IELTS reading tasks
The IELTS corpus compiled for the study consisted of a total of 13 tests, with each of these tests made
up, on average, of three reading testlets (ie organised around three separate reading passages). In all,
the total number of reading tasks across the corpus was 108, comprising 494 individual items.
A preliminary analysis found a variety of task types, with some featuring regularly in the corpus, and
others less so. Table 4 lists the different task types identified, along with their relative frequencies. The
figures in the left hand column show the total number of uses of each task type in the corpus, and
those in the centre column, the total number of items under each of these types. Thus in the table, we
can see for example, that the True/False/Not given format was used 23 times in the corpus, which
included a total of 130 individual items (an average rate of 5.6 items per use of task type – see right
hand column). Note that the order of frequency of task types in the table is based on the ‘total number
of items’ – see centre column.
Task