Want a Higher IELTS Reading Score? Learn 3 Secret Techniques

You have 60 minutes. Before you are three long reading passages and 40 complex questions. The clock is ticking relentlessly. You start reading the first passage, word by word, trying to understand everything. By the time you finish the first passage, you look up and see that 25 minutes have already gone by. Panic sets in.

This is the most common and disastrous mistake students make in the IELTS Reading test.

Let’s be perfectly clear: the IELTS Reading test is not a reading comprehension test in the traditional sense. You are not expected to read and understand every single word. Trying to do so is the fastest way to run out of time and get a low score.

The IELTS Reading test is a test of your ability to find specific information quickly. To succeed, you need to stop thinking like a reader and start thinking like a detective. You need to master the three core techniques that will allow you to navigate the texts efficiently: Skimming, Scanning, and Intensive Searching.

This guide will break down each of these essential skills. We will show you exactly what they are, when to use them, and how to practice them. Mastering these three techniques is the single most important thing you can do to improve your time management, increase your accuracy, and achieve a high band score.

Why Reading Everything is a Failing Strategy in IELTS Reading

The total word count of the three passages in the Academic Reading test can be up to 2,750 words. To read all of that carefully and answer 40 questions in 60 minutes, you would need to be a world-class speed reader.

The test is deliberately designed to be too long to read completely. It is designed to reward the students who use a smart strategy to locate the answers, not those who read from start to finish. Your goal is not to “read the passage”; your goal is to “find the answers.” These are two very different things.

Technique #1: Skimming (Getting the Big Picture)

• What it is: Skimming is the art of reading a text very quickly (in just 2-3 minutes) to understand its general topic, its overall structure, and the main idea of each paragraph. You are creating a “mental map” of the passage.
• When to use it: You should skim a passage once, at the very beginning, before you even start looking at the questions.
• How to do it: Don’t read every word. Let your eyes move quickly over the text, focusing only on the most important parts:
  1. Read the Title and any Subtitles: This gives you the main topic instantly.
  2. Read the entire Introduction Paragraph: The first paragraph usually introduces the topic and the author’s main argument.
  3. Read the First Sentence of Each Body Paragraph: This is the “topic sentence,” and it almost always tells you the main idea of that paragraph.
  4. Read the entire Conclusion Paragraph: The final paragraph often summarizes the key points of the entire passage.
• The Goal of Skimming: After 2-3 minutes of skimming, you should be able to answer the question, “What is this passage generally about?” You won’t know the details, but you’ll know that Paragraph 2 is about the history of the issue, Paragraph 3 is about the problems, and Paragraph 4 is about the solutions. This mental map is crucial for the next steps.

Technique #2: Scanning (Hunting for Specific Clues)

• What it is: Scanning is not reading at all; it’s searching. You are looking for a single, specific piece of information—a keyword—within the text.
• When to use it: You should scan after you have read a question and identified a keyword that will help you locate the answer.
• How to do it:
  1. Read the Question First: Look at the question and choose a keyword that is unique and easy to find. The best keywords are often names, dates, numbers, or technical terms. These words are hard to paraphrase and will likely appear exactly as they are in the text.
  2. Let Your Eyes Fly: Start at the top of the passage and let your eyes move quickly down the page in a zig-zag or “S” pattern. You are not reading sentences. You are only looking for the shape of your keyword.
  3. Don’t Stop Until You Find It: Keep moving quickly until your eyes land on the keyword.
• The Goal of Scanning: The only goal of scanning is to find the location of the answer. Once you have found your keyword, you have found the specific sentence or paragraph that contains the information you need. Now, you can move on to the final, most important technique.

Technique #3: Intensive Searching (Reading for the Answer)

• What it is: Once you have skimmed the passage to get the layout and scanned to find the exact location of the answer, it is finally time to read. But you are not going to read the whole passage; you are only going to read the specific part you have located. This is intensive searching (or intensive reading).
• When to use it: You use this technique after you have found your keyword through scanning.
• How to do it:
  1. Read the Sentence with the Keyword: Start by reading the sentence that contains the keyword you found very carefully.
  2. Read the Sentence Before and the Sentence After: The full answer is often not contained in a single sentence. You must read the sentences immediately surrounding your keyword to understand the full context.
  3. Compare to the Question: Now, with the full context in mind, go back to the question and compare the information. This is where you will need to understand paraphrasing and synonyms to see if the information in the text matches, contradicts, or is not mentioned in the question.
• The Goal of Intensive Searching: The goal is to get a deep and accurate understanding of a very small part of the text so that you can confidently answer the question.

Putting It All Together: A Step-by-Step IELTS Reading Strategy

Here is how you combine these three techniques into a powerful, time-saving strategy for every passage:

1. Skim the Entire Passage (2-3 minutes): Read the title, intro, topic sentences, and conclusion. Create your mental map.
2. Read the First Question: Identify the keywords and the type of question.
3. Scan the Passage for the Keywords (30-60 seconds): Use your mental map from skimming to help you scan in the right area.
4. Intensively Search the Located Area (1-2 minutes): Once you find the keywords, slow down and read the surrounding sentences carefully.
5. Answer the Question: Confidently choose your answer.
6. Repeat: Move to the next question and repeat the “Scan -> Intensively Search -> Answer” process.

By using this method, you will stop wasting time reading parts of the text that are not relevant to any of the questions. You will become a strategic, efficient detective, hunting for the answers instead of getting lost in the words. This is the secret to finishing the test on time and achieving a high band score.

Ready to practice these essential techniques?
👉 Take a full, computer-based IELTS Reading Mock Test and try out the Skim, Scan, and Search method under real exam conditions.