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IELTS Test Results competition

How Matthew lifted the curse of IELTS Band 6.5 (hint – he had help!)

This post is dedicated to the wonderful success of Matthew – our student from Nigeria, who thought for quite some time he was ‘doomed’ to get Band 6.5 in Writing.

Is this how you, too, feel sometimes?

Those less familiar with IELTS may find it strange that a person can get Band 8 in one skill (such as Reading or Listening) and Band 6.5 in another (such as Writing or Speaking). How can there be such a difference? Yet this happens more often than you’d think.

Band 9 in IELTSMatthew is a living proof to that, because he took IELTS twice and got high scores in every skill except Writing. And that is when he knew he needed help – Writing is a tricky skill and you can make the same mistakes over and over again without knowing, until a teacher points them out to you. After submitting 12 tasks to our writing correction team and getting teachers’ feedback on them Matthew adjusted his writing accordingly and his score went from Band 6.5 to 7.5.

So, to reiterate, the basic ingredients to Matthew’s overall success were:

1. ‘Ace the IELTS’ book used for IELTS exam techniques
2. Writing correction service used for incremental improvement in Writing
3. Matthew’s hard work, dedication, self-discipline and practicing!

And here is the result – in Matthew’s own words:

“I want to use this opportunity to tender my sincere appreciation to your entire team of language professionals, for being part of my success story. Allow me to ‘let the cat out of the bag’ – I got my desired score of 8.5 Band in the IELTS General training examination taken on 14th October.

My previous results of L7.5, S8, W6.5 and R8, on two different occasions, instigated approaching your team and I am proud that it was worthwhile. I picked up my result yesterday and I had L8.5, S8.5, W7.5 and R9!

To be candid, I am so elated because I never knew I could break that jinx of writing score of 6.5. Using the service of your team in writing really paid off.

Many thanks for the advice, sincerity in assessment and all materials. Though I had to pay for the service, seeing a profitable one is worth appreciating. Thus, I want to say a Big thank you to you all and I hope to broadcast your service to others too.”

Kunal’s journey to IELTS Band 8

Today we would like you to meet Kunal – a young man from India, who speaks Marathi. The remarkable thing about him is that he prepared and got Band 8 in just 2 weeks (with a perfect 9 in Listening!). Kunal took the first place in our monthly results competition, and of course we asked him about his preparation.

In his winner’s interview Kunal explained how he did so well, in such a short time. Here is what he said:

Band 8 in IELTSMy Band 8 story

Module – Academic
Preparation Time – 2 weeks.

In my opinion anyone who has two weeks and prior English knowledge since primary school can easily score Band 8 like I did.

Preparation Material

To make the most of my time I read all I needed from www.ielts-blog.com, ‘Target Band 7‘ is the recommended book. I used Cambridge IELTS 12 book for practice as well.

Methodology

I read ‘Target Band 7‘ start to end in 4 days. I highlighted the tips given for each section. They help a lot, especially for Reading & Writing sections.

Then I started with the tests. I solved 4 full Length Tests within given time limit. Listening won’t be an issue as such, if you can understand English movies easily. Reading has few tricky questions. But those highlighted tips in the book can help here.

For writing you should be a good reader. I, for instance, sometimes read articles, newspaper, blogs, etc. It helps you write well and also the tips tell you how to cover all the points.

Speaking seems easy, but it isn’t. Many factors are considered in evaluation, so the more you practice the better chances you have – that’s all I can say.

Overall, I planned on scoring the most in listening & reading to balance the score in writing & speaking, which I knew would be tough to score.