# how to get 8+ in reading section in IELTS general test



## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

hi all,

i have given some practice ielts test.

what i have found is i am really struggling in reading section. my aim is to get 8 in all sections. in the reading section, i have found the majority of my mistakes are in paragraph heading section and yes, no, not given questions.

i have seen many posts from many of you and at the end of your posts, many of you have put your ielts score - which shows that majority of you have got 8.5 or above in reading section.

i am getting on average only 22 to 23 questions correct out of 40 questions - which is pretty bad.

how to improve my score in reading section? any tips, please suggest. thanks.


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## Future_ozzy (Feb 26, 2014)

Practice speed reading ...read magazines/newspapers .

Reading is about skimming through the content ,maybe you are trying to understand the content - it's not required.

Sent from my XT1033 using Expat Forum


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## aarthi.kasi (Jul 30, 2011)

Hi
For Yes,No and not given questions . Follow this simple rule.
If the meaning of the "question statement" and the "answer statement" are 100% matching - Yes
If the meaning of the "question statement" and the "answer statement" are 100% Mismatch - No
if the meaning of the "question statement" and the answer statement match only partially - Not given.

For the paragraph headings, try to read the paragraphs more than twice or thrice to understand the core of the matter that its trying to imply, this way you can gauge the headings better. If u read only once you will not be able to figure out what is the essence of the paragraph.

Hope this helps.


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## getmeoutplz (Oct 2, 2013)

Create a map.

That means do a quick reading to a paragraph and then write its title/summary on the left of it.
That way when you see questions you search in your map (paragraph titles/summary) and then extract the answer.


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## Rico20 (Feb 10, 2014)

Well, I do not wanna put you down or anything, but scoring 8+ in writing is the real challenge. I scored 8.5 in reading and 7.5 in writing.


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## sk2014 (Apr 7, 2014)

As someone above mentioned, you have to practice speed reading. I don't think anyone can learn it in one or two weeks for the test. 

@Rico Getting 8+ in writing is indeed a challenge. I memorized lot of idioms and other big words like formidable, stupendous etc which I used in my essay and I got 8.


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## r_saraj (Oct 31, 2013)

Mates...
I am trying for another attempt... need for 7+


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

Rico20 said:


> Well, I do not wanna put you down or anything, but scoring 8+ in writing is the real challenge. I scored 8.5 in reading and 7.5 in writing.


so some tips for writing section to score 8 or above in writing section, please suggest. thanks.


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

hi all,

any tips for speaking section to score 8+. please suggest. thanks.


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

r_saraj said:


> Mates...
> I am trying for another attempt... need for 7+


all the best to you.


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## arifurrahman (May 6, 2014)

Practicing different materials will help. I got 8.5 in Reading, 9.0 in Listening, 7.5 in Writing and 7.0 in Speaking. Search sites like Scribd to download IELTS General Practice tests.


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## aarthi.kasi (Jul 30, 2011)

misecmisc said:


> hi all,
> 
> any tips for speaking section to score 8+. please suggest. thanks.


I was disappointed to note that I only got 7.5. Later, my colleague explained that , just being fluent will not get you an 8. You need to use some high quality words in between to show your prowess of the language.

The mistake I did was , the examiner was so friendly ,I ended up speaking to her like I would to a friend and was not conscious of using the right words .

In some instances whenever I used words naturally during my conversation, like "ambiguity", "oblivious", "disparity", "Complacent"....
I realized later that the examiner was nodding her head approvingly  but It didn't ring a bell at that time , I only realized when my friend gave me that tip later.

What I should have done is , I should have been mindful of the examiner's body language and should have added more of these words . Instead I got carried away with the chat 

So the best tip I can give you is , be mindful of the choice of words that you use.
Fluency is definitely a criteria to judge, but what gets you that extra zing is this.

Hope this helps


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

hi all,

some queries regarding answering of reading/listening section - though basic questions, may seem like stupid questions, but i am still asking:

1. in answering the one word or two word answer, do you write in cammel-case manner of first letter capital and then remaining small letters - or - all in capital letters - which approach is better?

2. i am facing difficulty in putting hypen, like suppose the listening test had an answer of 7 screen cinema - so should i write 7-screen cinema or 7 screen cinema? will mark get deducted if hypen is used where it is not needed, or, not put where it is needed, like in day-to-day ?

3. when the answer to a listening question is in time, say 11:30am, then i have seen in cambridge ielts test papers, the answer is given as 11.30, so the question is should we write time as 11.30 or 11:30?

please suggest. thanks in advance.


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## 189 (Jul 1, 2014)

misecmisc said:


> hi all,
> 
> some queries regarding answering of reading/listening section - though basic questions, may seem like stupid questions, but i am still asking:
> 
> ...




1. Case does not matter, but i suggest keep it consistent across. i remember my reading answer was all camel case and listening was smaller case i am confident i didn't loose any mark due to case.

My recommendation, keep it consistent if you are confuse keep it small case and chill!

2. Good question, In my personal opinion it shouldn't matter. Never come across such scenario that hyphen is cause of mark deduction. 
I hv Google now, this link might be helpful IELTS Juice | IELTS FAQs

3. 11:30am, in american as well as British English ":" is used for time and "." for money

ps: Correct Spelling is "hyphen" not "hypen"


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## xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxniveditanwr3 (Jun 18, 2013)

misecmisc said:


> so some tips for writing section to score 8 or above in writing section, please suggest. thanks.


This is from my own material. Tricks for Writing Task 2-Essays. Can be applied to Letters too:

INTRODUCTIONS:

Sentence 1...Sentence2…Sentence 3 Type 1- statement-explain-opinion

Sentence 1 example:

•	It is true that____.
•	There are different views among people regarding_____.
•	Many people hold a belief that______.
•	__________ is one of the fundamental elements to a country’s progress. However, people have different views about____.


Sentence 2 & 3 example:

•	While there are benefits to… I would argue that_____.
•	While there are benefits to…there are also good reasons to___
•	In my opinion, (definition). I completely agree that____.
•	In my opinion, _________ . This essay, however, looks on both views of the statement.
•	In my opinion, _________ can and should be both _________and _____________.
•	Although there are good arguments in favor of ___, I personally believe that it is better to ___
•	While I tend towards the viewpoint that _____ is morally wrong, I would have to support a limited amount of _______for the _____.
•	One group thinks that _____, although, there are good arguments that______ . I am partially in favor of this argument that____.
•	Although reasons can be given to justify this, I personally believe that__________ .



CONCLUSIONS:

•	For the reasons mentioned above, it seems to me that
•	In conclusion, there are convincing arguments for ___, but __ can also lead to ___.
•	In conclusion, it seems to me that there is a positive relationship between_____ and ________.
•	To conclude, _____ has an advantage like developing family relation, but, in my opinion, _____are the best for various reasons discussed above.
•	In conclusion, it seems to me that___.
•	In conclusion, it may ___ in the short term if _____, but in the long term this would have an extremely negative impact on _____.
•	To conclude, it seems to me that ____. However, I strongly recommend that________.
•	To conclude, I personally believe that____. Furthermore, _______.

Para 1

•	On the one hand,_____. Firstly, example, secondly, finally. 
•	On the one hand, the option to _______ is attractive for several reasons
•	On the one hand, allowing children to nursery schools has many benefits.
•	This kind of inequality would ensure the success of some but harm the prospects of others.
•	On the one hand, there are several reasons why..

Para 2
•	On the other hand, ____. 
•	I share this opinion for several reasons.
•	On the other hand, it is also understandable that_______
•	I would argue that_______ is not______. On the contrary, I believe that
•	On the other hand, there are several reasons why..
•	Despite the above arguments, I believe that___.
•	On the other hand, it is unreasonable__
•	There are several actions that governments could take to solve the problems described above.
•	Contrary to the common wisdom that____, recent studies have indicated that___

Following sentences: 
•	For instance, 
•	To use a common example of this practice,
•	statement, 
•	Research insists that/scientists believe that/ it is predicted that 
•	Furthermore 
•	Moreover.
•	Usually this means that..
•	In this way,
•	They also argue that
•	While it is undeniable that
•	Moreover, they also explain that
•	In terms of their _____,
•	They will have the chance to
•	This may lead to___ and eventually a ____.
•	For example, it is impossible to___ without(if)
•	In the UK, for instance, 
•	Opponents of such research argue that
•	Supporters of such research argue that
•	The main problem is that
•	In particular, some people might worry that
•	Nowadays,
•	A popular myth is that, however, this remains to be proven.

PHRASES
•	The odds of success were stacked in favor of those from privileged backgrounds.
•	The aim of ______ should be to
•	face the dilemma
•	deserve ______ that reflect their abilities.
•	have access to
•	increasingly competitive
•	takes great commitment, dedication and passion.
•	using persuasive marketing techniques.
•	boring and predictable
•	likely to experience stress
•	The ethos of the aristocracy, as exemplified in _____, greatly influenced ________.
•	society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to
•	the accelerated rate of technological and social change is leaving people disoriented
•	represent culture, heritage and history.
•	The essential components of his method spring from
•	enabling them to design and build
•	the results were phenomenal
•	help shape the modern world
•	meet peoples expectations


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## lovetosmack (Apr 22, 2013)

A few reading tips from my own experience. Got 8.5 & 9 both times in IELTS reading. This is only my strong area of all the four.

I do reading in a totally different style and that is how I got trained since I was a kid. It never failed me.

* I read the questions first even though it doesn't make any sense to me. Once done reading questions, I start reading the paragraph with these questions at the back of my mind. So when I hit the relevant portion, I slow down and find my answer in that particular line.

* Every question has its answer in one single line that we need to find. The challenge is to find that particular line. Very rarely, will they ask a question that interprets the meaning of more than one line.

* If you find answer to question 1 in line 15, then logically the answer to question 2 will definitely fall after line 15 in the paragraph.

* Skip questions you don't understand in the first instance & move one. Come back to them later.

* The comprehension given is not for you to understand completely. Its ONLY about answering the questions asked. Keep it only to that.

* For most of the questions you will find logical answers, especially for True or False.

* You won't be able to do the above in one go. Practice at least 10 passages in a day.

* After all, start of googling for "English Reading Comprehensions" & start with them first before moving to IELTS reading tests. They lay a very good foundation.

PS: All the above said is out of my own experience. It may or may not work for everyone. It's about analyzing your weak areas & picking the right tips that suit your short-comings from the above.

PS: PS: Your writing also is not very good. Even though you are writing it casually, make it a point you stick to Punctuation. It's not rocket science or difficult to put a capital letter in place of a small one. Don't be lazy or find other reasons for not punctuating properly. Take a look at all other suggestion posts in this thread alone to see how well they punctuate.


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## skksundar (Apr 29, 2014)

*Tips for speaking*

For Speaking module please find a few tips below.

1. Be natural; this means don't pretend your pronunciation or body language. This will help the examiner understand you're talking naturally and not acting; wait a couple seconds if you need time to think. using expressions like "uhhh", "hmmm" to bridge the gap of few seconds is actually considered natural, hence do not hesitate.

2. Be Slow and steady; this means take time to complete your sentences in a rhythm than being in sort of hurry. start your sentences slowly and make sure you're audible and not loud. 

3. Use the body language, in particular the arms. But practice your body language atleast 4 or 5 times prior to the test. The best way to do this record a video session of your speaking test and check it out; if you practice in front of a Mirror, you might lose your concentration watching your image. So its bed to record it on camera and correct the mistakes.

The above three points helped me score decent enough (7.5) in speaking module.

For reading follow the thread http://www.expatforum.com/expats/australia-expat-forum-expats-living-australia/107511-ielts-frustration.html Follow tips from mbc71; she has provided real good tips on figuring out Yes/No/Not Given questions 

I have applied for revaluation since I fell short of .5 in writing this time.


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## Jack.Sparrow (Jul 15, 2014)

In addition to most of the techniques that are already described here, here are my 2 cents:

1. For paragraph naming exercise, go through list of titles first. Now go to each.paragraph and read only initial one or two sentences. These sentences should tell you what the rest of the paragraph is about. Accordingly, choose the most suitable.title.

2. For true/false/not given, sometimes you need to infer the meaning from sentence. If the sentence contains words like possibly, maybe, likely, read it carefully. It might be the candidate for not given. Also, don't spend too much time thinking about alternate meanings, it may take you in the wrong direction. Another heuristic is that out of 5 answers, at least one or two are not given.

3. Look closely for names of places, people, dates, events etc. These can be possible candidates for answers.

4. Make sure that answer is grammatically correct. Sometimes you may need to change tense, form of the word to make it grammatically correct.

5. Questions usually follow top down approach. You if answer for question 2 is in 3rd paragraph, answer to question 3 can't be in 1st paragraph


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

189 said:


> 1. Case does not matter, but i suggest keep it consistent across. i remember my reading answer was all camel case and listening was smaller case i am confident i didn't loose any mark due to case.
> 
> My recommendation, keep it consistent if you are confuse keep it small case and chill!
> 
> ...


so not putting hyphens will not make an answer wrong? eg if in answer-sheet the answer written is low risk and in the cambridge ielts test paper answer sheet it mentions low-risk, so will low risk be considered as a wrong answer because of missing hyphen in it?

one more simple query - if in listening test, the answer is a date say 20 of october, and in answer sheet we write 20th October, so will this be considered wrong because of appending 'th' at the end of 20 in the above date?

also for listening and reading sections, is it not better to write all the answers in CAPITAL LETTERS, so that we will be safe that the examiner will be able to read our answers correctly, because if our hand writing is bad, then may be the examiner may not be able to understand our answer written in camelcase or all smallcase letters - so is writing all answers of listening and reading section in capital letters a better approach - or a camelcase is better? 

please suggest. thanks.


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## enzee (Nov 30, 2013)

Practice Preposition and the best examples you can get are in Cambridge school books. Internet can also help try finding preposition exercises


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## mah (Jul 16, 2014)

need hard work only


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

misecmisc said:


> so not putting hyphens will not make an answer wrong? eg if in answer-sheet the answer written is low risk and in the cambridge ielts test paper answer sheet it mentions low-risk, so will low risk be considered as a wrong answer because of missing hyphen in it?
> 
> one more simple query - if in listening test, the answer is a date say 20 of october, and in answer sheet we write 20th October, so will this be considered wrong because of appending 'th' at the end of 20 in the above date?
> 
> ...


any replies on the above queries, please. thanks.


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## Jack.Sparrow (Jul 15, 2014)

misecmisc said:


> any replies on the above queries, please. thanks.


According to me, hyphens will be important in such cases where they can not be excluded. For example, mother-in-law. In such cases, if you exclude hyphen, you will definitely lose marks. For others, I don't think it will be counted as wrong.

For dates, suffix like th, rd, nd or st are acceptable and should be provided as they make your answer grammatically correct.

As for the case, I believe proper nouns such as names of places, person, events should be in proper case. Common nouns can be in lower case. Writing everything in upper or lower case might not be a good idea and you may lose marks if you do that.


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## 189 (Jul 1, 2014)

misecmisc said:


> so not putting hyphens will not make an answer wrong? eg if in answer-sheet the answer written is low risk and in the cambridge ielts test paper answer sheet it mentions low-risk, so will low risk be considered as a wrong answer because of missing hyphen in it?
> 
> one more simple query - if in listening test, the answer is a date say 20 of october, and in answer sheet we write 20th October, so will this be considered wrong because of appending 'th' at the end of 20 in the above date?
> 
> ...



HYPHENS:
Hyphens are used to link words and parts of words. They are not as common today as they used to be
e.g.
Aircrew air crew
Playgroup	play-group
Chat room	chat-room
To conclude, I never came across a word that cannot be written without hyphen. I personally would focus on answer itself that is “write in ONE WORD or THREE WORD etc” given in test and judge my answer accordingly. Additionally, if I follow English theory “Hyphens” are categorised in the family of punctuations, In IELTS listening and reading I dare not to add any punctuations except “. For money” and “: for time”.
Should you have set of words which you cannot use without Hyphens then highlight with specific examples, I would like to review those.
LISTENING
Keep it very simple; write exactly what you have listen, if tape says 20th of October, 20th October or 20 of October. Listen carefully and write exactly what you listen. There is no way it goes wrong if you follow this.

CAPITAL LETTERS
Well bro, this is your personal choice, who says everybody has bad handwriting with small letters?
In business written English all capital words are used to show anger and considered rude. That is just other side of perception, considered invalid for IELTS. 

All the while in my IELTS, my words (in listening and reading) were all small or camel case. I repeat here myself once again, be consistent that is what it should matters.


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

hi all,

i was practicing for writing task 2.

the task 2 is : People in all modern societies use drugs, but today's youth are experimenting with both legal and illegal drugs, and at an increasingly early age. Some sociologists claim that parents and other members of society often set a bad example. Discuss the causes and some effects of widespread drug use by young people in modern day society. Make any recommendations you feel are necessary to help fight youth drug abuse.


My essay is below:

Today society seems to have been captivated with the idea of trying to look more stylish, cool and modern, by imitating what is enacted by the actors in their movies. Smoking ciggarettes and drinking is slightly becoming a norm in our life-style. This has aggravated by the advent of drugs and the rising figures showing the increase in drug intake by teenagers. The question arises as to what are the causal factors, which ultimately lead to the people becoming drug-addicts at their 20s.

If we start to analyze the situation and backtrace to the early years of a drug-addict youth, then we find that the primary reason comes down to parents not fulfilling their responsbilities towards their child by not giving proper attention to them. On the contrary, the reason parents come up with is they are too busy with their work schedule to earn enough money to give a luxurios life to their child. However, just the opposite happens that the extra money which the parents earn, usually helps the child to go to late night parties and become addicted to drugs. Even parents smoke and drink in front of their kid, which enforces the kid to copy their parents' actions to look more powerful and stylish.

The drug-addiction problem is enlarged indirectly by the media as well. The content of the TV shows and movies try to showcase the main character as more smart, by the way he smokes a ciggarette, though on the contrary smoking in itself is a stupid act. Since the youth generation follows the latest trends in the show-biz, so when one youth starts taking drugs, then consequently others start to join to show they are all equally 'modern'.

To prevent this situation from exagerating further, the youth needs to be educated about the detrimental effects of drugs on a human body. Even though, the initial hit of a drug may be intoxicating enough to produce a relaxed state of mind, but in reality it just creates a dullness of the mind, which eventually leads to carelessness. Due to this, accidents occur and this can eventually lead a youth to lifetime imprisonment if any casualty happens in the accident. A committee should be formed, which should scan the content of the TV shows before it gets displayed on the TV. This shall promote TV programs which shows the importance of morality in our lifes and eliminate the content which shows smoking, drinking and drug-addition. Moreover, TV ads should be made to make the youth more aware of the harmful effects of drugs. Last but not the least, parents and society should take care in the initial upbringing of the child, to enable the child to become a responsible citizen of the country.

---

Please provide your feedback on the essay and please let me know in which areas i should try to improve my writing in task 2. it took me nearly one hour to write the above essay, which i think is a very long time. thanks.


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## chsekharbabu (Jan 22, 2014)

misecmisc said:


> hi all,
> 
> i was practicing for writing task 2.
> 
> ...


Buddy,

Based on my knowledge, i feel this a good easy except for few repeated words (parents,kids,TV) and mis spellings(exagerating).


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

hi all,

actually i was running short of synonyms for youth, parents etc. so i have repeated these words. does repetition of these words is going to deduct much marks?

do you have some synonyms which can be used for youth and parents?

some more detailed feedback please? specially if i was on topic or deviated from topic of drugs to smoking too much - or - was it ok on task response? also which areas should i focus on to improve in the above essay? please suggest. thanks.


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

hi all,

one query regarding listening test - suppose we have to write a date in the answer to a question and the audio says - 23rd of second 1960, then in what format should the date be written? should we write 23-Feb-1960 or 23.02.1960 or 23-02-1960? please suggest. thanks.


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## misecmisc (Jun 26, 2014)

misecmisc said:


> hi all,
> 
> one query regarding listening test - suppose we have to write a date in the answer to a question and the audio says - 23rd of second 1960, then in what format should the date be written? should we write 23-Feb-1960 or 23.02.1960 or 23-02-1960? please suggest. thanks.


Any reply for the above query, please. Thanks.


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