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: “Is this what I am looking for?” So, you only need to
understand the topic of each sentence.
Let’s say you are doing the IELTS test and you are trying to answer a question about
‘shoes’. You look for keywords in the passage to find the information that will give you
the answer. You look at each sentence quickly. For example, you see this sentence:
“Like perfumes, cosmetics were originally used as an adjunct to religious ritual,
the ceremonial aspect gradually being lost as both men and women adorned
themselves with cosmetics.”
You locate the subject of the sentence ‘cosmetics’ and it is enough. It is not necessary
to read all the details. You now know that this sentence probably does not contain the
information you need. So, you should quickly move on to the next sentence. This is
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