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IELTS preparation tips from winners

IELTS high achievers share their secrets

Diyora’s IELTS tips for Band 7.5

Diyora is a young lady from Uzbekistan, whose first language is Uzbek – however it seems that her English is pretty darn awesome as well! With her IELTS score of 7.5 she won in our monthly results competition and wanted to share these tips with you:

Band 7.5 in IELTS “It’s a great pleasure and an honor for me to be selected as one of the monthly competition winners! While I was preparing for the exam, I visited your website every single day with the only desire to grab a little bit of those amazingly useful tips from successful test takers! And now I’m really excited about the fact that someone actually will be able to read my story and maybe get something important from it!

Well, the first thing that I have to point out is that you don’t have to let that terrible fear of failure and nervousness overwhelm you! Yes, I know you’ve already heard these annoying words for a thousand times now, but still I’m going to tell you that for the 1001st time: “Please, don’t worry too much!”

It is good to have a some butterflies in your stomach, because a little anxiety keeps you alert and stimulates your brain. But you have to realize that IELTS is not a competition in any way, everyone is responsible for their own results. Unfortunately, this is something that I understood only when I passed the exam and lost some points because of being extremely frightened and nervous, with my hands and knees shaking! Undoubtedly, there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of, the examiners are not monsters, and all of them are very courteous and supportive.

Talking about the exam itself, everything is organized on a high level, so that you don’t have to worry about any formalities.

I have to confess that it is essential to practice as much as possible if you are aiming to get a high score. The more tests you do, the better you will get familiarized with the exam structure and expand your vocabulary, which is one of the most influential factors of IELTS.

For Writing, it’s good to get your essays assessed at least several times and understand your mistakes, in order not to repeat them the next time. Personally I don’t usually read the topic for Task 2 before I finish Task 1. Sometimes people start panicking when they read what they have to write about and think about it while they’re writing Task 1. As a result, none of the tasks end up being written well. Just read the instructions two or three times carefully and brainstorm. I’m sure you’ll find the required amount of words for the given subject. In addition to that, don’t even try to change anything dramatically when there is little time left, better check and double check your work and find some silly mistakes before the examiner does.

For Reading, TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN is definitely my “favorite” part. And guess what, I had to deal with it in all the three passages! It’s useful to practice Reading without using dictionary in the process of looking for the answers. But when the passages are complete and checked, try to underline all the unfamiliar words and learn as many of them as you can. After doing that for a couple of times I found out that there were considerably fewer words that I didn’t know in other Reading tests.

For Listening, which is the part that I like the most, just try to stay focused. Read the questions when the time is given, but when the CD is on, pay your full attention to the speakers. I read the multiple choice questions a couple of times, as usual, during my exam. But then, don’t even know why, I suddenly started to think that I hadn’t memorized the questions, and started to read them again. Finally, I didn’t hear some of the answers and had nothing to do except for guessing. Don’t repeat my mistake!

And for Speaking, all those strategies like eye-contact, smile and confidence in your eyes play a significant role and help you create a positive picture in the examiner’s mind. Be yourself, don’t think that your answers will be wrong, because your unique features and your own opinion is what they are looking for. There are hundreds of test takers and you have to differ from them, show your personality if you want to get a high score. Recording yourself on an MP3 player is very useful (this is something that helped me a lot) as you don’t usually pay attention to your mistakes while you speak, but when you listen to the recordings, you usually notice them.

It’s also good to try to complete Listening, Reading and Writing at once several times before the exam in order to get to know how much concentration you need for these parts.

I know that I haven’t discovered America with my advice, but I hope I’ve done something worthy! Finally, I wanted to tell you that IELTS is a key that opens a lot of important doors for your successful future. But, you don’t have to sacrifice your health by working day and night, eating tons of chocolate and gulping down liters of coffee, trying to increase your stamina and the amount of endorphins! All that devotion doesn’t not necessarily mean that you’ll get a higher score! You’ll just find yourself completely frustrated at the end! Honestly, just take it easy and be grateful for any result that you get.

Student success: how Senthil prepared for IELTS and got Band 8

If you’ve been following IELTS-Blog.com for some time, you may remember Senthil Sarangapani from India, a winner of our December 2012 competition with an overall IELTS Band Score of 8. Senthil is a 32 year-old Indian test taker working in a financial services company. He took the General Training IELTS test in December last year, and here is what he said on the day his results were out:

“Hi Simone,Band 8 in IELTS

I scored band 8 in IELTS (GT) and much of the credit for my score goes to you and your book Ace The IELTS.

Your writing style is inspiring. I felt as if the best coach in town was sitting next to me and guiding me personally while reading your book. The strategies you have given for tackling each component of the test and the practical tips really came in handy while taking the test.

When I started my preparation I worried about the writing exercise, but at the end you really made me believe that even ‘a monkey could do it.’ Your assuring words boosted my morale and prepared me to face the test with confidence.

Thanks heaps!”

Today we would like to share the exam tips Senthil asked to pass on to everyone:

“The very first step in the IELTS preparation is to familiarize yourself with the question patterns in each module. My suggestion to all is to read the book ‘Ace the IELTS’ by Simone Braverman. It covers every type of questions that you might expect in IELTS along with the strategies to handle them and the traps to watch out for.

Take as many practice tests as you can in all the modules. Practice is the only way to score higher bands. If you are using practice materials from internet or CD, print them out and practise using the paper prints. While practising, adhere to the time limits of each module. Practise the listening, reading and writing modules consecutively without break to build your mental stamina. Download the blank sample IELTS answer sheet online, print it off and use it to write your answers while practising.

In the Listening and Reading modules, look for the instruction that tells you the number of words you should be using to answer the questions. As this number varies for each section within a module, check out the instruction at the beginning of each section before attempting to answer the questions.

Attention is the key to success in the Listening module. Keenly follow the speaker in the recording. If you have missed a word or a phrase related to the question you are attempting, do not startle or attempt to guess while the recording is being played. Move on to the next question and leave the guesswork till after the end of the recording.

In the Writing module, the length of your answer is as important as its structure. Too short will lower your score and too long will eat away at your precious time. Write down four to five lines of text in the sample answer sheet. Count the number of words you have written in each line. Assuming it is averaging nine words per line, you have to write approximately 28 lines to compose an essay of at least 250 words long. Set the length of each paragraph of your essay in such a way that when the lines of each paragraph are added up, it should come approximately to 28 lines. For instance, write an introductory paragraph of length about four lines long, then write three paragraphs, each of about seven lines long discussing the topic and then windup with a concluding paragraph of about three lines long. Thus, if you set the paragraphs length according to your handwriting, you would automatically control the length of your essay. You can follow the same approach while writing the letter as well.

Finally, if you have some time left at the end of each module, review your answers.”