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Recent IELTS exams

Real students tell about their recent IELTS exams: IELTS questions, topics, tasks, answers.

IELTS exam in Turkey – April 2009 (Academic Module)

Our friend M from Turkey reports about his Academic IELTS exam, here is what he remembers:

Writing test

Writing Task 1 (report)
There was a chart describing reasons for not going to work in three periods. The reasons were illness, stress, unexpected events, family responsibilities.

Writing Task 2 (essay)
Children are experiencing social, educational and commercial pressure. What are the causes to this pressure? What measures can we take to reduce this pressure?

Speaking test

Interview
– What’s your job?
– Is your job easy or not? Why?
– Do you think there will be any changes in regards to your job in the future?
– When did you go on holidays last time? Where?
– What would you like to do during the holidays?
– What do you not like doing in that time?

Cue Card
Describe a good cook that you know, you should say
– who this cook is
– which meal made by this cook you prefer
– how she/he learned cooking

Discussion
The examiner was asking me some complex questions related to cook, future eating habits and so on.

IELTS exam in Eritrea, East Africa – April 2009 (Academic Module)

This update came from Africa about a recent IELTS exam. This is what Y remembers about the test in general and about the topics and the questions in particular:

“It was my first time taking the exam and personally, I dont believe it is a valid exam to assess your command of English. To me TOEFL seems more valid.

Listening test

Section 1: a professor providing information about a university, location, financial aid, etc.
Section 2: a women lost her property in the train, etc.
Section 3: fishing in the State of Alaska.
Section 4: how plants move from place to place.

Writing test

Writing task 1 (report)
We had charts about absenteeism from work, a case study done in Europe for three years.

Writing task 2 (essay)
The essay was about economical and social pressure on children.

Speaking test

– Do you drive a car?
– Do you like to party?
– How do you arrange a party?
– Do you travel a lot?

Here I must say that I was amazed by these questions and how irrelevant they are to my country. Parties and driving a car are rare in my country because of the poverty and other issues. Few people drive a car, especially students, may be less than 1% of us drive. The same applies to parties, for cultural and economy reasons we dont have many parties.”