Often, we hear a lot of these two words in the context of IELTS reading strategies. Some students understand the terms incorrectly, and they are not able to apply them in finding answers. I will quickly define both terms in easy language.
Skim - Skim refers to gauging the meaning or idea of a paragraph in a bird's glance. It is somewhat like reading a newspaper in a hurry. You just read headings or maybe 2-4 beginning and ending sentences. So, you can also understand skimming as 'skipping'. In the reading passages, we skip many sentences and try to understand the overall idea of the paragraph just by reading the beginning and ending sentences.
Scan - To scan means looking for a specific keyword in information from the paragraph. When you can, you already know what kind of information you are looking for, while in skimming, you don't look for any particular information. What are you finding or scanning in the paragraph, depending on the question? For example, if the question asks in which year something happened, obviously, you will be looking for a 4-digit year.
I hope this explanation helps.
Skim - Skim refers to gauging the meaning or idea of a paragraph in a bird's glance. It is somewhat like reading a newspaper in a hurry. You just read headings or maybe 2-4 beginning and ending sentences. So, you can also understand skimming as 'skipping'. In the reading passages, we skip many sentences and try to understand the overall idea of the paragraph just by reading the beginning and ending sentences.
Scan - To scan means looking for a specific keyword in information from the paragraph. When you can, you already know what kind of information you are looking for, while in skimming, you don't look for any particular information. What are you finding or scanning in the paragraph, depending on the question? For example, if the question asks in which year something happened, obviously, you will be looking for a 4-digit year.
I hope this explanation helps.
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