IELTS Reading tips and tricks

The format at a glance

Time

60 minutes, no extra transfer time

Questions

40, one mark per question

Sections

3 passages or sections

Suggested pace

About 20 minutes per passage

Academic

Three long texts from books, journals, magazines and newspapers

General Training

Everyday and workplace texts, then one longer general-interest text

Run the clock, not the passage

• Budget roughly 20 minutes per passage and move on when the time is up, even with questions unanswered. The last passage is worth the same marks as the first.
• Do the questions in the order printed, because most question types follow the order of the text and each answer narrows the search area for the next.
• Give yourself a hard limit of about 90 seconds per question. If you exceed it, put a plausible answer in and flag it.
• Leave three or four minutes at the end for flagged questions and for checking spelling in the gap-fill answers.
• Never read a whole passage before looking at the questions. You do not have time to read the passage twice.

Skim first, then scan, then read closely

These are three different actions and mixing them up is the most common cause of running out of time.

• Skim once for structure: title, first line of each paragraph, and any headings. Ninety seconds is enough. You want to know where things are, not what they say.
• Scan for the specific marker in the question: a name, a year, a number, a capitalised term, a technical word. These are rarely paraphrased and act as an anchor.
• Once you have found the region, read those two or three sentences slowly and completely. Marks are won and lost in that close read, not in the scan.
• Underline or note the paragraph letter beside each answer as you go, so verification later takes seconds.
• Do not sub-vocalise the whole text. Reading every word at speaking speed does not fit inside 60 minutes.

True / False / Not Given and Yes / No / Not Given

These reward a very literal reading. True/False/Not Given is about facts in the passage; Yes/No/Not Given is about the writer's claims and opinions.

• Not Given means the passage neither confirms nor contradicts the statement. It does not mean 'I could not find it', so search properly before choosing it.
• False and No require an actual contradiction somewhere in the text, not merely an absence.
• Watch quantifiers closely. 'All', 'never', 'only', 'the majority' and 'some' are usually the exact word the answer turns on.
• Do not use outside knowledge. A statement that is true in the real world is False if the passage says otherwise.
• Answer each statement using the passage alone, in the order given, and stay within the region the previous answer left you in.

Matching headings, information and features

• For matching headings, read the paragraph's first and last sentences, then decide the main idea before you look at the heading list. Choosing from the list first invites keyword matching.
• Headings describe the whole paragraph. A heading that matches one striking detail is normally the distractor.
• Cross off headings as you use them and do the paragraphs you are sure of first; the remaining choices then narrow quickly.
• Matching information questions do not follow the text order, so treat them as a scanning task and leave them until you know the passage layout.
• For matching features, build a quick shortlist of the names or categories and where each one appears before you start assigning.

Completion questions and word limits

• Sentence, summary, note, table and flow-chart completion answers must come from the passage, spelled exactly as printed.
• Read the instruction line for the limit and count hyphenated words as one.
• Predict the word class before searching. A gap after 'a rapid' needs a noun, and that halves the search.
• Summary completion with a word bank uses paraphrases of the passage, so match meaning rather than looking for the identical word.
• Check that your completed sentence is grammatical. If it does not read correctly, the answer is usually wrong.
• Type only what the gap is missing. Repeating words already printed either side of the gap pushes you over the limit and voids the answer.
• Where the answer is a letter or a Roman numeral, give exactly as many as the instruction asks for. Adding a spare letter makes the whole answer wrong.

Beat the paraphrase trap

• The passage almost never repeats the question's wording. Train on synonym families: reduce/decline/fall/drop, cause/trigger/give rise to, important/significant/crucial.
• Words repeated verbatim between question and passage are often planted near a wrong answer.
• Note the writer's stance verbs, such as claims, argues, concedes, disputes. Yes/No/Not Given questions frequently hinge on them.
• Keep a running personal list of paraphrase pairs you missed in practice; that list is worth more than any generic vocabulary book.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

• Reading the entire passage carefully before looking at the questions.

  Fix: Skim for structure in 90 seconds, then let the questions drive the close reading.

• Choosing Not Given because the answer was hard to locate.

  Fix: Locate the relevant region first. Only choose Not Given when the text genuinely stops short of the claim.

• Spending eight minutes on one matching-headings question.

  Fix: Cap every question at about 90 seconds, guess, flag, and come back if time allows.

• Copying an answer with a spelling slip from the passage.

  Fix: Completion answers must be spelled as printed. Check them in your final review pass.

• Assuming General Training Reading is easy and pacing badly.

  Fix: The final General Training section is a long text carrying a large share of the marks, so protect time for it.

• Leaving questions blank.

  Fix: There is no negative marking. Fill every box before time is called.

Question type by question type

Each guide covers what the task looks like on screen, how it is marked, four strategies and the two traps specific to it.

• Multiple Choice (Single)Choose one answer A/B/C/D.Read the guide
• Multiple Choice (Multiple)Choose TWO or THREE answers.Read the guide
• True / False / Not GivenDecide if statements match the passage.Read the guide
• Yes / No / Not GivenMatch claims to writer's views.Read the guide
• Matching HeadingsMatch headings to the correct paragraphs.Read the guide
• Matching InformationMatch statements to paragraphs.Read the guide
• Matching FeaturesMatch people or statements to the correct options.Read the guide
• Matching Sentence EndingsComplete sentences from a list.Read the guide
• Sentence CompletionFill gaps with words from the passage.Read the guide
• Summary Completion (Word Bank)Complete a summary using choices from a word bank.Read the guide
• Short AnswerAnswer questions in a few words.Read the guide

Common questions