Many teachers advise students to practice for the IELTS readin | Mega English | IELTS 8.0

Many teachers advise students to practice for the IELTS reading test ‘under exam conditions’. This means you do the practice test in one hour without any help, just like in the exam. This is poor advice for a few reasons.

By doing the test under exam conditions you put too much pressure on yourself and you don’t give yourself time to reflect on how to answer specific question types, spot patterns in questions and how you answer them, note down common vocabulary and notice how much time you spend answering certain questions.

It also does not give you a chance to analyse your mistakes. You should really focus on your mistakes and figure out why you were wrong and then improve. This is a slow process and should be prioritised.

Once you have practiced several tests slowly, you can then practice them under exams conditions.

9. Be careful when transferring your answers

In the test, you will be asked to transfer your answers to an answer sheet. A common mistake is to spend too much time on reading and answering questions and leaving very little time to transfer the answers. It is only natural that silly mistakes are made when people are under pressure.

I advise my students to practice with an IELTS answer sheet and see how much time it takes them to transfer their answers. This will allow you to familiarise yourself with the process and have confidence on test day.


@Mega_English