IELTS Test Results competition

The happy IELTS test taker this post is about, Shreyas, is a young man from India. He got an Overall IELTS Band Score of 8, with a perfect 9 in Listening. This beautiful score made him a winner of our IELTS results competition in October, and in his winner’s interview Shreyas wanted to share the following tips that can help you, too, increase your IELTS score.

“First of all let me clear the notion that IELTS is tough. It is a really simple and systematic test which can be cracked easily with good preparation. It suffices to say that by working on the weaker areas, a candidate can easily score a band of 6.5. The trickier part is to reach Band 8 and above. For this, a candidate needs to work on listening and reading sections, where the chances of scoring a 9 are very high.

LISTENING

Listening skills can be acquired only by practice. Listening to variety of NEWS channels from across the globe will greatly help. Avoid watching movies with subtitles. Have a piece of paper and pencil and write down unfamiliar words that you hear. This will help not only for listening, but also in the writing section where grammar is important and spelling errors will cost marks. Try variety of accents and watch popular shows where there are 3 or more speakers to improve on your listening skills.

WRITING

This section requires a bit of hard work, but isn’t tough to crack. Working on vocabulary, lexical resources and spelling will prep you up. Also browsing through some important topics online or reading the local English newspaper will help you a lot in the exam. Also, I would suggest to practice by writing long essays by referring the previous question papers and getting them corrected by a professional trainer or someone who is qualified.

SPEAKING

Speaking skills can be acquired only by practice. There are no shortcuts here. Try speaking aloud in front of a mirror. I would suggest you to record your voice and hear the recording to make note of how you speak. Continue till you feel confident about yourself and are able to speak confidently on any topic. During the last few trials, set up a timer and choose a random topic or a topic from a previous paper, and check for grammatical errors, accent, voice modulations and punctuation. This should suffice.

READING

This skill can be easily acquired if you show acumen towards writing. Browsing newspapers will help a lot. Set up a timer and work on previous papers. This should prep you up so that a band score of 8 is within your reach.

In the end I would like to stress the fact that IELTS can be easy and fun! Good preparation will see you through the test and anyone can ace the exam without any hassles. Just work on the basics and attempt as many papers as possible. BEST OF LUCK!”

Today’s post is dedicated to the smashing success of Chetan, a young man from India, who got a high score in IELTS while working full time – 6 or sometimes 7 days a week! This didn’t stop Chetan from getting Band 8 in IELTS, with a perfect 9 in Reading.

Being a very kind and caring person, Chetan quickly responded when we asked him to share his method of preparation, and sent us a number of tips that you, too, can implement to follow his footsteps to a high score.

Chetan said:

“I took IELTS on 30th of September and got an Overall Band Score of 8.

It wasn’t easy for me to get this band as I am working on a very demanding project at work. I used to work 6 days or sometimes 7 days a week for minimum 10 hours, everyday.

Initially I was very stressed about the approaching date of my exam and the least preparation I had done. But I made a decision to handle this issue systematically.

I started devoting time to my study, one hour per day, just 30 days before my exam. I made a timetable and a list of areas to focus on, and divided my time into sections. I also made a timetable for practice tests. Now the only thing I had to do is stick to the timelines.

I used to study during my commuting to and from office, so that I could save time and take my practice tests as per the schedule.

Few of my learning techniques I would like to share with all:

Listening
I listened to the radio everyday, it is convenient because now it’s available in an App. This helped me a great deal to improve my focus while listening. I used to miss information at the beginning but gradually I could catch up and improved. My advice is, choose your own medium of interest. But this exercise is definitely a confidence booster.

Reading
My problem with reading was time management. I used to get Band score of 6.5, while I needed a 7. So I started solving Academic reading tests. I managed to score Band 7 but within the time frame. Because of this, time management in the actual exam became easier for me. I finished the Reading section in 45 min and scored Band 9!

While I feel I was lucky to get the right mix of question types, I evaluated my mistakes during the practice tests and analysed to see if there is any pattern in the failures. This is the most important thing, because you know your own way of thinking better than anyone else. So self evaluation is what I would suggest one should do, to have your own strategies.

Writing
The only issue with writing is you have to have an outside evaluation. This is the most important thing, to get your writing checked by someone. Beside this I read lots of model essays. Get a good book – I got a book from my friend that had around 113 model essays. It helped me a lot.

Speaking
I followed IELTS-Blog.com tests which are shared almost everyday. Used those questions and prepared myself. Also I did some simulation on a website and recorded my session.

These are some of the study methods I had during my preparation which I thought would be helpful to share, because thanks to those who did share their experiences on this blog helped me a great deal in boosting my confidence.

I wish everyone the best of luck.”