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Simone Braverman

Simone Braverman is the founder of IELTS-Blog.com and the author of several renowned IELTS preparation books, including Ace the IELTS, Target Band 7, the High Scorer's Choice practice test series, and IELTS Success Formula. Since 2005, Simone has been committed to making IELTS preparation accessible and effective through her books and online resources. Her work has helped 100,000's of students worldwide achieve their target scores and live their dream lives. When Simone isn't working on her next IELTS book, video lesson, or coaching, she enjoys playing the guitar or rollerblading.

IELTS test in Sydney, Australia – May 2010 (General Training)

IELTS Writing and Speaking questions were remembered and shared by our Aussie friend Y. No Listening topics, unfortunately, but we do know that in Reading there were no True/False/Not Given Questions.

Writing test

Writing Task 1 (a letter)

You are working in a company. You would like to join a training course related to your work. Write a letter to your employer, in your letter
– describe what course you would like to do
– how this course might help in your work
– suggest suitable time for you to do this course.

Writing Task 2 (an essay)

The number of people living today to the age of 100 is increasing steadily. What are the reasons for this? What effects does it have on individual and on society? Give reasons for your opinion.

Speaking test

Interview

– What is your name?
– Are you a student or an employee?
– What are you studying? Then she asked me 2-3 more questions related to my course.

– Are you interested in fashion?
– Do you like shopping?
– What type of clothing do you prefer?
– Have people in you country change their minds about clothing or not?

Cue card

Describe any public event (e.g. carnival, sports event, religious event, etc) which you went to. Please say:
– What was the event?
– Whom you went with to the event?
– What did you do at the event?

Discussion

After I was finished the examiner asked me 1-2 questions on the described event.
Then she asked me to talk about crowded cities.
– What are the negative and positive effects on people living in the crowded cities?

The IELTS Writing test: a common mistake

Before we begin, there is something else you need to know. In the recent post about the difference between the formal and informal writing styles there was a mistake. Although it was caught and fixed almost immediately on the website, the erroneous version was sent to your emails before we could stop it. To clarify, the words “children”, “many” and “much” are formal equivalents of informal “kids”, “a lot of” and “heaps of”. My apologies, if the previous email confused you.

And now to the common mistake in the IELTS Writing test. As you may know, there are 2 tasks, Writing Task 1 and Task 2, and in both Academic and General Training modules Task 1 is shorter (150 words) than Task 2 (250 words). Often people decide to write the Task 2 first, before writing Task 1. No problem so far, but we are getting to the really important bit.

It is essential that you pay attention to the Answer Sheet and write your answers in the right places. There are 2 marked spaces on the Answer Sheet that you get in the Writing test, one says “Task 1” and the other says “Task 2”. To avoid confusing the examiner who will check your work, you need to make sure that the the essay is written under “Task 2” and the report (for Academic) or the letter (for General Training) – under Task 1.

If worse comes to worst and you’ve mixed the two spaces, don’t panic. First, finish writing your tasks – wherever you’ve started to write, don’t worry about the wrong spaces, just take care of the contents and the paragraphing as usual. After the Writing test is over you can ask staff at the test center to affix a note to your work explaining where each task is. It will help the examiner locate the right task and your score won’t suffer.

Good luck with your exam!