In reading IELTS, you deal with 40 questions which follow three
different passages, with a total of 2,000 until 2,750 words. To answer
those questions, we can use ‘skimming’ appropriately. So, what should we
do to use it appropriately?
Searching randomly does not belong to
the principal of “skimming”. You should never so it. Try to search for
the clue in the question. You should search scientifically. The form of
the key words can be nouns, verbs, numbers, or phrases that are existed
in the question.
So, initial step before skimming is searching the
key word(s). Then, identify those key words and skim the passage
quickly to find the location of those key word(s) in the passage. For
example, in the question “What made Endang move back to Indonesia?”, the
keyword is Indonesia. Therefore, the thing you should do is skim the
passage quickly to find that word. Then, you will find that the answer
is close to that word.
Now have a look at a question such as
“Which of the following best describe the important of some inventions
in 1990s?” in this question, you can get 1990s as your key word. So, use
1990s as your key word to skim the passage. After finding the exact
section in the passage, focus on the answer choices. More than likely,
the correct choice will paraphrase the related section of the passage.
That is why you need to be careful on choosing the right answer. Don’t
get trapped in choosing repeated words that you can find easily in the
passage. Duplication is not what you are focus on. You should pay more
attention on the use of paraphrase or summary of the related portion of
the passage.
Another thing that should be highlighted is that the
answer can be factually correct but it does not answer the question. In
this case, usually you find two choice that seem top be correct.
Therefore, next thing to check is the correlation between the question
and the answer. Make sure that you choose an answer which successfully
answers the question.
Reference: IELTS Secrets, copyright 2002 by MO Media
