Today we are sharing with you the stories of two IELTS-Blog readers who got Band 8 in their exams a few weeks ago. They come from two different countries, Bangladesh and Vietnam, and each of them faced a different set of difficulties – which they successfully overcame! Here is what we can learn from their experience.
Mohammad (a native Bengali speaker) said:
“I used to read and make notes of similar words/expressions as well as various sentence structures, to use them in my own writing and speaking. Also, listening to all the possible accents helped.
Listening
Once you are told to start your listening test, please go through the tough questions and try to read as quickly as possible while the recording is speaking about the example. Then come back to section 1 to read questions, understand them and be ready to extract your right words/answers from what you hear. Two things here are crucial – one is fast reading and being mindful of the speakers, and the second is tracking the sentence and meaning variations. Also, do not forget to check the spelling of your answers while transferring them from the question booklet onto the answer sheet.
Reading
Start with the easiest questions, put a cross next to the confusing questions to come back later with a more alert mind. Remember to revise those you left behind for rechecking.
The key point here is you need to locate answers’ area(s) / specific line(s) first, to focus and deeply comprehend in order to answer questions correctly.
Writing
It is paramount to find out the type of essay eg. Agree/disagree or To what extent do you agree/ disagree. In my case, I totally agreed on the topic , but I did not forget to mention opposite views and to refute them. Likewise, taking the essay type into consideration, it is better to produce a variety of sentence structures, connecting each sentence with logical sequence and writing some standard paragraphs with introductory and concluding lines.
Speaking
Try to talk with friends as much as possible to feel free speaking in English. Then answer the questions. For example:
– Do you like travelling by bus?
– Yes, air conditioned public buses are the most popular and well-accepted transportation means in my locality. As it is cheaper, more frequent and comfortable than even taxis, I enjoy it very much.
Practise giving well-prepared answers with your real life information. Use a wide range of vocabulary, say interesting things and tell a small story especially in the Cue card part, which is the most crucial part as during the time, examiners pay more attention than other times.”
Le Thi Thanh, a lovely lady who speaks Vietnamese, also prepared for IELTS on her own. Here is what she told us:
“I am so grateful that I found your book and blog to prepare myself for the exam. I have actually recommended the book to a lot of my friends for their IELTS preparation.
Just to share with you, the book “Ace the IELTS” was the very first material that I relied on to self-study for the exam. From the book, I learnt about IELTS-blog.com and then practiced my writing tasks based on writing samples on the blog.
Again thank you so much for all the helpful advice and materials that you have shared with us so that we all can work towards our IELTS goals.”
