Reading is considered a challenging skill because it requires candidates to think from many angles, along with the length of the reading passage and the limited time to do the test. Therefore, to succeed in the IELTS Reading test, you need to possess a diverse vocabulary and a test strategy. Understanding this, 9IELTS would like to introduce the book: Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading.
Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading Book is the first book in the Practical IELTS Strategies series.
As the name suggests, this book provides practical strategies for handling the IELTS Reading test. The book is a collection of exercises related to aspects of Reading, including grammar, vocabulary, and structured reading exercises like in the actual test.
Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading Review
Book Contents
Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading is divided into 3 main parts:
- The first part introduces an overview of the structure and content of the IELTS Reading test (About IELTS Reading). The IELTS Reading (The IELTS Band Descriptors) grading scale is also presented and explained in detail in this section.
- The second part provides 19 tips and strategies (Tips & Strategies) for Reading and question-answering techniques on the test.
Besides valuable tips and instructions on applying strategies are exercises to help learners gradually familiarize themselves with the method of processing the text, they have just learned.
- The third part includes a summary of the tips presented in the previous section and the process of handling a reading passage, followed by four Practice Reading Tests and exercise answers.
Target Readers
Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading presents content (methods and test tips) entirely in English and is quite “text-dense”. This can make many learners feel “suffocated” in the amount of knowledge that books provide. Therefore, the book is not suitable for beginners, or reading ability – vocabulary is still poor. In addition, because the test tips are presented in a spread, not specific to one type of test, it can be difficult for learners to imagine when to apply the trick. The steps are also quite complicated to memorize, not to mention they can cause candidates to waste a lot of time in vain. This is a big weakness of the book that only teachers or highly specialized people can synthesize and flexibly apply the strategies to deal with that lesson, and then guide students.
Pros & Cons
Before introducing the process and strategies (tips and strategies), the author gives a short quiz for readers to do and test their understanding of the IELTS Reading test and how to do it post. At the end of the examination, there is a discussion to answer the questions presented extremely thoroughly and multi-dimensional, helping learners understand the main spirit of the IELTS Reading test before entering more in-depth content.
In Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading, the strategies given are not at all “tricks”, which only have an immediate effect for exam purposes like many current IELTS preparation books on the market, but rather long-term strategies that allow learners to build a solid foundation in all aspects and have comprehensive preparation for the promised IELTS Reading test.
For example, the author pays close attention to even the most minor notes, such as the presentation of vocabulary review materials (how to classify words, arrange vocabulary by topic, draw mind maps, etc.) …). Another example is how the author explains and instructs about the subskills in Reading, helping learners to form those skills for support and further progress on the IELTS preparation journey by yourself.
In addition, the instructions on test-taking strategies are also presented very clearly with a simplified style with the number of academic words minimized to the maximum, except for those words in IELTS Reading that must be kept original. Given the educational nature of IELTS Academic, many books on the market are also written in an academic style, making the book extremely confusing, especially for beginners and those unfamiliar with IELTS.
Therefore, the author’s effort in this book makes highlights Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading makes the book accessible to more readers.
Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading does not provide instructions and procedures for each specific type of Reading, making it difficult for learners to apply the strategies learned when encountering real-life IELTS Reading types.
This IELTS review material is designed exclusively for building and developing Reading techniques, so there are no IELTS test questions for all four skills: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. That’s why, Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading is not the first choice for those in the sprint practice phase.
Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading Study Guide
In Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading, the author designed many exercises for practising tips & strategies. However, you must follow the correct order of carefully reading the instructions and suggested strategies first, then apply them to the exercise to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and wasting time.
It should be noted that the test strategy is not correct and wrong, only right and wrong. Therefore, you should not stereotype machines according to the book’s instructions. If you still feel like you don’t fit a specific strategy after a while of practice, put it aside and try another.
In addition, to overcome significant problems in the Reading test, such as lack of vocabulary, reading passages are too long and not enough time, you can refer to applying the LinearThinking method – a completely new method was developed by the academic team of 9IELTS with the hope of somewhat making difficult Readings easier. LinearThinking in Reading consists of 2 main steps: Simplify and Read connections.
In the “simplify” step, you try to simplify long sentences with complex structures in a paragraph, based on searching for keywords containing the sentence’s main idea. Next, to the “real connections” step, you observe the factors that link sentences, roughly called “linkers” to find the semantic and contextual relationships between the sentences in the text paragraph.
Finding this connection opens up a massive clue to the answers to the questions on the Reading test. To learn more about this method, you can visit 9IELTS’s English learning website: 9ielts.vn.
Download Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading Free
You access the links below to download the book Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading and find the right reading method for you immediately! Hopefully, the above information about the book Practical IELTS Strategies – IELTS Reading will help you use the book effectively and have more orientation in practising Reading skills.
