IELTS Reading Test Guide: Free IELTS Reading Practice Test for IELTS General Reading and IELTS Academic Reading

IELTS Reading Test Information

The IELTS Reading Test consists of 3 sections and a total of 40 questions. In general, you will answer 12-14 questions for each section and are given exactly 60 minutes to complete your reading exam. Each section contains 1-3 passages depending on which test you're taking. If you know the test you're taking, you can skip the next couple sections. If you don't, it's important to learn about each test and how to prepare for them.

Which IELTS Reading Test Is Right For Me?

The IELTS reading test has two versions: IELTS General Reading and IELTS Academic Reading. You'll take General Reading if you're looking to migrate or enroll into high school. You'll take Academic Reading if you're looking for higher education. The biggest difference between general reading and academic reading is the difficulty in the IELTS reading passages. As the name implies, the academic test uses IELTS reading material from academic resources, while the general test uses material from everyday life.

Both tests contain 3 sections, 40 questions, and 11 question types. You can read about each section in detail for both tests in the table below.

Now that you're familiar with the IELTS reading test structure and both IELTS general reading and IELTS academic reading, it's time to learn if you're better off taking the paper-based test or the computer-based test.

IELTS Paper-based Test(PBT) VS IELTS Computer-based Test(CBT)

In the PBT, you will be given a Question Booklet and an Answer Sheet. The Question Booklet is where you will see all the questions you need to answer. The Answer Sheet is where you will write your final answers for grading. You can check out the official IELTS answer sheet pdf here

Note: Unlike in the IELTS listening test, you will not be given extra time to transfer your answers from the booklet to the answer sheet, so make sure you add each IELTS reading test question into the answer sheet as you answer them.

In the CBT, you will answer questions on the computer. Your passages will be on the left-hand side and your questions will be on the right-hand side. You will also be able to highlight text and use control functions to copy and paste answers. For more information about the PBT and the CBT, check out The IELTS Computer Based Test Guide.

You can practice either version anytime you like with our free IELTS reading practice test. You can find links to all our IELTS reading material at the top of the page.

General IELTS Reading Test

In the general test, the IELTS reading passages are taken from books, magazines, newspapers, notices, advertisements, company handbooks and guidelines found from material you would encounter on a daily-basis in an English-speaking environment. Just like in the academic reading test, there are 3 sections, however in an IELTS general reading test, each section is a bit different from one another.

IELTS General Reading Introduction Video

1. Section 1: Contains two or three short texts or several shorter texts
   
   This section is called Social Survival and it contains texts relevant to basic linguistic survival in English with tasks mainly about retrieving and providing general factual information, for example, notices, advertisements and timetables.
2. Section 2: Comprises two texts
   
   This section is called Workplace Survival and focuses on the workplace context, for example, job descriptions, contracts and staff development and training materials.
3. Section 3: Is one long text
   
   This section is called General Reading and involves reading more extended prose with a more complex structure. The focus is on descriptive and instructive instead of argumentative texts.

I hope you're not feeling too overwhelmed. The reading test is not as difficult as it seems. As long as you follow our IELTS reading tips and utilize our free IELTS reading practice questions, you'll be ready to handle any reading passage and achieve your target IELTS reading score. By the way, the academic reading test is scored slightly different from the general reading test. Next, we'll go over the reading band score and how they are calculated.

Academic IELTS Reading Test

In the academic test, the IELTS reading passages are taken from books, journals, magazines, and newspapers from academic sources that would be appropriate for university students. Each passage is long, maybe 6 - 10 paragraphs, may be written in a variety of styles like narrative or descriptive, and covers a wide range of academic topics such as anthropology, history, science, biology, art, education, linguistics,..etc. The passages will sometimes include technical terms or even visual material such as charts and graphs. You can practice these topics and more with our IELTS reading practice test questions.

IELTS Academic Reading Introduction Video

So which academic topics appear the most in the official IELTS Academic Reading Test?

Well in 2018 & 2019, the most common academic reading topics were history and social sciences, which includes culture, education, linguistics, and sociology. Interestingly, the history topics were mostly about animals/plants of New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and Canada. The next most popular IELTS reading topics were psychology, natural science, art, anthropology, business, and biology.

The chart below shows different subjects tested in academic IELTS reading tests in 2018 and 2019.

Because of these trends, we made sure our IELTS reading practice tests covered these topics. We have also added reading samples from less used topics, just in case. It's important you prepare for all situations, because you never know what IELTS reading topic you will get.

How your IELTS Reading Score is Calculated

Each IELTS reading question is worth 1 point, so you can get a "raw" score of up to 40 points. Then, your raw score will be converted into your band score. The tables below can give you a general idea about how raw IELTS reading scores are converted to band scores for each test.

IELTS General Reading Score VS IELTS Academic Reading Score

However, keep in mind that each version of the IELTS reading test is slightly different and the score required to achieve a certain band changes depending on how everyone who took that test did on that particular day. Therefore, the number of correct answers needed to get a band score will differ slightly from test to test, but in general you should be aiming to get around 30 out of 40 if you want to get a band 7 score.

Another thing we want to remind you is that the hardest questions and the easiest questions count equally towards your final reading score, so make sure you're not losing out on easier points by getting stuck on harder questions. Next we'll cover some IELTS reading tips and strategies on how to answer each reading test question.

IELTS Reading Tips - How to Answer the 11 Reading Question Types

There are 11 different question types on the reading test and all of them require a different strategy. Therefore, it is important you practice each question type to learn the best way to tackle it for a high IELTS reading score. In the following sections, you'll look at an IELTS reading sample with answer for each reading question type and learn tips on how to answer them successfully.

Question Type 10 – Diagram Label Completion

This question type requires you to complete labels on a diagram, which relates to a description contained in the IELTS text. There are three kinds of diagrams you might get: a technical drawing of a machine or invention, something from the natural world, or a design or plan.

Check out our full IELTS reading practice test lesson on How to Answer Diagram Label Completion Questions. In it you can watch video lessons for both test types and detailed explanations with sample questions

Diagram Label Completion Question

Questions 6 – 8

Label the tunnels on the diagram below using words from the box.

Write your answers in boxes 6-8 on your answer sheet.

Answer sheet

6
7
8

• spellcheck Answers
  6 South African
  7 French
  8 Spanish

Reading Passage

Introducing dung1 beetles into a pasture is a simple process: approximately 1,500 beetles are released, a handful at a time, into fresh cow pats2 in the cow pasture. The beetles immediately disappear beneath the pats digging and tunnelling and, if they successfully adapt to their new environment, soon become a permanent, self-sustaining part of the local ecology. In time they multiply and within three or four years the benefits to the pasture are obvious.

Dung beetles work from the inside of the pat so they are sheltered from predators such as birds and foxes. Most species burrow into the soil and bury dung in tunnels directly underneath the pats, which are hollowed out from within. Some large species originating from France excavate tunnels to a depth of approximately 30 cm below the dung pat. These beetles make sausage-shaped brood chambers along the tunnels. The shallowest tunnels belong to a much smaller Spanish species that buries dung in chambers that hang like fruit from the branches of a pear tree. South African beetles dig narrow tunnels of approximately 20 cm below the surface of the pat. Some surface-dwelling beetles, including a South African species, cut perfectly-shaped balls from the pat, which are rolled away and attached to the bases of plants.

For maximum dung burial in spring, summer and autumn, farmers require a variety of species with overlapping periods of activity. In the cooler environments of the state of Victoria, the large French species (2.5 cms long), is matched with smaller (half this size), temperate-climate Spanish species. The former are slow to recover from the winter cold and produce only one or two generations of offspring from late spring until autumn. The latter, which multiply rapidly in early spring, produce two to five generations annually. The South African ball-rolling species, being a sub-tropical beetle, prefers the climate of northern and coastal New South Wales where it commonly works with the South African tunneling species. In warmer climates, many species are active for longer periods of the year.

Glossary
1. dung: the droppings or excreta of animals
2. cow pats: droppings of cows

How Trends Help You Prepare for the IELTS Reading Test

We've talked about the IELTS reading tips for answering each question type, now let's look at an interesting trend that can help with your reading test preparation. The pie chart below illustrates the proportion of each reading question type that appeared in official IELTS reading tests in 2017.

As you can see, "Sentence/Summary/Note/Table/Flow-chart/Diagram completion & Short answer" question types were the most common at 29%, with "Identifying information/viewer claims" question types in close second with 23%. Finally, the "Matching features" question type accounted for 16%, "Matching information/Multiple choice" 11%, and "Matching headings" 10%.

With this information, you can see which question types are most likely to appear in your IELTS reading exam. Although you MUST prepare for all question types, knowing this information can help you manage your time between them. Of course, if you are scoring high with certain question types, then you probably should focus more time on the question types you are struggling with. If you want to know exactly what reading question types you struggle with, start a FREE IELTS Reading Sample Test and at the end of the exam, simply click View Results to see your full reading diagnostic report, which also includes how you did for each question type.

Next up we'll go over IELTS reading tips and strategies necessary for a high reading score.

IELTS Reading Tips - How to Improve your Reading Band Score

Most students fail the reading section for following three reasons

1. Slow reading speed
2. Poor vocabulary
3. Little or no preparation

Improving your reading speed

First, let's get the obvious out of the way. To improve your reading speed, you need to actually practice reading and do it consistently.

Now let's look at a less obvious strategy that will help you understand the meaning of large chunks of sentences. Start by dissecting the sentence. Do this by Looking for the sentence's subject and verb. Finding the subject and verb will help you understand the meaning of the sentence. One reason why academic reading passages cab be hard to comprehend is because they join strings of ideas to form long compound sentences. This produces large chunks of sentences that are harder to absorb, so using the subject and verb as your guide to understanding the entire chunk is a great tool you can use during your IELTS reading exam.

Improving your vocabulary

Many people think answering reading questions is as simple as scanning the paragraph for keywords and information...Well, unfortunately, it's not that simple. reading questions are usually paraphrased, meaning, the words have been changed to use synonyms of words from the IELTS reading passage. This is done to increase the difficulty, otherwise, the test would be too easy. Because of this, you must improve your vocabulary in order to know the many different synonyms of a word.

As you prepare for the reading test and you come across a word you do not know, make a habit of either stopping and looking it up or at least writing it down and looking it up later. It's a little tedious, but it's extremely effective. Your goal should be, but is not limited to, studying 15 to 20 new academic words each day.

Knowing in which question types answers are/are not in order

It is important to know that for some question types, the answers are usually (almost always) in the same order as the IELTS reading passage. For other question types, answers are rarely ever in the same order as the reading passage. We've completed a table for the question types that follow and the one that don't. Please keep in mind.

Finding the best reading strategy for you

The biggest challenge most people face in the IELTS reading exam is completing all reading questions before time runs out. In the next section, you will learn three strategies and it'll be up to you to figure out which one suits you best. You'll do that using our free reading practices.

3 IELTS Reading Strategies

Strategy 1: Reading the entire passage then answering the questions.

First of all, this isn't much of a strategy. It's something people do when they don't properly prepare for the reading exam. However, we have included it as a strategy because, technically speaking, if you can retain the information from the passage on your first read through and are able to answer the questions, then you won't need strategy 2.

This strategy, if you don't have a better than average memory, is inefficient. You'll end up running out of time before you can answer all the questions. A lot of people make this mistake. However, there are some questions that don't require much effort and will benefit from this strategy like If the question is a "Yes" or "No" answer, then you'll be able to skim quickly and fin the answer quickly, but there aren't enough of these question types, so it's not advisable to use this strategy unless you can handle it.

Strategy 2: Reading questions first, read for an objective and take notes, and then answer questions wisely

This is our recommended strategy. It will help you get a higher IELTS reading score. Think of this as a clear map of how to generally approach the exam:

Strategy 3: Skimming, note taking, & question types.

This is another strategy used by many IELTS test takers. It will help you get a higher reading score. The strategy consists of 4 steps:

1. Skim each paragraph to get the general idea of each paragraph. The main idea of a paragraph is usually found in the first few sentences so focus a little more on those sentences. The following sentences can be skimmed quickly, underlining names/words/phrases that stand out.
2. After skimming each paragraph, write short notes (2-5 words) next to each paragraph with your best guess about the main idea of that paragraph.
3. Next, answer a set of questions that are of the same question type.
4. Finally, Answering a set of questions efficiently and correctly.

It is important that you spend no more than 3-5 minutes on Steps 1 and 2. Spending too much time on these steps will waste too much time and you'll end up running out of it.

The goal here is to set up an efficient method for finding answers in the passage. By writing down the general idea of each paragraph, you'll know what paragraph contains the answer to each question. This will save you a lot of time because if you didn't write it down, you would likely need to skim each paragraph for the general idea of the question, then you would need to carefully scan the paragraph for the answer. By noting down each paragraph's main idea, you get to skip the first step of skimming each paragraph and start scanning for the answer.

After you've thoroughly skimmed the text and written down some notes, you're ready for Step 3. In this step, you'll need to determine which question type you want to tackle first. A good strategy would be to start with the easier question type and move on to more difficult question types later. The Easiest question types are the ones where you spend less time reading. For example, the Matching Heading question type is an easier one because you only need to find the heading that best describes the main idea of a paragraph, so technically you only need Step 1 and 2 to answer this question type. An example of a difficult question type would be Identifying Information. For this question type, you'll need to read each paragraph to find out if each statement is TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN according to the passage.

Here is a table that lists the difficulty levels for each question type. Use this table as a reference when choosing which question type you want to tackle first.

Now that you've figured out which set of questions you'll answer first, it's time to actually answer them :( Don't worry! Although each question type is different, the strategy answer them correctly applies to them all. The basic principle is simple, just follow the steps below:

1. Read the question carefully and identify important keywords.
2. Find the paragraph that contains the information needed to answer the question.(Hopefully you already have the general ideas written down for each paragraph, so you can easily figure this out.)
3. Scan the paragraph for the important keywords (They are most likely a synonyms!) until you locate the part of the text where you need to read carefully.
4. Finally, read carefully and think critically to determine the correct answer.

Free IELTS Reading Sample PDF Downloads with Answers

Below are some free reading samples from the British Council (the makers of the IELTS exam). Try to answer the questions and see how you do!

• IELTS Academic Practice: Passage 1
• IELTS Academic Practice: Passage 2
• IELTS Academic Practice: Passage 3