What's in IELTS General Training Reading
The reading test for the General Training module consists of three sections. Section 1 may contain two or three short texts or several shorter texts. Section 2 comprises two texts. In Section 3 there is one long text.
Timing: 60 minutes
No. of questions: 40
A variety of questions are used, chosen from the following types: multiple choice, identifying information, identifying writer’s views/claims, matching information, matching headings, matching features, matching sentence endings, sentence completion, summary completion, note completion, table completion, flow-chart completion, diagram label completion, short-answer questions.
The first section, ‘social survival’, contains texts relevant to basic linguistic survival in English with tasks mainly about retrieving and providing general, factual information, for example, notices, advertisements and timetables. The second section, ‘Workplace survival’, focuses on the workplace context, for example, job descriptions, contracts and staff development and training materials. The third section, ‘general reading’, involves reading more extended prose with a more complex structure but with the emphasis on descriptive and instructive rather than argumentative texts, in a general context relevant to the wide range of test takers involved, for example, newspapers, magazines and fictional and non-fictional book extracts.
Test takers are required to transfer their answers to an answer sheet. Test takers must transfer their answers during the time allowed for the test. No extra time is allowed for transfer. Care should be taken when writing answers on the answer sheet as poor spelling and grammar are penalised.
Marks All questions carry 1 mark.