Skip to content

Reading tips

How to prepare for the IELTS Reading test, tips and techniques to improve your skills and raise your score

What you need to know about the Answer Sheet

Your Answer Sheet is a very important piece of paper.

First of all, your score for Reading and Listening tests is calculated based on what you have written on it – only! It means that if you’ve got all the Reading/Listening test answers right but didn’t copy them from the booklet to the Answer Sheet, you will score ZERO for the whole Reading/Listening test. I have read in the IELTS official site that you can request later that they check your booklet for answers, but honestly – who needs the headache?

Second, it is best that you look at the Answer Sheet before you go to take IELTS because it has this certain structure you need to be familiar with. There are 2 sides you must fill, one for the Listening and the other for the Reading answers and they look very much alike. It is very easy to mix them and start writing answers on the wrong side, so check and see what’s printed above the table with answer numbers 1-40, “IELTS Listening Answer Sheet” or “IELTS Reading Answer Sheet”.

Third, when you are training (with a clock) for IELTS, you should include in your practice copying your answers to the Answer Sheet. This way you imitate the whole IELTS process better and get used to managing your time correctly.

So here use this link to a PDF file from the IELTS official site, open it, go to page 7 and see for yourself what IELTS Answer Sheet looks like – click here.

How to prepare for IELTS

Isn’t it nice to learn from the mistakes of someone else :)? Well, another mistake I made in my preparation for IELTS was concentrating on just one sub-test out of four. I started to study for Writing and neglected all the other parts – Listening, Reading and Speaking.

There are reasons why a person would do what I did. Usually, people like doing things they are good at and avoid doing things they are not so good at. I was good at writing, so it was very natural for me to write essays and letters and set aside all the other difficult and “scary” subjects. Or the opposite might happen – people assume they are good in Writing and concentrate on something else that needs improvement.

There are many reasons not to do what I did. Firstly, in many cases you are required to get a nice band score in every sub-test, or at least in two sub-tests. That means you can not be satisfied with a good average, because you need a Band Score 7 in two sub-tests no matter what.

Secondly, when you hope for a good average while concentrating on one or two sub-tests, your chances don’t look good. All the sub-tests in IELTS have the same weight, so if you score 8 in Reading, 4 in Listening, 8 in Writing and 4 in Speaking, the average score will be 6 (simple math). If you think about it, it is quite difficult to score 8 in Reading or Writing, no matter how hard you try. That’s why studying a little bit harder for all four sub-tests makes much more sense and eventually pays off.

Finally, some real advice – divide your time into four equal (or almost equal) parts and practice in IELTS Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking without making exceptions.

You can mix 2 subjects in one day, for example, practice in Reading for one hour and then in Writing for one hour. This way of studying helped me and my friends – I hope it will help you, too.