IELTS Test Results competition

Today we are delighted to introduce to you Tejashree Bhat – a charming young woman from India whose first language is Marathi. The fact that Tejashree was able to achieve Band 7.5 in IELTS despite working long shifts all week and only studying a couple of hours in the weekend is remarkable, and we thought you could benefit from her study tips.

Here is what Tejashree shared about her IELTS preparation:

“I am a working woman with a very hectic job. I work 10 or 11-hour shifts daily. Hence I hardly had time to prepare for my IELTS exam during the week. I could only spend my weekends on preparation and even then no more than 2 hours a day. I started preparing when there were only 8 weeks left until the test date. I prepared mostly through the online resources available. I prepared for each section as outlined below.

Listening – I always found Listening the toughest of all the sections. Not because I am not a good listener, but because of the accent used in the listening recordings. In all my mock tests I always scored less in listening. So as suggested by most of the best IELTS scorers I started watching Hollywood movies and TV series minus the subtitles. I daily tried to watch at least one episode after my hectic day at work. It was also refreshing and entertaining. And eventually this practice fetched me the highest score in Listening, Band 8.

Reading – Practice, practice and only practice will help you nail this section. Most people feel that Reading cannot be that tough and it’s just a passage and we need to answer questions, but the tricky questions of True/False/Not Given or Yes/No/Not Given may not be a cakewalk for all. You can get them right, but only if you practice. What I would suggest is try reading a variety of texts, from Fiction to Economics. Many people hate reading and after reading 2 paragraphs they lose concentration. So first of all get used to reading. Also, I would suggest as soon as you get to the reading section go through the questions first as it will give you a brief idea of what is expected.

Writing – It is very subjective. For writing I will only suggest Target Band 7 book if you are not that creative with writing letters or essays. Even if you practice 5 essays and letters each according to the guidelines provided in the book you will definitely manage to score more than 6 in this section. Also I would suggest to go through the sample writings available on IELTS blog website, it will also add value to your preparation.

Speaking – I found this to be easiest of all. The only thing required here is confidence and of course fair communication skills. The starting set of questions is the same for all the candidates, hence you can easily prepare for it. Also, the interviewers are so friendly and they make you feel comfortable so that you will never get nervous. Try listening to Interviews and again watch English shows to get better at speaking.”

Jasmeen is a delightful young lady from India, whose mother tongue is Hindi. She took IELTS a few weeks ago and scored Band 8.5, with two straight 9’s in Reading and Listening. This certainly isn’t an IELTS score we get to see every day, and so we simply had to ask Jasmeen for her best IELTS tips.

Here’s what she said YOU can do to follow her footsteps to success:

“Preparation for any exam requires 3 basic steps:

1. Understand the requirements and grading criteria of the exam.

2. Gauge your level on a practice test to come up with a strategic study plan based on your score, the desired improvement and study material available.

3. Dedication and patience is the key, stick to your schedule and practice daily.

The basics for preparing for IELTS reading and listening is making the least number of mistakes. Therefore, aim for reducing the incorrect answers rather than looking for a specific band score. When you reduce your wrong answers daily, the band score rises automatically.

In addition, examine your weak spots i.e. question types you frequently lose marks on. Once you are able to correct your own mistakes, you will be able to find faster methods and tricks to solve those types of questions thereby ensuring a perfect score on these sections.

Moving on to the other modules. I believe Writing and Speaking can be prepared together. If one is good at organizing and expressing their thoughts in English in writing, then they can surely do the same in Speaking and vice versa. The key here is to be able to logically explain your viewpoints.

In addition, writing is graded on 4 criteria as mentioned in the IELTS exam guide. So make sure to fulfill all of criteria to score high. That would be completing the task by answering the entire question in full, using proper linkers and connectors to make sure your essay is developed and bound properly, keep the grammatical and spelling mistakes to the minimum and ensure using diverse range of words to express the same thing (synonyms, idioms and vocabulary).

For speaking, practice daily and record you self to review your fluency and pronunciation also don’t forget to time your responses especially for the cue card.

Last bit of advice, do not forget to practice with pencil and do a full IELTS test before exam day, as erasing and writing again might consume more time then one would imagine.

I was able to score high using the above mentioned approach and I hope others reading this would benefit from my experience.

Good luck to all the test takers!”