Transcript for:
IELTS Reading Strategies and Tips

you just find The Ultimate Guide to IELTS reading this is the longest most detailed most comprehensive guide to IELTS reading you'll find anywhere on the Internet it's going to help you understand things about the format of the test tips and strategies that only band nine students really understand we're also going to give you a strategy that is going to help you constantly improve the thousands of my students have used to get a band 9. not only that we're also going to give you two of our VIP step-by-step strategies for true false not given and matching headings and at the end I'm going to give you one of our VIP practice tests for free and show you exactly how to get 40 out of 40 by giving you a complete step-by-step walkthrough demo of the practice test so sit back relax and get ready to improve your IELTS reading score so let's start off by talking about the IELTS reading format one thing that IELTS band 9 students who get about nine in Reading understand is that General training and academic are the same but different what does that mean so one of the key differences is that on the academic test you will get academic texts these will be the kind of text that you would find in a university textbook and general training students don't have academic texts they have General text these could be any text that you find in everyday life but what is exactly the same is the types of questions that you will get and the strategies that you will use for those questions so on both academic and general training you'll get multiple choice you'll get true false not given you will get matching headings and you should approach them in exactly the same way so what about nine students normally do is they will practice using both academic tests on General training tests because they understand that it is exactly the same strategy and types of questions and band 9 students also understand that General training and academic are the same difficulty that is because for General training you need a score of 40 out of 40 to get about nine but for academic you can get one wrong you can get 39 out of 40 and still get about nine and to be honest the only people who think that General training is much easier than academic or people who do the academic test and fail to get the score that they need it's just a way of making themselves feel better by breaking other people down to their level the second big thing the band 9 students understand about the reading test format is that there are three sections and it gets progressively more difficult as you go through the three sections so section one is the easiest section section two gets a little bit more difficult and sections 3 is the most difficult now why is this why do they do this well Band 3 really separates out about seven band eight and band 9. if you think about it they ask you the more difficult questions at the end so that someone who maybe has full marks but is really at about eight level they'll get the last couple of questions wrong and that brings them down to the real level which is about eight well that's the theory anyway but generally it works quite well that way so band 9 students don't just start practicing and automatically get about nine normally the students that we work with that eventually get about nine start off and get a 7.5 or an 8 or an 8.5 and when they get those scores they don't panic they understand that they need to focus in on those questions that they get in section three those questions that they get Incorrect and figure out why they got those Incorrect and we'll talk a lot more about that in the rest of this video the other significant thing related to this point is that by nine students tend to spend a lot less time on Section 1 compared to section two and section three because band line students think strategically about time what a band-9 student doesn't do is spend an equal amount of time on each question that is just a bad system a bad strategy because what that does is you'll spend too much time on the easier questions and not enough time on the more difficult questions online students spend very little time on the first part and most of their time in the middle and towards the end and we'll talk a lot more about strategy in terms of time management later on in this video we'll show you how to get everything done on time and what band 9 students do very very differently when it comes to time management than all the other students the third big big thing and this is probably the biggest thing when it comes to the difference between band 9 students and you know band six and seven students is the band 9 students understand that there are many many different types of questions that you might get you might get true false not given multiple choice labeling questions and short answer questions matching headings questions and on and on and on and on my band 9 students understand why IELTS ask you all of these different questions what they're doing is they're testing a range of different reading skills and sub skills in different orders therefore crucially what bar 9 students do is they have a separate strategy for each of the different types of question that might come up bonds six and seven students what they generally do is they will have one strategy for all of the different types of questions I've never met a bandine student that did that every band 9 student that I have worked with has consistently showed me that they have a separate strategy for all of the different types of of questions it takes more work to learn that but did you really think the band 9 students worked less than band five and band Six students and don't worry we'll show you how to use those strategies and give you some of those strategies later on in the video now let's talk about computer-based versus paper-based are there any Trends do by nine students do paper more than computer-based the short answer is no there's no real connection between a Bandai student and like if they go and do it on the computer that they will generally get a much much higher score remember they are testing your ability to read in English they're not testing your ability to read on paper or read on a screen however a lot of students have commented that doing it on a computer is less stressful and more convenient it does not boost your marks but it does reduce stress and it's just easier to do for example if it is a multiple choice question you can just click it on the screen a lot of students say that that is much much easier than transferring your answers over so if you have a choice I would choose the computer-based one but it's not really going to improve your score now let's talk about time management do band 9 students have some secret band 9 time management strategy tips no they are better at reading what does that mean well think about a race think about Usain Bolt running in the hundred meters did Usain Bolt the night before the Olympic final go on Google top 10 magic time management tips for running no he was probably sleeping what he did was for years practice running and become better at running he wasn't faster than the other guys he was better at running this is exactly the same with band 9 students I have never met a bar 9 student that improved to about nine because they got some magic band 9 time management tips they were constantly improving their ability to read in English also what they did was as I said before they had separate strategies for each of the different types of questions and they memorized those strategies by heart if you put a true false not given question in front of them or a multiple choice question in front of them they didn't even think about what the strategy was they'd done it so many times that they just used it the example I always use is riding a bike or tying your shoelaces you don't have to think about riding a bike or think about tying your shoelaces you've done it so many times that you do it naturally that's exactly what Bond line students do and that leads to them completing everything very very quickly when I did the test I got about nine in 20 minutes that's not because of time management it's because it's my job to do do this and I'm very very good at reading finally band 9 students understand the different skills that are needed but most importantly when to use those skills and in what order so they don't just skim and scan and then find the correct answer they do it completely different from other students and we'll talk about that in the skills section of this video I hope you're enjoying this video on reading but if you really want to improve your IELTS reading I have a free course for you that is even better than anything that we cook on YouTube It's called The IELTS reading challenge what it's going to do is give you strategies for all of the different types of questions 100 free and also show you where you can find real reliable practice tests and strategies that will help you constantly improve your IELTS reading score if you want to sign up for free just click the link in the description enter your email address and we'll send you all of that information for free now back to the video okay let's give you some tips and tricks that bar nine students normally use to improve their score number one Bond line students understand that the IELTS reading test is a vocabulary test not just a reading test what does that mean well during the reading test you're constantly going to be looking at the questions and looking at the text and there will be lots of words in the questions that will be synonyms in the text so you have to have a wide-ranging vocabulary in order to find the location of the correct answer to understand what that sentence what that word means and decide the correct answer so often students will come to me and say I keep getting 6.5 or 6 or 7. I don't know how to improve my reading skills often it is not a problem with the reading skills or anything else it is just their vocabulary is an issue but another thing the bar 9 students understand is the best way to improve your vocabulary is reading when you are reading if you see a word that you do not understand note it down in your notebook look up the meaning add synonyms add all the information you need and then you will have a vocabulary notebook full of new words so you will be practicing reading improving your reading skills and improving your vocabulary all at the same time all of the band 9 students that I've worked with have followed that system the second tip the band 9 students follow is you will not understand every word in the text and that's okay when I did the test there were a lot of words that I simply did not understand English is a huge language if English professors from Oxford and Cambridge looked at some of the reading texts there would be a few words in there that they might not understand and by my students understand that this is totally natural if you move to an English-speaking country and you're working or you're studying there you're constantly going to be finding new words that you don't understand that doesn't mean that you can't read and understand the sentence so what bound 9 students do is they deploy systems when they are practicing their reading when they're reading in general to cope with this and actually use it to improve their reading and improve their vocabulary so one thing that bar nine students do is they get used to guessing the meaning from Context what does this mean well if you are reading a sentence and there's a word in that sentence that you do not understand what about nine students do is they don't panic and go oh my God I'm terrible at English they look at the word and they guess what that word means based on the words around it based on the context and this forces them to be constantly using this skill guessing meaning from Context and then what they do is they look up the meaning of the word after they guess it and 95 of the time or even more than that they have guessed the meaning correctly so this means that you don't have to be constantly looking at your iPhone and dictionaries and apps that are showing you the meaning of stuff this is how native English speakers read native English speakers aren't constantly checking up words and dictionaries they guess what it means from Context and also band 9 students don't panic when they do not understand a word so often you will see a word and you'll look at the words around it you'll try to guess the meaning but you still won't be sure a lot of the time it is not essential that you understand the meaning of that word to find the correct answer so the biggest difference between about seven student and about nine students in this context is all about mindset the bond six the bond seven student will panic panic and stress during the IELTS test is not a good strategy to have by nine student we'll look at that word do I need to know this no let's move on remember your job is not to understand all of the words your job is to get as many correct answers as possible tip number three my students read actively not passively what's the difference between active reading and passive reading or passive reading so when you're reading a book and you're not really doing anything you're just reading for enjoyment you're just reading for reading's sake active reading is when you are reading but you are doing something at the same time you're actively trying to work on something so that could be trying to improve your reading skills your vocabulary your grammar your spelling and we've already given you an example of that in this video remember we said that when a student sees an unusual word a word they don't really understand instead of just moving on they practice the skill of guessing meaning from Context or they try to improve their vocabulary by writing it down in their vocabulary notebook they're actively improving and actively doing something every single band night student that I've worked with has used this technique to improve their weaknesses so if you want to buy online you're going to have to read anyone who thinks that they're going to get a band 9 in Reading without reading is insane so now that you've accepted that you're going to have to spend time reading in English you have a choice read passively which will lead to pretty much zero Improvement or read actively and now that you've taken the smart decision to read actively what should you try and improve your biggest weaknesses so if you suck at spelling when you see a new word and you're like that looks weird the spelling looks weird write it down write the correct spelling done if you need to improve your grammar let's say you need to improve your use of punctuation when you're reading notice where the commas are why is a comma after there why is there no comma there it does sound a lot like hard work but 10 minutes of active reading will improve you a lot more than one hour of passive reading so which is more work an hour of passive reading and then you go and fail the test or 10 minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes of really intense focus and then you get the score that you need tip number four Bond nine students really read the instructions carefully I know that it's boring I know that you're under pressure I know that you're stressed out you just want to go and attempt the questions my nine students tend to be a lot calmer read the instructions and do exactly what the instructions do and they understand before the test you know what does one word only or two words and or a number what do those things actually mean tip number five band nine students are very very good at spelling many of the Bands six band seven students that we work with have equally as good vocabulary and reading skills and they're just as good at reading as a band eight or about nine student but their spelling is poor and if it is one letter out it is wrong and I know many students complain about that band 9 students don't complain about that they just follow the rules get better and give the examiners what they want so how do you improve that active reading you're starting to see a pattern here Bond mind students as I've said before are not born by nine students they didn't come out of the womb being able to read and get 40 out of 40. they all had weaknesses just like you had weaknesses but what they did was they understood what those weaknesses are we'll show you how to do that later on this video and then they actively worked on those so if you need to improve your spelling every time you make a spelling mistake note it down and then write the correct spelling beside it what you will start to notice are patterns you'll start to notice particular types of words or individual words that you just have a problem spelling then you can do an 80 20 analysis on that you know are there words that every time you spell them or types of words you make a mistake if you improve that weak area you're eliminating 80 90 of your mistakes tip number six Bond nine students practice slow and fast what does that mean well imagine you are learning how to drive a car on day one does the driving instructor take you away to the motorway and say drive at 100 miles an hour no that would be crazy but a lot of bond six Bond 7 students do that what they do is they try and get everything done in 60 Minutes on and then when they failed to get a high score they beat themselves up and they're like I'm terrible at reading no you're not terrible at reading you just aren't ready to go at full speed so what bar nine students generally do is when they are beginning their practice especially when they're learning new strategies or they're working on their weaknesses they practice extremely slowly they might take you know let's say six true false not given questions and they might spend half an hour or an hour just working on those six questions because what they are doing is not trying to get the correct answer they're trying to perfect the strategy and learn the strategy and that simply takes time but what they do is they get faster and faster so some of the online students that I've worked with when they first started they were taking three or four hours to do a practice test and then they would go to two and a half hours and then to two and then to one and a half and then one minute 15 and then one minute five and then eventually they were getting to an hour I know many of you want to be told how to magically get a band 9 in 60 minutes today you should go and watch one of the other channels if that is what you are after you're going to get the truth here we aren't going to lie to you here and give you you know tips and tricks that are going to guarantee that you get a high score immediately but let me share with you the best strategy that I've ever used with students that has produced more by nine students than any other let's look at the ultimate band 9 strategy for IELTS reading what you will need are two or three real practice tests do not use fake tests that you find online get the real Cambridge books for this number two do these under exam conditions what does exam conditions mean number one don't do tests that you know the answers don't cheat do it as if you are really in the test which means you've seen this test for the first time the day you do it and the second part is that you do it in 60 minutes and again no cheating if you cheat you're only cheating yourself and the system the strategy will not work step 3 go to the back of the book and find out how many questions you got wrong if it is spelled incorrectly if you made a silly mistake don't give yourself the correct answer it is wrong again you're only cheating yourself you need to really find out which questions are wrong step number four and this is the most important part why did you get those questions wrong what we're looking for here are patterns so for example if eighty percent of your incorrect answers are spelling mistakes then spelling is your key weakness it could be vocabulary if you couldn't find the answer because you didn't understand the words that is a vocabulary issue or it could be particular types of questions so if you did three tests and every time you've seen a true false not given question you got most of those wrong then that's a strategy issue with that particular type of question or if you got most of the questions correct in Parts one and two but most of the questions wrong in section three then that's normally a reading skills or a vocabulary issue or up just might be that you got most questions correct up until the 60 minutes and then you got a lot of questions wrong because you didn't finish on time that's normally a skills or a vocabulary but most importantly a strategy issue you just need to understand the different strategies that are going to help you get everything done efficiently now that you understand what your weaknesses are we go on to the final step which is the most difficult step but is the most important step you need to work on those weaknesses if you have a problem with spelling you need to improve your spelling vocabulary improve your vocabulary strategy you need to improve your strategy we'll show you how to improve those things later in the video but if you just look at it and start crying and start complaining oh I'm terrible at spelling we all suck at different things we are all bad at different things the difference between people who are successful and unsuccessful is the unsuccessful people generally cry about it the successful people they feel uncomfortable but they continue to work and turn those weaknesses in the strengths that's the real difference between about nine student and everyone below them this video is sponsored by us IELTS advantage and IELTS VIP course the IELTS VIP course is the most successful IELTS course in the world that is a fact because we have more bands seven eight and nine success stories than any other IELTS course in the entire world we do that by simplifying the whole IELTS process supporting you with some of the best IELTS teachers in the world and being with you every step of the way until you get the score that you need to thank you for making it this far in the video I want to give you 10 off our VIP course all you have to do is just look down in the description you will see our special link that you need to get 10 off just click that and you can sign up if you have any questions about the VIP course always feel free to get in touch with us Chris at ieltsadvantage.com is my email address we answer a hundred percent of the questions that we get hope that you become a VIP if not enjoy the rest of this free video okay now that you know the ultimate band 9 strategy part of that strategy is finding real practice tests so let's talk about that now where to find these and where not to find them so there are only four sources of practice tests one is the British Council two is IDP three is Cambridge English and four are the Cambridge English books any other source is not a reliable source don't waste your time in the comments and ask well what about real genuine practice tests we promise they're real.com or we promise we're not a fake IELTS company.com like don't waste your time they are not reliable they are all fake if you are using fake tests you're taking a huge risk because the people making these fake test the only reason they make them is not to help IELTS students is to make money if you click on their website then they're going to make money from you they are very very very rarely IELTS experts there's a huge difference between someone who runs an IELTS YouTube channel or an IELTS website on a real IELTS expert it takes decades to be able to produce these tests reliably so the people making these tests will either make them really really easy or more commonly really really difficult so if they make them too easy you will get a high score during your practice test and you'll be like great I'm ready for my test you'll go and spend your 300 and you'll fail or if they are too difficult you will lose confidence and you will never do the test because you think that you're going to fail and it just adds a huge amount of stress and worry and just general negativity to your life these people do not care about you they care about their bank accounts do not help them by using their fake tests and there are so many real genuine tests that you can buy or use for free which brings us on to our next Point probably not in the comments there are people writing but the Cambridge past paper books are so expensive yes they are but they're also not really listen I totally understand that many of you do not come from money you don't have you know twenty five thirty dollars to just spend on a book but spending the money on those books and I have no affiliation with Cambridge I don't make any money if Cambridge makes money spending money on those books is one of the best investments you can ever make because you're not going to fail your test which is going to save you at least three hundred dollars if you fail your test three times which is about the average for most students not you because you're watching my videos you're going to get the score that you need next time but the average student is spending you know to a thousand dollars on test fees but won't spend twenty five dollars on practice tests that is insane also if you think about it why are you doing the IELTS test probably so you can go to a prestigious University and get an amazing education which will make you cumulatively millions of dollars in the future or to move to a better paying job in a new country which again over the next 10 20 years you're probably going to earn millions of dollars if you are really really you just do not have twenty five dollars I understand we'll put links in the description to where you can find the free practice test from the British Council IDP and Cambridge or all you have to do is just go to Google and write IELTS reading practice test and then plus British Council IDP or Cambridge English now let's talk about reading skills like skimming and scanning and what bar 9 students understand about these skills that most students don't so there are three core skills that all students use when they are reading and everybody uses these on a day-to-day basis so let's start off with skimming so something we all do every day is read a newspaper is it either a physical newspaper or we click on to the news online when you click on a story it is extremely rare for a person to read every single word carefully what most people do is they will skim through the article to get the general meaning of what that article is trying to tell you this is exactly the same skill that we use when we are doing the reading test so we will look at a paragraph and we will read through it quite quickly in order to understand generally what that paragraph is about so for example if you get a matching headings question what they are testing is your ability to understand the general meaning of each paragraph and you will not have time to read every word carefully so you will look at each of the paragraphs and you will skim through it quite quickly in order to understand the general meaning oh that's quite different from the skill of scanning so I want you to imagine you're going to the cinema and you look at the movie times for the cinema do you read every single movie time or do you just scan to find the name of the movie you want to go to and then scan for the time that is convenient for you we're not reading everything we are looking for specific information we also use this in the reading test so for example if we were doing a true false not given question and we were trying to find the location of the correct answer we would scan for those words from the question or synonyms from those words not to find the correct answer but to find the location of the correct answer because these skills are just tools that are helping us find the correct answer but the third and most important skill is something called close reading and this is something that bad nine students use more than any other this is reading carefully around the area where you think the correct answer is located so you've identified the position the location of the correct answer and then you're reading that passage very very carefully you're also reading the question carefully and then deciding the correct answer close reading is the most important skill because it helps you find the correct answer but it's also the skill most overlooked by about six or about 7 or band H student whereas a bond nine student they're spending a lot of their time a lot more of their time close reading but what about 9 students really understand about these skills is when to use them and when not to use them and in what order to use them so let's talk about reading strategy now so on a very basic level a strategy is just telling you what to do and in what order to do so step one do this step two do this step three do this so some strategies will tell you to skim first and then scan other strategies will have no skimming whatsoever and they'll tell you to scan first other strategies will really focus on understanding the questions other strategies they'll be more of a focus on the actual text every question is different all the types of questions are different because they're testing different skills and different sub skills and I know that sounds very overwhelming but you need to remember that strategies are there to remove overwhelm all you have to do is memorize them practice them and then you'll be able to use them effectively and all they really are is a guide so I want you to imagine we decide to climb Mount Everest and we are the world's greatest mountain climbers but what every mountain climber no matter how good they are what they need to do is they need to hire a sherpa a sherpa is a guide they know where all the dangerous roots are so we can avoid them they know where all the danger points are and they know the most efficient and most convenient route of the mountain strategies act as your Sherpa they are your guide Bond line students even though their reading skills are vocabulary is very very very high they still need strategies to guide them to the correct destination and that's all strategies are they are not Magic on the flip side I want you to imagine now that we decide to climb Mount Everest and we are terrible mountain climbers our fitness is terrible you know we can hardly walk we are not very good at climbing we could get the world's best sharper the world's best guide and we would struggle to even get to base camp strategies are not magic you'll see a lot of these videos online especially on YouTube you know use this magic secret strategy to guarantee a bad line they are useful and will go through how useful they are and we'll teach you those but they are only part of the equation without using the other stuff in this video and improving your weaknesses and improving your skills and your reading strategies and your reading ability and vocabulary you won't be able to get a button line okay so the most confusing part of true false not given is true false not given a lot of students are used to true false and they have no problems with true and false questions but once you throw not given in there it can be quite confusing and quite difficult so what I'm going to do is demonstrate a little technique that we teach our VIP students that will remove any confusion for you so what you need is a pen and a piece of paper I'm going to demo this first and then I'm going to ask you to do it at home so what you're going to do is at the top of the page you're going to write question statement and then what you're going to do is you're going to think of a fact about you all right I'm going to demo it about me because I am me but think about something that is true about you could be your name it could be your age your nationality something that is a fact so Chris is 40 years old so this is a fact about me so imagine this is in your questions all right so this is part of the question part of true false not given what we're going to do now is we're going to write a statement the text that is true all right we're going to write a true statement that matches this fact so what I'm going to do is I am going to write Chris was born on 16th of December 1982. so today while I'm filming this it is July 2023 so a true statement Chris was born on the 16th of December 1982. so these two statements agree with one another all right they agree they mean the same thing so this is a true statement now what you're going to do is you're going to think of something completely false so you're going to write false here Chris is 21. I wish I was 21 unfortunately I'm not this is completely false it disagrees with this statement okay now what you're going to do is you're going to think of a statement that is related to this but doesn't give enough information for you to really decide if it is true or false so we're going to write Chris is middle aged so what middle aged means is people who are living in the middle of their lives it can be people who are 40 years old but it could be someone who is 50 years old or 55 years old do these two statements much do they mean the same thing no but they also don't disagree with one another you can't say that this is false there's just not enough information in this statement for you to say that this statement is true or false so it is not given there is not enough information given for you to say if it is true or false there's not enough information given think about it that way what really confuses people is they look for something that is not there so if I told you to go into the next room here and look for a pen that is not there you would be looking for a very long time and that is what happens when students are trying to search for not given they're searching for something that is not there instead look for information that shows that not enough information is given and then you will confidently be able to say not given and the reason why I'm personalizing this you should not write Chris you should write your own name people remember things and they relate to things that are related to them all right so we're personalizing it so that it makes sense to you so I'm going to do another one here because this often causes a lot of confusion so again write one thing at the top question statement that is true about you Chris is an Irish National I have Irish nationality so I'm going to write a true statement here that matches with this statement Chris was born on the island of Ireland and has an Irish passport these two things match now let's write something that is false Chris is Vietnamese so not based on how I look or how I sound but it is a fact that I am not Vietnamese because I do not have Vietnamese nationality I don't have a Vietnamese passport I wasn't born in Vietnam so this is false Chris is married to a Vietnamese woman and his sons are Vietnamese passports so my wife is Vietnamese my sons are Vietnamese am I Vietnamese we don't know so this is not given there's just a not enough information for us to look at this question statement and say whether it is true or whether it is false now some of you from Vietnam might be writing in the comments saying you were not born in Vietnam therefore you cannot get Vietnamese citizenship you should never ever take previous knowledge knowledge from outside of the text and apply it to the text you're only applying it to what the text says So based on this text you cannot establish whether I'm a Vietnamese citizen or not again ignore you know what I look like and how I sound you're only basing it on the text so again do this two or three times for yourself and then in the test if you're ever confused you'll be like I am X years old or I am a whatever citizen or I am a woman I am a man that might be a little bit tricky in 2023 but you get the point okay before we look at the step-by-step strategy for true false not given which is really going to help you it's important that you understand what not to do and understand a few tips that are going to help you so don't skip ahead to the strategy understanding the common problems is really going to help you so common problem number one is not understanding the difference between true or false and not given what I would really suggest is you do that strategy but also go and look at the official books from Cambridge do some true false not given questions and then think about why was this true why was this false why was this not given and you'll find all of the correct answers at the back of the book don't use fake papers that you know might not be true might not be false might not be given use the real ones the coffee stains are completely optional the second related problem is spending too much time searching for not given we talked about this already often students will you know look at the question statement they will find the correct location of where it is but they don't have the confidence to really say this is not given this leads to them wasting a lot of time remember you only have one hour to get everything done so that can become a problem really how you solve that is you just go through the logically is this true no is this definitely false no well then it's not given and it's about just practicing and getting into a Groove and having the confidence to just say this is not given you will not be able to do this on test day without practice and without thinking about it the third common problem is not understanding what the question statements actually say so you'll be given question statements like we have here and you'll be given the text which we have here a lot of students immediately go and look at the text without spending time really thinking about these questions if you don't understand what these mean it's impossible to say whether they are true false or not given these questions are not really asking you to just focus and understand the text that is only part of what they are asking you to do a huge part of this is really understanding what do these things actually mean so students that tend to do much better than others are students spend more time thinking about this and it's not a waste of time it is an investment of time the fourth common problem is focusing too much on keywords often you'll find YouTube videos or blog articles or social media posts that simplify IELTS reading a little bit too much what they say is you know underline keywords skim scan find the correct answer that just simply doesn't really work if you focus too much on keywords within these questions then you are not really understanding the full sentence what they're asking you to do is not identify keywords keywords are part of the strategy but they're really first asking you what does this actually mean so if you're just going polar bears polar bears polar bears where are polar bears you're going to get completely lost and confused and then you're just going to end up either just guessing the answer or getting very stressed running out of time and you know you're life is over your life's not over you know you can do the test again okay now let's give you some tips that really help with true false not given tip number one ignore any previous knowledge about the topic don't use common sense don't use anything other than the questions and exactly what it says here so to go back to the example that I gave you before about my nationality and whether I can become a Vietnamese citizen or not a lot of people know that that would be extremely difficult even though I'm married to a Vietnamese lady but you should not bring that knowledge to the questions often with true false not given especially not given what people will do is they'll try and cheat the test in some way by thinking what is The Logical answer or what is the answer that makes most sense and I've even seen YouTube videos that say you know get a band 9 without reading the text you can become a famous YouTuber without reading any IELTS books are becoming an IELTS expert but you can't get about nine without reading the text tip number two identify any words that qualify any of the nouns so for example some or all are similar words but if you think about it completely different words would you like to have some questions correct or would you like to have all questions correct they are two very very different words and what they do is they qualify words within here and not just some all many you can also look at for example polar bears here versus brown bears there is a difference between a polar bear and a brown bear same with number five female polar bears a female polar bear is very different from a male brown bear or a male polar bear I know this is frustrating and I know it's like ah it takes a lot of brain power and to actually focus on this and really think about it but you know you're doing an academic test you have to think and what these words are doing is testing whether you just focus on keywords like polar bear or whether you understand the entire sentence female polar bear tip number three there will always be at least one true answer one false answer and one not given answer so if you get to the end for example if there were four questions and the first one is true number two is false number three is false then number four is definitely not given if you got the other ones correct that is the next tip is don't rely solely on skimming and scanning skimming helps you understand the general meaning of the text scanning helps you find the location of keywords helps you find the area where the answer might be but the main skill here that is being tested is close reading you need to read carefully skimming and scanning are the opposite of close reading so if all you do is just let's just look at keywords and skim and scan you won't really be using the skill that they are testing and we'll talk more about that in the strategy part the next tip is be aware of synonyms for example in this one the polar bears mechanism for increasing bone density what is a synonym of bone well it might say something like skeleton for example or they could get very fancy and use skeletal system or something like that I don't know if that's even correct or not I'm sure people will let me know in the comments but if you are going over to the passage here and you're looking for or bones bones bones bones you might find bones but it is completely the wrong part of the actual text or it might not say bones at all it might say skeleton so if you're just looking for that word and you can't find it then think okay what synonyms could it be that will help you locate the area where you can find the correct answer the next tip is if you cannot find the correct answer what you should do is put n g beside it so for example let's say number three I can't find the correct answer I'm not really sure what I would do is put n g beside number three because it's probably not given and then depending on how much time I have at the end I can go back and look back at the area that I think that it might be in and I can read it a lot more carefully and decide if it is really not given or if I'm running out of time what I can do is just circle the NG or decide that it's going to be NG because it probably will be okay now let's move on to the step-by-step strategy for true false not given questions what I would recommend is that you follow this strategy exactly don't follow it halfway because if you do it won't work also none of these strategies can be looked at one time and then applied remember when we talked earlier in the video about the difference between band 9 students and students below them by online students practice slowly take as much time as you need to practice these strategies until they become completely memorized by heart so when you see a true false not given question you can just follow this system without even thinking about it that's your goal so step one read the instructions carefully and also think about is this a true false not given question or a yes no not given question if it's a yes no not given question the strategy will be slightly different step number two read each of the question statements entirely all of the question statements do not look at keywords and try and highlight keywords this is not a question that is testing your ability to identify keywords it is testing first of all your ability to understand each sentence as a whole also think about any qualifying words that might come up now that you've read and understood all of the question statements you want to think about are there any possible synonyms that might come up in the text that might be different in the text for example polar bears suffer from various health problems due to the buildup of fat under their skin so various health problems they might mention specific health problems such as high blood pressure heart disease stroke things like that instead of it saying a buildup of fat they might say that they are overweight because the next step is to match the question statement with the correct part of the text so this is the text what we're going to do next is we're going to take each of the question statements and we're going to locate where the correct answer is we're not going to to establish the correct answer we are only trying to find the correct location so either you will find the exact words or synonyms of those words so if we have a look here a question number one polar bears suffer from various health problems due to the buildup of fat underneath their skin so if we have a look at the first paragraph here what we're going to do is scan for those words or synonyms of those words so if we have a quick scan here fat underneath their skin if we have a look here buildup of fat under their skin so it's slightly different but pretty much the same so what we knew now is the answer to this question is probably in this paragraph so now we know the location of the correct answer we need to go back and read this again what does this sentence actually mean polar bears suffer from various health problems due to the buildup of fat under their skin next step we need to read this part of the text carefully to decide the correct answer true false or not given so polar bears are being increasingly threatened by the effects of climate change but their disappearance could have far-reaching consequences so it's talking about climate change here it's not talking about anything related to health problems but let's continue to read it carefully they're uniquely adapted to the extreme conditions of the art Circle where temperatures can reach minus 40 degrees one reason for this is that they have up to 11 centimeters of fat under their skin humans with comparative levels of adipose tissue that's just a scientific way of saying fat would be considered obese and would be likely to suffer from diabetes on heart disease yet the polar bear experiences no such consequences so what they're doing here is they're talking about disease they're talking about health problems heart disease diabetes but they're saying that if humans had all of this fat 11 centimeters of fat underneath their skin I can talk from personal experience but they're saying that the polar bear has no consequences so polar bears suffer from health problems due to the buildup of fat under their skin what this is saying polar bears experience no Health consequences they don't get diabetes they don't have heart disease because they are fat so what we would do is we would underline and hone in eye on the exact words that give us the correct answer polar bears experience no such consequences the consequences are health problems let's have a look now at the statement again polar bears suffer from various health problems it's it's not agreeing with that all right those two statements do not agree with each other so we're quite confident now to put false but if we just weren't sure if we were like ah I don't know you know are our polar bears getting fat you know is this a problem I'm not 100 sure what you would do then is you would put NG and you would move on to the next question and then you can come back to that but it's pretty obvious now that it is false and then what you would do is you would just follow that exact same system for each part of the true false not given question so number two find the location read it carefully read the statement hone in on the exact part of it read it again really think about is this true false or not given then decide the answer and keep going keep moving on let's check if that is actually false and it is false I don't look silly in front of hundreds of thousands of people now let's go through the strategy for matching headings before we look at the step-by-step strategy what we're going to do is look at the common problems so that you can avoid them and then give you some tips that are very very useful including one tip that really transforms these questions for students and this one thing has led to hundreds or if not thousands of my students radically transforming their reading score from like band Six to even Bond eight or about seven to about nine because these questions are often a big worry for students and if you are worrying about them then it tends to affect the rest of your test as well so learning this is really really important okay so here's an example question so you'll always get a list of headings here and then you will get the text here it's important that you understand what they are actually testing the main thing that they are testing is can you look at each of these paragraphs and understand the general meaning of these paragraphs that is really what they're testing they are also testing your ability to differentiate between the meaning of these lists of headings so you might get two or three headings that are similar in meaning you might look at them and think these mean exactly the same thing so it's about being able to look at two or three similar headings and understand which one matches to the general meaning of these paragraphs so all this strategy what it does is it helps you understand the general meaning of the text quickly helps you understand the difference between the meanings of the headings and then match them together that's why it's so effective now let's think about common problems because once you're aware of these common problems then you'll be able to tackle them much easier so the first Common problem is there's just so much information to process and not enough time I'll give you a few tips in a minute that will help you process the information a lot more quickly the second common problem that we come across is that students don't spend enough time really understanding the meaning of the headings and differentiating between the meaning of similar looking headings and it's impossible to find the correct answer if you don't fully understand those headings problem number three is just not spending enough time thinking about the difference in meaning and if you don't spend enough time then you're going to get very stressed and you're going to find it difficult to find the correct answer which will lead to more stress which will lead to more time wasting and at all this snowballs into students hating these questions but don't worry we're going to solve all that for you today and last but not least the biggest problem is not understanding the general meaning of the paragraphs that is what is being tested and will give you a tip now that is going to make this very very easy for you okay let's move on to tips for matching headings now we know the problems how do we solve these problems tip number one if this type of question is in the section that you're doing so remember there are three sections section one section two section three if this type of question matching headings is in that section do this question first so for example with this one we of the third section here and the matching headings are the first question and then after it we have our multiple choice questions here but if it was flipped around if the multiple choice were first then the matching headings were second I would skip the multiple choice questions and do the matching headings question first and the reason for this is quite simple they are testing your ability to understand the general meaning of the text as a whole so if you do that first it is really going to help you answer the subsequent questions the questions that come next so it's a little time saving technique and just makes all the questions in that section much much easier to handle tip number two is don't expect to read every single word or understand every single word this is not really testing your ability to close read to read in detail and really understand specific words specific sentences and the meaning of those it is testing your ability to understand the general meaning as a whole that doesn't mean that you can just read the first couple of words or the last couple of words or skim very very quickly through it but if you see a word that you don't understand don't panic it might not be essential that you know the meaning of that word to understand the overall General meaning the next tip is to do with if you don't understand the difference in meaning between the different headings and what we do is there's a couple of techniques that you can use what you can do is like use your pens or your rulers or whatever you have with you to cover up the other ones just leave those ones remaining so that you're only focusing on those or you could write down let's say there are two different ones that are similar in meaning you could write those two down beside each other and normally that will make it much much easier because it's just not lost in a sea of information you're really being able to focus just on the those two or three sentences and the last tip is if you don't understand the difference in meaning between the sentences or you cannot find the answer don't panic move on to the next question and come back to that question because there's no point in ruining your chances of getting the correct answers later on because you get lost on one question remember for academic you can get one wrong and still get a bond nine you can get quite a few wrong and still get a seven seven point five eight but if you get lost on one question and you just spend like you know five minutes or 10 minutes on one question then you're ruining your chances of getting the correct answer to the rest of the questions okay now let's give you the step-by-step strategy and go through a question with me step number one if matching headings are in the section do this first it's already the first one here so we can go right into it number two importantly do not look at the heading I repeat do not look at the headings first this is testing your ability to understand the general meaning of the text so it is important that you look at the text first if you look at the headings first you're going to get confused you will get lost in the text now here comes the most important thing that you can do read the paragraph and try to write a heading without looking at the headings so here we have a so there's three paragraphs here sometimes like seed will just be one paragraph sometimes it will be three sometimes it'll be two what you want to do is read this paragraph and try to create your own heading what this forces you to do is think about the general meaning because it is impossible to write a heading without thinking and understanding the general meaning so you're forcing your brain to do exactly what this question is testing okay so let's do this together artificial intelligence can already predict the future police forces are using it to mop when and where a crime is likely to occur doctors can use it to predict when a patient is most likely to have a heart attack researchers are even trying to give AI imagination so it can plan for unexpected consequences so it's listing the benefits of AI but remember we're writing a heading for the whole thing the whole three paragraphs not just one many decisions in our lives require a good forecast and AI is almost always better at forecasting than we are yet for all these technological advances we still seem to deeply lack confidence in AI predictions recent cases show that people don't like relying on AI and prefer to trust human experts even if these experts are wrong so this is about the superiority how it is better than humans but humans don't really trust it so we have the benefits of AI how Ai and many circumstances is better at decision making than humans but humans don't really trust it if we want AI to really benefit people we need to find a way to get people to trust it to do that we need to understand why people are so reluctant to trust AI in the first place so why don't human beings trust AI despite it being much much better so we can't write three headings remember we're only writing one heading so what we need to force ourselves to do is make a decision that if I could only write one heading about this what would it be so listing all the benefits why it is better than humans but humans don't really trust it so we can't write AI is better than humans but humans don't trust it all right because that is two separate headings so we're going to summarize this very simply try and simplify it as much as possible AI is better at many thing than humans and then you would repeat that process for the rest of them and by the time you're finished for a b c d E and F you have your own headings the next step is to then look at the headings so this is the first time you're looking at the headings I'll just read through them and understand the difference in meaning so an increased Divergence of attitudes towards AI so this is different people thinking different things about AI reasons why we have more faith in human judgment than an AI to why do people think that humans are better the superiority of AI projections over those made by humans why AI is better than humans at making projections of making predictions the process by which AI can help us make good decisions that's pretty obvious what that means the advantages of involving users in AI processes again very obvious what that means widespread distrust of an AI Innovation until many many people not trusting it encouraging openness about high AI functions a surprisingly successful AI application so now that we've understood what those mean the next step is to match our heading with the headings here so the great thing about this technique is often there will be headings that match exactly or nearly exactly what you wrote down here and if that happens then it's the correct answer so let's use ours to see which one so AI is better at many things than humans let's see if it matches any of those so I'm going to do an X and a tick here but you don't have to do that just for the purposes of this video I'm going to make it just super clear so no reasons why we have more faith in human judgment maybe the superiority of AI projections over those made by humans why AI is better yes the process by which AI can help us make good decisions nope not talking about process the advantages of involving humans know widespread distrust maybe encouraging openness about high AI functions no on a surprisingly successful AI projection no so we have one that we think probably is the correct answer and two maybe so what we do know is we look at the difference between those three so reasons why we have more faith in human judgment than in AI now we can go back and think does it talk about reasons why we have more confidence more faith in AI it doesn't give any reasons so we can turn this into an X widespread distrust of an AI Innovation so the key word there is an AI Innovation a singular and AI Innovation at the top here they're talking about many many different AI uses so it's not talking about widespread distrust of one thing so we can eliminate that so we're pretty sure that it is three the superiority of AI projections so here it's talking about how it is very very good talking about a good forecast that is a projection a prediction is almost always better at forecasting it is superior so it is pretty obvious that the correct answer for 27 is 3. let's see if this video was a complete waste of time and whether I got the correct answer or not and 27 is three I was correct and then you would just follow that process so whatever your heading is for B look at the headings which ones can you match and you just repeat that process until it is finished but remember if you get stuck what you should do is just Mark something on the paper or write down something on paper if you're doing the computer-based version of an educated guess what you think it probably is and then come back to that later it's really really important that you don't spend like five minutes worrying about these questions and remember what is being tested the general meaning not specific things a big big problem is students get lost in the detail of this it's not testing detail it's testing General meaning I and just to anticipate some of the comments what a lot of people will do is they will say well recent cases show that people don't like relying on AI or if we want to make it better then we should trust it more or how can we trust it more that's similar to some of the things why is that not the case you are getting lost in the detail you are focusing on individual words and individual sentences you are looking at the general meaning of the whole paragraph what is the most suitable heading for that not what is one word or one sentence say within that paragraph once you start to understand this these become much much easier and once you start to get used to creating your own headings then you can get through these much much faster and more accurately okay so welcome to the reading test demo part of this video if you have not watched the rest of this video I would strongly recommend that you do you're an adult so you can choose whatever you want to do but a lot of this won't make any sense unless you watch the rest of the video and it probably will mean that you also pass your reading test so you don't waste a huge amount of time and waste a lot of money but as I said you're an adult it's up to you how you do that okay so here I have one practice test and what I'm going to do is go through this practice test and talk you through exactly how I would answer this so that's going to help you with strategy with understanding where you could go wrong and how to overcome those issues and just to see how an expert if we could hit that word but if you could call me an expert hi I would navigate this when I did the real test I got about nine in 20 minutes so that's probably a good indication that I know how to do these quite well I will put a link to a download so you can download this and there are a few different ways that you can watch this demo and you can download the practice test first and do it yourself and don't check the correct answers um I know that's difficult not to do but do the whole test don't check the correct answers and then come back and watch this video and see how I answer the questions see how do I do the things the same way as you did or do I do things differently if I'm doing things the same way that's probably a good indication that you're on the right track and but if I am doing things completely differently to you then that's a good indication that you need to change a few things so that's the first way that you could do it and that's probably the most effective thing second way is just you could just sit back relax and watch the video and that's probably the most relaxing way and just think about what I do and how I answer the questions while I'm during these the Third Way is you just download the practice test and you go immediately and check all the correct answers and then go and check um why those correct answers are correct that isn't a very useful way but you're a big girl you're a big boy and do whatever you want so let's begin and have a look okay so the first thing I'm going to do in part one is I'm going to check what type of questions are going to come up so this is labeling a diagram sentence completion and true false not given the reason why I did that was if there were any questions like matching headings for example that require me to read this quite quickly to understand the general meaning I would have done those questions first but those questions haven't come up so we can just Dive Right In to the first question which is labeling a diagram okay so the first thing I'm going to do is read the instructions very carefully because with these often people don't read the instructions and they add too many words or too many numbers so label the diagram below with the names of the layers of the sun choose no more than two words from the reading passage for each answer so no more than two words I can write one word or I can write two words but no more I can't write three four or five next I'm going to study the diagram just to see generally what's going on so I'm not a physicist I don't know anything about the Sun but I don't need to understand anything about the sun when you see an unfamiliar concept Don't Panic it doesn't require you to be a nuclear physicist to understand what is going on in the Sun so it looks like we have one two three four five layers here so we've got this layer here this layer here the core or this layer here and this layer here what I've also noticed is that one is slightly below the surface below this kind of pink line and four is the pink line right at the surface so I need to look for things that are differentiating these different layers so the pink surrounding layer and the one just below it also number two is probably going to be next to the core and number three is going to be below number one here also I notice that the core is already labeled so we don't need to worry about that but what I would be thinking when I'm doing this is they're going to say next to the core or after the core or something like that and number one is probably not going to be the actual structure of the sun if that's correct but this kind of thing coming off the sun you can't really take any um knowledge that you already have but I'm going to assume that this is radiation of some kind and it's not part of the Sun but it's coming off the Sun but I may be proved completely wrong in the actual text and it actually looks like one is the radiation and Photosphere is actually the bit below the pink line so what's really really important that you do study this because if you don't understand this then you might have some misconceptions just like I have already done the next step is we would look for any keywords okay we have Photosphere we have core we've already talked about that we don't need to worry about that we can move on next we're going to predict the type of words that might come up or predict what might come up at all type of words as in non's adjectives verbs things like that probably is going to be a non all right a one or a two word nine it's probably not going to be an adjective describing the Sun or an action word it could be keep your mind open and for example there are some arrows here so it could be talking about you know something moving within the Sun and but probably is going to be a nine so we're thinking about the type of words that might come up and then if I could predict I'd probably say number one would be radiation but again I I might be completely wrong okay so now what we're going to do is we're going to use scanning so we're going to scan the text to find the location not to find the correct answer to find the location of the correct answer so what will I be scanning for well number one you have this bit outside of the Sun or around the Sun so we're going to look for keywords or synonyms that talk about that so if we have a look here the core we're not looking for the core we're looking for something else the sun is a sphere no this is just seems to be introduction okay just outside the core no that would be describing just next to the core okay the visible surface of the sun is known as the Photosphere so the visible surface of the Sun here is the Photosphere so next to the Photosphere is number one so this shows us that this might be the correct location so the chromosphere is the Zone about two thousand kilometers thick that lies directly above the Photosphere so chromosphere above this so number four is probably chromosphere so we'll put a little four here but we're looking for number one so the outermost layer of the sun and the outermost part of of its atmosphere so atmosphere means the thing that is surrounding a star or a planet that looks very much like this thing here the atmosphere is called the corona it is the sun's Halo or crime so Halo is something on top the corona extends millions of kilometers into space so it is extending millions of kilometers into space this is it so what is it called it is called this so we're going to put the Corona and not the corona that you guys are thinking of so remember we find number four the chromosphere is the Zone about two thousand kilometers thick that lies directly above the Photosphere so the Photosphere is here the pink line is the chromosphere okay number two what we're looking for is talking about the region or the part next to the Core so the core is the innermost area so we're scanning okay so it's not that part just outside the core is the radiative zone which has a temperature of about 7 million degrees Celsius so just outside the core just outside the core radiative Zone and that leaves us with number three so it seems to be going core and a little bit further out the radiated Zone and then a little bit further out is it the Photosphere but let's double check that the visible surface of the sun is known as the Photosphere okay visible surface means that we can see it does it look like we can see this part probably not so we have to read in a little bit more detail this is the region of the Sun that emits sunlight it is also one of the coolest layers of the sun looking at a photograph of the sun's surface we cannot see this when we glance and then if we look back here we can see Photosphere so it's definitely not this it's something else okay so if we go back here we have the core we have the radiative zone and then if we look here surrounding the radiative zone is the convection Zone so here hot material from near the Sun Center Rises cools with the surface and then plunges back down so remember we talked about how these arrows going up and down here this is another indication that this is the correct answer the convection zone so you see how important it was to really understand the diagram before you look at the text if you looked at the text you might get confused but if you really understand the diagram first then it becomes much much easier okay we're just going to check that we follow the instructions two words no more than two words correct spelling we can move on okay so let's observe what type of question are they asking here complete each sentence with the correct ending so this is sentence completion it's really important that you understand what the type of question is because the strategy is going to differ from question to question now let's carefully read the instructions as always write the correct letter A to I in boxes five to nine on the answer sheet so we're just going to write the letter letters here we're not going to put it onto the answer sheet because we don't have enough room so the first thing we're going to do is read the incomplete sentence first so that we can understand it and then we can predict what the next word will be based on grammar so will the next word be a nine would that make sense or a verb or an adjective or whatever the vast majority of the total mass of the solar system is accounted for by so this is going to be some kind of an object or something with mass something with mass is something like this pan has mass collides have mass planets have mass stars have mass so it's probably going to be something like that it's going to be a noun something with mass so what we're going to do now is we're going to look at this sentence and we're going to look at keywords and think about words that will be in the text so that might be mass that could be size that could be weight I don't think that's technically correct according to you physicists but um just thinking of different things that might come up it probably will just say Mass but let's have a look okay scanning the first paragraph here Mass counterintuitively added together the account for only gay so the planets only account for 0.2 percent the sun makes up 99.8 percent of the mass in the solar system so it is the sun the vast majority of the total mass of the solar system is accounted for by so we're looking for the sun G the biggest single object in the solar system which is the Sun so you want to know read that again and think does that make sense the vast majority of the total Master the solar system is accounted for by the biggest single object in the solar system which is the sun go back here Sun makes up the remaining 99.8 percent of the mass of the solar system they match up I think you can confidently put G there okay and we just repeat that process there is no fixed Outer Edge that could be because something something something that could be of something there is no fixed either Edge so we're looking for either Edge it might also say either surface or something like that so if we have a look here defined order boundary fixed either Edge a boundary an edge are the same things so our sun consists almost entirely of the elements hydrogen and helium and because the sun is not solid it does not have a defined outer boundary it does however have a definite internal structure so we need to go back and have a look at these and see if there are any obvious candidates there is no fixed utter Edge can be so that doesn't make sense grammatically so it's not that one there's no fixed Outer Edge is extremely hot no it's invisible no there is no other Edge no there is no other Edge a small proportion no there's no other right sunspots no there's no other Edge the biggest single object instead of no there is no Outer Edge the planets on their moons there is no other Edge to the sun due to the fact that it is mostly made up so grammatically I is the only one that makes sense so that is why we ask students to predict what is coming up next because it will help you understand which one is the correct answer grammatically made up of gas and plasma let's go back here to where we talked about that made up of hydrogen and helium which are gases it is not a solid plasma means not a solid so we can comfortably let us say I now you might be thinking I don't know what plasma is I've never heard of plasma um you might be unfamiliar with helium and hydrogen even it might be completely different in your language but if you're hoping to get a bond seven eight or nine you know basic grammar you know that I is the only one grammatically that makes sense so that's going to help you answer the question the core produce produces energy which which is could be which verb which Powers so it could be describing it it could be talking about what it does let's have a look for the course we know the core is here so it might be talking about which is 27 million degrees Celsius when the back here is anything talking about how hot it is no so we need to go back there it moves similarly to a gas so it might be talking about moving moves D moves does that make sense the chord produces energy which moves at a very slow pace let's have a look at the other Alternatives and what we'll do here is we will eliminate these two because we're very very confident that these aren't um so just makes it easier for us to use elimination to find the next one so chord produces energy which can be seen in the Photosphere no it doesn't make sense which is extremely hot and used to create hydrogen possibly which is invisible to humans can damage our skin doesn't talk about that which moves at a very slow pace through the area surrounding it possibly which a small proportion of the light which is something no which sunspots know which the plum is the moon so we've got an I could be b or it could be D so we need to go back and read very carefully what it says here about the core specifically about the core energy so in the core nuclear reactions combine hydrogen and helium releasing vast amounts of energy in the process the energy release then begins to move outward so vast amounts of energy does that mean extremely hot no and then it also says used to create hydrogen here here it's talking about combining hydrogen to make helium combining it's not creating hydrogen it's probably not this one but we want to continue reading just to make sure the energy release then begins to move outward just outside the core is the energy released in the core travels extremely slowly travels moves at a very slow pace through the surrounding area so I'm pretty sure that it's D just through again elimination and close reading eight our planet only receives so think about what the planet receives it receives the light it receives energy it receives radiation so probably will be one of these things so it receives no sunspots no a small proportion of the light with the sun emits it's the only one that makes sense but we're going to have to go back and see if this is exactly what it says so we're scanning for our planet and what it receives so sunlight is emitted from the sun's Photosphere a fraction of the light that travels from the Sun reaches Earth small proportion a small proportion so a fraction a small proportion these are direct synonyms so we're going to put eight as e so you can see these questions are as much vocabulary questions as they are reading questions it's testing scanning but when you're scanning can you identify the correct synonym finally nine one kind of light emitted by the sun which which is which can be so it's not this one because that doesn't make sense grammatically it's not this one because that doesn't make sense grammatically the only three remaining that make sense grammatically are one kind of light emitted by the sun which can be seen in this Photosphere is a form of superheated gas one kind of light emitted by the sun which is extremely hot and is used to create hydrogen one kind of light emitted by the sun which is invisible to humans can damage our skin so what we're going to look for here is related to C this is the one that makes the most ends so we're going to search for skin damage so we're scanning for skin damage and we have here sunburn skin damage sunburn synonyms mean the same thing so it is see okay now let's move on to the next questions 10 to 14 which are true false not given so as always we're going to read the instructions do the following statements agree with the information provided in passage one so we need to write true false or not given beside each of these four statements or five statements sorry so the first thing we're going to do is read the statements to fully understand what they mean if we don't understand the meaning we cannot say if they are true or false so the interior of the sun is composed of a mixture of only two elements so the key word there really is only if there are other elements if they talk about you know there being three or four or there are two and there are others then this will be false if it talks about their only being two then it's going to be true if it just doesn't provide any information on this then it will be not given so what we need to do now is scan for the location where they talk about the composition of the Sun so the interior is the core so we're looking for the core okay so the core is here the core is here do they talk about elements yes they're talking about hydrogen and helium they also talk about hydrogen and helium up here so what I would do is I would read these two very carefully to decide which is correct so our sun consists almost entirely of the elements hydrogen and helium because the sun is not solid it does not have a defined outer boundary so the key word there is almost almost entirely the interior of the sun is composed of a mixture of two elements only means there are only two almost entirely means there are more than two so this one is false almost entirely does not match with only two elements and then we repeat that process with the others so the movement of matter back and forth between the radiative zone and the area that surrounds it gives rise to surface features like solar flares so radiative Zone on the area that surrounds it so remember we have our little diagram here The radiative Zone and the convection zone so we're talking about those two areas so the radiative Zone convection zone so the correct answer is probably in this area so we need to read this carefully to see if this agrees or disagrees with this statement the movement of matter back and forth between the radiative zone and the area that surrounds it gives rise to surface features like solar flares so does it say anything about solar flares in this kind of area solar flares surrounding the radiative zone is the convection Zone here hot material from near the Sun Center Rises and cools at the surface and then plunges back downward to receive more heat from the radiative Zone this movement helps create solar flares the movement of matter back and forth the area that surrounded gives rice such like silverfish this is true right it says exactly the same thing if a person were to stare at the Sun for a long time whilst using equipment to protect the eyes they would be able to see that most of the surface of the sun is not yellow so we're going to be looking for surface and colors and looking at the sun we're going to look for those keywords to find the correct area so the visible surface visible looking at it yellow Reds so it's in this area now we read it carefully to decide the correct answer so looking at the photograph of the zone you can see that it has several different colors oranges yellows and reds if a person were to stare at the sun they would be able to see that the that most of the surface of the sun is not yellow so what does this mean most of the surface of the sun is not yellow that means that more than 50 percent is not yellow does it say that looking at the photograph of the site you can see that it has several different colors orange yellows and reds giving it a grainy appearance so it talks about that it is different colors but it doesn't talk about mostly other than yellow it doesn't talk about proportions or percentages let's keep reading it we cannot see this when it glance quickly because our eyes can't focus okay so the only area that it's talking about colors it doesn't say proportion of those colors so we don't know if it is true we don't know if it is false so therefore it is not given light travels faster through the chromosphere than it does through the radiative zone so we're looking for chromosphere radiative Zone but particularly like traveling fast so you have the chromosphere here does it say anything about light jets of gas fire up through the chromosphere at speeds of up to 72 000 kilometers per hour so that's not light that's gas those are two completely different things so it doesn't say anything here about the speed of the light talks about chromosphere here radiative Zone let's have a look at the radiator Zone here okay it can take a photon a photon is light as long as 50 million years to travel all the way through the radiative Zone wow that's amazing and you thought I was slow making this video so let's go back have a read of the sentence like travels through the chromosphere travels faster through the chromosphere than it does through the radiative zone so this is comparing the speed of light through two different zones it talks about the speed of gas here and it talks about the speed of light in one section or part of the sun here but it doesn't compare anything so we don't know so this is not given because it's not given it doesn't talk about it nearly all the energy on our planet is produced originally by means of a nuclear reaction so we're looking for energy and we're looking for a nuclear reaction can we have a look here energy the sun is the source of almost all the energy on Earth and sunlight parse photosynthesis as well as warming and Illuminating our Earth so if we read this more carefully to conclude the sun's core nuclear fusion nuclear fusion is a type of nuclear reaction generates energy and that provides us with all our energy nearly all the energy almost all nearly all mean the same thing nearly all almost all produced by a nuclear reaction this is true okay so let's start section two so first of all we're going to check what type of questions are going to come up so we have short answer questions here and we have matching headings and multiple choice so we've got a matching headings question here so we're going to do the matching headings question first because what the matching headings question asks us to really do is to read the whole article read the whole text and understand the general meaning of each paragraph here so the first thing we're going to do is look and read the instructions passes two has six sections labeled a to F choose the correct heading and then we have five questions here so we're not going to look at the headings we are going to look quickly at each section here and we're going to try and create our own heading for each section so it's really talking about European colonization so I'm going to have the impact or the effects of European colonization and this is more the impact of invasive species plants and animals that are not from that area so this is really talking about um pollution from other regions having an impact on the Pacific Ocean so this is pollution from other regions let's say on oceans or ocean this seems to be about a debate about about the extent of the problem Maybe this is about beaches uh shorelines and this is about climate the next thing we're going to do is we're going to look at the actual headings so Beach garbage from far away fish consumption High pollution from outside Oceana reaches the region hypothesizing change the effect of human migration in the region the extent of the plastic problem the impact of foreign Wildlife the serious danger approached by climate chat and the spread of tax and pollution so those are all pretty straightforward I understand what those are what I can do now is I can look at my headings and see if any of these match directly so impact or effect of European colonization so there's nothing here about European colonization but there is effect of human migration Europeans are humans and as you can see that is the correct answer it has given us that correct answer as an example so let's go to B impact of invasive species or thinking about wildlife the impact of foreign Wildlife on Oceania so this is matching nearly exactly the same so you can see how powerful this strategy is so we're going to put seven there and we're going to delete this one and we're going to delete this one so C pollution from other regions on the ocean High pollution from outside Oceana reaches the region probably that one let's see if any of the others it could be no so we'll put that as three d wasn't sure about the sort of debate or the extent of the problem Beach garbage from far away no fish consumption no high pollution from uh 3.1 hypothesizing change the extent of the problem serious danger posed by climate change probably not so we're not sure about this one so what we'll do is we will act a little bit strategically we will go to E and F and we'll eliminate those ones so we'll try and find see if they are easier to find than D and then we will see so e impact on the beaches impact on the shorelines Beach Garbage Beach garbage from far away extent Beach garbage yeah so probably that one then F was all about climate change the serious danger posed by climate change so it's definitely that one okay so we're not sure about D so we have one two three four options so let's go fish consumption does talk about that so it is maybe maybe that one hypothesizing change nothing really in there about change the extent of so I put extent okay so probably should have picked up on that one earlier probably is this one let's just see the spread of Texan pollution some of theorize the patch is as big or as bigger uh the so it's as big as Texas no so it's not that one fish consumption they do talk about consuming fish but this is just one small part of this paragraph the overall one is that so remember we are not focusing on individual words or individual sentences within um matching headings we're looking at what does the whole paragraph mean so hopefully we got all those correct well we'll correct we'll check at the end but don't forget we did this one first so we have to go back don't make the mistake of just continuing forward and forgetting that you have missed out these ones so these are short answer questions these are the questions that you would get in school when you were a kid so just asking for direct answers to these questions but very importantly you need to check how many words because the answer to these questions is quite open-ended so this is one of the most important questions for reading how many words um numbers they want you to put in here so choose no more than two words and or a number if you want to know what that means go back to the previous part of the video where we talked about that now the good thing is because we have read the whole thing it's much much easier for us to get our heads around this and locate the correct answer um because we've already established what it's about we have a good idea what it's about so according to this article what environmental problem has been caused by the dairy industry in New Zealand so what we need to do is find scan for the location of this correct answer so New Zealand there's no real other way of saying New Zealand so we want to scan for New Zealand so we have New Zealand here cats have been banned in parts of New Zealand All right so it's not about Cuts this is about the dairy industry if you didn't know what the dairy industry is then you might not be able to find the answer to this question that's why it's so important to develop a wide-ranging vocabulary because if you didn't know what Dairy meant you would go and look at oh New Zealand cats let's just write that down so it's not this New Zealand is there any other part of this it says New Zealand New Zealand here pollution from dairying in New Zealand has led to high levels of water pollution so that's actually quite interesting because you could assume that even if you didn't know Dairy meant cows you know milking cows you would just have to look for the word New Zealand and then see dairy dairy dirt what is it high levels of water pollution okay so the answer is high levels of water pollution but no more than two words under our number what is the answer it cannot be high levels of water pollution because that is five words so the answer is water pollution what measure has been introduced in Australia to reduce problems caused by foreign animals and vegetation so remember we created our own headings and it's talking about foreign animals and we talked about invasive species here so again it's much much easier to find the correct answer because we can go up here okay find Australia here Australia has adopted a system of strict quarantine in an attempt to limit damage from non-native plants and animals what measures have been introduced to reduce problems caused by foreign animals and vegetation vegetation plants so again you need to have a wide ranging vocabulary but a strict quarantine so we're going to put strict core on team approximately how long does it take for a piece of plastic rubbish to reach the grip barrier Pacific Garbage Patch from the west coast of the USA so they were talking about the big patch here from other areas so from the west coast of the USA a water bottle improperly disposed on the western coast of North America will make its way to a Great Pacific garbage patch in around six years so the answer is six years and if you're wondering the number six like six years is also acceptable so don't worry about that well proportion of Camillo Beach is comprised of plastic where is Camillo Beach talking about beaches Camillo Beach 90 what problem is affecting coral reefs in Hawaii including ones in Hawaii Coral bleaching has been documented in other reefs including ones in Hawaii now you might not know what Coral bleaching is but it doesn't sound great um and you could assume that that's what they're talking about because it's own it's the only place where you see the words reefs and Hawaii together so you put in Coral bleaching to think we can learn two things from this one how useful it is to have a strategy because if we did these questions first it would be much more difficult to find the correct answers we find these relatively quickly because we'd already done the hard work and we needed to do that hard work anyway to find the answers to these questions so it's not about all it is you need to be good at reading in a vocabulary and everything but it is also about being smart all right having a strategy so we can move on to our multiple choice questions and part of the strategy for multiple choice is skimming the text to understand the general meaning we've already done that so again that's one way of Saving Time the first thing we do as always is check the instructions choose the correct letter A B C or D okay so it's standard um multiple choice first thing that we're going to do is read the question to understand the question we cannot answer the question correctly if we do not understand it specifically understanding the difference between the four options or if there's three options and three options according to the text the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be seen to consist mostly of plastic is known to be nearly as large as Texas is of unknown size is believed by some to stretch all to all the world's oceans so a is about the makeup what is or what are the constituent parts of the garbage patch whereas b c and d are about the size of the garbage patch so the next thing we need to do is find the location luckily for us we have already done that so it's going to be quite easy for us to find out so this should be in this area so we now need to read closely in this area to see if we can find the correct answer so some have theorized the patch is as big or bigger than the U.S state of Texas While others note that the idea of a patch of garbage is really a misnomer means it doesn't really make sense as there are concentrations of trash throughout the world's oceans so it's not that one it does mention Texas but just because you see a keyword and this is the problem with the keyword strategy you'll often hear YouTubers talking about just underlying keywords and find the keywords and that'll give you the correct answer all that does is it gives you part of the answer or the location of the answer so is known to be nearly as large as Texas some have theorized so some people not everyone have theorized there's a big difference between a theory and a fact all right that is as big or as bigger is known to be nearly as large as Texas is known as meant like it's not disputed it's not a theory not some people think it so it's not that one so if we go back and we read around this area because of the great garbage patch contains such small pieces of plastic and most of the plastic is below the surface of the ocean it is not easily visible with the naked eye and it is difficult to estimate its size so we can't see it properly so it's probably of unknown size can be seen to consist mostly of plastic doesn't really talk about that so we can say that it is C and then we repeat that process so Coral change their behavior as a result of exposure to a certain amount of heat experience Mass bleaching regularly prior to 1990 we've undergone the most severe damage in Hawaii exist in the Great Barrier Reef due to increasing temperatures so these ones are about Hawaii and the Great Barrier Reef this one is about bleaching and this one is about the behavior of corals Carl's a living thing I believe I might be wrong though so we know the location of that it is here so we need to read carefully the bit where it talks about coral so the grip buyer reef is currently experienced periods of coral bleaching due to increased ocean temperatures exists Coral exists in the grape Biore Reef due to increasing temperatures no it doesn't say that when Waters get too warm Coral experience stress and expel the colorful algae-like organisms that live within them when Waters get too warm Coral experience stress and expel the colorful algae like organisms that live within them so change their behavior as a result of exposure to certain amount of heat when Waters get too warm they change it's probably this one but let's check the other ones experience Mass bleaching regularly prior to the 1990s Mass Coral bleaching has occurred several times since the late 1990s so since not before so it's not that one uh I want to go on the most severe damage in Hawaii Coral bleaching is also being documented in other reefs including ones in Hawaii doesn't mention anything about the severity in Hawaii so it is a in Fiji so we're talking about Fiji here let's read this diseases have meant that many people have needed to relocate higher sea levels have led to food shortages some citizens have been moved to other locations due to increasing sea levels most diseases involve fever as a principal symptom so this is about disease this is about food this is about relocation and this is about specifically the type of diseases people are getting so Fiji has already experienced an increase in infectious diseases related to higher temperatures record-breaking high tides and has had to relocate citizens due to rising ocean levels some citizens have been moved to other locations due to increasing sea levels it is that one so it says exactly what it says there it does mention diseases but it doesn't talk about people having to relocate because of diseases now we can move on to section three okay so section three we have table completion we have matching information and we have matching names okay it's a lot of matching so the first one is table completion first thing we need to do is read the instructions complete the table below so we have one two three four so make sure we fill those in choose no more than two words and or a number very important that we follow that okay so we need to understand the table here first so we have Date event and people involved all right so we have missing date here the unification of Catholic Spain and we have also the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella so what we need to do is think are they going to have synonyms for here Ferdinand and Isabella might talk about kings and queens the unification of Catholic Spain Spain is Spain I don't think it's going to change but unification joining or reuniting or something like that so what we need to do is just quickly go and look at the text to find the correct areas or scanning for location not to find the correct answer but to find the correct area okay so here the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469 a unified Catholic Spain Isabella Ferdinand Catholic Spain 1469. so no more than two words under a number so 1469. put that in there okay so something happened on October 12 1492 and it involved Christopher Columbus probably his arrival in we all know but I'm sure Christopher Columbus arrived in many different places so we'll double check that it is um not just America might not be so scanning for October 12 1492 scanning here let's read it carefully on October 12 1492 however he made landfall on an island in the Bahamas so we want to make sure it's dead it says he but is it definitely talking about him Columbus yes so we're going to put arrival in the Bahamas okay 1493 Columbus sends two copies of a report sent to the king okay so let's find 1493. we have it here Columbus is 1493 letter so we sent it to Louis who else did he send it to okay so it's not here there's nothing here and it's actually because in 1493 sent two copies of something provenza demerito to the king and queen and their Minister of Finance Louis oset Minister and finance to the king and queen no more than two words so sent to the king and the Queen so you can skip this one 1507 1507 the naming of and it's to do with this guy Waters someone's name I can't pronounce among those who read his reports was the German map maker using the Explorer's first name as a label for the new land mass he touched America to his map the naming of America could it be using the Explorer's first name as a label for the new land mass Amerigo oh I didn't know that America was America was named after an Italian using the Explorer's first name is a label attached America to his map so it is the naming of America now we're going to match information first thing we're going to do is read the instructions three has a to F yes it does which paragraphs contain this information why Ferdinand and Isabella at first refused to fund Columbus's Expedition so we need to find a scan for Ferdinand and Isabella and Columbus and their expedition so Columbus is first mentioned here and including Ferdinand and about at first rebuffed him rebuffed means to say no they're nautical experts all concurred the Columbus's estimates of the width that undergrad were far too low so even if you didn't know what rebuffed meant it's saying explaining why they said rebuff and then you could guess the context that that means no but we're pretty sure that is where we're talking about C how Spain's Imperial Ambitions began so the beginning of this was probably closer to the start so this is just really giving some context the history of the Spanish exploration begins double check that High Spain's imperialist Ambitions the history of Spanish exploration yeah that's that one the difficulty of analyzing the letters written to the Spanish king and queen there's some mention of letters here Columbus's letters okay so we have letters but we need to read carefully to see if there's difficulty analyzing it so it doesn't say directly here do you need to read kind of between the lines and understand the context here and so they have bias and have a subjective nature they are also filled with distortions and fabrications now all of these are negative things when it comes to you know using um these as reliable sources but even if you didn't really understand that this is the only place where they talk about a letter this is more talking about a report so we can put e in here Columbus's first discoveries we can go back up here so we're talking about the Bahamas and that was 1492 1492 the Bahamas that is d the number of Journeys undertaken by Columbus to the new world okay so I don't know where that is so I have to scan here okay Columbus would make three more voyages over the next decade so this is f so what we were doing there is just looking at the remaining ones and searching for numbers Journeys voyages travels synonyms of of Journeys and we find it so we can move on to the last part which is matching names read the instructions look at the information below match each piece of information with the correct person so we need to first read these to understand them assisted Columbus in getting money for his voyage an Italian explorer created a map based on the reports of a famous explorer finally conquered the Iberian Peninsula okay so let's take each of these and find out where they talk about them so Christopher Columbus where is Christopher Columbus mentioned he's mentioned in this paragraph This paragraph This paragraph and this paragraph so that's going to be quite difficult because he's mentioned a lot of times let's narrow it down a little bit by finding people who are not mentioned all over the place so Francisco Pizarro Francisco is mentioned here he's only really mentioned here so he can again we're moving on Ferdinand and Isabella so they were the king and queen they financed Columbus's Expedition assisted performance let's see all right Louis D son tangel who was scanning for Louis de santanguero sent two copies he also helped Columbus obtain funding so this could be the as well so let's move on to Martin remember Martin helped name it using Explorer's first name is a label for the new land mass touched America to his map of the new world created a map so 39 is e so an Italian explorer Christopher Columbus was actually from Genoa Italy so an Italian explorer a finally conquered the Iberian Peninsula so it's not Louis because Louis just helped them get money so it's not Louis it's not Francisco Pizarro because Francisco Pizarro is only mentioned here and nowhere else I believe so it's not him which means finally conquer the Iberian Peninsula this is C and that would make sense because they're the king and queen which means this one is D assisted Columbus in getting money and we're done so you can check whether I got about nine or not you can also let me know what score you got in the comments hey Chris here again I hope that you enjoyed that video and the practice test really helped you prepare for IELTS reading if you feel like you're not completely ready for IELTS reading this video here is going to show you exactly where you're going wrong and how to improve click this video and it will help you [Music]