IELTS Reading appears to be the toughest of all the four modules for most of the candidates appearing for IELTS. In fact, when I had given my IELTS I found Reading to be the most difficult one. One of the reasons is unfamiliarity with the topics, sometimes they are strange. Second is that there is a time limit and the three reading passages are quite long. They are neither of same difficulty nor of the same subject matter; often the difficulty level increases from section 1 to section 3 i.e. from reading passage 1 to reading passage 3.

However, IELTS Reading is not that difficult as most of the people say. If you know the right approach you can easily score the maximum in it.

The first thing you are advised to do is to go through the reading test paper quickly. Just skim in thorough all the passages in about a minute to find out which passage appears to be the easiest one and which appears to be the difficult one, and of course begin with the easiest one.
Second, read the questions before beginning reading. This will help you skip the unnecessary portions of the reading passage and concentrate more on the significant areas. Further, look out for the topic sentence that gives the main theme of the passage. Underline the key phrases that your feel are more important so that you can get back to them easily when needed.

IELTS Reading contains about forty questions and you are given exactly one hour to answers all the questions. Remember that in IELTS Reading (unlike IELTS Listening), no extra time is given to transfer your answers onto your answer sheet. Hence it is very important that you transfer your answers onto your answer sheet as you complete each reading section. It would be foolish, and at the same time more painful if you complete your test with an unfilled answer sheet just because you had not transferred your answers onto the answers sheet. To avoid this, keep an eye on the time and timely transfer your answers onto the answer sheet as you proceed from section to section.