IELTS: Speed Reading Techniques

In the IELTS reading subtest, the goal is to read, comprehend and locate the necessary information quickly within the given time limit. Crucial to the said goal is the capability of a reader to understand about 800-1000 words with great speed. So here are a few techniques to implement when faced with your next reading test.

1. Try to simply read faster:  It is proven that everyone can read faster than their normal pace and this holds water in our experience. Even the most inexperienced readers can do this from the get-go. So give this tip a try, constantly remind yourself to try and read at a pace that is above your normal and practice this until that becomes the new normal for you.
2. Skim and scan: These are some of the most common methods that are implemented by the students, sometimes subconsciously. When you skim the passage, you read the passage with a basic understanding of the things being said while paying no attention to the extreme details. Scanning requires you to run your eyes over the passages to locate specific facts that are required to answer the questions.
3. Reading to find the keywords: Specifically locating the words in the passage that are often surrounded by important information is called searching for the keywords. This can include anything that cannot be paraphrased or represented in any other way. For instance: Names, Years, Places. When reading, it is also a good idea to mark any such words by underlining them.
4. Recall the position of an answer: Once you locate an answer, keep a few lines before and after it under special supervision. There are often cases when two answers are located in the same lines. This will save you the trouble of locating the answer by reading everything again and a lot of time too.
5. Summarization: Every paragraph has a topic sentence and the purpose of this is the give the reader a brief overview of what is about to be discussed in the paragraph. Reading the topic sentence and the final sentence of the paragraph will give you a fair idea of what is being said and you can look at this to decide if you are to look into this passage for finding the answer.

It is important to note that all these above-said tips can only guarantee results after a good amount of practice and fine-tuning your reading style to suit them best. So make sure to have plenty of hours put in before you actually use them on the test day.

Happy Scoring!