The IELTS General Training Reading test consists of 40 questions and is made up of 3 sections. You will have 60 minutes to complete all sections. It is recommended that you spend no longer than 20 minutes on each one.
The biggest difference between academic and the general reading test is that in academic the reading passages are more academic, which may be slightly harder to understand.
The test questions get more difficult as you go through the test so the easier questions are at the start. Each question is worth 1 mark, so difficult and easy questions are marked the same.
The topics of the reading are about common things in everyday countries.
An example of the types of reading that each section will include is given below:
Section 1
This will have two or three short factual reading texts about general and everyday things (A training course, hotel procedure, how to do something…).
Section 2
This will have two small tests that are factual in some way. There are usually to do with something about work (Job description, staff training, work procedure…).
Section 3
This will have a longer article that is more in-depth and detailed (Newspaper or magazine article..).
There are many types of questions that may be asked in this section from multiple-choice, true-false not given or matching sentence endings.
There is a lot to read and it will be very difficult to read all of the texts thoroughly. Therefore, learning how to scan and skim and scan read the text and practising these skills can help greatly.