Writing tips
This isn’t, in fact, my weakness. But this skill is difficult to self-study. You need to go to an English center where there are teachers who are willing to check your writing. Here are some suggestions I can think of, it maybe can’t help you out. But do your best, you will be fine.
1. Before writing an essay, you must know its basic structure. A book about essay writing might show you this.
2. Do Task 2 first, because it is worth more marks and is easier.
3. Don’t waste too much time on Task 1. Learn all the specific writing structure for each type of task 1. In the real test, you just have to apply that structure with new data and suitable verb tenses. Read sample essays and take note of the ones with good structure to have a wide range of academic structures for task 1. Some structures might be used in the task 2 as well.
4. You must complete both tasks. I don’t care how difficult the test is, I don’t care how little time you have got. You MUST complete your test at any cost. If you don’t, you will be penalized.
5. Again, practice writing. Do both 2 tasks in one hour. You can focus only on task 1 or task 2, but before the test, you should practice writing both tasks to get familiar with time limits.
6. Practice makes perfect. In writing, this statement is completely true. But it is better if there is someone to check your writing for you and so you can learn from your mistakes.
7. Writing requires wide academic vocabulary. You also have to buy a dictionary to work on and enrich your vocabulary.
8. Avoid all informal ways of writing. There are some rules of writing you should follow. For example: no abbreviations, no 1st and 2nd pronoun or possessive (I, you, me, my, your), except in conclusion where you have to state your opinion.
9. Each body paragraph has to include: the topic sentence, supporting sentences (2-3 sentences), development sentences (evidence: example, experience, data). In many languages (English included), there are many ways to develop a body paragraph, which results in a situation where that topic sentence is not the first sentence. But you are advised to put the topic sentence at the beginning of each body paragraph. Don’t be creative in this case.
That is all I can think of. I hope you will be lucky in your exam and what I wrote will help you in one way or another. But REMEMBER, to reach success, you MUST make an effort. You should have a clear motivation and a strong will to overcome difficulties. When I did practice tests, I was exhausted. But no success comes easily. Practice is the only way to gain success. Don’t just wait for a lucky break, it will never come if you don’t know how to grab it. And the final point I want to mention is:
Relax before the test!
Attempting to do one or two practice tests before the real test won’t help you increase your score. On the contrary, it will make you feel stressed and less confident.
I took IELTS 2 times:
The first time: no relaxing, I tried to do more practice tests right before the test day. As a result, I couldn’t concentrate on the test and the result is: L:5.5 ; R:7.0 (don’t mention about W and S here because it depends mostly on examiners).
The second time: 2 weeks after the first time, that means when I received the first result, I had to take the test the day after. But this time I felt relaxed since I knew I got 6.5 overall in the first test. And here is the second result: L:6.5 ; R:7.5
I believe in a short period of time (two weeks), I couldn’t improve that much. Moreover, the second test was considered to be more difficult. So what makes the difference is the relaxation. There are more examples I could mention to prove this point, but it would be wasting your time.
In brief, you must relax before any tests. Forget about them to relax, and believe in yourself.
A few Academic Reading tips
As I promised to one of my most loyal visitors (hi, Dave!), this post is about efficient ways to improve your reading skills.The Academic Reading module is a little bit different from the General Training – instead of 4 or 5 it has only 3 passages (more difficult ones). Actually, the first passage is usually the easiest and then they become more and more difficult. With that said, here come the tips:
Tip #1 – Don’t read the whole passage. Train yourself to scan and notice only the important information. After you go over the text for the first time, you should know what each paragraph is about, what its main idea is. This way of “reading” saves you a lot of priceless time.
Tip #2 - Watch your time closely. Don’t divide the 60 minutes you have into 3 equal parts of 20 minutes. Why? Because the last passage is the hardest and you are going to need more than 20 minutes to crack it. So I suggest 15 – 20 – 25, but feel free to look for any other timing that works for you.
Tip #3 – Don’t forget to copy your answers to the Answer Sheet. You can write them in the question booklet as you read the passage, but you get your score based on what is written in the Answer Sheet.
Tip #4 – If you can’t find an answer to a certain question – mark it with a big fat ??? so you can easily see it later and move on to the next one, don’t get stuck. Later you can get back, find all the question marks and try answering those questions again if you have time left.
Tip #5 – Count the words in your answer. If the instructions say “answer in 3 words” – you need to answer in EXACTLY 3 WORDS, when even an “a” and a “the” count as a word!
Tip #6 – When you practice, read your passage, answer the questions, compare your answers to the Answer Sheet and pay special attention to the wrong answers. You need to understand WHY you made those mistakes and remember them, so you won’t make them again.
And finally, these few tips came from “Ace The IELTS” e-Book (and of course there are more other tips, techniques and strategies). So those of you who need step-by-step guidance, a clear study plan and want to be ready for IELTS in ONE MONTH – take a closer look at it here. Think a little about how great it is, buy it, study, get your target score and forget all about IELTS
Listening – a skill, not a gift!
Often Listening can be your biggest problem. I know it because almost
all my IELTS-taking friends had trouble there. Your Listening ability in
many cases is not developed enough. But the good news is that Listening
is a skill, not a gift, which means anyone can learn how to listen and understand (almost ) every word. My friends and I came up with this technique that worked for us.
What usually happens: You listen and hear a “Blablablablabla”, which you can’t to break into words, and for that reason it makes no sense to you. There is a big difference between seeing a word printed on paper when you read and hearing it. If you saw a word, it doesn’t mean you will recognize it when you hear it. Every word you have read, you need to hear at least once.
What can be done about it:
You need to teach yourself the words
How do you do it:
When training, take a recording of the news, a lecture, a television program, a movie or an actual IELTS Listening test and work with it.
Listening Tip # 1 – use a transcript.
Use an IELTS Listening test – just choose from all the links in the right sidebar. You need a test that has a transcript, so I suggest Listening test # 1 (be patient, their site is slow).
First try just listening, to get used to the accent. Then start working with a recording and a transcript: go over the recording, stop it after every sentence and use the transcript to make sure you understand every word.
Listening Tip # 2 – repeat phrases
You can use any recording. First, listen, remember what you heard and stop the recording after each phrase. Even if you didn’t understand the phrase, play it in your head a couple of times, like a broken record “Tonight we have a special guest”, “Tonight we have a special guest”, “Tonight we have a special guest”.
Then say it out loud. If you understood that phrase at first, this exercise will improve your pronunciation. If you didn’t understand the phrase for the first time, this repetition will give you more time to hear it better, break it into words and make sense out of them. And if it is still difficult, you can always rewind and hear the phrase again.
IELTS speaking: what else to expect
In the Reading or Listening sections it is quite easy to predict what will be your IELTS score. You do some tests at home, count how many questions you answered correctly, do the math – for example 34 out of 40 equals approximately Band 7.But how do you measure yourself when it comes to the Speaking test – that’s the question!
And here comes answer: using the same criteria your examiner is going to use. I was looking for that information and found it in the IELTS official site (of all places
)So basically this is what they say:
You belong to a Band 5 level if you
You belong to a Band 7 level if you
