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1. Multiple Choice : tips
1. Read the questions before you read the text.
2. If you are unsure of what the difference is between two or three sentences, it can help to rephrase them in
your own words.
3. If you are running out of time or you really don’t know the answer, have a guess. You will not lose marks for
wrong answers and you have a 25% chance of getting the correct answer just by guessing.
4. Don’t be tricked by the examiner’s ‘distractors’ especially keywords from the questions that look the same
as the text.
5. If you don’t know anything about the topic, don’t panic. It is a reading test, not a test of your knowledge.
6. Try to predict the correct answer before you read the text. This will help you find the correct answer.
7. Before deciding on your answer, always go back and carefully read the questions before making your final
decision.
8. The answers will be in the same order as the text.
9. You might be asked about both facts and opinions. Facts are things that are always true or cannot be
disproved but opinions are just what people think.
2. Short answers : tips
1. Look at and understand the questions first before you start reading the text. What is the question actually
asking?
2. You will probably be given a word limit, for example ‘NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER.’
Make sure you don’t go over this limit.
3. As stated above, the answers do not need to be grammatically correct, just short answers.
4. Don’t give your opinion, just the answer in the text.
5. Keywords in the question will normally be nouns or noun phrases.
6. When you find your keywords always think synonyms and paraphrases.
3. Sentence Completions : tips
1. Beware of the word Limit
2. Grammar & Accuracy.
3. Skim and scan
4. Synonyms and
5. .Read the questions before reading the text.
4. Notes, table, summary, flow chart, form, Diagram : tips
1. Predict -Try to predict the answers before you look at the options or the text. This will help you spot the
correct answer.Should the gap be filled with a verb, noun, adjective or adverb?
2. Grammar If your answer makes the sentence grammatically wrong, then you have the wrong answer.
3. Look for synonyms and paraphrases in the text rather than words that directly match.
4. Don’t spend too much time looking for the answer to one question
5. Focusing on the easier answers is a better use of your.
6. If you get a list of words, think about the ones that can’t be the correct answer because of meaning or
grammar. You can then eliminate these words.
5. Y/N/NG or T/F/NG : tips
1. Ignore anything you already know about the topic and don’t make assumptions. Base your answers on the
text only.
2. Identify any words that qualify the statement, for example, some, all, mainly, often, always and
occasionally. These words are there to test if you have read the whole statement because they can change the
meaning.
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3. Be careful when you see verbs that qualify statements, such as suggest, claim, believe and know. For
example, ‘The man claimed he was a British citizen,’ and ‘The man is a British citizen’ mean two different
things.
4. There will be at least one of all three answers. If you don’t have at least one ‘true’, ‘false’ or ‘not given’ you
have at least one answer wrong.
5. Don’t skim and scan the text to find the final answer. You will have to read the appropriate part of the text
very carefully in order to understand what the author means.
6. Don’t look for words that exactly match those in the statements. You should also look for synonyms.
Remember that you are matching meaning, not words.
7.If you can’t find the information you are looking for, then it is probably ‘not given’ Don’t waste time looking
for something that is not there.
8. If you have no idea what the answer is put ‘not given’. You probably have no idea because the answer is not
there.
9. Answers are in the same order they appear in the text. Do not waste time going back. Keep on reading.
10. YES/NO/NOT GIVEN questions are slightly different because they deal with opinion. TRUE/FALSE/NOT
GIVEN questions deal with facts
6. Classification : tips
1. Do this question First. Answering this question gives the main idea of the entire text, subsequently making
the following questions easier.
2. Try to find names, place names and numbers in the questions. These are often easier to find in the text.
3. Be aware that there may be synonyms. For example, you might see ‘34%‘ in the question but it might say
‘just over a third‘ or ‘about a third‘ in the text.
7.Matching : tips
1. Look at and understand the questions first before you start reading the text. What is the question actually
asking?
2. You will probably be given a word limit, for example ‘NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER.’
Make sure you don’t go over this limit.
3. As stated above, the answers do not need to be grammatically correct, just short answers.
4. Don’t give your opinion, just the answer in the text.
5. Keywords in the question will normally be nouns or noun phrases.
6. When you find your keywords always think synonyms and paraphrases.
8. Headings : tips
1. Do this question first because you get the general meaning of the text as a whole and this will help you with
the rest of the question that requires you to take a more detailed look at the text.
2. You are not expected to read every word of the text. In this kind of question you are only expected to
understand the main idea of each paragraph. A good way to do this is to read the first one or two sentences
and the last sentence of the paragraphs. You can also briefly look at the rest of the paragraph but you don’t
have to read every word.
3. If there are words you don’t understand, don’t worry about this. Again, you should only worry about the
general meaning of the paragraph as a whole, not individual words
4. Be aware of synonyms. Many students look for words that match exactly with words in the text and ignore
synonyms
5. If there are two or three headings that are similar, write them beside the paragraph and try to find out the
difference between the two headings. What are the keywords? How does this change the meaning? Which
one matches the paragraph best?
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6. If you still can’t decide which one suits best, move on and come back to it later. The answer will normally be
easier to find after you have matched some more headings.
7. Ignore anything you already know about the topic. You are being tested on the text only.
8. Don’t read too quickly. Some teachers advise that students should just ‘skim’ the text because you don’t
have much time. In my experience, this leads to students not understanding most of the text and making
mistakes. It is better to do this a little slower and actually understand what is in front of you.
9. Don’t panic if you know nothing about the general topic of the reading text. The IELTS reading test is not a
knowledge test and you are not expected to have prior knowledge of the topic.
10. Don’t look at the headings first. This will automatically make you look for specific words in the text rather
than the main idea. Remember it is your ability to find the main idea that is being tested, not your ability to
find specific information. Instead of reading the headings first, ignore them and get the general meaning of
each paragraph first by reading the first and last sentences.
9. Scanning, identifying location or information : tips
1. Do this question Last. Once the other category of questions are answered, you would already have an idea
as to where that information might be present.
2. Try to find names, place names and numbers in the questions. These are often easier to find in the text.
3. Be aware that there may be synonyms. For example, you might see ‘34%‘ in the question but it might say
‘just over a third‘ or ‘about a third‘ in the text.
10. Diagram Labeling : tips
1. Check how many words you are supposed to write, it will tell you in the question. In the example above you
can only write ‘one or two words’, any more than this and you will lose marks. Remember that numbers count
as one word and hyphenated words like ‘state-of-the-art’ count as one word.
2. Identify the type of word (noun, verb, adjective) you need. This will help you find the correct answer.
3. The answers do not always come in the same order that the paragraphs are in.
4. Do the easiest questions first. You are more likely to get these correct. If you cannot find the answer to a
difficult question, move on and come back later.
5. Try to predict the answer before you read the text. This will help you find the correct answer.
