IELTS Energy 1599: 3 Tips For The Hardest IELTS Reading Questions

This is the IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1599, Three Tips for the Hardest IELTS Reading Questions. Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English. Downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner trained IELTS whiz, Aubrey Carter and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams.

Get your estimated band score now with our two-minute quiz at allearsenglish.com forward slash my score. If you struggle with matching information to paragraphs on IELTS reading, you are definitely not alone. Today, you'll learn why this question type is so difficult and strategies to simplify it for higher scores.

Hello everyone. Hello, Michelle. Welcome. Hi, Aubrey. I am excited to be here with you today. Thanks for having me. Aubrey, what do you think is the hardest question type on IELTS reading?

Oh, probably matching information to paragraphs. I was thinking about this as I planned episodes for today because I get a lot of students struggling with this. And the more I talk to students, I realize the problem is strategies. When you know the strategies to use for this question type, then it's not so hard.

And maybe some of the others are more difficult. But if you are trying to answer these without any strategies, they're really tough. Yeah, that definitely makes sense. So today we're going to talk about why this question type, you know, matching information to paragraphs is so challenging.

And we're going to give you three strategies to get these correct. And guys, definitely make sure you hit follow wherever you're listening to the IELTS Energy Podcast so you never miss anything. Yes, absolutely. And you'll still be hearing Lindsay's voice, but we are excited to welcome Michelle for some fun episodes.

So thank you for joining us, Michelle. And let's first talk about why is this question type so difficult, especially for anyone who hasn't taken IELTS yet, isn't super familiar with the different reading question types. You might not be sure which one this is. I'll just describe it first.

You will have a passage and then you're going to have all of these statements, just like information information. And the answers aren't found in order in the passage. That information could be anywhere in the passage. So this is a lot trickier and more time consuming.

A lot of IELTS reading questions, you can find the answer, you know, they're in order, then you can scan from there. That's not the case with matching information to paragraphs.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, also the questions will likely be paraphrased, right? So the test is almost never, the test almost never uses the same words from the passage. So instead, it's going to use synonyms or just rephrased ideas.

So that can definitely make it tricky. Yeah. Exactly. You're scanning for these keywords, but it likely is not those exact words. It's going to be a synonym, a parallel expression.

So you have to get used to looking more for the meaning for those synonyms, right? And also answers aren't necessarily at the beginning and ends of paragraphs like matching headings. A lot of students think matching headings is the most difficult question type, but headings are main ideas. So those usually can be found in the first lines or the last lines of a paragraph.

But with matching information to paragraphs, that information could be anywhere in the body of a paragraph. Yeah, definitely. So, all right. So what can we do?

Yeah. Well, lastly, we need to watch for distractors and traps. These paragraphs may contain similar information, but only one is the best match. So for example, two paragraphs might both mention education.

That might even be the main idea of the paragraph, but only one focuses on the specific detail in the question. Maybe it's asking specifically what a professor taught. So you remember all education is covered in these two paragraphs. You skim one.

It's not there. Go to the next one. So these distractors, you have to watch for them. Just because the topic is correct doesn't mean it's matching this specific information that you're looking for.

Yeah, they're trying to trip you up. So don't let that happen. Okay. So the first thing you can do is use strategies. So skim the entire passage before reading any sets of questions.

And practice until you can do this in just one minute, no matter how long the passage is. Exactly, right? So you also are going to highlight keywords in the statements. And those keywords, like we said, are what you're looking for as you scan.

So for each question, you want to take about a minute. You're scanning, looking for that specific information. But it's really important that you're strategic about this. You want to start with the first statement and guess which paragraph it's in.

And then scan that paragraph for the keywords for parallel expressions of them. And you're making an educated guess based on when you skimmed the entire passage of where that information will be. You'll have a general idea of the gist of the main idea of each paragraph. And you're making an educated guess to jump to those paragraphs to look for these keywords.

Yeah, that's important. And if there is no match, you know, pick more paragraphs that also covered that main idea and scan it for keywords. And if you don't, yeah, sorry, go ahead. So yeah, I had a typo there that led Michelle astray.

So you want to pick one more paragraph. that also had that topic. Yes, because you have a minute for each question. So every now and then there's a question that will take so much longer and you don't want to waste time.

So the strategy here is try one more paragraph. If you don't find the match, if you don't find that information, the paragraph, that's when you want to skip it for now. Mark it to come back later because some questions will be so quick. You'll be able to find the answer right away.

And it would be really a bummer. if you don't even get to those questions because you're spending so much time on this one difficult question. So leave it for now, mark it, move on. And then if you have time, you'll come back to that one.

Mm-hmm. Guys. Yeah. And again, this should all take one minute. So don't spend longer than that. So like we said, some answers you're going to find very quickly, and then you can come back to the more difficult questions, but don't risk running out of time and then not getting to questions that you could have found.

Exactly. And students fall into this trap a lot because they're thinking, I've already spent a full minute looking for this answer. I don't want to waste that time. So I'm going to dig in and spend some more time looking for this one answer.

And then they might lose track of time. And imagine if they're only looking for that one answer, five, six, seven minutes, and then they're just going to be answers they won't have time to get to at all. So really follow this strictly as you practice. Practice spending one minute per answer.

Time yourself at first so that you get a really good idea of how long a minute feels while looking for these answers because you won't be able to time yourself on test day. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Get good with estimating time.

Yes, exactly. And then, you know, the second thing is save this question type for last. You know, you want to be as familiar as possible with this question set. And there will be multiple types of questions for each passage.

Yes. So do the other questions first so that you're as familiar as possible with the text, with the passage before tackling these, right? Always do questions first that are found in order. Completion, matching sentence halves, multiple choice and multiple, multiple choice.

Those are found in order. They're quicker and you're familiarizing yourself with the text as you answer those, right? Then move to the questions that are not found in order. Michelle, which questions are not found in order on IELTS?

Yes, no. Not given. Yes, no, not given. Yep. And true, false, right? And then summary completion, diagram, flow chart, table and map completion, matching names to statements and matching headings to paragraphs.

All of those are not found in order. So you do want to do those after, right? The ones found in order, tackle those first and matching information. This one you want to do very last so that you're as familiar with the passage as you can and

You'll find the information more quickly now that you're more familiar with the main idea in each individual paragraph. Definitely. If you're ready to start your business, go ahead with the handels platform for entrepreneurs.

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You could read every passage word for word, spend the time you need to find all those answers, but you have a very limited amount of time on the IELTS reading exam. So you must be able to quickly identify the paragraph and locate specific details. Those skills have to be practiced in advance.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you have more than three to six months before your exam, you can practice taking two to three minutes for each of these questions. So, and then, you know, we would say about 30 days before your exam, you must start to speed up.

Yes. So you can shave time off until you're taking just one minute for each of these questions. That's such good advice. Just don't stress yourself out at first.

If you've got quite a bit of time to practice, it's okay if it's taking you a little bit longer to find these. As you're recognizing IELTS traps and pitfalls, as you're getting used to using these strategies and identifying keywords, it will take a little bit of time. But once you've practiced, once you're getting close to test date, you want to get to where you can find one of those answers in one minute.

Yeah, excellent. All right. So guys, make sure you hit follow for part two, because we will provide practice for this question type. And also, make sure that you listen to episode 1598 of the IELTS Energy podcast, which is, are your IELTS speaking answers up to scratch?

Yes, some great vocabulary in that episode. So scroll up if you missed it and check it out. Michelle, I'm excited about this episode for listeners because many of you out there might be intimidated by this question set. You're answering reading question types, you get to this one and panic.

It is much more doable once you have these strategies. If you're practicing the right way, you can go in on test day confident that you're going to get these answers right, that you're going to find them. So I'm excited for you to have today's strategies. Practice using them.

It's definitely not enough to go on test day knowing that this is what you need to do. You have to practice it in advance. Yes, exactly. I'm so glad we talked about this today, Aubrey, and I can't wait for the next episode.

Awesome. See you next time. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.