Literature review ability is an important part of graduate research ability.The improvement of literature review ability is a key link that cannot be ignored in improving the quality of higher education and optimizing personnel training. However, at present, there are obvious deficiencies in literature review ability of civil engineering graduate students, such as insufficient literature search ability, insufficient literature research ability, and insufficient literature review writing ability. By means of literature review, in-depth interview and questionnaire survey, this paper analyzes and reveals the reasons behind the above-mentioned problems. Then the ways to cultivate literature review ability of civil engineering graduate students are proposed from the aspects of teacher training, relevant course construction, and the process management of dissertations. Besides, a quantitative method for evaluating literature review ability is proposed. This has certain reference value for improving the comprehensive research ability of postgraduates.