IELTS Preparation Series 3, Episode 13: Reading Skills and Question Types
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Hello, and welcome to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I'm Margot Politis.
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In the IELTS Reading Test you have to answer 40 questions in 60 minutes - almost 1 question
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every minute. There are 3 separate pieces of writing of about 900 words each. There
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is not enough time to read the texts closely so you need to develop the ability to find
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information quickly.
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This is a skill you'll use all the time in your studies.
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Let's trace how you might find English language TV programs. Because they are on Australia
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Network, you start at their homepage. You look around the page for the word 'English'.
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There's Learning English - click on that. Now you have a number of choices - you can
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either read the summaries as they flick past, or you can go to each program's site. Let's
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go to Passport to English. What's it about? Here's the heading - About Passport to English,
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so this is the paragraph to read. Notice that you only glance at the rest of the page when
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you are looking for specific information in this way.
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Moving your eyes quickly over a page like this is called scanning. The ability to do
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this with a page of text is part of what's assessed in the Reading Test. Let's look at
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a typical reading passage:
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It's best to start by reading the title and sub-title of the text and look for any pictures
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or italicised words. This will tell you what the text is about.
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Childhood Obesity is the title and On Being Overweight and Obese is the subtitle.
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What do you already know about the topic?
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If you've been keeping up-to-date with current affairs you would have heard that some children
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are putting on weight at an alarming rate and this is affecting their health. Parents
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and health authorities are worried.
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At this point you know what to expect - you have previewed the text.
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So it's a good idea to keep up with the news because current issues are often topics for
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the Reading Test.
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The next thing you need to do is quickly look through the questions for the passage.
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There are different kinds, but first we'll look at a multiple choice question.
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According to information in the text, childhood obesity can cause:
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A. early death in children based on a recent study.
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B. breathing problems and diabetes later in life.
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C. an impaired immune system The question says 'According to information
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in the text'. This means you must scan the text to find out the correct answer. You can't
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rely on your general knowledge.
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The key words in the question are 'childhood obesity' and 'can cause'. The word 'cause'
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alerts you that the text will be discussing effects of childhood obesity.
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'Can cause' means likely to happen, so you need to look for any effects mentioned in
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the text as a possible result of childhood obesity
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You need to look out for phrases that match what the question is asking such as 'results
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in', 'shows that', 'causes' or 'leads to'.
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Let's look at the question again:
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According to information in the text, childhood obesity can cause:
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A. early death in children based on a recent study.
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B. breathing problems and diabetes later in life.
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C. an impaired immune system
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Let's look at the first option - A. early death in children based on a recent study.
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The key words are 'early death', 'children' and 'recent study'.
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Now you need to scan the text for these words or words with the same meaning.
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Quickly scanning the first paragraph, you can see no relevant information - it's not