Shadowing Practice: IELTS Reading: Where Your Marks Are Actually Leaking - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Stuck at a 6.5 in IELTS reading?
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Let's fix it.
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Reading is different from writing and speaking.
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Your score is the number of correct answers, not an average of criteria.
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To move from a 6.5 to 7, you need a few more correct answers per test.
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We'll go through exactly where those marks are usually leaking and how to get them back.
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Let's do a quick overview on how reading scoring works, works because the strategy depends on understanding it.
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Reading is not marked against criteria like writing or speaking.
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Your score is simply the number of correct answers converted to a band score.
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40 questions, 60 minutes, three passages.
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For academic reading, around 30 correct answers gives you a band seven.
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For general training, the conversion is slightly different, more like 35.
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But the principle is the same.
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you need a few more correct answers than you're currently getting.
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This is actually good news.
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Reading is the most directly trainable section.
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There's no examiner judgment, there's no marker variance.
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Either your answer matches the answer key or it doesn't, which means improvement comes from the right strategy plus practice,
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not from improving general English.
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The four blockers I'll cover today aren't about your reading ability, they're about how you handle the test.
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Blocker number one, time management.
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This is where most students lose the largest single chunk of marks.
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60 minutes, three passages.
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That gives you 20 minutes per passage on average.
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But here's what students often do.
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They spend 25 minutes on passage one because it's the easiest and they want to be sure.
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Then 23 minutes on passage two.
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This leaves them only 12 minutes for passage three, which is also the hardest passage with the most challenging questions.
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The result?
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They rush through the last 14 questions and they leave four or five marks on the table.
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The fix is non-negotiable.
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Spend 18 to 20 minutes per passage.
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Stick to it.
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When the clock hits 20 minutes, move on, even if you haven't finished.
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back later if you have time, but never let one passage eat into the time for another.
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A practical tip, if you're running out of time on the last few questions, guess strategically.
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Never leave answers blank.
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There's no penalty for wrong answers in IELTS reading.
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A guessed answer just might be right.
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A blank answer is definitely wrong.
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One more time-related habit, pre-read the questions before you read the passage.
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Spend two minutes scanning the question types and topic clues.
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That two minutes saves five minutes of confusion later.
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Blocker number two, and this one feels counterintuitive, is that most candidates approach a passage by reading the whole thing first carefully,
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then turning to the questions.
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That's the slowest possible strategy.
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The passages are long.
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They contain information you don't need for the questions.
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Reading carefully from start to finish takes 10 to 12 minutes, which leaves you only eight minutes to answer the actual questions.
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The faster strategy?
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Skim the passage in two to three minutes.
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Skim means to read the title, the first sentence of each paragraph, and the last paragraph.
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Don't worry about details.
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You're building a mental map of where things are.
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Then go to the questions.
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For each question, scan back to the relevant section of the passage and read carefully only there.
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You're using the passage like a reference book, not a novel.
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This approach saves you around five minutes per passage and dramatically improves accuracy.
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Why?
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Because when you read the whole passage carefully first, by the time you get to question 12, you've forgotten exactly what paragraph 4 said.
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Now you're hunting through the passage anyway, so you may as well start that way.
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Blocker number three, question type traps.
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Each question type in IELTS reading has its own logic
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and students who don't know that logic lose marks they could have gotten.
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The two question types where most marks leak are true false not given and matching headings.
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For true false not given, the trap is in the third option.
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True means the statement matches what the passage says.
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False means the passage clearly contradicts the statement.
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Not given means the passage doesn't say either way.
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The mistake students make is choosing false when the answer should be not given.
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If the passage doesn't mention something, you can't conclude it's false.
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You can only conclude it's not given.
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Reread that sentence.
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It's the entire trick.
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Quick test.
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Imagine the passage says, the library opens at 9 a.m.
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The statement is, the library is busy in the mornings.
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What's your answer?
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It's not given.
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The passage tells you the opening time.
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It doesn't tell you anything about how busy it is.
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Don't infer.
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Don't add information.
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If the passage doesn't say it, it's not given.
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Matching headings is the other big mark leak.
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You're given a list of paragraph headings.
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You match them to the right paragraph.
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The trap is that students try to match key words.
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They see the word climate in heading C and the word climate in paragraph 2 and they make the match.
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But matching headings tests your understanding of the main idea of each paragraph.
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Keywords appear in multiple paragraphs.
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The right heading captures what the whole paragraph is about, not just one word in it.
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Read the topic sentence and the conclusion of each paragraph.
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The heading should describe both.
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Chapter number four is vocabulary, but not the way you might think.
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Many students sit at 6.5 because they hit unfamiliar words and panic.
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They assume the unfamiliar word is essential to the answer.
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It often isn't.
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The skill that separates band 7 readers is deducing meaning from context.
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You don't need to know every word in the passage.
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You need to know what each word probably means based on the words around it.
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Let me show you what I mean.
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Rule one, look at the words around the unfamiliar word.
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Take plummeted.
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Maybe you've never seen that word before, but the phrase right after it, by more than 50% since the 1970s, tells you it's a sharp drop.
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The surrounding words tell you whether something's positive or negative, big or small, going up or down.
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You don't need the dictionary.
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The sentence already gave you the meaning.
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Rule two, look at the structure of the sentence.
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Take resilience.
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The next sentence tells you exactly what it depends on.
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A delicate balance of temperature, light, and chemistry.
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When a passage defines or explains a word inside the same sentence or in the one immediately after, You don't need a dictionary.
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The author is doing the work for you.
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Watch for sentences that explain themselves.
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Rule three.
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If you really can't decode the word, check if the question even depends on it.
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Look at anthropogenic.
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That's a hard word.
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Maybe you can't decode it from context, but look what comes after it, including emissions from industry and transport.
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The question might just be asking for the examples, and the examples are right there in plain English.
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You can answer the question without ever knowing what anthropogenic means.
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The unfamiliar word felt scary, but the question didn't actually even need it.
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The longer-term fix?
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Build academic vocabulary by reading actual academic content for 10 minutes a day.
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New Scientist, National Geographic, The Economist, or practice passages on the E2 platform.
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This is exactly the register IELTS Reading uses, and exposure to it pays directly into your score.
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Quick aside, to find which blocker is costing you the most marks, track your practice sessions.
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Free tracker, link below.
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Now, the practice routine.
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Let's talk about your practice routine for reading.
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Daily, 10 minutes.
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Read one academic style article in English.
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New Scientist, The Economist, BBC Longform, E2 platform.
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Time yourself.
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Before you start, scan the first sentence of each paragraph for two minutes.
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Then, read carefully.
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You're training yourself to use the skim then read habit using real content.
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Three times a week, 25 minutes.
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One full reading passage under timed conditions.
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Strict 20 minutes plus five minutes review.
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Mark your answers.
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Note specifically which question types you got wrong.
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Was it always TFNG?
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Always matching headings?
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That tells you what to drill next.
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Once a week, 45 minutes.
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A full timed reading test.
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Three passages, 60 minutes flat, followed by review.
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This is a non-negotiable in the four weeks before your exam.
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Endurance matters as much as strategy.
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Most students don't realize how tiring sustained reading is until they sit the full test.
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Don't let that be the first time you do it.
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And same as writing and speaking, get expert eyes on your practice once a week,
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not on every answer on your patterns of answer where the marks are leaking.
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That diagnostic is what most candidates can't do for themselves.
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Let's do a quick recap.
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Four blockers.
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One, time management.
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20 minutes per passage.
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Strict.
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Two, don't read the whole passage first.
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skim, then questions, then scan.
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Three, question type traps, especially TFNG, where not given means the passage doesn't say either way,
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and matching headings, where the whole paragraph idea matters more than the keywords.
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Four, deduce vocabulary from context.
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You don't need to know every word.
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The free tracker I mentioned earlier is linked in the description.
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the fastest way to see which blocker is costing you the most marks on your own practice.
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If reading actually isn't your weakest section, say it's writing, speaking, or listening that's holding your overall score down, there's a dedicated video on each of those in the channel.
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The last one, listening, comes out next week.
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Same diagnostic approach applied to each section.
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And if you want a full reading practice with timed mock tests and detailed answer breakdowns,
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e2language.com has materials updated for the 2026 format.
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Sign up for free.
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Thanks for watching.
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I'm Bailey and I'll see you in the next video.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 177 sentences and 1630 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:08. The speaker talks at a steady 134 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| passage noun | /ˈpæsɪd͡ʒ/ | A paragraph or section of text or music with particular meaning. |
| paragraph noun | /ˈpæɹəɡɹæf/ | A passage in text that starts on a new line, the first line sometimes being indented, and usually marks a change of topic. |
| heading noun | /ˈhɛdɪŋ/ | The title or topic of a document, article, chapter, or of a section thereof. |
| carefully adverb | /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ | With care; attentively, circumspectly. |
| trap noun | /tɹæp/ | A machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in a container, or by catching hold of part of the body. |
| leak noun | /liːk/ | A crack, crevice, fissure, or hole which admits water or other fluid, or lets it escape. |
| scan verb | /skæn/ | To examine sequentially, carefully, or critically; to scrutinize; to behold closely. |
| unfamiliar adjective | /ˌʌnfəˈmɪli.ə(ɹ)/ | Strange, not familiar. |
| depend verb | /dɪˈpɛnd/ | To be contingent or conditioned; to have something as a necessary condition |
| vocabulary noun | /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/ | A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning. |
| bind verb | /ˈbaɪ̯nd/ | To tie; to confine by any ligature. |
| topic noun | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest. |
| routine noun | /ɹuˈtin/ | A course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure. |
| habit noun | /ˈhæb.ɪt/ | An action performed on a regular basis. |
| strict adjective | /stɹɪkt/ | Strained; drawn close; tight. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| go up verb | To move upwards. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 41 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, rush /ɹʌʃ/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/, exposure /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/
- Long words — get the stress right: unfamiliar /ˌʌnfəˈmɪli.ə(ɹ)/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, diagnostic /ˌdaɪ.əɡˈnɑ.stɪk/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like passage, paragraph, heading.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't finished · you've forgotten · you've never seen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is not marked · should be not given · is linked |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | three, which is · students who don |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.