So in this video I'm going to give you a
few really effective tips for how to
prepare for the IELTS reading test. And
my first tip is to read something
everyday in English even if it's
only for 20 minutes a day. Try and to read
something at least. It will get your
brain thinking in English as it reads in
English. You can read articles from
magazines or from news websites on topics
that interest you
and it's also a good idea to read about
topics that come up regularly in the
IELTS test, such as health, education and
the environment, and this will help you
build your confidence when reading and
it will also help you grow your
vocabulary. What I'm going to do now is
show you some websites, quite a few
websites which are very good sources of
reading material, and links to all these
websites are in the links...the
external links below the video.
Here's one very useful website: the BBC
News Magazine. It features lots of topical
issues, round-ups of UK news and letters,
sometimes it has a quiz as well. And the
Economist. This covers international news and
politics, business, finance, science
as well, technology, so there's loads of
good articles in here. And The Economist
Technology Quarterly is also very good.
They've got lots of technology news,
technology articles too. And The Economist
Magazine, called 1843 (which is the year
that The Economist started) and it's got
lots of lifestyle, culture articles in
here.
Popular Science is a monthly online
magazine about current scientific issues
and technology, and the New Scientist:
again another science website, also has
lots of the latest news and articles
about scientific research. National
Geographic, you may have heard of. This is
a website of course about geography
exploration, the environment.
Science Focus is a web site run by the BBC,
so it's the BBC'S science website and it's
got lots of technology news in here as
well.
Science Daily has lots of the latest
science news and articles, things like
global warming, planets, the natural world
also diseases come up here as well and
cures. And the American Scientist. This
is to do with scientific research, so it
covers some of the latest research in
America. And Australian Geographic covers
things to do, connected with wildlife and
the environment and again science and
adventure. So it's really important to
try and read as much as you can, but it's
also important to try and practice the
IELTS reading test as well at home
because it will give you a better
understanding of what to do in the tests
and it will make you feel a lot more
confident as well and it will help you
time your tests as well. Now there
are a lot of practice materials online
which you can buy and lots of websites
where you can download practice
materials as well so I strongly
recommend you try to find some good
reading practice materials on the
Internet or to buy books like these that
you can get.
Now when you begin to practice tests for
the reading test, make sure that you do
it in a slow way
first of all. Now what I mean by 'slow
practice' is basically you have the
answers near you so that you can check
your answers after you've done each
question. And it will help you understand
how the reading test works. So for
example, here is a part of the general
training IELTS reading test with the
question at the top and the text on the
left.
So what you should try and do is look at
the questions, look at the text. Decide
what you think the answer is and you can
check the answers in the back of the
book. And if you get the answer wrong, what
you need to do is just work out why
you've got it wrong: why is it not A? Why
is the answer D? So think about why the
answer is D. So don't get upset or sad
just try to learn from your mistakes
instead and once you're more confident
with answering the IELTS reading test
questions then you can do some timed
practice and try and complete the test
within the 60-minute time limit.
So those are a my main tips for how to
prepare for the IELTS reading test.