Day 4 IELTS lessons cover skills and strategies, such as skimming and scanning, for the IELTS Academic (AC) and General Training (GT) Reading Test.
Two useful reading skills you will need for the IELTS Reading Test are skimming and scanning. What do these terms mean?
Skimming is when you quickly look over a newspaper or online news site to get the main ideas. You don’t need to read every word, just find the main points. With skimming, you shouldn’t spend much time thinking about unknown words.
Scanning means reading a text quickly to find specific information, like names, places, or dates. It’s important to know what you’re looking for before you start so you can do this efficiently.
Example of skimming:
Here’s an article about a new discovery that may lead to a new form of pain relief from a snail toxin. I want to find the advantages, so I’ll skim the text quickly to find the section that talks about this. I’m looking for clues, and here it talks about problems with current drugs and how this toxin works without side effects. That’s where it talks about the advantages.
Now let’s look at scanning:
Here is a text about the treatment of wastewater. If you wanted to find out about Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR), you would quickly scan the text for this term. Once you find it, you can read the relevant section. BNR involves the removal of organic matter and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.
Take the IELTS Reading Practice Test to apply the two skills of skimming and scanning. You can use IELTS Reading calculator to calculate your reading score.
