IELTS – 3 Reading Strategies

2,911,528 views ・ 2015-05-16

Adam’s English Lessons


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Hi again. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today's lesson is about IELTS. As
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usual, with IELTS lessons, I will be speaking a little bit faster than normal. It's good
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for your listening practice. But if you're not taking the IELTS, you can still listen
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and try to follow us as we go through this section.
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So, let's begin. Today, I'm going to look at the IELTS reading section. I'm going to
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look at three different approaches to tackling the IELTS reading section. Students always
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ask me: "What should I do with the reading? How do I do it? How can I finish on time?
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How can I answer more questions?" Right? So I'm going to give you three approaches, three
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different ways to try to do the IELTS. Okay? We're going to look at three different ways.
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They're completely different from each other.
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The most important thing I want to tell you before we start: you have to know what works
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for you. Okay? One of these approaches will work for you; the others may not. Practice
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all three. If you're comfortable with one and it seems to work for you, and your score
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seems to be getting better, stick with that one and practice that one. Don't try to do
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all three each time. Figure out which one works, and just practice that one the most.
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Okay?
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The most obvious one and the first one we're going to talk about: read the entire passage,
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and then tackle the questions. Now, a few things to say, good and bad, about this approach.
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So, you have 20 minutes, let's say, that you're going to start from the first passage, you're
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going to do about 17 minutes; the second passage, you're going to spend 20 minutes; the last
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passage, you're going to spend 23, 24, 25 minutes. So, you have to do this very fast.
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So: can you read the entire passage and do the questions in that timeframe? Okay? That's
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the question you must ask yourself. Are you a fast reader? Can you comprehend everything
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you're reading? How is your vocabulary? Things like this. Some people, they must read everything,
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from beginning to end, and then go to the questions. But they can also keep; they can
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retain the information they've read, so when they go to the questions, they know where
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to go back and look for the answers.
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Now, the good part about this is that you have all the information in your head once
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you've read the entire passage. The bad part is that you're going to be reading the passage
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twice. Okay? Or not the whole passage, but you're going to read big chunks of the passage
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twice. You'll have read it the first time, you'll go to the questions, and then you'll
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be reading again to find the answers, because you're looking for specific words now. When
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you get to the questions, sometimes it's only one word difference
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from what you read in the passage.
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So, do I recommend this? Yes and no. If you're a fast reader and you can comprehend, then
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yes, do that. If you're not a fast reader, then no, don't do this. You'll be wasting
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too much time and reading more than you need to.
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What I'm going to do with these two approaches is show you how to read less. So you don't
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need to read the entire passage; you just need to read the areas that contain the answers
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to the questions.
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So, the second approach: go straight to the questions. You look at the question. First
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of all, understand the type of the question. Is it a multiple choice? Is it a fill-in-the-blank,
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like a summary? Are you looking for like headings for each paragraph? Are you looking for the
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title? Etc. Figure out what you're looking for, read the question carefully, pick out
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the keywords in the question or the key idea in the question, and then scan the passage.
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Don't read the passage. Just quickly look everywhere for where that information ought to be.
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Now, keep in mind, you're going to have a... Let's say you're going to have four questions
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in one section, four types of questions. Start with 15. Figure out what it's asking, go to
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the passage, find out the area where that information is, and then start reading there
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to try to answer as many of the questions as you can. The problem with this approach
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is that sometimes question 15, the answer will be here; question 16, the answer will
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be here. So it's not always chronological; it's not always in order of the questions.
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Some question types are in order. Okay? If you have like a summary a passage with fill-in-the-blanks,
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and you have to summarize a certain section, then you go to the beginning, find the beginning,
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and then each one will be the same. Okay? So 15, 16, 17, 18. It will be chronological.
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But that's for that type of question; it doesn't apply to all question types.
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Questions such as: "Yes/No/Not given", or: "True/False/Not given", this sometimes will
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work; sometimes it won't. Okay? Especially for the "Not given", because you can have
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the "Yes", "Yes", "No", "Not given". Okay? So this will help you in most cases, but in
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some cases, it will not help you. But practice this. If it works for you, do it. Okay? Remember:
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it's all about time management. You have to be able to get through the entire passage
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and the entire questions three times in one hour. Yeah? You want to try to finish everything.
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Now, the third section. Before I even start to explain how it works, I want you to understand
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that it's difficult, it's really not easy, it takes a lot of practice, but if you can
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do this and do it well, you can finish the entire test on time and read the absolute
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minimum that you have to. Okay?
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How does this work? Before you do anything else, I want you to summarize each paragraph
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by itself. How do you do this? You go to the paragraph, you read the topic sentence. The
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topic sentence will always be the first or second sentence. It will give you a general
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idea of what the paragraph is about. Because remember: in good writing, one paragraph has
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one central idea. That idea will be in the topic sentence. Once you understand what the
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general idea is, then you scan the rest of the paragraph, looking for keywords that support
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that topic sentence.
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Once you have the topic, once you find the keywords that support that topic, then you
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know what this paragraph is about. Write two-three word(s) summary of that paragraph. Okay? Then,
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once you have the summary of everything, you do the entire passage... You should be able
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to get yourself to do it 5 to 7 minutes you should be able to go through the whole passage.
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Okay? That gives you over 10 minutes to work on the questions.
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Then you go to the questions. Now, the key is to know where the answers should be. Why?
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If you understand the question, the question is about the history of something. Well, here,
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in paragraph "A", the history of this thing. If the question is about the people involved,
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well, here, you already wrote: "People involved". Right? So you know where to go look. So now,
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you go straight to the paragraph where the answer should be, and you find out the information.
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Then you're... Then you're doing the same thing here. Sorry, as number two. You're matching
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keywords and matching your answers.
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Now, there's two reasons this is good. One: you're reading less, two: you're doing it
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much quicker. You've gone through the whole passage very quickly. You don't need to read
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anything that has nothing to do with the questions. Okay? And three: one of the question types
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on the reading section is: "Give each paragraph a heading." If you did the summary, then you've
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already done these questions. Okay? There's going to be usually 5 or 6 at least headings,
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like 5 or 6 paragraphs. Each one you have to give a heading to. If you've done the summary,
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then you've already did that question type. You look at the headings, you match them to
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your summary, and then there's your answer.
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Two: if the passage does not have a title... If the passage does not have a title, automatically
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you can understand one of the questions will be: "What is a good title for this passage?"
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If you've done the summaries, already start thinking about the title if there isn't one,
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because that's going to be one of your questions. So you're actually killing two, sometimes
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three birds with one stone by doing it this way. Okay?
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Now, I know it's not easy. I know it's very difficult, it takes a lot of practice, but
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we're going to work on one paragraph together just so you know what I'm talking about.
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Okay, so now, let's look at how to do approach three, how to do a bit of a summary of a paragraph.
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So what we're looking at here, we're looking at a passage. I'll give you a background,
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because actually you can see I only have one paragraph and not even a complete paragraph,
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because it was too long. But this is a passage about the history of recorded music or even
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recorded sound. This is not the first paragraph. The first paragraph was probably an introduction
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about sound recordings, because today, we have all kinds of different ways of listening
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to music. We have iPod, MP3 player, all kinds of digital recordings. We used to have CDs,
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and we used to have 8-tracks, and vinyl records, and tapes. So what we're looking at is the
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history and probably evolution of recorded music.
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So, now, what came probably before this paragraph was a paragraph about the phonautograph, which
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is a type of machine that was invented a long time ago to record sound. We also had a paragraph
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about how it worked, how it did this. Okay? So now, when we get to this paragraph, we
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already have some background information, and now we want to know what this paragraph
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is about without reading the entire paragraph.
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So we read the topic sentence, which is basically and usually the first sentence. "The Phonautograph
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eventually evolved into the Phonograph." So now, what is the main idea of this...? Of
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this paragraph? It's about the change into something else, or the next step. Okay? How
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do we know? We have the word "eventually", which suggests time, something is happening
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over time. "Evolved", "evolved" means changed into something better, usually. Evolution
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is usually into something better. Devolution, something worse. "Into the Phonograph", and
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we're going to find out: what is a Phonograph? Okay? So this, right away, we have the idea
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that this paragraph is about the evolution or the change into the Phonograph, the next
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step from what came before.
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So now, what we want to do... We don't want to read the rest. We want to confirm our idea
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that this is about the evolution of something, of the Phonograph. We want to find keywords
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in the paragraph to support that. So, first of all, we have Thomas Edison. He wasn't mentioned
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before; he's mentioned now. If you know who he is, he's a famous inventor from a long
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time ago. He "discovered" something. Okay? Usually evolutions come with discoveries.
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We have an "1878", we have "1887" also. We have time progression. Okay?
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Now, he found a "way". Before, we spoke about how sound was recorded on a cylindrical, like
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a disc that spun like this, cylindrically. Okay? And it went like this, and something
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was grooved onto it. Now, we have: "He discovered a way to record on impressionable material
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- tinfoil, lead", so different material. Okay? Before it was on metal with charcoal, basically.
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Again, we don't know that here; we knew that from the paragraph before. Now we have different
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material, so again, we have evolution, "or wax".
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And then we continue reading, then "discovery", blah, blah, blah, we're continuing to reading.
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Oh, we have a "flat disc". Before, we had a cylinder. Now we have a flat disc. Okay?
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"Creating a medium", we have a new medium. We have a new name. Somebody else is now getting
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involved in this evolution. Okay? Now: "instead of tracing", now, this word "instead" tells
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you that instead of what was here, we now have something else. "Over a rotating" something
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else, and: "the resulting disc". Right? So everything points to an evolution of something;
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we're going to the next step, to a different way of recording sound.
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So now, what do we want to do? On the side... We don't want to write a full sentence. We
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don't want to take this full paragraph and summarize it in one or two sentences. We want
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to summarize it in one or two words. Okay? We already have the word "evolution" in our
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minds. Very simple. There's a new medium. This paragraph is about the new medium. In
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the... In which case is going to be the disc. Okay? I could write: "New medium - disc".
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The last paragraph: the cylinder. This paragraph: the disc. The next paragraph... I mean, this
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paragraph will continue. If you go to www.engvid.com and take the quiz, you will see the entire
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paragraph there, it will make more sense. But here, I have a brief explanation of how
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the disc worked as compared to the cylinder, and I also have an explanation of why it was
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good, why it was an evolution, why they did this.
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Then the next paragraph will likely go to the next step. The next step will be electrical,
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and then you have magnetic, and then you have digital, and then you have all kinds of steps
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from the beginning of the recording of music till today. Okay? Because it's the history
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of... The entire passage is about the history of recorded music.
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So, now, when I go to my questions and they ask a question about the disc or they ask
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a question about Emile Berliner, or they ask a question about mass production of music
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mediums or media, you know where to come looking. The answer should be in here somewhere, because
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this is where they're talking about the disc, this is where they're talking about the next
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step, where they're talking about mass production, which will come a little bit later. Oh, here,
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"mass produced". Okay? So you know all this because you're talking about the new medium
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- the disc.
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Now, this is especially, especially effective for the "Yes/No/Not given" or the "True/False/Not
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given" questions. Especially in that especially the "Not given" because "Yes/No", "True/False",
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you can look for the keywords, you can find them and compare the sentence here, then compare
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the sentence in the questions. In the "Not given" sentences, if they're not given, then
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there's nothing to find. Right? So the only thing that you can look for is the "should".
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The answer to this question should be here. So you look around, you can't find it, the
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answer is not given. Okay? And this is usually the most difficult question everybody has
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on the IELTS reading section.
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So, again, summarize. If you do this first, do every paragraph. A: you can do the "Not
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given" questions, B: all the find a heading, match a heading to each paragraph - that's
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already done because you did it this way. And you don't have to read all the passage.
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You're saving yourself a lot of time, and you know where exactly to go look for your
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answers to your questions. Okay?
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It takes practice. I'm not going to tell you it's easy. It's not easy. If you can practice
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this and be able to do a proper summary of the whole passage in five minutes, you got
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15 minutes for the rest of the passage for the questions, and you should be able to finish
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all 40 questions in the time. Okay? All 40 questions in the 60 minutes, and do... Get
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a very high rate of correct answers.
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Now, if you have any questions about this, please go to www.engvid.com. Go to the for...
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To the comments section and ask questions. Do the quiz; hopefully it will help you out a little bit.
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Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, and come again soon. Bye.
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