IELTS Reading Test with Answers: What kind of Questions Come in IELTS?

The IELTS examination consists of 4 segments Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening. The reading segment in the IELTS exam is composed to examine your overall reading skills. This segment contains three or four passages and 40 questions. Each question accounts for 1 mark.

You need to read these passages and write your answers. The reading test in IELTS requires skills like reading for a summary and main concepts, interpreting logical reasoning, and identifying authors’ opinions and perspectives. You get an hour to solve this segment.

The aspirants need to transfer their answers to the answer sheet within 60 minutes. The reading segment does not provide any additional time for transferring the answers. You should be very careful while writing the answers as improper spellings and grammar will result in deduction of your marks.

Several types of questions are a part of the IELTS reading test with answers. Let’s take a look at which kind of questions come in the IELTS reading test.

#1. MCQ’s (Multiple Choice Questions)

In this type of question, you have to pick the right answer/answers from the given choices. Suppose there are four choices; you have to choose any one answer. There can be questions with five or seven choices. In that case, you have to choose any two accurate or any three accurate choices.

You have to look for the correct answer in the given passages. The answers’ choices will correspond with the alphabets like A, B, C, D, etc. You have to write the correct correlating alphabet of the answer/ answers in the answer sheet.

#2. Recognizing Information

These kinds of questions are in the true or false format. Such types of questions depend upon your ability to recognize the given information. Three choices will be given to you, either ‘true’, ‘false’ or ‘not given’.

Several aspirants confuse the ‘not given’ option as false, which is wrong. Not given means that the given sentence is contradictory and has no particular assertion. It can also mean that answer relating to the question statement is not present in the passage. Also, many of the aspirants answer the questions with their prior knowledge; you should never do this mistake. Examiner expects that your answer aligns to the given passage and nothing more or less than that.

#3. Completing the Sentences

You have to complete the sentences in these type of questions. Either the former part of the latter part of the sentence will be incomplete. Due to the time constraint, You need to be on-toes and complete these sentences as soon as possible. The IELTS reading practice test with answers will help you cope up with speed. The quicker you answer, the more you save time to answer other questions.

#4. Labelling Diagrams

You need to label the diagrams according to the description in this type of question. Instructions like how many words/ sentences you must answer will help you in attempting these questions.

You should adhere to the instructions very strictly. So, do not write more words or fewer words and answer with the exact number of words to score maximum marks.

The diagram can be of any object or place from the passage. You must hence carefully read the section of the passages to attempt this question correctly.

#5. Matching the Features

This is the category of questions where you need to discover certain information concerning the given features and match it accordingly. A list of options is present in the answers to choose the correct match.

The instructions will inform you how many options you must choose while matching the features. Because there are chances that several options may be the answers for more than one question hence, choose the correct option matching the features as these are a bit tricky types of questions.

#6. Matching the Headings

In such types of question, lists of headings corresponding to the lower-case of the roman numbers (i, ii, and so on) will be given. You need to correlate these headings with the content of the given passages.

There will be some additional headings that have no relation to the name of the passage. It is to confuse you, so read the headings as well as the passage name carefully to match the appropriate heading to it.

Don’t make mistakes while writing the roman numbers and lose marks for it.

#7. Completion of Summary, Tables or Flow-charts

In these types of questions, you need to work on complete summary practising for IELTS reading sample questions. This summary may not necessarily relate to the given paragraphs.

However, some interconnected sentences will be given to you. You need to convert these sentences by rephrasing them into a summary. Instructions will be given to you on how many words you should write while completing a summary.

You may also need to fill in some incomplete compartments of a table or flow chart in such types of questions.

In Conclusion

These were some of the important types of questions asked in the IELTS examination. You need to up your reading skills to gain the highest ranks in this segment. Time management and practice of the IELTS academic reading sample are of utmost importance for a better experience of the exam before you attempt it.

Your marks will be converted according to the 9-band scale based on your scores out of 40. Your score will be displayed in the form of half bands or whole bands. Keep practising more and more samples for the reading test and score maximum marks.

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