Reading and Comprehending

Understanding Reading Texts

Apr 17 2022

Quiz

Reading in the IELTS, GRE, PTE, OET, TOEFL tests is not about reading aloud but being able to understand the texts. Sometimes understanding texts can be difficult due to unfamiliar words or challenging sentence structure.

Understanding Reading Texts - First Academy

There are various reasons why words might be unfamiliar to a reader. One of them could be culture. An American, for instance, might not immediately figure out what lorry is, since Americans use the word truck. The same goes with biscuits and cookies. This could be a hurdle to the test taker.

The second reason is use of specialised words. Words like Soprano and Tenor may not something a sports person knows, nor would a test-taker from India who might not even have heard of what an Opera is.

A challenging sentence structure, where familiar words are used in less-than familiar ways can also pose many problems to a non-native English speaker.

What is the solution? Reading texts from different sources can certainly widen the vocabulary resource. To score a 9.0 in IELTS general reading, the candidate needs to score at least 34 questions correct. This means that the candidate should understand the nuances of the language. And that is exactly where the test comes in.

In this test, we present you with a few confusing sentence structures that are commonly used in tests.