Skimming and Scanning Practice

Now it’s time for practice. Like on a real IELTS Reading test, you have to read the text and answer the questions below.

First of all, let’s practise skimming. When reading a text for the first time, you should skim over it to grasp the main idea. In this example, read the highlighted text and quickly look over the rest of the text (you have about 1-2 minutes):

Are electric cars really eco-friendly?

Electric-car drivers are saving the planet, right? Their vehicles produce none of the pollutants that dinosaur-burning, fossil-fuel-powered machines do. That is the standard view, and governments around the world provide incentives to encourage the uptake of this new technology.

That is why a Tesla owner got a rude shock when he went to import his vehicle into Singapore – the first person to do so. The Tesla Model S is a 100% electric vehicle. It does not have an exhaust to emit from. So what happened?

Instead of an expected rebate of around S$15,000 (US$10,800) he received a fine of the same amount for being a gross polluter. The company commented the incident, “The Model S that our customer imported into Singapore left our factory only two years ago with energy consumption rated at 181 Wh/km. This qualifies as the cleanest possible category of car in Singapore and entitles the owner to an incentive rather than a fine.”

The Singapore authorities calculated the ‘carbon cost’ of generating the electricity that will be used to charge the car. This is the elephant in the trunk of electric vehicles. Where and how the power is produced is not often considered, but perhaps it should be. Let’s move the elephant up to the passenger seat and address it directly.

The authorities in Singapore apparently found the Tesla in question consumes 444 watt-hours of electricity per km (Wh/km) in tests. Without wanting to get too maths-heavy, the number of 444Wh/km does seem high. And as we still need power stations to produce such amount electric energy, the environmental impact is not so small as it seemed to be.

But what about the bigger picture – should we be factoring in the emissions of power stations when working out how green an electric car is? The logical answer is yes. Emissions shifted elsewhere are still emissions, and CO2 impacts the global atmosphere wherever it is released.

Now let’s look at the questions:

1. What is the aim of this text?

● To discourage people from visiting Singapore

● To prove that electric cars are less eco-friendly than fossil-fuel-powered machines

● To show that we need to count the emissions of power stations to see how green an electric car is.

This question can be answered immediately after you skimmed over the text. Here, you’re required to understand only the main idea of the passage.

Obviously, the correct answer is C. It’s also stated in the last paragraph:

But what about the bigger picture – should we be factoring in the emissions of power stations when working out how green an electric car is? The logical answer is yes.

2. When the owner of the electric car went to Singapore, he received

● a rebate of around US$10,800

● a fine of around US$10,800

● a fine of around US$15,000

And this question, unlike the previous one, requires specific detail: amount of money. To answer it, you should scan the text for words $10,800 and $15,000. Don’t read the text again! Just search these two key words. Once you have found the right sentence, read it attentively to get the answer.

The sentence that contains these key words is in the third paragraph:

Instead of an expected rebate of around S$15,000 (US$10,800) he received a fine of the same amount for being a gross polluter.

Now it’s clear to us that the correct answer is B.

3. To prove that electric car was a gross polluter, the authorities in Singapore calculated the ..... of generating the electricity to charge the car.

After you skimmed over the article, you should know that the Singapore authorities and charging car were mentioned somewhere in the middle of the text. Moreover, you have another clue: the answer should be after the answer to the question 3. You can find the right answer by these key words:

● authorities in Singapore

● electricity to charge the car

If you scan the text for these key words, and you will find the answer in the fourth paragraph:

The Singapore authorities calculated the ‘carbon cost’ of generating the electricity that will be used to charge the car.

The correct answer is carbon cost.