IELTS Reading: Band 9

Reading is one skill in which many people find it difficult to score high despite a lot of practice. I, myself was initially stuck at band 7/7.5  during practice until I found out a few techniques that finally helped me boost my score to a 9. So, here are some of my tips that might help you. There won't be any typical terms of skimming and scanning and what not :D

The test has 3 sections with a total of 40 question and 60 minutes to attempt. There would be no extra time to transfer the answers to the answer sheet after these 60 minutes. So, make sure that you either write your answers directly on the answer sheet or transfer after completing each section. You have to be quick here as time management is the key to score high in Reading.

To prepare for this skill, start reading. Read anything you like, be it a newspaper, blog or a book in English. Try to read quickly while understanding the text. If you come across a new word, look for its meaning and synonyms. The passages in the test can be from any newspaper, magazine or book, about any topic like archaeology, history, medicine, geography etc.  So make sure you are familiar with the basic vocabulary. Practice the tests from the Cambridge IELTS books as I mentioned for the Listening part, making sure to set the timer and try to finish the test in 50 to 55 minutes to spare some time for a quick recheck. I used to finish mine withing 40 minutes during practice but on the exam day, I struggled to finish it in time and hardly had 2 or 3 minutes for a recheck.

There are different types of questions in the exam, for example, Mutiple Choice Questions (MCQs), Match the Headings, Sentence/ Summary Completion, Short Answer Questions and a few more, which you can find out on IELTS website and your practice tests. For some questions like MCQs, short answers and summary completion, the answers would be in the same order as the information in the paragraph while for some of the others like matching headings and matching information, they would not be.

I would advise to quickly go through all of the questions of a section first, underlining the key words and then find the answers one by one. While reading if you come across a word that you think is a potential answer to a question, underline it. Underline any dates, names etc. These might be the answers to some of the questions or might help you locate the answers quickly.

If a section has Match the Headings questions, attempt it after attempting all the other questions of that section, because by that time you must have read the paragraphs a couple of times and might have an idea about what each paragraph is about. Also, for this question type, read all  the headings first then start matching. Not all headings match with the paragraphs so don't worry about it as there will be more headings than paragraphs. Carefully read the letters designated to the paragraph (A,B,C) to make sure you are matching the right one.

TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN and YES/NO/NOT GIVEN type of questions are a nightmare for many. Firstly, make sure you answer them correctly and not write TRUE/FALSE to answer a question that asks YES/NO and vice versa. Secondly, don't get confused between NO/FALSE and NOT GIVEN.  If you can find the statement/information in the text, it is TRUE. If the text contradicts that statement or gives an opposite information, it is FALSE/NO and if the writer does not mention that specific statement or gives no information about it, the answer would be NOT GIVEN. For example, the statement is  THE SKY WAS BLUE. If in the passage, it is written that Mark was looking at the blue sky,  TRUE. If, Mark was looking at the grey sky, FALSE. If, Mark was looking at the sky, NOT GIVEN.

Make sure to paraphrase the question and look for synonyms of the key words as you might not find the exact word or statement in the passage. Pay attention to the instructions for each question. If you are asked to write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD or NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND A NUMBER, don't. You can write fewer words but not more. In MCQs, check if you have to write the word or just number/letter of the correct option (most probably).  Spell the words correctly, I would suggest to write in block letters, it makes the writing clear and easy to read. Don't forget to practice as practice makes a man perfect!

Scoring Band 9 in IELTS Listening

The easiest skill to get Band 9 in, out of the four, is probably Listening. The test comprises of 4 sections with 40 questions in total. You will have 30 minutes to answer all the questions then 10 minutes in addition to transfer your answers to the answer sheet. I would suggest you to visit the IELTS official website and have a look at the pattern of exam before starting your preparation to know what you are preparing for.

The study material I recommend is the Cambridge English IELTS book series (the academic version of course). There are 12 of them available, I would suggest to practice at least books 8 to 12. In addition, start watching English movies/ TV shows or even You Tube videos to familiarize yourself with different accents and pronunciations of words. 

I believe practice is the key to success here. As you practice more and more tests, you would certainly improve your score. Before you start practicing, check with your exam centre if they provide headphones or not and practice accordingly. I've met a lot of people who practiced with headphones and ended up getting low scores just because they could not focus on the exam day without headphones. 

Coming to the actual test, as the audio begins, you would hear some instructions and then a sample answer just like the practice tests, then you will have some time to read the questions (say 1 to 5). I would advise you to utilize this time in reading as many questions as possible of that section. After every set of questions, you would be given some time to recheck the answers and read the next  set of questions, which you should take full advantage of and try to read ahead.You are free to turn the pages once the test begins. So, if you have time, you can read the questions on the next page.

While reading the questions, I suggest you to underline the key words to focus on them later in the audio. Don't just hear for those specific words, you might hear there synonyms, so be prepared! Pay attention to the instructions written on the question paper, for example, NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS, NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND A NUMBER etc and follow them. You can write fewer words but not more. I would suggest to write in block letters to make your writing clear to read and not worry about capital letters at the beginning of proper nouns.

What if you miss an answer? This is something very common while listening to something you are not interested in for 30 long minutes, particularly in the last section when you generally lose attention. Try to be attentive till the end but if you do miss an answer, simply move on to the next question. If you keep on recalling and guessing at that time, you are likely to miss answers to the next questions as well. So move on and come back to that question at the end, read a couple of questions before and after that one, try to recall the audio and make a logical guess, it might work, it worked for me.

In the last 10 minutes, recheck all your answers and after transferring them to the answer sheet, recheck one more time. Make sure the spellings are correct (can be either American or British) and the answers are clearly written.  Believe me, double checking makes a lot of difference because sometimes we make very silly mistakes and end up regretting. I myself misspelled a couple of words that I corrected while rechecking for the 2nd time.

That was all I could suggest you from my experience. I hope it would be of help to someone, somewhere. All the best :)