#Useful 3 secrets to IELTS Band 8 Reading Everything you | _English with Mr Jeff
#Useful
3 secrets to IELTS Band 8 Reading
Everything you need to answer the question you will find in the question! (Secret 1)
What I mean by this is that if you make the question your main focus you will find it easier to locate the answer in the text. Often I see students underlining multiple words and phrases in the text before they have even looked at the question and I always ask them why they do this? Unless you know what to look for then spending too much time on the text is wasting precious minutes.
Don’t spend more than 1 minute on any one question (Secret 2)
I say this over and over to students but most of them find it hard to accept. The truth is that you have 60 minutes to do 40 questions so you cannot afford to waste time on one question. The questions (NOT the passage) will be trickier in passage three so you may need more time. So here is a typical scenario – you get stuck on question 6 you spend a few minutes, you are determined to find the answer – after all it’s only question 6 – you arrive at passage 3 your time runs out at question 32 you have to guess the rest – sound familiar? The fact is that now your score will be out of 32 so unless you get 100% correct there is only a slim chance you can reach your band 7 – it is simple mathematics. ‘It’s only question 6’ is a good reason to leave it, move on and come back later. If you adopt and practise this technique you will find that you have plenty of time.
Understand the difference between skimming and scanning and get good at these skills (Secret 3)
You will find these words in every blog post, every website and every course book about IELTS reading. Do you know the difference? Can you use the techniques effectively to get the right answers? Skimming is reading quickly to get an overview of the text – you need this skill to get a general idea of the topic and also in questions like headings. Scanning is a skill used to find specific key words which you can then analyse more carefully to get your answer. You need to develop both skills in order to manage your time well and increase your score.
