IELTS Academic Reading

If you are an international student aspiring to study in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand then you would already know about IELTS. The first challenge in your study abroad journey is to score well in IELTS. Since English is not every student’s native language, students have to appear for an English test that demonstrates their speaking, writing, and listening abilities. IELTS Academic Reading is one of the major factors contributing to your overall IELTS Test Score. Read on to know more about IELTS Academic Reading.

What is IELTS Academic Reading?

IELTS Academic Reading is supposed to test a broad range of reading skills including your ability to catch an argument, and identify a writer’s opinion, attitude or aim. The goal of IELTS Academic Reading is to identify how well you can read and understand the main ideas, details, opinions and implied meanings throughout the text. 

IELTS Academic Reading Format

Paper Format	Three passages
No. of Questions	40
Type of Questions	Chose from the following, multiple choice, identifying information, identifying the writer’s views/claims, matching information, matching headings, matching features, matching sentence endings, sentence completion, summary completion, note completion, table completion, flow-chart completion, diagram label completion and short-answer questions
Source of Questions	Books, Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers
Marking	1 mark for each question
Duration	60 minutes

IELTS Academic Reading Tasks

The IELTS Academic Reading section is 60-minutes long and consists of 3 reading passages with a variety of questions, 40 questions in total. Here’s a detailed look at the kind of tasks given in the IELTS Academic Reading Section:

Multiple Choice Questions

You are required to choose only one answer from the given four options such as A, B, C, or D or two answers from five options A, B, C, D, or E, or three answers from seven options A, B, C, D, E, F or G.

Identifying Information

You will be given a number of statements and asked: ‘Do the following statements agree with the information in the text?’ You will then be required to answer with:

• True
• False
• Not-given

Identifying Writer’s Views/Claims

You will be given a number of statements and asked: ‘Do the following statements agree with the views/claims of the writer?’ You will then be required to answer with:

• Yes
• No
• Not-given

Matching Information, Headings, Features, and Sentence Endings

During these kinds of tasks, you will be required to track down specific information within the lettered paragraphs/sections of a text, and to write the letters of the correct paragraphs/sections.  You may be required to fill in specific details, an example, a reason, a description, a comparison, a summary, or an explanation. You may not necessarily need to find information in every paragraph/section of the text.

For headings, you will be given a list of headings, usually identified with lower-case Roman numerals such as i, ii, iii, and iv. A heading will refer to the main idea of the paragraph or section of the text. You must match the heading to the correct paragraphs or sections, which are marked alphabetically.

For features, you are required to match a set of statements or pieces of information to a list of options. The options are a group of features from the text and are identified by letters. You may be required to match different research findings to a list of researchers, or characteristics to age groups, events to historical periods, etc.

For sentence endings, you will be given the first half of a sentence based on the text and asked to choose the best way to complete it from a list of possible options. You will have more options to choose from.

Sentence Completion

You must complete sentences in a given number of words taken from the text. The instructions will make it clear how many words/numbers you should use in their answers

• Not More Than Three Words and/or a Number from the passage
• One Word Only
• Not More Than Two Words

Summary, Note, Table, Flow-Chart Completion

You are given a summary of a section of the text and are required to complete it with information drawn from the text. The summary will usually be of only one part of the passage rather than the whole. The given information may be in the form of several connected sentences of text (referred to as a summary), several notes (referred to as notes), a table with some of its cells empty or partially empty (referred to as a table), a series of boxes or steps linked by arrows to show a sequence of events, with some of the boxes or steps empty or partially empty (referred to as a flow-chart).

Diagram Label Completion

You are required to complete labels on a diagram, which relate to a description contained in the text. 

Short-Answer Questions

You must answer questions, which usually relate to factual information about details in the text. This is most likely to be used with a text that contains a lot of factual information and detail.

IELTS Academic Reading Score Chart

Correct Answers out of 40	Band Score
39-40	9
37-38	8.5
35-36	8
33-34	7.5
30-32	7
27-29	6.5
23-26	6
19-22	5.5
15-18	5
13-15	4.5
10-12	5

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