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IELTS Preparation tips

The best ways to study for the four IELTS sub-tests: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking

How to get Band 7+ in IELTS Speaking (video lesson #1)

This video lesson will make life so much easier for those of you aiming at Band 7+ in Speaking. Adam, our very knowledgeable ex-IELTS examiner, is telling you step by step everything you need to do to start scoring 7 (or 8, or 9!) in the Speaking test, concentrating on the harder Parts 2 and 3.

Watch Adam explain and demonstrate with examples how a Band 7 candidate should talk, including expressions and idioms that are great for Band 7+. We promise what you’ll learn is worth your time!

The Part 2 topic Adam is using as an example has been asked in recent IELTS Speaking tests:

Describe a time you had a challenge that you thought would be very difficult. Please say

– What the challenge was
– Where and when you did this difficult thing
– Why you thought it was difficult.

In the video Adam explains what grammar forms you should be using for this type of topic, what tenses, and if you need a refresher, he also explains the difference between Past Perfect, Past Perfect Continuous, Simple Past and Present Perfect.

Moving on to vocabulary, Adam explains the need for synonyms in your speech, and then he talks about how crucial idiomatic language is for getting Band 7 in Speaking. He gives many examples of idioms – such as ‘At my wits end’ or ‘to dodge a bullet’ (there are more in the video).

Finally, Adam spends quite some time on Part 3, giving you the questions you may be asked related to the Part 2 topic. He also offers some ideas of things to say to answer those questions and what vocabulary you can use.

And once Adam is done teaching, there is a mock test for you to do! Adam will ask you questions as if he were your Speaking examiner, and you can answer them and record yourself. This is great to see if you’re using the expressions he talks about in this video, to check if you’re using the grammar he talks about and if you’re doing it well, and how fluently you are talking. You can then listen to the recording to check for fillers – how many times you use words like ‘um’, ‘er’, ‘ah’, ‘like,’, ‘well…’, ‘you know…’. You can also check if you’re making little grammatical or vocabulary mistakes, or if you hesitate a lot, and that recording will make it easy to catch yourself doing that.

Watch the video on YouTube here

 

Go here to get Adam to assess your Speaking, estimate you the score you’re likely to get now and tell you how to score higher.

Done with Lesson #1? Watch Lesson #2 here.

How to go from Band 6 to Band 7 in the IELTS Speaking Test

The most frequently asked questions we get from people preparing for the IELTS Speaking test are

1. What am I likely to get for Speaking in the real test?

and

2. How can I score higher?

And fortunately, we have the answers!

In today’s video Hugo, a student from Taiwan and a native Chinese speaker, is taking our interactive IELTS Speaking test.

You will see the examiner ask questions and Hugo answer them, and you can learn from that, but wait – it gets better. After Hugo finishes his Speaking test, Adam (our Speaking examiner) shows his estimated Speaking score and explains why that is what Hugo would get in IELTS. And here comes the best part – Adam explains what Hugo needs to start doing to go from Band 6 to Band 7.

If you missed last week’s video, let us introduce Adam. Adam was an active IELTS Speaking examiner for 10 years and has an enormous amount of experience in assessing test takers’ Speaking ability. His feedback gives you a very rare opportunity to see how you are being assessed and scored in IELTS.

When you understand what your problems are and what you need to fix to get a higher score, it has an amazing effect on your exam preparation. It gives you a clear goal to work towards, and you don’t have to guess anymore!

The breakdown of Hugo’s score by the 4 IELTS criteria (Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation) is shown at the end of the video, and also in his evaluation report here.

The questions are shown on the screen while Hugo answers them. You will see that every question has a number (Q1, Q2, etc) and the examiner in his evaluation report is referring to Hugo’s little mistakes in every question. It’s great to watch the entire video first, including Adam’s commentary where he talks about Hugo’s performance and score, and then go back to the specific questions as you read the evaluation report. It will help you understand what exactly the examiner means when he says something like

Q7 – ‘it brings me surprise’ – is not quite accurate, try ‘it always surprises me’ or ‘there is always something surprising to experience each time’

 

Download Hugo’s speaking evaluation report here.

Try and answer the same questions in your own words, and perhaps even record yourself. It will provide an opportunity to listen to your pronunciation and see what needs work.

If you’d like to get your Speaking evaluated just like Hugo did, you can – go here to learn how.