IELTS READING - ACADEMIC & GENERAL - QUESTION TYPES OVERVIEW

In IELTS Reading you will be given to read 3 paragraphs for which you will get 60 minutes of time. Based on the paragraph you will have different categories of questions and each paragraph will have 3-4 different types of questions you have to answer.

In the IELTS reading test also there are 2 versions of the Academic Section as well as the General Training Section. You need to plan well before applying for a particular test because both the sections will be different in IELTS Reading.

The Academic and General Training structure have some same features such as both the tests have a time limit of 60 minutes and also have 40 questions each. Even though both the passages are not the same, the way of answering the questions is almost the same because the questions asked are almost similar.

• Academic IELTS Reading:

As IELTS academic is for the students who are looking to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate the passages will be related to the subjects like social, science, environment and so on. But it is not necessary that you know any of these subjects. but, the person with the greater vocabulary will be having an advantage. In IELTS Academic Reading there will be some technical terms or even graphs, tables. The passages are mainly taken from journals, academic textbooks, newspapers and so on.

The IELTS Academic Reading will have 3 passages in total and for each passage, you will have to answer 10- 13 questions.

• General Training IELTS Reading:

The general training test can be attempted by anyone who is planning to migrate abroad or planning to move for foreign countries for work purposes. Even the passages in this are taken from journals, magazines or newspapers but these are much simpler and shorter when compared to Academic IELTS reading. This basically is related to daily life. In the IELTS General Reading, all the 3 passages may be different. It might be challenging in each of the passages. In passage 1 there will be really short 2 or 3 articles related to everyday life topics, in passage 2 there will be 2 short articles related to the job in some way, it may be a job application or anything related to the company. In passage 3 there will be a long paragraph related to an academic topic and this is the toughest part in General Training IELTS Reading.

IELTS Reading Practice

You can improve your IELTS reading by, reading English regularly through which you are able to improve your vocabulary as well as your grammar. Do not stop reading IELTS reading materials but if you practice reading English newspapers, magazines, journals regularly it will be helpful because most of the passages of the tests will be taken from that itself and it is an amazing way to improve your language skills. You can also go through some tips and tricks to improve your IELTS score which is available on plenty of websites.

Types of questions in IELTS

There are different kinds of questions for each of the passages that appear in the IELTS reading examination.

• Multiple Choice Questions:

You all know that this is a traditional way of asking questions where the question will be asked and it will have the answer choices from which the test takers have to choose the correct answer. Based on this question you will be assessed in many ways such as based on ideas, details and so on. Sometimes you can look at the keywords in the question and find out the answer.

• True/False/Not given Questions:

These questions are very tricky questions and you might end up spending a lot of time on this question. This question consists of several statements and if the statement is present in the article as it is then you need to mark it as true and if the statement is found to be opposite of the sentence which is actually there then it should be marked as false. The third option is also possible if the sentence given in the question is not at all present in the article. Here you may spend more time finding the sentence which is actually not there. That is why it is important to manage time and do not go to search for the sentence which does not exist at all.

• Yes/No/Not given Questions:

Yes/No/Not given questions are the same as True/False/Not given questions, but here you are asked to agree or disagree based on the author’s opinion on the essay. You should say Yes or No for the opinion given by the author. If the information is not given directly then you can say as Not given.

• Matching Questions:

There are various types of matching questions in IELTS reading tests and each one is different from another.

Matching Headings:  

In this type of question, a list of headings will be given and you are asked to match these headings with the paragraph. Sometimes you get the correct heading while reading the one or two sentences of the paragraph which is really good. But you must not stop reading the paragraph and read it further. If there are more words related to a particular heading in the paragraph then you must go to that particular heading. There will also be many other headings that are not related to the paragraph at all you must identify those types of headings too.

Matching information:

There will also be list information which is taken from the paragraphs. You are asked to find out from which paragraph the information is taken. Sometimes the question may be tricky because there will be a paragraph in which the information given does not exist at all and there will be no exact information as it is in the paragraph, the information will be paraphrased so you need to check if the idea matches.

Matching Features:

In this type of question, there will be a list of items in the box and you need to match these items with the sentences in the passages. The list may be of the name of people or the cities. For example, If there is a name of a person in the box of items then the question may be to match the sentence with the person who said them. Like others, some of the items mentioned may not be available in the passage. By this you may waste a lot of time. So, in order to save time read the passage before answering each question.

Matching sentence endings:

In this type of question, you need to connect two halves of the sentences. The first half of the sentence will be already given you need to find out which is the appropriate ending for the sentence from the list given. While choosing from the list you need to keep the following things in mind. Firstly, there should not be any grammatical errors in the sentence. Secondly, the ending sentence chosen by you should make sense and Thirdly, it should match the sentence in the passage.

• Sentence completion and Short answer Questions:

Sentence completion and Short answer questions are almost similar. In sentence completion, you are asked to fill in the blank spaces using the words given in the text. Whereas, in short answers, you need to take words from the given text in order to write the short answers. You need to pay close attention to the directions that are given because in some directions there will be word limit that is given if you miss the direction given you may lose the marks.

• Note, Table, Diagram and Summary Completion Questions:

In this type of question, you will be asked to complete a set of notes, tables, diagram or a summary from the information given in the text. Sometimes the question will be to write a short answer or sometimes you will have to choose from the list of answers given. Usually, these kinds of questions come only in one part of the passages. So you won’t have to read the whole passage to fill the important information.