10 Excellent IELTS Reading Tips

Ielts7band
3 min readMay 2, 2019

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Are you worried about your IELTS reading score? Well, this article has got you covered. It will tell you all about IELTS reading tips in 10 easy to follow points. Go ahead read them and get that excellent score.

How to increase the IELTS reading score?

Hmm, now like every subject, IELTS has its own strategies. Below points will help you improve reading scores.

1. Be realistic- these tips will not get you a score of 8 or 9 unless you have the exceptional vocabulary or guessing techniques. Well, do not rely on the former that much. You can judge and rate yourself. Decide what areas in reading you should focus on more and get practicing.

2. Build up on the skills related to the type of reading questions — 14 questions will be asked and you need to devise a method to answer each one of them. Understand the pattern carefully.

3. Learn to skim and scan quickly- In IELTS it is important that you get through the questions quickly enough to get the answers required. Efficient skim and scan techniques will help you here. Read the questions first and then the paragraph. This way, you already have an idea about what you should be looking for. About 2 to 3 minutes is enough time to skim and scan. Practice this IELTS reading tip as it is really helpful.

4. Understanding the paragraph- You are not obligated to understand the passage given. You only need to identify the tone and concept of the passage. Once you get these two, answering the questions will get easy. Two types of questions that require you to study the passages match the headings one and chose the right title. Apart from these, just scan the passage and search the potential answers.

5. Polish your reading skills- Read as much as you can. Reading a lot will help you to improve your speed in understanding the passage. It will also help you in extracting the necessary information needed.

6. Improve your vocabulary- now this doesn’t happen overnight and you will have to work extra hard. Learn how the word is being used instead of just learning its meaning. Check out the synonyms of the word to understand better. The more you read the more you learn.

7. Keywords- Yes, keywords come in handy a lot. They help locate information from dense passages and lead you to the correct answer. See if the keywords are paraphrased because IELTS is a trickster. Keep your eyes open for the synonyms of keywords.

8. Practice and practice- It can’t be emphasized enough that practice is the key to success. There are many IELTS reading passages online, both free and paid, so you can them for your advantage.

9. Read the newspaper- No, not the college newspaper. Read an economic or science article where the language and information both are hard to make out. Practice by reading the hard passages to get the gist of the IELTS reading test.

10. Read about others strategies- You will find that many people who scored well are asked about how they were able to do so. Read or listen to what they have to say to try to implement their strategies.

Hope the above mentioned IELTS reading tips help you score well. Remember to practice and practice. No short cut to an 8 or 9 band has been discovered yet.

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