This is probably the most important IELTS
Reading video you're ever going to see. In it, we're going to talk about time management
strategies. But more importantly, we're going to talk about how people
read and why they get questions wrong, I seriously encourage you to stick
around right to the very end. This video has seven equally important
parts. Number one, we'll look at the IELTS Reading challenge. Number two, I'll
give you a quick overview of IELTS Reading. Number three, we'll look at the three different
reading types you need to do on test day. Number four, we're going to find out why people fail
and run out of time. Number five, we'll look at what makes a fast and accurate reader. Number six,
I'll give you the ultimate IELTS Reading process. And number seven, we'll finish with
some critical time management tips. So that's what we're going to do. Now before
we get started, in the description below is an infographic that kind of summarises everything
we're going to talk about in this video, make sure you download that. Let's get started
and look at part number one. Number one, the IELTS reading challenge. In your reading test,
you will get three reading passages, 40 questions, and you'll have 60 minutes. Now each of those
three passages gets increasingly more difficult as you go through the test. So the test,
in a sense, goes from, sort of, easy to harder. Now what we need to work out is how
many words are in each of these passages and the questions so we can work out a reading speed or
how many words you can read per minute. According to IELTS official, the three passages have a
total of about two and a half thousand words. And then there's about 500 words in the questions.
So about 3000 words in total. To read 3000 words in 60 minutes means that you need to read at an
average speed of 50 words per minute. That is not fast. Let me put it into perspective for you
so you understand what 50 words per minute actually means. The average native English speaker
reads at an average rate of 250 words per minute. By analogy, that's the equivalent of driving
a car at 100 kilometres per hour. So if you only have to read it 50 words per minute. Well,
that's the equivalent of driving a car at about 20 kilometres per hour. So what's the actual
problem here? Because you have enough time to read everything, including the questions and all the
passages in about 15 minutes. So why is it that so many people run out of time and also get questions
wrong? There are a few critical things we need to iron out because it's not necessarily how fast you
read. It's not just about the speed or the pace. It's actually more about how you read
and what you do with your mind and eyes on test day. Before I show you why people run out
of time and fail this part of the test, we need to look at the test a little bit more deeply. Number
two, let's do a quick IELTS Reading overview. The first thing you need to know is there is a
difference between IELTS Academic Reading and IELTS General Reading. So let's quickly look at
that. If you're taking IELTS General, you'll have to read passages that is similar to newspapers,
advertisements, handbooks and notices. Whereas if you're taking IELTS Academic, you'll have to
read passages that are similar to newspapers, books, journals, and magazines. So the Academic
test will use vocabulary and sentence structures that are slightly more complex than the General
test. But that's where the differences end. Both tests have 11 different reading question types.
You might not get all the 11 types on test day, but you'll get most of them. There's multiple
choice. True false, not given. Yes, no, not given. Match information. Match headings. Match features.
Match sentence endings, sentence completion, summary, note, table, flowchart completion,
diagram label completion and short answer questions. By the way, if you need help with
any of the question types I've just mentioned, then sign up to E2 to watch the
individual methods lessons as they will walk you through each question type
showing you how to answer them step by step. Okay. Now that we know what we're dealing with,
let's take a close look at how to improve our reading efficiency and our reading accuracy.
And in order to do that, we need to talk about three reading types. So reading is not just
reading, there are different ways that you can read. Okay, and on test day, there are
three ways you need to read. Speed Reading, Search Reading, Careful Reading. Let's understand
that first way that you need to read on test day, Speed Reading. The first thing you need to do
on test day, whether you're taking the paper based test, or the computer delivered test, is
read the passage from beginning to end at about 500 words per minute. That's like driving at
about 200 kilometres an hour. Or in other words, you read the passage in about 60 to 90 seconds.
Let's take a closer look. Imagine that you are driving through a country town at
200 kilometres per hour. Don't worry, there are no police or pedestrians on the road. If
you're driving this fast, what information can you pick up about the town? What can you see
when you're driving at 200 K's an hour, you certainly won't see much. You're driving way
too fast to read street signs or house numbers, but you can get an idea of what's in the town. As
you drive, perhaps you notice a school, a cinema, a supermarket, or even a football field. This is
speed reading. We do this to get a general idea of what the passage is about, a general idea
of what the paragraphs are about and hopefully we pick up a few key words. Okay, let's do this.
Let's drive now at 200 kilometres per hour through this passage, are you ready? What I want you to
do is just scan your eyes very quickly from top to bottom in a zigzag fashion. You're not reading
for any details. You just want to get an idea of what this paragraph is about and what the whole
passage is about. Let's go. First paragraph Go. Second paragraph. Go. Third paragraph. Go. Fourth paragraph. Go. Fifth paragraph. Go. Sixth paragraph. Go. Final paragraph. Go. Coool, you did it. That is what you need
to do on test day, you need to speed read. Don't get stuck. You're not reading for details,
you're reading to get a main idea. Okay, after you've sped read the passage, you need to go to
question one. Which brings me to a critical point. The order of the questions follows the order of
the text. This is really critical to understand. So what happens is you get question one,
right, and you have your passage here of text. Now the answer to question one is going
to be located towards the top of the passage, probably in paragraph one. The answer to question
two is going to be slightly further down. Question three slightly further down, and so on and so
forth. There are a couple of questions where this doesn't work. For example, there's a labelling
question where all of the answers will come from one paragraph. But this works, by and large, for
all question types. They follow the same order. So if you need to find where in the passage to read,
you need to keep in mind that the question order follows the passage from top to bottom. Okay, so
you've sped read the passage at 200 kilometres per hour. You've then gone to question number one
where you're going to do some careful reading. And we're going to come to careful reading next. But
first I want to talk to you about search reading. Search reading is different to Speed reading.
When we speed read, we're just reading to get a general understanding of what something's about,
maybe pick up some key words. When we search read, we're looking for something, okay. It's like when
you're driving your car and you're looking for a street sign. If we go back to our car analogy.
It's like driving at about 60 kilometres per hour. You want to slow down because you are looking for
something, but not driving too slow because you're not yet worried about details. The reason that you
search read is because you're finding information from the question in the text. Now the information
that you find in the question and also in the text might be the same word. It might also be
a synonym, or it might be a paraphrase. I want to take you through each of those now. Take a look at this table here. You can see
the same word, a synonym or a paraphrase, and how that will look in the question
compared to how it will look in the passage. Rarely will you see the exact same word in the
question and the passage, but it might happen. Most of the time, you'll see a synonym or
paraphrase. So for example, you'll see the word 'purchase' in the question and 'buy' in the
passage or 'watch out for' in the question and 'be cautious of' in the passage. This is a paraphrase.
This is really what IELTS Reading is all about. It's all about reading for synonymous language
or paraphrases. Okay? Because they can't just put the same word in the question. And the same word
in the passage, it will be far too easy. They're saying the same thing but they're using different
words, synonyms and paraphrases. Let's do a little bit of practice, this is going to be easy. This
one's pretty easy, because we're going to find the exact same word that's mentioned in the question
in the text. So we're going to be searching for, we're going to search read for, the word
macadamia. I'm going to give you five seconds. Go. Did you find it? There it is. In this case,
it's the same word as the question. Now we know where to read. So now that we know where to
read, we need to do some careful reading. Okay, so we sped read the passage, right?
Really fast. Then we moved to question one, and we found a key word. And then what we
did is we search read for that key word, the key word is going to be the same word,
a synonym or a paraphrase. Now that we know where to read, we're going to carefully read and
when we carefully read, we read word by word, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence
for a full and maximum understanding. It's the equivalent of slowing right down in
your car to about 20 kilometres per hour to find a house number. You really have to slow down and
concentrate. You might even stop for a little bit. Is the house number on the letterbox or is it
on the door? Wait, was that it? No, that was number 14. And I'm looking for number four. Let
me reverse my car and take a closer look. So let's practice our careful reading now by slowing right
down relaxing, letting the meaning come in to us. We're going to read from the question prompt
to the particular part of the passage, then we're going to read slowly and carefully
the answer options. We may need to do a little bit of back and forth. But hopefully you can
understand everything that's being said and find the answer. Okay, go from the question prompt
to this particular part of the sentence. Carefully read it, fully understand it, then carefully
read and fully understand the answer options. Did you get it? The answer is C. Here 'lesser known' and
'relatively obscure' mean the same thing. It's synonymous language, it's a paraphrase. Okay,
let's recap our reading process one more time. Speed Read the passage at 200 kilometres an hour,
only do this once. Number two, read the question carefully at about 20 kilometres per hour. Number
three, search for the right section of the text using that key word. It'll usually be a single
sentence in the paragraph that you need to find. Number four, carefully read the sentence.
Number five, carefully read the answer options and answer the question. So once you've sped
read the passage, you're going to do step 2,3,4, and 5 for all of the questions. Is it really that
easy though? Wait a minute! It's not that easy. I really wish it were that easy that you could just
go from the question prompt to the passage to the answer options and get the right answer. That's
not how your mind works, what's actually going to happen on test day and when you're preparing, is
it going to go back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. And this is the reason why
people fail IELTS Reading, and this is the reason why they run out of time. This is also the reason
why you should share this video with your friends. Let's take a look at part number four of
this lesson. This is the most important part. Why people fail and run out of time in IELTS
Reading. Take a look at this image. It's from the computer delivered IELTS Reading. This is
from a scientific study that used eye tracking to see how many times an effective rate of a good
reader looked back and forth from one question to the passage. Bear in mind, two things. This
was a good reader. And this is for one question. Question number two, here's a different way
to look at it. You can see from this heat map, that the reader has spent a lot of time looking
at the question and then read very widely in the second and third paragraph to find the
answer. Again, that was from a good reader, someone who actually got the question right. Let
me now show you what a bad reader, a slow reader, an ineffective reader did with the very
same question. Yikes, this is for a single question. Their eyes went all over the place,
up, down, left, right, looked back and forth, quite literally 465 times. They even looked at the
timer six times. Their heat map looked like this and you can see why they got this question wrong.
They're looking everywhere. Imagine how much time this is taking. This is for question two, and
they're looking in paragraph four. They clearly don't understand that the questions and the
paragraphs follow the same order. And they're spending way too long in the wrong place. So
this person moved their eyes back and forth and up and down and all over the place 465 times
for a single question. This is the reason why people run out of time in isles reading. It's
not the rate at which you read. It's the type of reading that you're doing, or in this case, not
doing at all. It looks like this particular person was just search reading the whole time, possibly
just looking for keywords. It's very interesting, the eyes almost tell you what this person's mind
was doing. It also seems that they were very anxious, they kept looking up at the clock.
So what makes a fast and accurate reader. Put simply, to be a good, effective and efficient
reader means that you do very little back and forth. Of course, you're going to have to do some
on test day. But 465 times is not a good idea. When effective readers read they move through
a text from left to right and from word to word or phrase to phrase with minimal rereading. If
they do move their eyes to reread a word, phrase or sentence it's to reprocess the meaning to make
sure they have fully understood what was said. Sometimes an effective reader will stop and
focus or fixate on a particular word or phrase just to make sure that they've understood but
then they'll keep moving from left to right. And sometimes a good effective reader will sweep
back to something said earlier in the passage, that's completely fine. They'll reread
something but then they'll move ahead. Importantly, effective readers can memorise
where in the passage they need to reread, so they can try and find an answer. They remember
where things were mentioned in the passage. Let's just do a quick little comparison of
a good efficient, fast reader with a poor, slow, inaccurate reader. So good fast readers
continue from left to right moving through the text, understanding the meaning. Slow bad readers
,by comparison, read up, down, left, right, all over the place. Good fast readers don't often
reread single words or phrases. Slow bad readers do lots of rereading of single words or phrases
or entire sentences or even entire paragraphs. Good fast readers sometimes
reread a section of a text. Slow bad readers do lots of rereading
of whole sections. And this is the most important part. Good fast readers concentrate
and focus on meaning. Slow bad readers lose focus and do not concentrate on meaning. So let
me now take you through a process that will help you to become more efficient and more accurate.
The ultimate IELTS Reading process. Number one speed read the passage at 200 kilometres an hour
and only do this once. Read from top to bottom very quickly to get an idea of what the passage is
about, and perhaps what each paragraph is about. And hopefully, you'll pick up some key words as
well. Read the question carefully. Make sure you understand it and pick out a good key word or key
phrase. Search for the right section of the text. It might be a particular sentence or phrase in a
paragraph that uses the key word that you chose from the question. Keep in mind that the order of
the questions follows the order of the passage. So question one will be located
towards the top of the passage. Number four, carefully read the important part
of the paragraph at about 20 kilometres per hour. It'll be a sentence or a phrase. Reread it
again and again, if necessary. Number five, try to answer the question. More than likely, your
eyes are going to go back and forth because your working memory is not very good. Just like mine,
just like everybody else's. So you will have to go back and forth and back and forth. But please, do
not do it 465 times and do not move your eyes all around the place. Concentrate on understanding
the meaning. Okay, we've nearly finished this, I just want to wrap it up with some critical
tips. Seven critical time management tips. When you prepare for IELTS reading on E2, and
on test day. Number one, remember that you have enough time if you don't waste it. Number two,
don't move your eyes all over the place. Relax and let the meaning sink in. Number three, if you're
taking the paper based test, remember that you need to complete the answer sheet as you go. You
don't get extra time to complete it at the end. If you're taking the computer delivered test,
you don't need to worry about completing an answer sheet. Number four. If you can't find
an answer to a question, skip it and come back to it later or at the end. Don't waste time
on answers you can't find or are unsure of, come back to it later. Number five, answer every
question, even if it's a blind guess. There are no points lost for incorrect answers. Number six,
relax. One of the main reasons people can't manage their time is because they can't manage their
anxiety. I know it's hard, but please relax and breathe. You have plenty of time. And you can do
this. Knowing all of this is really going to help you with your IELTS Reading time management and
your accuracy. But right now it's just theory. What you really need to do is put it into
practice. And that's why I highly recommend you click the link in the description below.
Go across to E2 Test Prep and do some good quality practice either in our live classes or on
the platform questions. And remember to download the infographic as well because it summarises
everything we've talked about in this lesson. Cool. Hopefully you found that helpful. Remember
to click the like button, the subscribe button, leave a comment and share this video with
your friends so they know exactly how to pass IELTS Reading if they have to do it. And
for you, I wish you the best of luck.
