When you speak well, the following Real knowledge and (transferable) skills become your second nature.

Quick listening abilities. You listen quicker because you can’t ask most people to repeat their questions.

Quick formulation of responses. Society expects us to respond in five to fifteen seconds. Good speakers make quick decision of the idea of response, its consequences, tone of voice, selection of vocabulary, choosing the sentence structure, grammar, etc.

Quick responses in accurate and coherent ways. You learn to convey information and ideas from primary and secondary sources accurately and coherently using well-chosen details.

Answering reflex & ability to think on the spot. On the spot selection of delivery strategies, concrete sensory details the sights, sounds, and smells of a scene and the specific actions, movements, gestures, and feelings of characters.

Right responses to quick questions. You use language that conveys maturity, sensitivity, and respect. Respond correctly and effectively to questions. Demonstrate knowledge of the subject or organization.

How do those ‘speaking’ skills directly help ensure high scores in ‘Reading’?

Good speakers are fast at scanning for information, and to identify parts of speech. They recognise words and phrases quickly.

Good speakers quickly guess the meaning of unknown words. They also are good at understanding reference words in texts and reading quickly. They effectively skim for general impression or gist. They are smart at scanning for specific, factual information.

Good speakers are smart at dividing the content into facts and opinions, and finding the topic sentences of a paragraph. They identify the answers by recognising opinions and viewpoints.

Good speakers are smart at paraphrasing and finding synonyms. They are also good at understanding relationships between the words and paragraphs. They answer questions quickly without grammatical mistakes using the right words and terminologies.

By speaking well, you develop the skills of recognising main ideas, interpreting information, and making inferences. This helps candidates to form responses to various types of questions like identifying viewpoints, facts and opinions, classifying etc.

Speaking skills help to discern the meaning of analogies encountered, analysing specific comparisons as well as relationships and inferences. It also helps in identifying and using the literal and figurative meanings of words and understand word derivations.