Skip to content

IELTS Preparation tips

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

IELTS Speaking Band 8 Sample Test with Examiner’s Feedback

Do you know what score you would get in the IELTS Speaking test? Many people don’t; it’s hard to guess, especially taking the IELTS for the very first time. So here is a way – if you can speak like Rafael in the video below, your score is likely to be close to his (Overall Band 8).

In this video Rafael, an IELTS test taker from Brazil, is answering typical IELTS Speaking questions. His goal is to estimate his current IELTS score, and learn how to increase it. The breakdown of Rafael’s score by 4 IELTS criteria is revealed by the examiner at the end of this video (Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation).

The questions are appearing on the screen as Rafael answers them. Note that every question has a number (Q1, Q2, etc) and the examiner in his evaluation report is referring to Rafael’s little mistakes in every question. It’s great to watch the entire video first, 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

Q4 – plural ‘cinema’ should be ‘cinemas’ as you are talking in general.

 

Download Rafael’s speaking evaluation report here

Listen to the way Rafael approaches every question, how he discusses the issues the examiner asks about, what points he makes, what vocabulary he uses, and see how your own speaking compares to his.

This can also be a great exercise for you – what would YOU say in response to these questions? Try and answer them, pretending you’re in the examination room with your Speaking assessor.

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

6 Easy Ways to Improve Your IELTS Listening Score

Achieving a fundamental improvement in Listening takes time, work and patience, there’s no doubt about that. But I find that people often overlook some quick steps they can take to significantly raise their IELTS score. And for some test takers, that increase in score is all they need! So, by all means work on your Listening skills, but do these steps first and see your score go up:

1. Watch your spelling!

Even if you heard the correct answer but misspelt it, you won’t get a mark for that answer. The easiest marks you can ever get in Listening is by watching your spelling. A ‘Commonly misspelled words’ list can help you learn the words you are most likely to misspell (you can find it here in free trial of ‘IELTS Success Formula’ book)

2. Learn to write while listening

Writing while listening is a skill that needs developing. If you have trouble with it, writing your answers at same same time as listening to the recording will feel a lot harder. Find out early whether or not you can write while listening, and develop/improve that ability by listening to any kind of lecture or talk, and making notes at the same time.

3. Read questions and try to predict answers

When you are given time at the beginning of every Listening section, go over the questions in that section, but don’t just read them – try to predict what kind of answer they require. It makes a big difference to your listening, when you know you are listening for a date, or a time, or a dish on the menu and so on.

4. Develop unbreakable concentration

From the moment the Listening recording starts playing, don’t let your mind wander. A single thought that takes you away from the recording can cost you an answer. All your attention should be on the recording, and you need to actively shut down any other thoughts. This takes practice, but you can easily do that at home – just put on a Listening test recording and practice ignoring any distractions for the next 25-30 minutes. You’d be surprised how good you can become at blocking things out!

5. Avoid getting stuck on a missed answer

If you followed suggestion #3 and predicted what kind of answer you’re listening for, you can recognise when the topic of conversation switches to another subject and realise you missed that answer. At that point in time you need to move on, read the next question, predict the answer type and start listening for it, to avoid a chain reaction causing you to lose multiple answers. Your worst case scenario here can be losing all the answers from the first one you missed and to the end of that section. But your best case scenario can be losing just ONE answer, quickly recovering and saving the situation.

6. Get familiar with accents commonly used in IELTS

IELTS Listening test recordings feature different accents: they use British, Canadian, American, Australian, New Zealand speakers, etc. You can’t afford to be in a situation where you are hearing one of these accents for the first time in your life during an actual IELTS exam, because the pronunciation of some words really differs from one accent to the other. You can and should expose yourself to these accents by doing Listening tests with them – such as these practice tests here.