IELTS READING tests
Skimming & Scanning
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- Skimming means looking over a text very quickly in order to get the gist - in other words, a basic idea of what it’s about. You can do this by looking at the title of the passage, the subheadings (if there are any) and the first and last sentences of each paragraph. The first sentence of each paragraph is especially important as it tends to contain the main idea of that paragraph. Skimming the passage before you try to answer the questions is essential, as it gives you an idea of the topic and of how the passage is organised.
- Scanning means looking through the text very quickly for a specific piece of information. This could be something like a name or date, or it could be an idea or statement, for example someone’s opinion. It could also be looking for key words or words with similar meanings, as we talked about above. When you’ve read the question and understood what you’re looking for, you’ll then need to scan the text to find the answer. (This will be easier if you’ve skimmed the text first!) Notice that neither scanning nor skimming involve reading the text word for word. Again, it’s important to remember that you’re not supposed to read every word.
Below you could find some common topics of IELTS Reading Tests. The highlighted vocabularies and sentences are of really high importance from grammatical viewpoint as well as the reading comprehension.