I’m going show you how to get 40/40 correct answers in the IELTS Reading test in the shortest time. This effective and efficient approach has helped my learners make the most use of their vocabulary, reading skills and time to reach their highest performance in the Reading test.
There are obviously other popular recipes for success in the Reading test and this may be not the one-size-fits-all approach, but if you give it a try and eventually get the hang of it, you can achieve your maximum Reading score at your current level.
I will cut to the chase: Don’t follow the order of the questions. Instead, follow the order of the paragraphs, for all question types. Yes, you read it right, regardless of the question types.
Imagine you are given a list of items to search in different rooms of a house. How do you find them?
Finding the answers in a reading text is similar to searching for specific types of items in a house.
Think about these questions:
- In the IELTS Reading test, what is equivalent to the rooms in a house? What is equivalent to the list of items to find?
- If so, how do you find the answers to the questions?

Yes, that’s why we should follow the order of the paragraphs instead of the order of the questions.
You should identify the main idea and the function of the paragraph (introducing, comparing, contrasting) and try to answer all of its relevant questions (even though they belong to different sets of questions). Just like you will go to each room, identify the function of the room (living room, kitchen, bedroom), then look at the list of items, and find the items in that room, before you move to the next room. By doing this, you reduce the time you have to return to a room to find an item.
In the Reading test, this approach liberates you from reading some paragraphs repeatedly to locate the one relevant to a question.
Apart from reading one paragraph at a time and answering all of its relevant answers, other necessary factors to achieve such performance are:
- Vocabulary:
- The most common words in English texts:
- 3000 Oxford English words (A1 – B1)
- 2000 additional words (B2 – C1)
- The most frequently-used words in academic texts:
- 570 Academic Word List
- Topic-related vocabulary
- The most common words in English texts:
- Average reading speed
- For 3 reading passages (850-900 words each): at least 300 words per minute (wpm)
- Reading strategies:
- Top-down processing
- Bottom-up processing
- Interactive reading
- Intensive reading
- Recognising Theme- Rheme and thematic development
- Exam strategies for specific question types:
- Matching headings
- True/False/ Not Given (or Yes/ No/ Not Given) questions
- Matching questions
- Multiple choice questions
- Completion questions
- World knowledge and a good memory are major pluses.
I will explain each of the elements above in other study guides.
For example, with my reading speed of 600-800 wpm, it normally takes me 30-35 minutes to answer 40 questions. I tend to spend the remaining time highlighting keywords to justify my answers and appreciating the sophisticated language use in the reading texts to prepare for my Writing test.
Let me know how it goes for you. And I wish you your maximum score in the IELTS Reading test.