Basic IELTS Reading Interview Preparation Guide

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IELTS uses a 9-band scoring system to measure and report test scores in a consistent manner. You receive individual band scores for Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking and an Overall Band Score on a band scale from one to nine.

Yes. The IELTS Examiner will not see your question paper.

No. You must do it in pencil. The answer sheet is scanned by a computer which cannot read pen.

Interview in IELTS denotes the speaking module, wherein the candidate will be talking to the examiner as if they are attending the interview. Here, the test is divided into three parts under the speaking module.
★ In the first part, which is conducted just like question and answer session, the examiner will be asked general interview questions like his/her personal life, interests, familiar topics, etc.
★ In the second part, the candidates will be provided with a card with some topics on it. They can select any one out of them and they will be given some time to prepare for the same. After preparing, they will have to talk on the topic for one or two minutes. Once the candidate completes the talking, the examiner will be asking some questions from the points expressed by them.
★ The Third part involves a discussion session, wherein the examiner will be discussing on the topic on which the candidate spoke in the previous part.

For answering the questions in the reading module correctly, it is essential that you will have to develop this skill. This will be a difficult task for some people because as they cannot find identical words. On the other hand, some people can identify identical words, but it will be difficult for them to understand the meaning. This thing should be trained right from your practice sessions.

The best thing about IELTS examination is that you can do all the rough work in your question paper itself and only your answer sheet will be judged. So, even if you commit mistakes in your question paper, ensure that you give the right answer in the answer sheet. When you can underline the verbs and give a different mark to the nouns for identification, it will be easier for finding answers.

Generally, this module tests the skimming and scanning ability of candidates. Most of test-takers think that understanding the content of the passage is the thing that is tested. So, do not spend time in understanding. Rather, you can first go through the questions and just then read the content and this will be helpful for identifying the answers when you are reading for the first time itself. This will save you a lot of time.
Read every question four times: Some candidates waste their time by reading the paragraphs several times. But, you can reduce the time spent here by reading the questions several times. Once you understand the questions clearly, it will be easy for you to answer easily and quickly.

Daily spend 30 minutes on reading and this will slowly and steadily improve your reading ability. When doing this, judge your reading ability like how many words can be read within a minute. In addition to judging this, do not forget to analyze your comprehending skills by shortening what you have read and creating a different content. Here, it would be wise to use the same type of reading material as it can provide you the consistency needed for sensible practice.

There are some books and websites from where you can practice for this module.

Increase your exposure to written content wherever possible. Just reading the newspapers is not enough, whenever you visit some websites, just read some contents there from and the more you expose yourself to written language, better will be your ability to score well.

Practice is the key to performing well in the reading test and magazines and newspapers can be a great source here. This in turn will improve not only your reading speed, but also your ability to score high in this module.

As with the Academic IELTS reading, these are the questions you can expect to see on the test:

short-answer questions
multiple choice
sentence completion
notes/summary/diagram/flow chart/table completion
choosing a heading for a paragraph
identification of writer's views/claims - yes, no or not given
identification of information - true, false or not given
classification
matching lists/phrases.

The text in this section is longer and more difficult. It is a text on a topic of general interest.

There are 2 factual texts and they focus on issues related to work such as applying for a job, pay and conditions, staff training and development and company policies.

This section contains 2-3 short factual texts with topics that will be relevant to your everyday life when you live abroad in an English environment. For example, a text may consist of a number of advertisements.

short-answer questions
multiple choice
sentence completion
notes/summary/diagram/flow chart/table completion
choosing a heading for a paragraph
identification of writer's views/claims - yes, no or not given
identification of information - true, false or not given
classification
matching lists/phrases.

Instructions are clear and easy to follow and you will be provided with examples of any unfamiliar question types. Texts and questions appear on a Question Paper which you can write on but not take away from the test room.

You must answers all questions on an Answer Sheet during the 60 minutes - there is not extra time at the end to transfer your answers to an answer sheet.

The position of the questions varies - some of the questions may come before a passage, some may come after, depending on the question type.

There are three reading passages with a total of 2,150-2,750 words. Texts are taken from journals, magazines, books, and newspapers.

All the topics are of general interest and the texts have been written for a non-specialist audience. The readings are intended to be about issues that are appropriate to candidates who will enter postgraduate or undergraduate courses.

At least one text will contain detailed logical argument. One of the texts may contain non-verbal materials such as graphs, illustrations or diagrams.

If there are technical terms which you may not know in the text then a glossary is provided. The texts and questions become more difficult through the paper.

40 questions in 60 minutes
3 readings
Texts from advertisements, booklets, leaflets, manuals, notices, newspapers, magazines
Texts related to everyday life, work & general interest

40 questions in 60 minutes
3 readings
Texts from journals, magazines, books, newspapers
General interest texts written for non-specialist audience

Reading for gist
Reading for main ideas
Reading for detail
Understanding inferences and implied meaning
Recognising a writers opinions
Attitudes and purpose
Following the development of an argument