Day: 13 September 2015

Introduction # Reading Course

Learning how to read in English is the first step one can take to achieve a high band in IELTS. This goes especially for the native speakers. Now, if on the first day of preparing for IELTS you go about and start reading an academic journal, chances are high that you will completely lose your brain and in worse case stop preparing for IELTS altogether.
This is not something that British council or IDP wants and I am sure that this is not something that you will like yourself. Giving up is not the first choice of anyone.

So, how can one improve their reading skills? The only way you can do it, is move step by step. Take a firm step and move forward only if you have already taken the previous step with your entire heart out.
With this article, we are now beginning a series of post that will help you to improve your reading skills day by day. The course is free and frankly speaking, if you read the posts every day, level by level, I can assure you a 7.5+ band in IELTS.
So, what is the course and how is it going to go about? Well, there is no rocket science or new inventions going about here. The posts that will be published under this section, will be the ones that have already been published. So, what is the point of it? Well, the posts will be thoroughly examined and will be divided into levels, helping you to not fall in the trap of fear of English.
This will be taken from story books, magazines, novels, scientific journals, reports i.e. the stuff that you will find questions from, in the reading section of your IELTS.

There are four levels to this course-
Level 1 – This level will have posts from secondary level English books, content that is usually published in the local English newspapers. The content size will be 150-200 words.
Level 2 – This level will have articles from magazines, international newspapers, content that a graduate tends to find in his/her book. The content size will be 250-500 words.
Level 3 – This level will have extracts from scientific magazines, books on topics such as sociology or phycology etc. The content size will be 500-1100 words.
And don’t you worry, there won’t be just posts, the difficult words will be explained saving you from the hassle of looking for dictionary every time, you wish to read.

Remember, a wall can be built only if you think about placing the brick in hand perfectly and not get lost in the size and the complexities of building the wall.
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Multiple-Choice Task # Strategies

We have already talked about how to answer the completion tasks of IELTS reading section. This time let us talk about the strategies for solving multiple-choice tasks.
Multiple choice task are used to test a varied range of your reading skills. Some of them may require you to comprehend (understand) the main point or a specific point. You are given four options and you may be asked either to select only one or more than one options.
Note- The questions are given in the same order as the information in the passage.
How to answer such questions correctly and quickly?

Elimination is important
The first thing you need to do is, remove the options you think are logically incorrect. Next, remove the ones which although might be right grammatically but are not correct meaning wise. In the end, you will be left with the correct answer.
Find the reason
Once you have found the right answer, make sure it fits in well grammatically i.e. either completes the sentence perfectly or gives an appropriate reason or explanation. Once you have found the correct answer, make sure to check that other options are wrong.

If you are unable to find the answer, do not waste time. Remember you have got only 40 minutes to answer three passages (in case of academic and five or six in case of general) and each question is of only one mark. But make sure you mark an answer as there is no negative marking for wrong answers.
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Completion Task Strategies

Reading section of IELTS has different question types. Although I am sure that you are familiar with the strategies for reading section, in case you are not, click here.

This time we are not talking about the general strategies for solving the reading section, instead the focus is now on the specific questions that are asked in the reading section.
Let us begin.

COMPLETION TASK

This task includes within itself sentence completion or note/summary/flow chart/table completion or short answer type questions or the diagram labelling.
How should you answer such questions?

Answer Properly
Make sure your answer includes the words essential to answering the questions correctly. Correct answers can contain fewer than the maximum number of words as stated in the question.
Don’t change anything
These are the question types in which you need to make sure that you use the exact same words as in the passage. You cannot even change the structure of the words. For instance, if in the passage the answer is in present continuous, you cannot even make it present perfect.
How to find the answer?
While answering these questions, before you read the passage, just read the question and try to make a guess of what could be the possible answer. Then, skim the text and find out the paragraph from where the question has been taken. While skimming, look for synonyms and paraphrases. And while answering keep in mind both the grammar and the spelling.
Focus on meaning than grammar
In some completion task, you are provided with options. When answering make sure to read the options properly. The options are set is so that they all fit grammatically with the statement in the question. You need to rather find out the one that fits perfectly according to the meaning.

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Know The Numbers

Numbers are a very important part of the listening section. You will hear them a lot and most importantly they will be of different types. For example, sometime you will hear a phone number or the other times a date or a price or a decimal fraction. So, let us understand what these numbers are and make sure that the exam does not gives you creeps.

Telephone numbers
There are different ways of speaking a telephone number.

  1. They are spoken as individual numbers. For instance, 23489 will be spoken as “ two three four eight nine”.
  2. The numbers even get grouped. For example, if the number is a seven digit number, they get grouped in two groups, one of three and the other of four. So, 234569 will be said as “ two three four…..(pause) five six nine”.
  3. They even get grouped into larger numbers usually when there are zeroes in it. For instance, 234500 will be said as “two three four five hundred”.
  4. Zero often gets pronounced as “o” as in go.
  5. Terms such as triple and double are used if there are more than one digit. For example, the phone number 2349992 will be spoken as “two three four….. triple nine six”.
Know The Numbers

Know The Numbers

Decimal numbers
If you have already learnt math, you won’t have difficulty understanding it. Either ways, it is neither too tough. A decimal such as 23.34 is spoken in two parts. The first part i.e. before the point is pronounced in its entirety i.e. twenty three. Next comes a dot, which is pronounced as “point” and the digits after point are read as single numbers. As in, three four. So, the entire number is spoken as, twenty three point three four.
Fractions
Apart from half (1/2), quarter (1/4) and a third (1/3), every other fraction is spoken with a ‘th’ at the end. For example- 4/5 is spoken as “four-fifth”.
Dates
There are two ways of expressing dates-

  1. In Britain English, the day comes before the month and periods are often used to separate elements. For example, July 3 1994 will be written as 3.07.1994.
  2. In American English, the month comes before the day and slashes are used to separate elements. For example – December 9 1995 will be written as 09/03/1995.

However, in IELTS, you either write date as – 3 July. If it is compulsory to add the year, you must write, 3 July 1994.

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