# Ielts



## ronster (May 7, 2012)

I am sitting my IELTS test this weekend and am dreading it. Does anyone have any tips for skim reading!!! I seem to lack this talent and am therefore taking too long answering the questions. 
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.


----------



## ronster (May 7, 2012)

Any advice?? Please keep me in your thoughts. Ive stopped sleeping with worry!! 
I guess it will pass and what will be will be, but I really do want to pass. Help!! :-s


----------



## cleoclio (Nov 15, 2010)

Hi Ronster,
You have one hour to answer questions in three sections so divide up your time, very carefully!
The sections become increasingly difficult so allocate perhaps 15 minutes for the first section,20 for the second and 25 for the last one.
Start each reading section by finding out what information you are looking for.Read the questions first! You'll waste precious time if you try to read and understand everything. Read the heading - this will you a good general idea of what the passage is about. Read through the questions quickly.How many are there, what sort of questions are they ( sentence completion, diagram completion etc.)This will help you focus when you read the text as you'll have some ideas of what to look for
.Scan and skim the text. This is to get a general understanding of the passage. Turn back to the questions and begin to work through them, referring back the passage as you need to and reading the important sections slowly ( and carefully).
If you can't answer a question, or it is taking you to long time, LEAVE it and come back to it at the end. 
Hope it helps a bit 
Keeping my fingers crossed for you!Good luck!


----------



## ronster (May 7, 2012)

Hi cleoclio

Thanks for your reply! I appreciate your advice and will try to
Implement it!! I need to work on the nerves now!!


----------



## ramanan (May 17, 2012)

I did end of last year and got 8 for reading. It's pretty easy compared to writing. I will tell you what to do:

First read the questions under each paragraph, and glance over the answers. Try to remember them as much as possible. And now start reading the paragraph, with the intention of finding answers to the questions. Don't try to completely understand the whole paragraph. If you don't remember the questions very well, just keep glancing over the questions as you read two or three sentences. 

It's better to understand the questions first. Then you can quickly go over the paragraph. Sometimes answer will be found in the first few sentences, so you can avoid the rest of the paragraph and save lots of time. 

Sometimes when we understand the small section of paragraph and go for the questions, I start reading the answers from bottom or randomly in the middle. It also saved me lot of time because mostly they hide the answers towards the bottom (Can't be the case always, but mostly happens).

These are the techniques I used and it worked. I finished before 20 minutes.


----------

