IELTS READING: Which points should be underlined?

This advice is applicable to both IELTS Reading Academic and General Modules

In the previous post, the importance of underlining key points was discussed. In this post, you will learn that what are the actual important, key concepts and points which should be underlined.The whole passage is full of lots of sentences made up of verbs, nouns, articles, prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, etc. So how do we decide which words are important and need to be underlined?

Here are some important tips to pin point the points which are important. You should be looking for:

• facts (important names like Dr. Someone or Professor someone etc., some important activities like research, skydiving, mining etc.)
• figures (dates, amounts, quantities like two whales, 150 research participants etc.)
• locations
• descriptions (tall, short, gold, blue, deep, shallow, etc.)
• comparisons or contrasts

These are simple tips to get you started, as you practice you will get better at spotting the important point and there importance will be proved when they also help you answer questions.

Some more useful tips:

• Do not underline every single word as this will only confuse you when you come back to the text to look for answers.
• Do not underline articles like the, a etc unless it helps in understanding a quantity Example 1: There was only an apple on the table and nothing else. Here "an" shows quantity that is "one" apple. Example two: The baby was crying. Here the article, "the" does not need to be underlined.
• Do not underline prepositions like in, on, etc, unless they help pin point the importance of something. Example 1: I live in a bungalow. Here the prepositions "in" does not need to be underlined. Example 2: The squirrel was hiding in the tree hole and was not sitting on a branch. Here, in can be underlined as it shows significance of the location of the squirrel.

Here is an important underlining example. The following passage has been taken from Insight into IELTS (Cambridge University press). Key words have been underlined personally to show you a practical example of "how to underline" key words?

Passage courtesy of Insight into IELTS but underlined personally!