hi there it's asiya and for today's video i've selected the most common questions
you asked me about ielts reading they are here and i'll answer them in today's video
and i hope it will be useful for you because knowing more about the exam helps you avoid
silly mistakes and maximize your score by choosing the right strategy okay let's get started
okay let me answer each question one by one the first question is is it true
that the first section may be more difficult than the last so we're talking about ielts reading
there are always three sections and the first section is always the easiest and the last is
always the most difficult it may be the case that some question in section 2 will be more
difficult for you than some questions in section 3 but generally the last section is the most
challenging can we switch between sections in ielts reading and start with any part we like
absolutely as soon as the section begins you can turn your pages as you wish in a computer-based
test you can click on any question absolutely freely but you should always start from the
first section and then do the second and then the third because each answer weighs one point
so it's best to get all the easy points first and then spend all the remaining time on the
more challenging questions can i use the time from one reading section for another reading section
provided i finish the format very quickly yes when you read ielts reading instructions you will see
that you should spend 20 minutes on each section but the truth is you need more than 20 minutes
for the third section and perhaps hopefully you can finish the first in less than that
i would try to finish the first section in about 15 minutes not more 20 for the second and 25
for the third only in this case you have the chance to answer those more difficult questions
if you can you can progress through the test even more quickly and if you encounter a question you
can't answer don't lose too much time on it just leave it mark it to review you may come back to it
later and just move on to other questions you may answer more quickly okay do we get extra
time to transfer our answers to the answer sheet or do we have to do that within our 16 minutes
yes you have to finish everything in 60 minutes you're not gonna be given any extra time and i
know why there is this confusion that's because in ielts listening you do get some extra time
but in ielts reading you don't and you know every time i take a paper-based exam there are people
who run out of time and they can't transfer all their answers so they know what those answers are
they just can't mark them and they lose all those points so it's a total catastrophe that's why i
think it's better to play safe you've finished your first section transfer all the answers
except those you're not certain about you finish the second section transfer your answers
you finish the third section transfer your answers then go back to those questions you
couldn't answer straight away in case the time runs out more quickly than you expected
should we attempt all the questions in ielts reading or only the ones we know the answers to
yes you should answer every question you don't lose any points for incorrect answers
and for every question you just have four options sometimes only three options
so you have a good chance to guess correctly so for those questions you're not certain
about when you don't have time to answer them just select any answer is spelling important
oh yes if you make a typo it will be an incorrect answer particularly for those questions when you
need to fill gaps you usually need to find some complex words make sure you transfer those answers
very carefully onto your answer sheet and of course if you take a computer-based exam it's a
little bit easier for you because you can copy and paste the word avoiding the possibility of a typo
okay the next question is do true false not given questions come in order as far as i know
yes i've analyzed a number of official practice tests and i've always paid attention how questions
are located during my real exams and it seems that true false not given questions do come in order it
means you can read the first question find your answer read the next question find your answer
and so on but quite often you have yes no not given questions at the end of your third section
so most likely those won't be in order i've made my research into which types of questions come in
order and which don't and you can learn all that in this video here i will link it in the video
description answers for certain tasks common order right that's right so does the order start after
every task or does it continue from the point where the previous task's answer stopped yes
it continues throughout the passage you read the question find an answer read the question continue
reading the text until you find an answer and so on of course it may be interrupted if you see a
type of questions where answers don't come in order for example matching headings or matching
paragraphs matching sentence endings those questions don't come in order
can i write answers in capital letters yes both in ielts reading paper-based and computer-based
you can write your answers in capital letters or in small letters or you can capitalize the first
letter whatever way you wish let's continue can i write on the question sheets yes in the
paper-based exam i actually recommend marking your answers on the question sheets first you can cross
out incorrect options you can mark questions for review highlight keywords and do whatever you wish
then you simply transfer your answers to the answer sheet and no one will check your question
sheet so don't worry about that can we answer with just t f ng instead of true false not given
that's a common question and i did my best to find an official answer we could rely on
but unfortunately there is no such information available it seems to the best of my knowledge
you can but if you read the instructions very carefully you will see that you are supposed to
answer true false not given not t f ng so to be 100 safe i would write those words in full because
it just takes you a few extra seconds and of course in a computer-based exam you just click
on the option and it's not a question anymore should we include articles in our answers
to be honest i've never seen any article or preposition been used in ielts reading usually
you just need to find one word or two words and if you are hesitating between one or two words
well first check your instructions are you actually allowed to write two words because
if you're only supposed to write one word and you write two that's an incorrect answer
for example you find the combination birthday party so one word is party two
words birthday party is it possible to underline keywords in the computer-based test yes you can
right click highlight and you can do it in your passage and in your questions as well
are we allowed to use ctrl f to search for words unfortunately not this section is
blocked otherwise i guess it would be a little bit easier but no you can't do that you can use
two other combinations ctrl c to copy a word and ctrl v to paste this word that's useful for
questions when you need to fill a gap so when you find those words you just copy them and
paste can we see remaining seconds if we hover over the clock yes again that's a
question about a computer-based exam and that's the functionality i've just learned about but i
don't think that's particularly useful because it takes a bit of your time just to check it
and if you don't do that you will only see minutes so you will see two minutes left one minute left
and then your screen gets locked do we get a pencil and paper in the computer base test yes you
do you get a sheet with instructions and you get a pencil and you can write on this sheet but i don't
really see what you're gonna write there i don't see any need if you want to mark any questions for
review you can do it on the screen what are the best preparation materials for the reading part
okay you will need some practice tests and you should only take official practice tests because
other tests are just different different types of questions different level of complexity so
these are the official books the latest is number 15 and number 16 will be published in june 2021
so these are for academic students and you can find similar books for general training students
then you also need to learn about ielts reading strategies and here i may appear immodest but
i suggest watching the videos in my ielts reading playlist you will learn about all the strategies
for this exam you will learn about strategies for the most difficult types of questions
such as true false not given and matching headings and then you will take your practice tests and the
rest will depend on how quickly you can read in english and how wide your vocabulary is
could you recommend some materials books and newspapers to improve my reading
okay that's if you have a bit more time before your exam you should absolutely read in english so
for general training students i think the best is to switch your life to english read instructions
news job descriptions read everything in english these are the kinds of texts you
will find during your exam all students general training and academic students should read some
news in english the guardian and bbc are free and excellent sources of all kinds of articles
for academic students passages are going to be more academic more scientific so you should read
some scientific articles for example the science magazine
or simply the science section of the bbc website how much should they read on a daily basis
well if you need to improve your reading skills there is a good chance that you need to improve
your writing and speaking skills too and so you can't spend too much time on one section
you need to pay attention to each of them and even if you read 20 minutes a day two articles a day
that's great consistency is key and of course don't forget to learn new words from those
articles you don't have to learn all those words only those which you think you're more likely to
get in other articles more common words you don't know so these are more long-term strategies but of
course if you haven't taken your ielts exam yet maybe you can get to the required score
in a shorter period of time by taking those practice tests by learning those ielts
strategies it takes less time so i'm gonna link the ielts reading playlist i've been talking about
and thank you so much for watching me today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye