Suku George comes from India and his first language is Malayam. This did not stop him, however, from getting a high score (Band 7.5) in a recent IELTS exam. It also put him in a position to win our monthly IELTS results competition, and gave us a chance to meet Suku and ask him what the reasons for his success were.
Here is what Suku said:
“This is proud moment for me and my family. We are immensely happy to see my name on your website. I would like to share my IELTS learning and exam experience.
The books I used were Target Band 7 and IELTS Preparation book published by the University of Sydney.
My approach was to do the following:
Listening
1. I listened to BBC and CNN news channels.
2. Practiced with online content available.
3. Closely observed the pronunciation of words in different accents.
Speaking
1. I read different English Daily articles and copied all the new words and read the sentence again after understanding the meaning to expand my vocabulary.
2. Always conversed in English at home and at work to improve the speaking skills and increase the pace of the conversation.
Reading
1. I did lots of reading exercises to improve my time management.
2. Given more focus to academic reading where the difficulty level is higher to improve my interpretation skills.
Writing
1. I focused on time management.
2. Allocated 20 minutes to Task 1 and 40 minutes to Task 2.
3. Restricted myself to writing 7 or 8 words maximum per line to make counting the words easier.
4. Spared 5 minutes to revisit the contents written.
5. Tried to incorporate advanced vocabulary words in my sentences.”
