After you have finished your personal introduction, Read Aloud, a part of the Speaking and Writing module, is the first question you will encounter once the actual test begins. Your response to Read Aloud question is evaluated on the basis of the following criterion- content (reading words correctly without altering any part of text), oral fluency (ability to use a natural tone of voice in a wholly English environment) and pronunciation (making the right sounds).
Here are some tips and tricks to help you improve your score on the Read Aloud exercises:
- You will be allotted up to 40 seconds to read the text on the screen and compose your response, before the microphone starts recording.
- Use this time to split the complete text into meaningful chunks of words.
- The time allocated for recording your response will depend upon the length of the text, which is usually up to 60 words long.
- Start speaking after you hear the tone. Your voice will not be recorded before that.
- Read at a moderate pace. Avoid speaking too fast or too slow, and don’t skip words. Enunciate your words and speak clearly, without rushing the process.
- Contractions should be read exactly as they are. “Don’t” should not be read as “do not” and “I’m” should not be read as “I am”.
- Replacing a word by another, inserting new words or omitting existing words count as errors.
- Make tiny pauses when you encounter punctuation marks like comma and full stop. The pause for a full stop should be slightly longer than that for a comma.
- Do not mix singular and plural nouns. Pronouncing “boy” as “boys” or “houses” as “house” counts as an error.
- Make sure that you pronounce numerical values correctly. Don’t skip the “th” in “25th”. Read “the 1850s” as “the eighteen fifties.”
- Don’t forget to make distinctions between the start and end of sentences. Use rising intonation at the beginning of sentences and falling intonation to indicate the end of a sentence.
- There are key words in every text that draw attention to the fundamental idea. Use a slightly louder voice to highlight such words.