Reading faster without losing meaning

Most advice about reading faster is really advice about reading less carefully. It tells you to move your eyes in wider sweeps and to skim the first line of every paragraph. Applied to an IELTS passage, that will cost you marks, because the questions are written by people who know exactly which sentence you skipped.

A better model is to read at two speeds. The first pass is fast and structural: you are looking only for the shape of the argument. Where does the writer state a position? Where do they concede one? You are not trying to remember anything yet.

The second pass is slow, and it only happens where a question sends you. That is where the marks are.