IELTS Energy 1620: Why Order Matters on IELTS Reading

This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1620, Why Order Matters on IELTS Reading. 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. Does it matter which questions you tackle first on the IELTS reading exam? Yes, it absolutely does. Today, you'll learn four reasons you should do answers that are found in order first.

Michelle, how are you today? Hi, Aubrey. I am doing well. I am excited to be on IELTS today here with you. But I have a question to start off. Okay. All right.

What is something you do that has to be done in the right order? Yeah. And I realized before I baked it that it didn't have salt. So I tried to add the salt in after it was proofed and cold proofed.

And like, maybe this will still work. I baked it. It did not work. No, it did not work. It did not work. There were several things like the salt is needed for all these different reasons.

And it was like some chunks were really salty and some wasn't at all. It was terrible. Oh, no. that needs to be done in order for sure sourdough bread is delicious especially when it's homemade my friend made some for me and she she she had made she was making a few loaves and then she just this was just yesterday she cut half a loaf and she's like i'll give you some and then she gave me a whole half a loaf and i was like i can't and yeah she's freeze it if you because i like will do a full oh we already ate it oh you already ate it that's so funny i thought you were saying we can't eat all this i was like free

No, I said that. And then even my son was... Yeah, I texted her. I said, we destroyed that. That's really funny. So, yes. But on IELTS, as you guys know, there are some things that definitely have to be done in order.

And it's important to know what's in order. We got a great question about this from Rohit on YouTube. Do you want to read that for us, Michelle? Sure.

Thank you, Rohit, for this question. Rohit says... On IELTS reading, should we do in order questions first, then move to questions that aren't in order? So yeah, that's a good question.

Really good question. And yes, absolutely. And there are very specific reasons that you want to do this. So we're going to dive into that first of all, because it's not enough to just be like, oh, I'm going to, first of all, you need to know which are in order and you need to understand why.

Because there are things that you need to be actively doing as you answer the questions in order so that you're ready to do the questions that are out of order. So let's dive in here. But also don't forget, guys, hit follow here on the podcast. If you're not following, you're probably missing episodes.

We have two new episodes every week. Perfect. All right. So let's talk about the reasons why this is important. So what's the first one? Yeah. First is, of course, it's faster to find answers that appear in order, right?

So for many IELTS question types, the answers appear sequentially in the passage. So for example, once you find answer three, you don't have to start over at the beginning of the passage. You continue from where you found answer three and look for answer four. So this prevents you from constantly jumping around the text and saves a lot of time.

Right, exactly. And it also reduces rereading. So if you start with matching headings or matching information first, you may scan the entire passage multiple times, right? So ordered questions let you progress steadily instead of repeatedly searching the same paragraphs, right?

Exactly, right? Those questions that are found out of order take a lot more time. So you first want to do these quicker questions. We'll share more reasons in a moment, but we want to make sure you're aware we recorded a series about which answers are found in order and which aren't.

It's vital that you know that so you can immediately recognize which question sets to do first. So stay to the end and we'll share details about those episodes in case you missed them. That's right. Okay.

Also, the second thing is you build a mental map of the passage, right? So as you move through the article in order, you naturally learn where topics are located. And then later, out of order tasks like matching headings or matching information become faster because you already remember the structure, right? Exactly, right?

As you're finding those in-order questions, you get a really good idea of what information is where. So then when you're trying to find all this stuff out of order, you already know generally where you're going to find those answers. All right, number three is that it improves accuracy under time pressure. That's the thing is IELTS reading is a timed exam.

It is very difficult to find all 40 answers in just 60 minutes. And if you follow the text from top to bottom... That lowers the chance of skipping lines, mixing up answers, or choosing information from the wrong paragraph. But this is what's tricky.

If students or even native English speakers, if you just go take the test on test day without having practice strategies for timed exams, it is extremely difficult to get a high score for anyone. It's not a comprehension exam. You don't have time to read entire passages. You have to be using strategies.

And It's similar to the LSAT or the MCAT, all of these other exams that if you had all the time in the world, of course you could get a really good score. But when your time is limited, it becomes a lot more about strategies. Right, right.

Have you ever had to take a timed exam, Michelle? Oh, yeah. Not in a long time. Did you find that it was more about strategies? Because you just have a limited amount of time.

You have to figure out how to get these answers in a short amount of time. Right, exactly. So you have to really learn those strategies in order to be the most productive you can in the shortest amount of time. Exactly.

All right, Michelle, what is the fourth reason that you absolutely need to do the in order questions first? Well, it helps you stay organized. So many students end up losing points because they just panic and they jump randomly through the text. So the ordered questions create a clear workflow.

So it's identify keyword, locate the section, find the answer and move on. Exactly, right? When you have that clear workflow, that clear structure, you know what to do next. It really helps eliminate that panic that a lot of us, if you've ever taken IELTS or even during practice, sort of started panicking when you recognize that you're taking longer to find an answer than you should and you're just not going to have time to get them all.

We all feel that. We kind of start panicking and we waste time panicking, right? You need to be able to avoid that. Yeah, yep, exactly. So here's a common high scoring strategy.

So the first thing is to quickly skim the passage. And then the second is to identify which questions are in order. What's the third and the fourth one, Aubrey? And so then first or the third, do in order questions first.

So as you can see, it's vital that you're able to immediately identify which questions are in order. This should take you no time. You see the question set. You can see, okay, this is matching headings to paragraph.

That is out of order. You know, this is a summary completion. That will be in order. You need to just be able to look at the question set and know if it's in order or not.

And then immediately start doing the in order questions first. And then what's your fourth step, Michelle? Okay, is to finish with harder tasks with answers that are not in order. So that would be like matching headings or matching information.

Exactly. So as you can see, it is incredibly important to... do the in order questions first. This gives you a better overall idea of the passage. It gives you more information about where information is found so that when you're doing these questions that can be incredibly time consuming, matching keywords for an answer that could be found anywhere.

And then you find an answer at the end. The next one could be at the beginning. You just don't know. But if you have a really good idea of how the passage is organized and where certain topics are discussed, it's going to be a lot faster to find those answers.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. So should we share where part one and part two could be found? Yes, because this is really important, guys, that you recognize which are in order.

So IELTS Energy 1378 was part one, which IELTS reading answers are in order. And we covered all of the different question sets that will be in order so that you know what they look like, you can identify them and do those first. And what about part two, Michelle? Yeah.

Yeah. So part two was IELTS Energy 1379. It was part two, which IELTS reading answers are not in order. Exactly. So you don't want to miss those. The best way to find those is to go to our blog, allersenglish.com.

And in the search bar, search questions in order, and they will both pop up. Or check out the blog for today's episode, and we will link to both. So if you guys aren't using the blog, we have write-ups for episodes there, links to other similar topics. So definitely check out the blog at allearsenglish.com.

Yes. And for poll for today, guys, this will be on Spotify. So these are really fun. So the question is, are you good at doing things in the right order?

Yes or no? Good question. Yes, we love to see the results of these Spotify polls. Definitely come to Spotify, answer the poll each day. And guys, just as a takeaway here, you absolutely should do the questions that are in order first on IELTS for lots of different reasons, right?

It will save you time and It will help you get more answers correct. It'll help you be more familiar with the passage before finding answers that are not in order. But Michelle, what is vital?

Can we just like know these strategies and not practice it before test day? no, that's not going to work. You have to practice this before test day so that you can immediately recognize which question types to tackle first. So yes, and definitely check out that series so that you're aware of which will be in order and which won't.

And we're so excited for you to get higher scores on the IELTS reading exam after the information in this episode, as well as that series about which questions are in order.

All right. Aubrey, I'm so glad we talked about this today. And thank you again to Rohit for this really great question. Awesome. Thanks. See you next time.

All right. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash my score.