Narration:

Sections 1 and 2 of the General Training reading test are different to Section 3 in that the information you need to read is split into shorter parts and presented in a different format. As we looked at in the introductory lesson, in Section 1, information may be in the form of notices, advertisements or other marketing material, timetables or letters. You will not need to read a long piece of text but may need to answer questions on two or three separate items. In Section 2, the information may come from prospectuses for an education institution, information guides, rules and regulations or summaries of information. In Sections 1 and 2 you need to show that you are able to understand the type of information you may come across in your day to day life. While preparing for Sections 1 and 2 of the General Training IELTS test, it is a good idea to get into the habit of reading as much of this real life information as you can. For example advertisements you may see in newspapers, information booklets or promotional material that you may find in the library, receive in the post or find on the internet. You will find that the information you need to read increases in difficulty as you move from section 1 to section 2 to section 3. Make sure that you leave enough time in the test to answer section 3 as this is where you are likely to find the most difficult vocabulary and questions. The different question types that we looked at in the Introduction lesson may appear in any section of the reading test. There is most often a combination of question styles that you will need to answer in each section of the test. In the following lessons in the General Training Reading course, we will look at these different question types with tips and hints on how to best approach them using typical Section 3 passages for practice as this section can cause the most difficulty for students.