How to Prepare for IELTS Reading
This page has a step-by-step guide and anytime activities to prepare for the IELTS Academic Reading Test.
There are links for good IELTS websites at the bottom.
Click on any image or underlined text to go to that website.
Step-by-step guide
Follow these steps if you are new to IELTS reading.
Step 1 – Find out about the test
Make sure you understand what happens in the reading test.
In the Academic test, there are 3 reading passages and 40 questions. Passage 3 is the most difficult. You have 1 hour to complete the test.
The IELTS official website is good place to get more information.
Step 2 – about the questions
There are around 14 different types of questions in the IELTS Reading Test.
There will be 2-3 different question types per reading passage, meaning 6-9 in the whole test.
It’s useful to get to know the different types of questions. IELTS Liz and IDP are good resources for this (click on the images).
Step 3 – Practice
Follow steps A-C below to practise reading. Start with easier texts and progress to real exam practice.
If your English level is quite high, you might want to go straight to step C.
A
Easy Practice
A good first step is to practice the different question types. Short passages of one or two paragraphs are useful for this.
IELTS Liz has a lot of short practice activities for the different question types.
IELTS Buddy also has short to medium-length passages for different questions.
B
Longer Texts
Next, move on to trying some longer texts that are more similar to the real test but not as difficult.
This website has IELTS-style articles, about psychology and other topics. They’re slightly easier than the real test.
It also has pages to learn about and practise specific questions. Click the buttons below.
C
Real Tests
It’s also really important to do some real test practice, especially as you get close to your test date.
The best option is the Cambridge books of past test papers. Each book has four full tests from a past year.
Other
British Council has two full reading tests and IDP has shorter extracts from real tests.
A
Easy Practice
A good first step is to practice the different question types. Short passages of one or two paragraphs are useful for this.
IELTS Liz has a lot of short practice activities for the different question types.
IELTS Buddy also has short to medium-length passages for different questions.
B
Longer Texts
Next, move on to trying some longer texts that are more similar to the real test but not as difficult.
This website has IELTS-style articles, about psychology and other topics. They’re slightly easier than the real test.
Books
Or you could try a book such as, Reading for IELTS or IELTS Advantage Reading Skills.
C
Real Tests
It’s also really important to do some real test practice, especially as you get close to your test date.
The best option is the Cambridge books of past test papers. Each book has four full tests from a past year.
Other
British Council has two full reading tests and IDP has shorter extracts from real tests.
practice tips
Always read the instructions carefully.
With longer texts, there are two common techniques to begin:
(i) Read the questions first, and then scan the text for the answers.
(ii) Skim the text first for 2-3 minutes to understand its structure and main ideas. Then look at the questions.
For many question types, to find answers you will:
→ Identify keywords in the question.
→ Scan the text for those words (or synonyms).
→ Read around them to find the answer.
The IELTS Advantage website has good information about skimming, scanning and close reading.
If you get an answer wrong, re-read the text and try to understand why the correct answer is correct.
ongoing strategies
Do these at any time to support your learning.
build vocabulary
Vocabulary is key for the IELTS Reading Test.
Many of the questions are actually testing your vocabulary knowledge, so it’s important to build up your vocabulary.
There are many ways to build vocabulary, but here are some useful resources to get you started.
Check Your English Vocabulary for IELTS is a good book. It has useful words for the test for some of the more common topics.
The Academic Word List
The Academic Word List is a list of 570 very common academic words. Here are some links for the list:
read as much as you can
As well as doing test practice, it’s useful to read as much as you can in English.
It can help you read more quickly, understand main ideas, build vocabulary, understand referencing, and get used to grammar and sentence structures.
IELTS Charlie and IELTS with Fiona have good reading resource lists.
IELTS Charlie has a list of 11 good websites for reading practice.
IELTS With Fiona also has a good list. The links are in the flipbook at the bottom.
if you don't have the score you need
If you still don’t have the score you need, you might want to take a course or find a teacher.
If you’re studying on your own, identify what is stopping you from achieving your target score. Is it your general English level, vocabulary, reading skills, exam techniques, or something else?
IELTS Advantage has a a helpful video on how to find out what to improve.
GOOD WEBSITES FOR IELTS
Below are links for the homepages of the websites mentioned above (and more).
