Dear Tony,
Thank you for your kind words.
Mona and I have been going to the learning zone and have had no problems :-)
I did few reading exercises today at home. I still have a hard time with the "Not Given" part. It is so confusing and the other exercise I find difficult is matching headings with paragraphs. I can not do the reading practice on the computer in the LZ, it is extremely difficult to read and find answers without using highlighters.
Yours sincerely,
Maryam
1 comment:
Hello my faithful, conscientious Maryam!
I'm very glad that access to the LZ has not been a problem (my email to management might have had some impact?). No excuses then for the rest of you!
Indeed, those nasty guy (NG) answers are very tricky, if not blooming unfair. Who reads a text for something that isn't there? It is very hard to do a reading test / exercise from a computer screen (that's why I personally do not recommend the CBT (Computer Based Test) version of IELTS. It is very gratifying that you use highlighter pens so effectively!
As for the difficulty of these NG questions, my experience as an IELTS reading test writer tells me that these 'invented' statements that do not conform with anything in the text ALWAYS seem contrived and artificial. They stand out because the test writer needs to perform this unnatural task of referring to something that is NOT in the text. These statements jump out as NOT based on the information in the text. This comes from skimming rapidly through the text several times, doing the YES/TRUE and NO/FALSE answers, and so in the process you will have that overall grasp of the text. Always do the questions you can answer quickly and use your knowledge of the text to answer/guess those Nasty Guy (NG) ones. It's hard and I get it wrong when I read too quickly, put myself under pressure and ignore the obvious: WHAT THE TEXT DOES OR DOES NOT SAY. Do not waste too much time fretting over the Y/N/NG or T/F/NG questions - do the 'easier' questions first and then these Nasty Guys - as a last resort, GUESS!
As for matching the headings: follow the golden rules:
1. 'Snapshot' the text as a whole
2. Delete the example paragraph
3. Highlight the key words in the heading
4. Read the paragraphs in sequence, if you cannot immediately answer the first paragraph by finding exact words or paraphrases from the heading in the text (often the opening or seccond sentence), then move on to the next paragraph
5. Go back and answer the matchings that you had left earlier while you answered the questions that you were sure about
6. Work speedily and ruthlessly, just LINK those key words from the HEADING to the TEXT in a mechanical, systematic way - IGNORE unnecessary detail
Remember my 40 / 40 Academic Reading IELTS student, Farhan, who could not recall anything from what he had read but answered the IELTS questions perfectly! That says an awful lot about how artificial and unnecessarily difficult the examiners make IELTS Reading. It also reflects how fear about such a test affects your mental processes and exam performance.
Keep calm and happy, as band 9.0 IELTS Academic Reading candidate Jean Luc always said, "The IELTS Reading is a joy - the answers are there in black and white in front of you!" The IELTS Listening is another story...
Stay focussed and relaxed - you have done the needful time and time again in practice - now it's the real thing!
Good luck and wishing you all every possible success
Tony
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