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Recent IELTS exams

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

IELTS exam in India – March 2009 (General Training)

This update came from India where our friend G recently took his General Training IELTS test. Thanks, G!

Note: one day later a person from London, UK told me they had the exact same questions.

Reading test

In Reading, there were 5 passages and about 10 questions were of True/False/Not Given kind.

Writing test

Writing Task 1 (letter)
You lost something and someone found it and sent it to you. Writing a letter to that person
1. Thanking the person
2. Explain how you must have lost it
3. Explain what was there in it and why it was important to you

Writing Task 2 (essay)
In some countries, the number of people opting to live alone is increasing every year. Is this a positive development or negative development. What is your opinion.

Speaking test

Interview
– Where are you from?
– What are you doing? Do you like your job?
– How do you keep fit?
– Do you listen to music, what kind of music?
– Do you think computers and mobile phone keep people close or away when compared to how things were in the past?
– Increase in use of SMS (through mobile phone), what do you think about it? Is it good or bad?

Cue Card
Tell me something about the person you like spending time with the most, you should say
– How did you know this person ?
– How much time do you spend together?
– What do you normally talk about?

Discussion
– How you help your workers at office and what kind of help you receive from others?
– What are your job responsibilities?
– Is your job helping you to learn more?
– What kind of business is your company into?

IELTS exam in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – March 2009 (General Training)

The information below came from a kind person who took IELTS is Saudi Arabia and wishes to remain anonymous – never mind, thanks anyway!

Listening test

The topics I remember were about hiking on holidays. The majority of questions were indirect, meaning you need to paraphrase the answer and there were lots of multiple choice questions (very hard). The speed of speaking is a little bit faster than in Cambridge IELTS 5.

Reading test

The passages I remember were about IWEB and a student at on-the-job training agency. Then there was a piece about sample student profile (A to F) of 6 students, the questions were multiple choice. Then there was a passage about ants in Australia (more on indirect questions meaning, the passage needs to be understood to find the answer).

Writing test

Writing task 1 (letter)
Write a letter to your bank manager stating that you cannot attend the appointment you set due to personal reason:
a. state the reason of appointment
b. state the details of appointment
c. state why you couldn’t make it
d. state when you wanted to resume the appointment

Writing task 2 (essay)
Advertisements of toys and fast food nowadays are usually aiming at children. Some say that this has a negative effect on children as well as their family. Do you agree or disagree?

Speaking test

Interview
– Tell me something about yourself
– Tell me about your house/apartment
– Do you like traveling?
– Where do you want to travel?
– Can you tell me about a particular place where you like traveling to?
– What other places do you want to see?
– Can you tell me what mediums of advertisements there are in your country?

Cue card
What advertisement made you want it and made you buy it?
– where did you see the advertisement?
– what happened after you bought the advertised product.

Discussion
– Do you think advertisement should be aiming at children?
– Do you think advertisements should be regulated?