Introduction to IELTS Academic Reading

This page will help you understand the Academic Reading test format, question types, key skills, and challenges, while pointing you to resources for practice, strategies, and vocabulary.

1.Understanding the IELTS Academic Reading Test

The IELTS Academic Reading tests  your ability to understand academic texts, such as articles, journals, and factual reports. Here’s what you need to know:

Number of Questions & Timing:

The test has 40 questions to be answered in 60 minutes. Questions increase in difficulty as you progress through the sections.

Types of Passages:

The types of passages you'll see:

Academic: extracts from books, journals, and academic publications

Factual: informational texts based on research or real-world topics

Descriptive: texts that describe processes, events, or concepts

Scoring:

Each correct answer is awarded 1 mark, with a total of 40 marks.

Your raw score is converted into the IELTS band score from 0–9.  See our instagram post on score conversions to band scores.

2. Key Skills and Challenges

To succeed in the IELTS reading their are different reading skills you need to develop.  Don't worry if you don't know them all in our next article we break them down further.

Reading skills:

Skimming & Scanning: Quickly identify main ideas, key details, and locate specific information.

Inference: Understand implied meaning, deduce writer’s opinions, or interpret data.

Matching: Match headings, summaries, or information to text sections.

Time Management: 60 minutes for 40 questions means efficiency is crucial.

Challenges students often face:

Unfamiliar academic vocabulary

Distractors in multiple-choice questions

Complex sentence structures

Time pressure

By practicing these skills, you can gradually improve accuracy and confidence.