This is the IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1503.
Three reading strategies that every IELTS student needs.
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English.
Downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner -trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two -minute quiz at allearsenglish .com slash myscore.
Do you think you'll be able to finish the IELTS reading test on time?
Think again. again.
In this episode, we give you a sneak peek into the strategies that will save you time on the IELTS reading test. Do you ever freeze up in conversation?
Even when you know the words, you pause, correct yourself, and suddenly your confidence disappears.
You're not alone. At the B1 level, many English English learners struggle with fluency, not just vocabulary.
That's why we created our B1 English fluency course now with new opportunities to get immediate and unlimited AI pronunciation feedback to help you speak naturally without overthinking every sentence.
Join hundreds of learners building real confidence through smart, simple speaking practice in B1 English fluency and join Our weekly open conversation club for live practice.
This week only you can save $50 off the normal price.
Go to all ears English dot com slash be one offer expires July 20 at midnight.
Hello, Aubrey, how's it going today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you, Aubrey?
I have a question for you.
You ready? All right.
So have you ever taken a test that you didn't have the time to complete?
Yes, the LSAT. So this is an exam that you have to take in order to go to law school.
And it is impossible to complete that exam in the time that you have, right?
So most students who are studying for this, it's all about time saving strategies, like trying to figure out how to answer these questions in the time you have. If you had hours and hours, you could get a perfect score on that exam.
But in the time you have, it's impossible.
If you have like a minute per question, and these questions should take like 20 minutes each, it feels impossible.
So what did you do sitting in the exam?
I mean, how did you react or handle it?
I didn't end up taking it because I kept taking practice exams, and I could not do it in the amount of time I could not like no matter what I did, I couldn't get the score that I would need in order to get into law school.
And part of that's because my GPA with my undergrad, you have to get a higher LSAT score depending on your undergrad GPA.
And I was working full -time when I was in undergrad.
So it wasn't bad, but it wasn't a 4 .0.
So anyway, I pivoted.
I decided not to go to law school.
I also had four children, young children at the time that I was thinking about going to law school.
So it was an uphill battle for me.
Yeah. It's so intense being a lawyer from what I hear just so much work.
That too. I also wasn't sure I wanted to be a lawyer.
Yeah. Not being able to get the LSAT score on practice tests.
I'm like, okay, maybe we need a new plan.
Makes the decision very clear.
Right? Exactly. Interesting.
Yeah. So that's similar to the IELTS exam, right?
I mean, there's a lot of time management issues on IELTS reading.
Exactly right. This is very similar to what you are experiencing, listeners out out there as you are preparing for the IELTS reading exam.
It's not a comprehension exam because you do not have time to read the passages entirely.
Take the time to answer these questions without strategies that help you save time.
It's impossible to get a perfect score.
But if you have the strategies you need, we have a lot of students who score band nine on IELTS reading.
Oh, I love that. This episode is inspired by a question from a listener that came in.
Shall I go ahead and read the question?
Yeah, let's hear it.
it. All right. The listener says, how can I be perfect in reading as I'm unable to complete the entire reading test?
Or when I complete it, I'm always stuck at a six.
And that is from Shubhkar Man from a webinar that we did, a live webinar.
Yes, exactly. And so first of all, solidarity here.
I know a lot of you out there feel the same, right?
How can I complete this entire exam in the time I'm given, right?
You have about one minute per question, which feels feels impossible.
A lot of these reading passages are very long and a lot of the multiple choice questions take a lot of thought.
So we get it, right?
If you're out there and you're like, I cannot do the entire reading exam in the time I have. The problem is that you don't have time saving strategies.
It's all about the strategy.
But also if you're right there with a Shubh Garman and you're stuck at a six, you keep scoring a six when you do the exam, same problem.
It's It's about the strategies, right?
We have students that will be getting that score again and again.
And once they start practicing and using our strategies, then they're able to get seven or higher.
Yeah, I've seen crazy score increases.
Yeah, especially for those in our courses, learning our reading strategies, where in our course, Three Keys IELTS, we go into more depth, right, Aubrey?
Into the reading, how to actually do it.
On the podcast, we don't have the time to really show you how to use it.
We can give you a couple of hints, but I've seen people get nines after taking our course.
It's wild, right? right it is kind of wild especially if you're scoring a five or a six and then you start practicing these strategies to realize you can get a nine it is quite a swing and this is one of the exams speaking and writing might take more time to be able to boost your scores reading once you have the strategies it's just a matter of practicing them and then you can get the score you need on ielts reading very inspiring i love that guys before we go any further we are going to give you some hints about the strategy here today but hit the follow button so you don't miss a single episode
of IELTS Energy, okay?
Yes, absolutely, right?
Hit follow right here on the podcast. And we want to first cover some possible problems that might be causing you to either not be able to finish the exam or to score the span six, right?
If you don't have strategies, what our students may be doing that is keeping their score low, Lindsay?
Yeah. So I'll ask you, ask yourself a question, everyone.
Are you doing this, right?
Listen up. So here's the first one.
Reading every word. Is that what you're doing?
Right. Right. It's not like we said, it's not just a reading comprehension exam.
There is just not enough time to read entire passages, especially of the academic exam.
Some of the passages on the general exam will be like a brochure, something that's quite a bit smaller, quicker to read through.
But some of these passages are extremely lengthy, long paragraphs where you're finding finding information in paragraphs, which takes quite a bit of time.
If you are trying to first read the entire passage word for word, boom, time's up.
You don't have time to do the entire exam.
I love the way you said that.
Boom, time's up. Yeah, it's true, but it's counterintuitive, right?
Because you would think it's a reading test. I have to read it.
I have to read every word. I have to fully understand what's in front of me, Aubrey, right?
Exactly, right? So if you haven't really looked into IELTS and how little time they give you for this, that's going to be be your instinct to maybe read through the questions first, but then read the entire passage word for word. You can't do this.
That's the first thing.
You don't have time to do that.
Cannot do it. And what would be the second mistake, Aubrey, that our listeners might be making?
Yeah. The second mistake is, like we were saying, you don't have the strategies you need.
You have about one minute per question on the IELTS exam.
So you need strategies to find the answers quickly.
And the other thing you might be doing is you might have learned a few strategies and you're trying to apply them to every question.
Unfortunately, there are different strategies for every question type because for some questions, the answers will be found in order.
Some questions they aren't.
Some questions you're looking for main ideas.
Others you're looking for specific things.
So for each question type, you need to know the strategies for that set of questions.
I mean, this is why we see that not all native speakers get a perfect nine on IELTS, right?
They don't have strategies.
So they probably do also do that.
They probably try to read everything and don't apply any strategies at all.
Yes, this happens a lot, right?
A native speaker will think, well, I'm a fast reader.
I can read the entire passage, get the answers, and they're missing answers because there are these tricks and traps that are in all of the exams. And also, they also don't have time to read all of these passages.
So, yeah, native speakers often don't get the best scores on IELTS reading.
All right. So if you really want to fully understand how to use our strategies, you obviously have to be in our course, three keys IELTS Abre where can they go to get into the course yeah go to all ears english .com keys k -e -y -s to get our full system of strategies every strategy you need for each question type on IELTS reading and every part of the exam yes but but for today we'll give you a little hint right just a little sneak peek into these strategies and how to do them right exactly so for a lot of the question types there are three things that you need to do and depending on the different
strategies, right? You might make predictions and identify keywords.
There might be things that you're needing to do before this first step.
But in general, you're always going to need to skim the passage.
What does this mean, Lindsay, to skim a passage?
So basically, we take one minute to skim it to get a sense of what is being said.
You get the main idea from the first and the last lines of each paragraph is what skimming is right but imagine taking one minute for some of these passages that are very long it's going to be like very quickly like first line last line just your eye kind of going you're getting the main idea the gist and that's it write a quick skim of the entire article or brochure or whatever it is to give yourself an idea of the gist clearly this is a skill that we have to practice Aubrey right yes definitely so then next So, next, after you skim the passage, scanning.
So, often, you're first going to go to the questions.
You're scanning to identify keywords.
You're not reading every word of questions, you're looking for keywords.
And what will these be, right?
These are important words that must be in the passage, either a synonym for them, maybe a parallel expression, a paraphrase.
But they are going to be there, right?
And all of the extra words around a keyword, those won't necessarily be in the passage.
Oh good to know, okay, so scanning is the second strategy and then read in detail is our third. Tell us about that Aubree and how we can use that.
Yeah so you're first you're scanning the questions then you're scanning the passage looking for those keywords when you find them and it rarely will be the actual word. It's often a synonym, a parallel expression, there's often paraphrase, right, when you find it that's when you reach this next step to read in detail, right?
Once you find those keywords, then you read the sentence there in closely.
If needed, read the sentence before or after.
The answer is almost always there.
If it's not, keep scanning the text and look for another instance of that keyword or a synonym, a parallel expression of that keyword. The answers are always around those keywords.
So we're being very strategic, very selective about what we're actually reading.
So it's not not just that you can't read everything, is that you have to read certain things.
Exactly, right? There are specific areas where you will read in detail once you know where the answer is.
You're reading a few sentences to find that answer.
You're going to end up skipping a lot of the passage when you scan, scan, scan, find the keyword right here is where we read in detail.
There will be large sections of articles that you won't need to read at all.
And when you know which question sets have the answers in order once you find an answer you know you can start from there to scan and look for the next keyword in the next answer yeah it's kind of like a filtering process right it's really kind of an amazing strategy to do this and to execute on it in the right amount of time in the right way the right order takes a lot of instruction and practice but we're getting kind of a sneak peek today love it with a Venmo debit card you can Venmo more than just your friends you can use your balance in so many ways you You can Venmo everything.
Need gas? You can Venmo this.
How about snacks? You can Venmo that.
Your favorite band's merch?
You can Venmo this.
Or their next show?
You can Venmo that.
Visit Venmo .me slash debit to learn more.
The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank and a pursuant to license by MasterCard International Incorporated.
Card may be used everywhere MasterCard is accepted.
Venmo purchase restrictions apply.
All right, Aubrey. What else do we need to know?
I mean, there were other question types as well, right?
Right. Yeah. So there are specific strategies for each question type.
We want to make sure that you don't maybe see a strategy somewhere online or hear one from another person and then try to apply it to every question type.
It is going to be specific.
It's going to be different depending on the question type.
For example, as we mentioned, you need to know which answers are found in order and which aren't, because sometimes you will have to kind of start back at the top of the passage scan for those that aren't in order.
A good example is for finding headings to paragraphs.
You need to know that main ideas are usually in the beginning end of the paragraphs, the first line, second line, and that's all you're going to scan to look for those.
Every now and then, one will be in the middle of a paragraph.
Almost always, those main ideas are right in the beginning or the end of paragraphs.
Saves you so much time.
And what about this question type, yes, no, no, not given or true, false, not given.
That one seems to trip students up a bit.
It does. Yes. This is one of the most difficult, especially when it comes to identifying which answers are not given.
So this takes practice.
This takes strategies, knowing what do you do, right?
One of the strategies is to ask yourself, is the answer, I don't have enough information.
And that's not really instinctive for us.
We want to say no, if we really don't have have enough information.
So being able to tell the difference between whether you should answer no or not given, there are strategies you need to use and practice.
Because even once you know the strategy, you can't just go on test day and be able to do it perfectly.
You're going to need to be able to practice using those strategies.
Oh my gosh. It seems like a lot to do on our own, right?
To me, it feels like we need a plan.
We need a process, a curriculum to actually learn this step by step in 30 days, 60 days.
Absolutely. Right. For all the strategies, you know, as we said, you can use our online study course.
It s 3 Keys IELTS. Go to allhearsenglish .com slash keys.
Like Lindsay mentioned we provide a study plan.
If you have 30 days or 60 days, you can choose the study plan that works for the amount of time you have. And we give you every strategy you need for every question type and for speaking, writing, listening, and reading for every part of the exam.
You can find all of the strategies you need there.
All right. Good stuff.
Aubrey, any final piece of wisdom when it comes to IELTS around mindset, around how we should approach IELTS?
I can imagine how discouraging this is to take practice reading exams and either not be able to complete them or to get a six over and over and over.
I could imagine just giving up like I did, honestly, for the LSAT. I'm like, nope, can't do it.
New plan. But for a lot of you, that's not an option, right?
You are going to immigrate.
You're going to go to school in an English -speaking country.
You need to get these scores.
So you need to stay motivated and you need strategies that will help you realize that you can do this, but you need strategies to help you save time on IELTS reading.
Yeah, it's like everyone has the same amount of time.
We have 24 hours in a day, maybe we're awake 12 hours in a day, whatever it is, but it's how we use that time, right, Aubrey, which determines our success in life ultimately.
Exactly right. If you are spending a ton of time just reading, reading the news, reading books but not learning strategies, you won't be ready for the IELTS reading exam because even if you read pretty quickly and you understand most what you read, you still won't have time to answer all of these questions.
Yeah, just ask those native speakers who didn't get a perfect score.
Exactly. All right.
Good stuff. Very inspiring.
Guys, go to allersenglish .com slash k -e -y -s to join the course today.
Aubrey, you have a good day.
Yes. Awesome. See you next time, Lindsay.
Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish .com slash my score.
