Reading is the second part of the IELTS test, and takes 60 minutes. It consists of three or sometimes four reading passages of increasing difficulty, and there is a total of 40 questions to answer. Though you can mark and write on the Question Paper, you must enter your answers on the Reading Answer Sheet, and be aware that no extra time is given for transferring your answers from the test booklet to the Reading Answer Sheet.
The Academic and General Training Reading Tests are graded to the same level. However, because the texts in the Academic Reading Test are more challenging overall than those in the General Training Test, more questions need to be answered correctly on a General Training Test to receive the same grade.
In each section, you have to do several different tasks. These include:
Answering multiple choice questions
Writing short answer to questions
Completing sentences, notes, a summary, a flow chart or a table
Labelling a diagram
Classifying ideas into different categories
Matching (e.g. headings to paragraphs or people to ideas)
Deciding if ideas or opinions are correct, incorrect or not given
