IELTS Reading Practice test- The English Language Testing System (IELTS) is divided into four sections: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. The Listening and the Speaking sections are same for both the IELTS test versions. The content of the Reading and Writing Sections are different for both the test versions.
IELTS Reading Practice Test IELTS Academic
The duration for this section is 60 minutes. The total number of questions on this section is 40. Each question carries one mark. This section tests a wide variety of reading skills. It assesses the test-takers ability for reading main ideas, reading for detail, skimming, understanding logical argument, recognizing writers opinion, attitude, and purpose.
The three long texts are taken from books, journals, magazines and newspapers. The texts are descriptive, factual, discursive and analytical in nature. All the topics are of general interest. These topics are appropriate for test-takers who are planning to take up graduate and post-graduate courses. The texts may contain non-verbal material like diagrams, graphs, and illustrations. They include different question types like multiple-choice, identifying information identifying writers views or claims, sentence completion and so on. Each task tests a different reading capability of the test-taker.
IELTS exam papers
In order to score high, test-takers need to practice questions and tasks from the sample IELTS exam papers. There are several resources available on the internet that has full length IELTS practice tests and/or IELTS reading practice tests. It is advisable to practice questions from these practice tests. One does not have to pay for these resources. Full length IELTS reading practice tests are available in IELTS IDP official test center. They have sample questions for all the sections that can be downloaded.
IELTS Essentials also contains full length practice tests for all the sections. Cambridge English is another website that offers free online IELTS sample tests and tasks. There are paid resources that offer full length IELTS practice tests and IELTS reading practice tests. Cambridge IELTS students books with answers is considered to be the best in the paid resource category, as they have original exam questions from past exams. There are ten books and each book contains full length practice tests and tapescripts. Cambridge IELTS book 5 to 10 is generally recommended as it contains recent test papers and these questions are more likely to come in the exam. Test-takers can time the exam, through these practice tests.
Most of the IELTS exam papers have instructions. So, test-takers can read them thoroughly as similar instructions will be given for the real exam. This would help in saving time while going through the instructions on the final day.
IELTS sample questions
Besides going through practice tests, test-takers can also practice the sample questions and tasks for the reading section, which is available on the official IELTS website. Various kinds of sample reading tasks are readily available on the internet. These are free resources and can be downloaded. Test-takers can read all the passages to get acquainted with the type of texts that would appear for the exam.
Marking the IELTS Academic Reading
The IELTS answer sheets are marked by certified examiners. After all the answer sheets are marked, they are handed to the Cambridge English Language Assessment for analysis. The scores are then translated into the IELTS 9 band scale.
