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IELTS preparation tips from winners

IELTS high achievers share their secrets

Anita’s IELTS tips for Band 8 (working professionals – take notice)

Anita Williams is one of our IELTS results competition winners. She is a lovely 25 year-old lady who works full time. This IELTS exam was Anita’s second; in her first one she got 6.5 in the Writing section, which wasn’t enough for immigration purposes. This time Anita wasn’t going to take any chances – she prepared well and got IELTS Overall Band 8. Her writing improved from 6.5 to Band 7.5 and her listening and reading improved from 7+ to 8+. Here is what Anita told us about her IELTS preparation experience:

Band 8 in IELTS“I’m glad I won the competition and I am really happy to share my experience with the other test takers. I am a working professional, so devoting enough time to study was difficult. After my first IELTS attempt a few months back, I realised that I need to put a lot of effort in the writing section which was my weaker point.

In fact, I have noticed that many students struggle with the writing section as it’s extremely difficult to improve your vocabulary within a short span of time. So, I decided to go with the writing correction service offered by the IELTS blog along with ‘Ace the IELTS’ book.

If you’re taking the test for the first time and are time-crunched, I would recommend taking a sample mock test to know your weaker section and try to work harder on that one. Apart from this, I would say that “Smart Practise is the key.”

Writing

1. Understand the different types of essays and letters that appear in IELTS. If you read ‘Ace the IELTS’ you will find a lot of useful phrases which you could use in letters.

2. Never start writing as soon as you read the topic. Think and plan your work. Write points and plan the flow before you begin writing. Otherwise, you will only lose time and your content won’t appear organised.

3. Work on your speed and make sure you have at least two minutes to recheck your work. Also, it is important you don’t write too many words, always stick to the word limit.

4. Try to answer the essay first as it’s worth twice your score and try to avoid repetitive words, use synonyms instead.

Reading

1. Learn to skim and scan and work on time management. Take as many tests as possible and time yourself. This is an easier section to score well in, if you practise well.

Listening

1. Always read the questions before you listen and try to guess the answers. This will help you listen to keywords.

2. Sometimes, the speaker tends to stress certain words and may go really fast with the rest. This is a good indication that the answer is one of the stressed words.

Speaking

1. This is a interesting section and if you are calm then you can score very well. Just keep your cool and try to act naturally.

2. Practise this section by recording your voice.This is a good way to prepare for the Speaking test. Prepare for some general questions like introducing yourself and talking about your hometown, family, friends or hobbies.

Finally, before the test day take some good rest. The next day, just be confident and give it your best shot.

Gook luck to IELTS-Blog.com and I hope that my tips would be useful to the readers.”

Self study CAN get you Band 8 in IELTS

Today we would like to share two success stories of IELTS-Blog.com readers who prepared on their own for the exam.

First we’d like you to meet Ward from Jordan. He is a young 18 year-old fellow, a native Arabic speaker, who came across our website because his mom recommended it. Apparently Laila (Ward’s mom) has been saving the exam updates we send regularly to our readers. She was very diligent and didn’t miss one update since 2009 – there were 1414 updates in her special folder!

Ward got an Overall Band Score of 7.5 with 8.5 in Reading and won our monthly IELTS results competition. In his winner’s interview he said:

“Following my Mom’s suggestion I used some tests from IELTS blog and practiced. I read some of band 8 writing samples and reading passages which was very useful and enabled me to score 8.5 in reading. In turn, I advise IELTS candidates to do some practice using this blog before sitting for the test.”

The other success story belongs to Bahram, a 26 year-old Iranian, who speaks Farsi from birth. He scored 8.0 Overall in IELTS with an amazing 9 in Reading. Here is a short summary of his own preparation and his advice to other test takers:

Band 8 in IELTS“I have had some formal English training during my childhood but my achievement came through self study. I strongly believe scoring band 8 in IELTS exam is not an overnight achievement. one should use extensive English media (books, music, movies) constantly.

My greatest stronghold was in Reading with band 9, I suggest that everyone uses 2 techniques, namely skimming and scanning. Skimming is reading quickly for general understanding and Scanning is looking for specific information within the text. Another helpful tip would be to underline key words in the test. It can help organize the text and save a great deal of time.

As for the Listening module concentration is the most important key to success. Do not lose your attention even for a second! Pay close attention to correct spelling of words. Read the questions carefully and decide which type of word goes in the spaces. At the end of each section you have 30 seconds to check your answers. Use this short pause wisely to make any corrections.

I think the Speaking part was the most challenging for me. Try to speak to a teacher or mentor long before the exam to gain enough confidence for the real test. Try to say more by adding details as much as possible when answering questions. Be aware that when you make a mistake, you can make things worse by spending too much time correcting yourself; the best thing to do is to move on quickly.

And finally for the Writing test, my best advice is to THINK and PLAN before doing anything else. If you start writing without paying close attention to the question, you may end up losing a lot of marks. It is also very important to check your writing for grammatical errors, set aside a sufficient amount of time aside to revise and make corrections.

I would like to thank IELTS-Blog for the useful articles and tips and for offering me the chance to help other students achieve 8+ band score.”