OET Reading Skills: How to do Skimming and Scanning Correctly?

OET Reading Skills: Skimming and Scanning

Skimming and scanning are the two most popular oet reading skills and strategies used for speed reading in the reading section of the OET exam. People who can skim and scan are flexible readers. They are able to read the important information from a text according to their purpose and get what they need without wasting much time.

In this article, oet2.com will discuss the difference between skimming and scanning and how to use these techniques to do speed reading in OET reading.

What is Skimming?

Skimming is the process of looking for general or main ideas in the passage to read more in less time. Your overall understanding about the passage is reduced because you do not read everything.

You read what is important according to your purpose of reading. Most of the people believe that skimming is a tedious process. But, this is not the case always.

There is a strategy to follow to do skimming effectively so that you do not end up wasting time. The purpose of skimming should be to read what is important. Now the question arises:

What to read and what to leave out?

Let us take an example that while reading a passage in OET reading, you can read the first few lines of the passage to get a good idea of what the topic is about. Once you have known the topic, you can read the first sentence of each paragraph to get the main idea. If you do not get the central idea of the paragraph by reading its first sentence, you have to read few more sentences to get to the core of it. The last few lines of the passage may contain a summary or conclusion, you should stop skimming there and read in detail.

Skimming can help you save a lot of time in OET reading test. This technique can also be used when you are giving a presentation or have to deliver a quick oral report.

Unknowingly, we all do skimming in our daily lives. It is done when you do not have time to read each word.

OET Reading skills as skimming helps you locate important information in the passage while ensuring you use your time wisely.

Skimming is a good strategy to adopt if you have exams in a few days and you need to review lot of study material. It will help you not to re-read everything and quickly read what you need to practice.

What is Scanning?

Scanning is another useful oet reading skills for speeding up your reading part A of OET 2 subtest.

Unlike skimming, in scanning, you look for specific information in the passage without reading everything. You might have performed scanning while looking for a number in the telephone directory, sports scores in the newspaper and favourite show listed in the cable guide.

For scanning to be successful, you need to understand how the material is structured so that you can locate the exact information you need. Scanning allows you to find details and other vital data in a hurry.

Scanning is widely used in our daily life. Knowing how to do effective scanning will help you trace right material without wasting much time. Before scanning, you must know how the data presented in the passage is structured.

This will help you establish your purpose and locate suitable information from the text. The info can be arranged in different ways, which are- alphabetically, textually, chronologically or non-alphabetically.

Use your hands effectively to locate specific information. It helps you to focus and not forget where you are scanning.

In English proficiency tests like IELTS, OET and TOEFL, you will need to use a combination of skimming and scanning techniques. It helps you find answers more quickly and save time. You are advised to understand the purpose and methods of skimming and scanning to save your time and find out important information in the reading passages of OET subtest.

OET2.com has prepared Online OET practice tests to help students prepare for the test and score high. These OET mock tests provide students’ exam like environment to help them address their strengths and weaknesses. There are plenty of reading passages in the Online practice tests, which students can use to sharpen their reading skills. Register for free and enjoy practising OET tests.