in the text, and so on. Here's what I mean. Take these
sentence completion questions for example. Notice how the questions follow the order of
the text. Also be mindful that some paragraphs won't contain any answers at all. Now, the only
exception to this rule is with diagram labelling questions. With these questions, you'll have to
backtrack in the text to find a specific paragraph that relates to the image of the diagram. In other
words, diagram labelling questions don't come in the same order as the text, but it's pretty
obvious as to where the answers are located. Tip number three is to speed read the text
before starting on the questions. So what should you do when you first start the reading
test? Personally, the first thing I do is get an idea of what the text is about. It can be kind
of disconcerting looking at all of these words, and not knowing what the text is about, especially
if it's an abstract topic. I highly recommend doing a speed read of the text from beginning to
end, spending about one or maybe two minutes max, scanning your eyes across the text, picking up the
main idea of each paragraph and also noticing key words as you go. Speed reading is not careful
reading, speed reading is zipping through a text to get the idea of it. You'll be surprised
how helpful this will be for your confidence. And when you do start answering the questions,
you'll find that your mind has sort of subconsciously picked up a lot of key words
and phrases that will help you to navigate as you read. Speaking of navigating, tip number
four is to use key words in the question prompt to help locate the relevant section of the
text. One of the keys to IELTS reading success is knowing how to identify key words in a question
prompt that you can then use to locate a specific part of the text to read more carefully. Take
a look at this question prompt for example, because caribou hair is 'something' it retains
heat and keeps warmer for longer. What would be the best keyword to use to search the text for
the answer? Which word doesn't have a synonym? If I were you, I'd use the key word caribou as my
search word, it's a distinct noun. And I should be able to look for it and find it in the text
pretty easily. Which brings me to my next tip, look for the key word, and then read for meaning.
So in IELTS reading, you actually do three types of reading. As I mentioned, the first type of
reading you do is speed reading, where you kind of scan your eyes over the text to understand what
it's about, and perhaps pick up some key words and phrases. And as I just mentioned, once you've
identified a key word in a question prompt, you then look for that key word. It's not
really reading per se. It's more like how you look for your car keys in your bedroom. But
instead, you're keeping the image of a word in your mind as you try to identify it in the text,
like the key word, caribou, or whatever it is. Then there's the most important type of reading,
careful reading. This is where you focus and understand what the words mean. So tip number six
then is don't keep looking read. This brings me to perhaps the most important tip of all, after you
found your key word and the relevant section of the text, you then need to read and stop looking,
I guess you could say that you need to focus, really focus, concentrate. Nothing can help you
find the answer except for the meaning of the text itself. The answer is hidden in the meaning of the
text. I think this is the most important image I have seen to help IELTS Reading candidates like
you. This image is scary. It shows someone trying to answer one question. One question, their eyes
moved around the page 465 times they were looking for the answer, not reading for the answer. As
such, they wasted time and got the answer wrong. So when I say focus, you really need to take a
deep breath, quieten your mind and read word word phrase to phrase sentence to sentence for a
complete understanding of the meaning. Again, the answer is hidden in the meaning, not the
words. This is the only way to get the reading score that you want. Tip number seven. With some
questions, you can use your understanding of grammar to help you determine the right answer.
For some questions such as sentence completion, knowing different word types will help you out.
This question is a sentence completion question. According to the instructions, you have to use one
word only from the text to complete the sentences. Look at number six. What type of word do you
need to complete the sentence? The answer is an adjective because caribou here is I don't
know. Brown, long, sticky, smelly, thick, whatever. It retains heat and keeps warmer
for longer. If you know your English, your mind knows that you need some type of adjective to
complete this gap correctly. Knowing what type of words you need can then help you when you look for
that word because you know you need an adjective or a noun or a verb or whatever. This is super
helpful. Another important tip is to understand synonyms and paraphrases. Alright, I won't go
into too much detail here because we have an entire video on this in the E2 test prep platform
that you should watch. But you need to understand how IELTS uses synonyms and paraphrases to
say the same thing using different words. For example, you might see a question that
says animal skins are effective at managing sweat via airflow because they are what? And the
part of the text where you find the answer says the animal skins used as the outer layer were also
quite porous, allowing some moisture to evaporate. Let's focus on the synonymous language used here.
It's important. Pay attention to the way managing sweat via airflow is mentioned in the question
prompt. And then notice how the same meaning is mentioned in the text allowing some moisture to
evaporate, but in different words. Can you see how these two sentence sections say the same thing,
but in different ways using different words? IELTS Reading really is all about synonymous
language. It said one way in the answer option, and then it said another way in
the text with the same meaning. Now, of course, it's not that easy, because
you have to avoid distractors. We also have another video all about distractors in the
E2 Test Prep website as well. But in short, distractors are answer options that
are very tempting, but they're wrong. If you're doing a multiple choice style
question, for example, which are very common, you might get four answer options. One of the
answer options will be correct, the language will be mirrored in the text using synonyms. But
the other three answer options will be incorrect. They won't be obviously incorrect, there'll
be subtly incorrect. Some key words from each wrong answer option will be mentioned in the text.
They'll all seem plausible or possible, tempting, but there'll be something about them that
makes them inaccurate. It might be that they're contradictory or insufficient or something's not
mentioned, you have to try your best to avoid distractors. Let's now take a closer look at a
particularly troublesome task match headings, and we'll talk about a key strategy. For some reason,
probably because of bad teaching on YouTube, people find match headings really challenging.
There's a super tip I want to share with you. When doing match headings, you need to read
the paragraph first, and I mean read not look. And then look at the list of
headings, not the other way around. That is, don't try to match the headings with the
paragraph. Go from the paragraph to the headings. And while we're talking about match headings
I want to clarify something, read the entire paragraph. The way you match the correct heading
to the paragraph is by understanding the entire paragraph. Only when you have understood the
gist or the overall meaning of the paragraph, can you then select the best heading. Notice here
how the answer is found throughout the paragraph, not in one particular section or sentence. Tip
number 12. Let's look at another challenging question type true false not given and the
key challenge of differentiating between false and not given. Understanding if something
is true or false is pretty straightforward. There'll be something written in the text that
contradicts the statement to make it false. Right? Or if it's true, it'll say the same
thing but in different words, but what about false and not given? What's the difference between
false and not given? Imagine the text says this. Creating clothing from animal skins is very
labour intensive and a highly customised process, and can only be done at certain times of
the year when the skins become available. And imagine that one of the true false
not given statement says making clothes from animal skins can be done all year round.
That's clearly false. It contradicts the text, and especially the part that says 'can only be
done at certain times of the year'. Imagine that another true false not given statement says animal
skin clothing can be made quite quickly. Is this true? False or not given? Well, it's not true
because the text doesn't say anything about it. It doesn't cohere or correspond. So is it false or
not given? Well, it doesn't contradict the text, so it can't be false. In other words, there's
nothing written there about animal clothing taking a long time to make. It does say something
about the clothing being labour intensive, though. And herein lies the key. Labour intensive means
that it takes a lot of work. But this could be done by a lot of people in a short time. The
answer here would be not given. There's no information given about duration, right? If you
find yourself drawing an inference when there's not enough information to draw that inference,
then you're in trouble. So to recap, it's true if it says the same thing, but in different words,
it's false if the statement contradicts the text, and it's not given if you have to make some
sort of inference and the inference isn't clear, or it's just not there. Remember that if
you want more practice and high quality, trustworthy materials and advice, then head
over to E2 Test Prep by clicking the link in the description below. We'll build your confidence and
your scores. Tip number 13. Remember to transfer your answers if you're taking the paper based
test. If you're taking the paper based IELTS test, you'll need to write all of your answers onto the
answer sheet during the 60 minutes of test time, you are not given additional time to
write the answers on the answer sheet. I spoke to a girl recently who did her test but
forgot to transfer her answers and she got zero. Tip number 14 Is that the Academic and General
reading tests differ. If you're taking IELTS Academic, then you'll be faced with three
long academic texts taken from magazines, newspapers, or books. If you're taking
IELTS General then you'll get five or six day to day English texts. My final tip is to
prepare properly. Even if your English is perfect, you still want to prepare properly for your IELTS
test. Statistically, reading is the second most challenging part of the test after writing. If you
need help with any section of the test, then check out E2testprep.com We will help you out. And
if you haven't done so already, make sure you click that subscribe button for more high quality
trustworthy videos. My name is Jay. See you later.
