IELTS Reading - COMPREHENSION SKILL: Understanding the “theme” of the whole passage

You can improve your score by improving your comprehension skills. An important part of "comprehending" a given passage or part of the passage (a paragraph) is to understand the essence and theme of it.

 

What is the theme of a passage/paragraph?
A theme is the “main” idea or concept.

 

If a reader can locate and/or understand the theme or main idea then comprehending the rest of the passage becomes a lot easier.

 

How to locate and comprehend the “theme”?

The theme of the “whole passage” can usually be found in the heading and subheading. For example look at the following examples of headings:

 

 

1. APICULTURE.

 

Beekeeping has been practiced by humans for ages.

 

 

 

2. AT THE MERCY OF HUMANS

 

Ecosystem under threat because of the development done by humans

 

 

 

3. INSOMNIA

 

Inability to sleep

 

 

• What comes to your mind after reading each of the above headings?

 

• What do you think the passage which follows will be about?

 

• Do you find it helpful to have an initial idea of what the passage might be about?

 

Most candidates of IELTS test feel more comfortable in attempting the questions if they have an idea of what the passage is about. The easiest way to do so is to read the “heading”. Most headings clearly define the theme of the passage.

 

The above headings clearly give us an idea what the passage will be about:

• Heading #1 tells us that the passage will be about “beekeeping”.
• Heading#2 tells that the passage will be about how ecosystem is badly affected by the developments being made by humans. 
• Heading#3 tells us that passage will be about “sleeplessness” (the inability to sleep).

 

FURTHER PRACTICE:

 

Magazines, News Papers, Newsletters etc both paper based and electronic (available electronically on the Internet) are excellent resources for reading headings and sub-headings in order to understand the possible theme of the passage. As you practice more, you will feel a lot more comfortable in reading different texts of which you have no prior knowledge. You will specifically be focusing on the given text and that’s what the IELTS test expects you to do: read and understand the text and then answer the questions!

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!

IELTS READING: Importance of Underlining Key Points

These tips are applicable to both academic and general reading modules.

Many teachers recommend their students to underline the more important ideas and key concepts in a reading passage in order to understand the passage and find answers to the questions which follow the passage. So how does underlining really helps? Underlining important points in a passage helps to:

• pin point key points
• quickly skim through the text to find answers
• Most questions ask for main ideas and if you have underlined them it is easier to get back to them in the provided passage.
• Finally, underlining key concepts helps us comprehend the topic being discussed.

So What should be Underlined? This is explained in detail in the post: IELTS READING: Which points should be underline in the passage?

IMPROVE LISTENING AND SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH DAILY LEARNING STRATEGY

Improve your listening and speaking skills:

Preparing for IELTS means improving our English skills.We listen to English at least somewhere during the day even if English is not the First Language in our country so why not make the most of it. Everyday learning, as emphasized before, must not be ignored and certainly goes a long way when it comes to improving our English Language skills. Here is one of the many ways you can improve your English listening and speaking skills through simple everyday enjoyable practice:

Like Movies? We all do. When you have finished watching a movie, do you like talking to a friend or family member about what the story was about, how awesome the hero was or how cool the stunts were, etc. etc? If you do, try discussing it in English. You will have a good set of words to use which you have just listened in the movie or more appropriately acquired in the movie, so use them. Don't worry initially about making mistakes, with time your expression, fluency and grammar will improve. Don't feel embarrassed if you are making mistakes, we all make mistakes even native English speakers can sometimes make small mistakes because to err is human! So don't hold back and give it a try!


If you are not comfortable talking to a friend in English (just yet) then grab a recorder or use the voice recorder in your cell phone and record all you saw in the movie, how you felt, how you were influenced, did you enjoy or were bored and what improvements could have been made in the movie. Save the recording and listen to it. You can retain the recording and compare it with new ones as you record more of your experiences and you will see that your speech, expression and fluency will get a good boost just after a few times! How easy and effective is that? You have nothing to lose in trying this technique so why not get started and grab your favourite movie as soon as you get some spare time! :)

Incorporate Self-Study Strategies into Your Daily Routine

Taking out time for study in the busy schedule is in itself a challenge and mere book learning though very helpful is not sufficient on its own. So here's an easier way, incorporate learning in your daily life! Some candidates might be thinking that how can we read a book while on our way to work or practice writing while watching a movie or listening to the radio. What candidates need to fully understand is that IELTS is a test of "English", so if you cannot practice the papers on the go, you can certainly "learn" English in many different and unique ways....after all, if you are good at English you can handle any test in English!

EVERYDAY READING AND WRITING STRATEGY

• Reading the Newspaper/News on a website: Many of us like to get our daily dose of the news. We all want to stay in touch with whats happening around us and around the world. Most (authentic) Newspapers or other News sources like news on the Internet make sure to use grammatically accurate and error free English. After you have read your very favourite article, column, or a stunning piece of news just put aside five minutes to jot down the main points about it. Prefer a computer over the conventional paper and pencil, go ahead type the main ideas in a word document. This will:
• improve your understanding ( or comprehension)
• give you ideas for writing (for example prospective essays for IELTS)
• improve your vocabulary
• improve your writing expression (sentence structure and grammar)
• save you a lot of time as you do not need to set a time aside and you will be learning while doing something interesting (like reading your favourite column in the paper!
• This will improve both reading and writing skills, talk about killing two birds with one stone!

Self-Study Strategies: Know Your Learning Style

Preparing for IELTS can be a self-study venture or people can choose to take formal classes. However with the busy schedules most of us have today many of us are more comfortable with self-study strategies, like self-study books, online resources etc. However, before starting self-study try to find "your" very own learning style. How do you like to learn best?

• Reading (Visual)
• Listening (Auditory)
• Everyday practice (Kinesthetic: practically doing things)
• Making notes (learning by writing)
• Charts etc.(Visual)

There are various other ways people learn. Some have a specific learning style, others use mixed learning strategies to enhance the learning effect (like listening, watching, reading and making notes to incorporate the lesson in their mind).

You can find out your very own learning style on the following link: http://www.metamath.com/multiple/multiple_choice_questions.html

Simply put, your learning style is the way in which you feel most comfortable to study. When you are sure about your learning style, move on to read the next post about how to incorporate study in your daily routine.
Good Luck everyone!

Writing Module - Understanding the question by underlining KEY WORDS (2)

Underlining Key Words

[This advice can be applied to both academic and general training writing modules as it is basic good writing advice.]

Understanding the question is of vital importance as explained in a couple of previous posts, because this is the only way you will be able to write well on the given topic. Remember, there is no choice, you have to write on the one topic you receive for both part 1 and part 2 of the Writing Module.

So how to underline the proper words so that we make good sense of the question and jot down the right points for writing the answer.

Here is a simple example:

Money is the root of "all" evil. "Do" you "agree"?

In the above question, different words have been marked differently. Some are underlined others are quoted with inverted commas. So lets see how to interpret a simple question.

• The question is asking about: Money

What is your concept about what money means here?
It means wealth, material gains etc.

• Then the statement says: it is the root to all evil.

It is suggesting that money is the basis of evil, it leads to evil or causes people to be attracted to take up evil practices in order to acquire it.

• Then your point of view is being asked for, where the question asks do you agree?

You can safely take a point of view by giving solid arguments. These arguments can be based on:

• examples from real life (what is seen happening in every day life)
• own life experience
•  quotations you might remember
• facts and figures (only if you know them)

You can mildly discuss both views but you must take one stand and stick to it, explaining it completely with proper explanation.

The ways of writing an essay, how to take and present a specific point of view and stick to it will be explained in later posts.