Academic/General Training Module by Adam Smith First Published in 2015

 
 
 

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 IELTS
 JOURNAL 
 
9 
What are keywords? 
Keywords are the words which carry information such as nouns and verbs in 
sentences. In IELTS reading it is very important to be able to find and understand 
similar or synonymous words and phrases in passages. Underline the keywords in the 
questions and the passage so that you can refer to them more easily.
 
While finding and looking for keywords, for example, draw a circle around Proper 
Nouns (words which start with a Capital letter) and numerical values such as dates, 
percentages and number strings. By doing this, the finding process up will speed up 
especially if you need to refer to the same part of the passage to answer another 
question relating to that part again. 
Finding: Step II (Scanning)
 
When you have finished finding the main ideas in the passage, look at the questions 
quickly. You need to know how many questions and what question types there are, 
and you should approximately know what the questions are about.
When you have found the keywords in the questions, you need to find synonymous or 
similar words and phrases to answer each question by the help of your map. Read the 
sentences before and after the keywords that you have found. Then it becomes a test 
of your vocabulary knowledge: if you don't understand the words that you are reading, 
it will be difficult to get the right answer. However, remember that sometimes you 
don’t need to understand the meaning of every new word! It is often helpful to guess 
the meanings of new words by paying attention to the words that come before and 
after the keywords. 
When you look at each sentence in the passage, you need to understand only enough 
to answer the question: