SKIMMING SKILLS FOR IELTS READING

By: Ridwan Sa'at

This article looks at skimming – the ability to read a text quickly and understand what the general meaning is. Here I am suggesting one way to practice your skimming skills. It is a good place to start if you know you can’t read texts quickly enough and don’t like skimming and that your ability is only scanning for “key words” in the text.
In skimming, we do not read the whole text but we read bits of the text. 
1. The idea is that what you need to read when you skim are the important/general bits of the text. You don’t want to waste time on details – you can do that later. All you have to do is decide what the important parts of the text are.

2. Forget details. Concentrate on main ideas.

Want to know what the important bits are?
Here is my suggestion: 
1. The first sentence in every paragraph is normally important and gives the main idea of the paragraph.

2. In other words, the first few words in each paragraph normally tell you what that sentence is about.

3. The title and sub-title or a quote can also help imagine what the text is about.
If you do these, you should get the general idea. It’s not perfect, but it can be a good way to start.

Study this exercise!
The Spice Route
“If you come hoping for merchandise, The riches of the sumptuous Levant,, Cinnamon, cloves, ardent spices, Or potent, health-giving drugs, Or if you hope to find precious stones, The exquisite ruby, the precious diamond, If these are the luxuries you treasure, Here is your journey’s end, by any measure.” (Luis Vas De Camōes, The Lusiads, 1572)

It is known that Austronesian seafarers brought cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to India, since the island of Java is mentioned in the earliest written version (300 BC) of the Indian Ramayana epic. From India, sailors traded these and other spices along the Arabian coastlines in exchange for gold, silver, metal utensils and weapons.

The Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, together with the great rivers of the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates, provided natural trade routes for spices and other commodities to move from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. These trade routes or geographic highways became part of the Spice Route, which extended halfway around the world, and shaped the history of people and commerce for the next 1500 years. (Burnet, Ian (2011)

Analysis:
If you read the title, sub-title/heading, the first sentences of each paragraph and the last sentence of the last paragraph, you can know that the text is about: ‘the establishment of spice route from Java to Mediterranean Sea which then later to Europe.’
 
Reference: Burnet, Ian (2011). Spice Islands, Australia: Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd

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