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HOW ACE IELTS EXAM FOR YOUR CANADIAN PR.

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Charlie811

Newbie
Nov 17, 2017
6
18
I recently completed my IELTS exam and got a score of R 8.5 L 8.5 S 7 W 7, overall score of 8 in IELTS. Not bad for my first attempt. This converted to an overall CRS score of 465 for my profile.

I would like to give you few hints and tips on how I was able to crack the exam. I prepared for about one week and wrote the exam. Now you might be wondering what the heck is this guy blabbing all about. There is no chance he is able to crack the exam in one week. Let me give you a brief background about myself. I am from India and have been taught English from a very young age. Yes, English is an official language in our country and almost all of us can fluently speak in the language. I would not consider myself an avid reader but have read a fair amount of books in my childhood. My parents were all about teaching me the importance of reading from a young age. Once I started college, reading took a backstage and I used to regularly watch series, documentaries and Hollywood movies. It would be safe to say that I had a decent command over the language. It was all about putting it all together in the right format. So, if you have zero knowledge of English, the below is not going to help you crack IELTS. You should have a fair bit of command over the language.

For my preparation, I downloaded IELTS Cambridge ebooks and started my preparation. The problem with ebooks is that there is no timer. You have to do it yourself. Me, being a lazy bum, would get distracted every now and then. On further research, I stumbled upon roadtoielts. This is the official training and practice materials available in the IELTS website. Decided to take the plunge and paid the amount (Don’t bother buying their upsells). In one week I completed all the practice materials and took the test. Here are a few insights I generated.
 
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C

Charlie811

Newbie
Nov 17, 2017
6
18
READING

In the beginning, I was over confident about this section. I had mastered these in my school and college and was fairly confident I could crack it. When evaluating my first few reading passages, I knew I had to brush up my reading skills. I was averaging about 30 correct answers out of 40. I was struggling to do it in time. The realization hit me that I need to revisit my strategy. Carefully checked the answers and went back to the passage as to figure out what mistake I had committed. This is very crucial to improve your score. You got to know what your weaknesses are, only then can you better your-self. This went on for all the reading passages and I was hitting close to 38-39 correct answers. Here are a few reading tips I would like to share.

Tip1==> Don’t read the passage completely first and then go to the questions. You would have already forgotten most of what was there and would have to read it again to answer the questions. Read the questions first and then start reading the passage. The questions are in chronological order. Use this to your maximum advantage. Read the first question and start reading the passage. As soon as you hit the answer to the first question, go to the next question and continue reading. By the end I used to look at two questions in a row, just in case I missed the first one.

Tip2==> Don’t panic if you don’t understand a word. The chances are you will be able to figure it out from the passage. If not keep reading. There is nothing you can do in the exam hall. Move on.

Tip3==> Keep track of time. This is of utmost essence. If you are not able to crack a question, move the heck on. There is no point wasting your time on one question. Come back to it once you have finished all your questions.

Tip4==> Aim to complete the questions 10 mins before stipulated time during practice sessions. This will help you speed up your reading skills.

LISTENING

Listening section is fairly tough to score. You should be a good multi tasker to score high. Don’t worry. I have a few tips that would help you score high. First let me give a brief about my journey. I fired up roadtoielts and started the listening section. In the beginning I was averaging about 27-30. The key is to mark your wrong answers, go back to the recording and analyze how and why you missed it. For this I used Cambridge IELTS. In roadtoielts you cannot go back to specific sections. Once you have analyzed your mistakes quite a few times, you hit nirvana. I am not sure how to put it in words, but you will have a sixth sense in understanding the recordings. I guarantee that if you complete 20 listening test you will score good marks in this section.

Tips1==> Practice, practice and more practice. In listening section, you have to read the question, understand what they are asking for, check all the options and mark the answer all the while listening and understanding the recordings. You can do this only with practice.

Tip2==> Practice multi choice questions more. In most of the MCQs there are four or five options. Each option is fairly long which makes the task more difficult. You not only have to understand the question but analyze all the options which contain a minimum of 10 words. Speed reading is of essence in this part of the test. Once you have hit the answer, there is no time to waste. You got to jump on to the next one. Agility and speed comes with practice.

Tip3==> Don’t lose track during the test. If you are not able to crack one question, move on. You don’t want to be stuck in a specific question and miss rest of the easy ones. Scan through two questions at a time so that even if you miss the first one, you catch the second and continue with the recordings.

Tip4==> After each section, you are given a small window of opportunity to finish up your existing section. I utilized the time to read the questions in the next section. There is no way you are going to remember anything from the recording and rectify your existing answers. You should have got it along with the recordings or you missed it. Utilize your time to prepare for the next section.

Tip5==> Check if the answers asked is singular or plural. If you write singular instead of plural you lose. Give specific attention to this.

Tip6==> Fire up Youtube and watch British parliament debates. Listen to it when travelling and in your freetime. Buy a good pair of headphone and instead of music, listen to MPs debating. The reason I told to listen to British parliament is that, it is conversational and you can get used to variety of UK accents. Watch UK movies and series. Sherlock Holmes series by BBC is also pretty good.

Tip7==> Make sure you transfer the answer correctly to the answer sheet. Make sure you don’t mess-up MCQ and write the option instead of the alphabet. In short be careful. You have spend close to $200 dollars and a fair bit of your time. Don’t break the pot of water at the last moment. Pay extra attention while transferring answers to the answer sheet.
 
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C

Charlie811

Newbie
Nov 17, 2017
6
18
WRITING

Woah woah woah, you have covered more than 1200 words. Congratulations. Finally here is the most anticipated section. This is one of the section where scoring high is next to impossible. Rest of the sections can be learned and practiced but for writing the effort required is far more than all the other sections. If you feel your writing is weaker, dedicate more time to improve your writing skill. Detailed below are the steps I took.

Tip1==> First and foremost you got to understand the format in which to write the essays. For this I would suggest to fire up google and read as many sample essays as you can. The thing about sample essays is that you will easily understand the format in which IELTS is expecting your answer. Read multiple of these and you will have a fair idea on how to write these.

Tip2==> Most of us have given up writing on a piece of paper long back especially with a pencil. It is hard to regain touch in a short span. Write a minimum of 10 essays before the exam. Make sure you write both the essays in one stretch.

Tip3==> Before writing the essay, write bullet points. Have a fair idea of what you are going to write in each paragraph. Don’t start off blindly. You should have a fair bit of idea on what you are going to write else you are going to erase and rewrite which is going to eat away your time. For reference, spend first 5 minutes understanding the question, writing key points and how you are going to structure your thought.

Tip4==> Don’t write complex, lengthy sentences. The chances are you are going to make errors and you are going to lose the flow of your thoughts. Simple , elegant sentences that convey the meaning eloquently is more than sufficient for you to score a good grade.

Tip5==> Read the paragraph after a while to spot your mistakes. Often when we write, we omit words and it changes the meaning completely.

For example: While on an official trip, husband sends an SMS to his wife at night, “Had a great time, hope you were her”. He missed to write the ‘e’ at the end of the sentence and it changes the meaning completely. I am sure we all have reread something we have written and thought “How the hell did I miss such an obvious mistake”. It is part of writing and you have to recheck your answer, this is the only solution. To spot the mistakes easily, read it after sometime.

Tip6==> Ensure you spell check. It goes without saying. Make sure all you spellings are correct. Nothing much to write here. Check your goddamm spelling.



SPEAKING

Here we are in the speaking section. First of all , I salute your dedication. It has been over 1900 words and you are still reading. This is the last stretch. The problem with speaking is that there are very less practice speaking test online. Almost all of the online IELTS tests have recorded section for speaking which does not really help you much. I was confident of scoring a good score in speaking. Yet I made some cardinal errors.

Tip1==> Practice is the key to mastering speaking section. You are not going to improve your speaking skills in a week or two. You have to be naturally good at it in order to score good in this section. Speak in English with your, friends, family and colleagues. Pretend you don’t know any other language other than English. When you start speaking in your daily life you will encounter many instances where you struggle to express yourself. Slowly but steadily you will start improving your command over the language.

Tip2==> Make sure to watch lot of UK movies, series and documentaries. Immerse your-self in the language. This is scientifically proven to improve your language skills. Record your practice sections and listen to it. You will find golden nuggets to improve your score. Have a friend listen to your recording and take his inputs improve your score.

Tip3==> Ask your friend to prepare a set of sample IELTS speaking questions and try to replicate the test. It is vital that you don’t know the questions before hand. Have a mock test as close to the original as possible.

Tip4==> Don’t even bother to prepare your answers before hand. IELTS examiners are trained to spot these and you won’t go much further with this approach.

Tip5==> English is a language that has to be enjoyed slowly. Make sure you speak it at the right pace. Non native speakers have a tendency to speak at a higher pace. Don’t rush.

Tip6==> Answer to the point. Let me illustrate with an example. A question like “Do you like teaching?” can be answered with a simple “Yes, I like teaching”. Which is sufficient. The examiner will ask the follow up question. Mostly it will be “Why”. Most of the students in their nervousness, starts speaking paragraphs. Something to the lines of “Yes, I like teaching because it gives….”. Don’t over do it. Answer to the question.
 
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A

Alev

Member
Sep 12, 2017
13
2
Charlie811 said:
READING

In the beginning, I was over confident about this section. I had mastered these in my school and college and was fairly confident I could crack it. When evaluating my first few reading passages, I knew I had to brush up my reading skills. I was averaging about 30 correct answers out of 40. I was struggling to do it in time. The realization hit me that I need to revisit my strategy. Carefully checked the answers and went back to the passage as to figure out what mistake I had committed. This is very crucial to improve your score. You got to know what your weaknesses are, only then can you better your-self. This went on for all the reading passages and I was hitting close to 38-39 correct answers. Here are a few reading tips I would like to share.

Tip1==> Don’t read the passage completely first and then go to the questions. You would have already forgotten most of what was there and would have to read it again to answer the questions. Read the questions first and then start reading the passage. The questions are in chronological order. Use this to your maximum advantage. Read the first question and start reading the passage. As soon as you hit the answer to the first question, go to the next question and continue reading. By the end I used to look at two questions in a row, just in case I missed the first one.

Tip2==> Don’t panic if you don’t understand a word. The chances are you will be able to figure it out from the passage. If not keep reading. There is nothing you can do in the exam hall. Move on.

Tip3==> Keep track of time. This is of utmost essence. If you are not able to crack a question, move the heck on. There is no point wasting your time on one question. Come back to it once you have finished all your questions.

Tip4==> Aim to complete the questions 10 mins before stipulated time during practice sessions. This will help you speed up your reading skills.

LISTENING

Listening section is fairly tough to score. You should be a good multi tasker to score high. Don’t worry. I have a few tips that would help you score high. First let me give a brief about my journey. I fired up roadtoielts and started the listening section. In the beginning I was averaging about 27-30. The key is to mark your wrong answers, go back to the recording and analyze how and why you missed it. For this I used Cambridge IELTS. In roadtoielts you cannot go back to specific sections. Once you have analyzed your mistakes quite a few times, you hit nirvana. I am not sure how to put it in words, but you will have a sixth sense in understanding the recordings. I guarantee that if you complete 20 listening test you will score good marks in this section.

Tips1==> Practice, practice and more practice. In listening section, you have to read the question, understand what they are asking for, check all the options and mark the answer all the while listening and understanding the recordings. You can do this only with practice.

Tip2==> Practice multi choice questions more. In most of the MCQs there are four or five options. Each option is fairly long which makes the task more difficult. You not only have to understand the question but analyze all the options which contain a minimum of 10 words. Speed reading is of essence in this part of the test. Once you have hit the answer, there is no time to waste. You got to jump on to the next one. Agility and speed comes with practice.

Tip3==> Don’t lose track during the test. If you are not able to crack one question, move on. You don’t want to be stuck in a specific question and miss rest of the easy ones. Scan through two questions at a time so that even if you miss the first one, you catch the second and continue with the recordings.

Tip4==> After each section, you are given a small window of opportunity to finish up your existing section. I utilized the time to read the questions in the next section. There is no way you are going to remember anything from the recording and rectify your existing answers. You should have got it along with the recordings or you missed it. Utilize your time to prepare for the next section.

Tip5==> Check if the answers asked is singular or plural. If you write singular instead of plural you lose. Give specific attention to this.

Tip6==> Fire up Youtube and watch British parliament debates. Listen to it when travelling and in your freetime. Buy a good pair of headphone and instead of music, listen to MPs debating. The reason I told to listen to British parliament is that, it is conversational and you can get used to variety of UK accents. Watch UK movies and series. Sherlock Holmes series by BBC is also pretty good.

Tip7==> Make sure you transfer the answer correctly to the answer sheet. Make sure you don’t mess-up MCQ and write the option instead of the alphabet. In short be careful. You have spend close to $200 dollars and a fair bit of your time. Don’t break the pot of water at the last moment. Pay extra attention while transferring answers to the answer sheet.
Click to expand...
Very good and important tip..
 
AGoodSoul

AGoodSoul

Star Member
Jul 5, 2015
170
41
For speaking test -- LIZ IELTS youtube channel is more than enough. I scored highest in it last time.

Speaking is pretty easy if you've been communicating in english at work!
 
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