How to Prepare for IELTS

How to Prepare for IELTS

I took IELTS-General test for migration purposes and thought to share some useful information with you all. IELTS General Test is typically for those who are moving to English-speaking countries for working purposes. Altogether, there are four modules, Reading, Listening, Speaking & Writing. Most of the time, you are required to have 7 in each section for countries like Australia.

First thing to do is self-evaluating your strengths and weaknesses in these four modules. For this, you can take couple of tests in Cambridge ITELS series and check how good you are in Reading and Listening.
Below is the link to download Cambridge IELTS guide as well as other related materials for free. http://dxschool.org/ielts/

However, for writing and speaking you might need some experise help to assess you skills. Don't worry; there are some Skype and Facebook study groups for IELTS. You can post your essays there and can get feedback from peers on your writing.

After you get some understanding on where you are on your journey, keep on practicing to achive your targeting band. Keep in mind that the success of IELTS is only through practicing, practicing and practicing. Now, I will walk you through each module and provide you some valuable tips.

• Reading

Some people find this section easy while others find it extremely difficult. I believe, most academic people can score high for reading module as they have improved their reading skills for many years. Though, some people say it is really hard to complete all 40 questions with limited time which is an hour. Hope following tips will help to improve your reading score;

1. Try completing first few sections as quickly as possible using skimming and scanning techniques. This is the most easiest of all. So that, enough time(20-25 minutes) will remain for the last hadest section.
2. Since true/false/NG questions are quiet tricky, I used to save more time to answer this type of questions.
3. First read the topic of the text and then go to questions. Thereafter, try to find the answers for each question. Never try reading through whole passage first and then to questions. Do scanning to find the place in the text for an answer of a question and you should do intensive reading only after finding the exact place.
4. If you can't find an answer, do not spend much time on it and just mark it for later reference and continue with other sections

Finally, for reading module, if you clearly know the skimming and scanning techniques + how to utilize time effectively, then it is not a big deal to score above 7.

• Listening

This is a section where you need most concentration on what you hear and you should be able to parallel reading while listening. The only way to improve this skill is by listening to day to day news and programs in English channels and by doing IELTS listening practices.

• Speaking

Here, you will have 3 parts in the test which are gradually becoming difficult to the end. First section examines your ability to express ideas of your personal, dad to day life. In second section, you have to make a speech and you will be given 1 minute to prepare. Here, try utilizing 2 minutes time for the speech properly. Practise by recording your speeches and then do self corrections by listening to recordings. At 3rd part, you will have an active conversation with the examiner and throughout this section express your ideas without any hesitation, be talkative, build up meaningfull conversation, show your speaking skills to the examiner.

• Writing

This is known to be the most difficult to score band 7 of all 4 modules for many students and for me, it was the same as we are not used to write much in our day to day work. There are two tasks; Task 1: writing a letter & Task 2; Writing an essay. You will be given 20 minutes for the letter writing and 40 minutes for the essay.

1. Never consume more than 20 minutes for the letter as it worth only 3 marks of all 9.
2. Essay is worth 6 marks, so that try completing the essay within 35 minutes, keep 5 minutes at the end for proof reading.
3. You have to use enough/rich vocabulary for the given topic.
4. Use different grammatical structures and lexical resources in your writing.
5. Write more complex and compound sentences along with a few simple sentences. Then only you can achieve more than band 7 because examiner measures how well you are handling complex sentences.

If you are weak in writing; I strongly recommend this book because it is rich in everything that you need for IELTS writing.

Some useful blogs;

http://ieltsadvantage.com/
http://www.ieltsbuddy.com/