Anita Williams is one of our IELTS results competition winners. She is a lovely 25 year-old lady who works full time. This IELTS exam was Anita’s second; in her first one she got 6.5 in the Writing section, which wasn’t enough for immigration purposes. This time Anita wasn’t going to take any chances – she prepared well and got IELTS Overall Band 8. Her writing improved from 6.5 to Band 7.5 and her listening and reading improved from 7+ to 8+. Here is what Anita told us about her IELTS preparation experience:
“I’m glad I won the competition and I am really happy to share my experience with the other test takers. I am a working professional, so devoting enough time to study was difficult. After my first IELTS attempt a few months back, I realised that I need to put a lot of effort in the writing section which was my weaker point.
In fact, I have noticed that many students struggle with the writing section as it’s extremely difficult to improve your vocabulary within a short span of time. So, I decided to go with the writing correction service offered by the IELTS blog along with ‘Ace the IELTS’ book.
If you’re taking the test for the first time and are time-crunched, I would recommend taking a sample mock test to know your weaker section and try to work harder on that one. Apart from this, I would say that “Smart Practise is the key.”
Writing
1. Understand the different types of essays and letters that appear in IELTS. If you read ‘Ace the IELTS’ you will find a lot of useful phrases which you could use in letters.
2. Never start writing as soon as you read the topic. Think and plan your work. Write points and plan the flow before you begin writing. Otherwise, you will only lose time and your content won’t appear organised.
3. Work on your speed and make sure you have at least two minutes to recheck your work. Also, it is important you don’t write too many words, always stick to the word limit.
4. Try to answer the essay first as it’s worth twice your score and try to avoid repetitive words, use synonyms instead.
Reading
1. Learn to skim and scan and work on time management. Take as many tests as possible and time yourself. This is an easier section to score well in, if you practise well.
Listening
1. Always read the questions before you listen and try to guess the answers. This will help you listen to keywords.
2. Sometimes, the speaker tends to stress certain words and may go really fast with the rest. This is a good indication that the answer is one of the stressed words.
Speaking
1. This is a interesting section and if you are calm then you can score very well. Just keep your cool and try to act naturally.
2. Practise this section by recording your voice.This is a good way to prepare for the Speaking test. Prepare for some general questions like introducing yourself and talking about your hometown, family, friends or hobbies.
Finally, before the test day take some good rest. The next day, just be confident and give it your best shot.
Gook luck to IELTS-Blog.com and I hope that my tips would be useful to the readers.”
