Sunday 22 June 2014

Crucial strategies to use for building and improving reading fluency for FCE or IELTS exam

How to improve your reading comprehension- 3 steps to get a better score on your Cambridge exam 

1. Read extensively – the more you read, the better reader you become. Try to read on variety of topics so that you build your vocabulary. Extending your vocabulary will allow you to spend less time trying to understand unfamiliar words and more chances to understand the material presented in the text.

2. Read challenging materials – There is no point reading things that are easy for you, challenge yourself by reading a text that contains more difficult material e.g. books in original versions, articles, technical books, etc.

3. Read fast – getting used to reading English fast is a key to passing the exam. Do not spend ages trying to figure out the meaning, most of the time you can guess its definition by reading the whole sentence.

Remember practice makes perfect- read an hour a day

NOTE: These 3 above tips are only to be practised when reading a text e.g. book or newspaper,  but not the paper that is going to appear on the exam!

What NOT to do!

During the FCE, CAE or IELTS exam your natural instinct might tell you to spend time reading the text and trying to understand every single word. WRONG! Do not do this! You do not have enough time, so just read each question, then look at the text or even just the paragraph to find the connection and eventually the answer you need. Avoid spending too much time on each question. If you are not sure about the answer, go to the next question. Later, if time allows, you can go back and try the question again.

More detailed strategies and tricks on how to improve your reading skills necessary to pass the test are included in our e-book, which is going to be published by the end of July 2014. Follow us so that we will keep you posted on the release date. In the meantime, do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding the reading part of your exam.


Useful Links :
Extensive Reading: Why? and How? http://iteslj.org/Articles/Bell-Reading.html
Guide to Extensive reading :http://erfoundation.org/ERF_Guide.pdf

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