hi there hey it's asiya in this video i'll show you a strategy that can help you find
answers to ielts reading questions more quickly and as a result answer more questions correctly
many years ago this strategy helped me achieve a band 8 score in ielts reading even though i
couldn't understand a fair deal of what i was reading so i think it can help you too i'll
tell you about the strategy and then we'll discuss how you can use it with different types of tasks
just one question before we begin do you regularly watch my videos if yes please
subscribe to this channel it means the world to me and now let's get started
there are two main approaches to ielts reading the first is to read the passage and then answer
the questions the second is to answer questions as you're reading the passage for the first time
people who are fluent in english and can read fast can use any but for those who
aren't fluent yet the second strategy can be much more beneficial here is what it involves in ielts
reading you can find answers to many questions in the same order as you see the questions
this means that you can read the first question and then read the text until you find the answer
then read the next question continue reading the passage until you find the next answer and
so on in this case you don't have to read all the passage attentively which may take a lot of time
instead you read the question carefully and then you read quickly ignoring things you
don't understand perhaps and just looking for that place where the answer is because you don't spend
too much time trying to understand things which don't matter you have more time to concentrate on
sentences that do matter i still remember one of the topics in my very first ielts exam
it was about optics and how light is reflected by different surfaces
and i remember how difficult it was to understand some bits because i simply didn't know some key
words and i generally found the topic complex and confusing because i never liked physics but i was
still able to answer 35 questions in that test and got banned aid the trick is that some types
of questions come in order as i was describing but others don't and you need to know which is which
then as soon as you see a task you know what to do and it saves you a lot of time for this video
i've analyzed a number of official ielts practice tests and will tell you which question types
tend to come in order and which don't and what you should do then
please note that there is no guarantee that your test will be exactly like that but as far as i can
see at the moment the types of questions that come in order are missing words this is one of the most
common types of tasks in ielts reading the task reads complete the notes below choose one word
only and then you see gaps which you need to fill in with the missing words from the passage the
task may look slightly differently you may need to complete the table below or complete a summary
whatever it is as soon as you see these gaps you know that you need to find some missing words
and the answers in the passage come in the same order as the questions with this question type
be careful with the number of words sometimes you may need to choose one word only and sometimes
one or two words so don't exceed the limit the second question type that comes in order
is the notorious true false not given which is used in every test here you need to say if the
following statement agrees with the information in the passage or not these questions almost
always come in order a similar type of questions is yes no not given here you need to say if the
following statements agree with the claims of the writer so these questions are about opinions
and not information like true false not given but generally they're very similar and in most cases
the answers do come in order occasionally when you get this task in the very end of your reading
section they may not but in other instances they do i have a detailed strategy for true false not
given and yes no not given questions in a separate video and i will link it in the video description
box below by the way don't worry about writing anything down if you go to my telegram channel
you can download the images with all the question types that come in order and that don't come in
order and use them for your reference later the channel is called fast track ielts
and if you search for the hashtag ft10 you get straight to these images the next question type
that comes in order is sentence endings here you need to complete each sentence with the correct
ending and there are some other questions where you need to match information but this is the
only one that comes in order next multiple choice questions if you see several questions with three
or four options a b c d and you need to select one correct answer these questions come in order
please note that sometimes you may need to find two correct answers out of five options
and those answers may not come in order but we'll talk about them later answers
that do not come in order okay let's talk about all the questions where answers do not come in the
same order as questions are asked in many cases what you can do instead is to read one paragraph
and see if it answers any questions then read the next paragraph and so on so what
question types do not come in order matching information questions there are several types
of questions where you need to match something and probably the best known is matching headings
usually this type of question comes before the passage i mean in a paper-based exam
first you see the task it takes the whole page and then the passage comes on the next page
and the task reads choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below
and headings are in a box numbered using the roman numerals and a list of paragraphs or sections
is underneath and you need to find a suitable heading for each paragraph for each section
obviously the first heading will not be about the first paragraph they don't come in order
and my strategy for this type of question is to read the first paragraph then read all the
headings find the right one read the second paragraph match it to its heading and so on
and i suggest matching all the headings first and then transferring all your answers
to the answer sheet that's because in this task you may want to change
some of your answers as you go and i have a separate video about this type of task will be
linked in the description box below matching paragraphs this task is slightly different
it reads which paragraph or section contains the following information even matching headings you
need to match each section of the passage with its heading in matching paragraphs you may have just
four or five questions and they're usually located right after the passage they belong to
again i find that the best way to answer this type of question is to read a paragraph find the answer
read the next paragraph find the answer and so on it seems that if you have let's say four
statements you'll be able to match them with the first four paragraphs just not an order
and that means uh that you will answer the remaining questions using information in the
remaining paragraphs which you haven't read yet and in this case you will answer all the questions
about the passage by reading it only once there is one little thing you should pay your attention to
in some tasks you can use each section only once but sometimes you may need to use some
paragraphs twice then you worried you may use any letter more than once check if that's the case in
your task if it is you will definitely use one of the letters more than once matching information
quite often you need to match surnames of people with what they did like in this task
match each statement with a correct explorer and if you see this type of task highlight
all the surnames in the text then you'll be able to find the part of the text where the answer is
located very quickly actually you can read about the explorers in the text in the same order as you
can find their surnames on the list so hardy is first but he's not on the list at all but
then we have peter fleming ren chris robin and finally wilfred so statements are not an order
of course read information about one explorer and then match it with the correct statement
read information about the next explorer and so on to summarize matching headings matching paragraphs
and matching information do not come in order however matching sentence endings
usually does multiple choice questions with five options and two correct answers the task reads
choose two letters from a to e and here you see five options two are correct and some of these
come in order and some don't and it really varies questions at the end of the reading test
usually don't come in order if you have a couple of questions at the very end of your reading test
they usually don't come in order whatever type of questions you may find there the last few
questions are usually the trickiest and it's just one more way to make it more difficult for you
if you see yes no not given questions about the last passage particularly at the end
then they usually don't come in order either basically everything i told you in this video are
the general rules that i deduced from the official practice tests and from the real tests by paying
attention to where i could find my answers there is no guarantee that your tasks will be built
in this exact way but even if some of them are different this strategy can still help you find
answers more quickly giving you a chance to answer more questions don't forget to see the images with
the list of questions that come in order and that don't have an order on our telegram channel
to learn about the strategies for other types of tasks and how to prepare for your exam quickly
download my free ielts study plan it includes links to all the free official practice tests too
thank you for watching me today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye