Today I have a very nice surprise for you. One of the November “Best IELTS Score” competition winners, Shankar Lal (an engineer from Pakistan) has shared his methods that helped him score Band 7.0 in the exam.
Shankar said:
“It is very exciting to get the desired score in the IELTS test, but it needs lots of work, practice, motivation and ambition when you are preparing for it.
As far as I am concerned, I found Cambridge IELTS series very helpful, from book 1 to 7 there are practice tests which made me familiar with the real test format. The material presented in books is according to needs of the test taking candidates. Besides these 7 books, there are 3 other books known as Insight into IELTS, which provide the tips and techniques about taking IELTS exam.
Last but not least, the book which made IELTS very interesting for me was “Target Band 7”, I think this is an awesome book, for all the 4 test sections, there are very nice tips which I think if anyone follows, they are guaranteed to get Band 7.
From all the 4 sections, I found reading section a bit hard and needed a lot of practice, the only thing which made it hard was shortage of time in the test, because sometimes the passages are very lengthy and tough. So one should practice, keeping the time limits in mind.
The second difficult section in the test was the writing section, although the 1st task of this section (writing the report) is easy as it needs only little practice, but the 2nd portion is a little bit harder and one should be well prepared for it. There are some familiar topics which most probably appear in the exam with little variation, so at least those should be well prepared. The only perfect solution for it is practice, practice and practice.
The listening section is easy if you have listened all the listening tests.
Finally, the speaking section looks very hard, but if you understand all the three parts of this section and prepare for it from Target Band 7 then it become very interesting to you. The main factor that matters is confidence. If you don’t hesitate and speak fluently with the examiner then hopefully you can get a good score.
I wish all the best to the candidates taking the test.”
My sincere thanks to Shankar for taking the time to share his tips with us!
