Tips for upcoming IELTS exam?

zweton

Hi Guys,

This is for any of you that have sat the IELTS exam (general), i am sitting it this saturday in Melbourne and need to get a minimum of 8 across all 4 bands for my visa. Anyone got any tips or things to look out for.:)

Cheers guys.

bigbadcon

zweton wrote: »

Hi Guys,

This is for any of you that have sat the IELTS exam (general), i am sitting it this saturday in Melbourne and need to get a minimum of 8 across all 4 bands for my visa. Anyone got any tips or things to look out for.:)

Cheers guys.

If I was you I would keep an eye out when doing the reading part...

These were my scores and because I got 7 out of 9 in ONE of the sections I only got a 7 overall as you need to get an 8 in every section to score an 8 overall.

Listening 9/9
Reading 7/9
Speaking 9/9
Writing 8.5/9

Listening is simple.You should get full marks in this no probs.

Speaking was easy enough as long as you can keep talking for a few minutes.
Even if your talking S**te at least your proving you can speak the language.

Writing section was fine aswell. I was given a nice topic I could waffle about. Just pay attention to the number of words expected for each section though so you can split your time accordingly.

The reading section I found really confusing... there was one part where you had to match the paragraph headings with the paragraph and there were multiple answers that could have worked.

I was quite annoyed at this as I wasnt confident about a lot of my answers on this part and it should have been quite easy for a native speaker.

I didnt do any study at all for this and did quite well so fingers crossed you will get your 8 points in each section.

s.c

I did mine just over a month ago in Melbourne. This is what I taught of it.

Listening – First 20 or so questions pretty easy. Last 15 or 20 are a little bit trickier as they come a bit faster, just pay attention and you should be fine. Some of the last ones are multiple choice and each one of the answers could be mentioned but it could be the speaker dismissing it as an answer so just be careful. Also in some questions they say answer using no more than two words and they are supposed to be very strict on this. I just did 2 or 3 of the samples from this website beforehand to get used to it.

Reading was fairly straight forward and I taught it was the easiest of the lot. I didn’t do any prior practice for this. There was maybe 4 or 5 question which required reading over the passage a couple of times to be sure of the answer but ok overall. Just make sure the answer to the question is actually written on the page and don’t assume an answer.

Writing. This was the one I was most worried about but went very well for me. I got 2 good topics so was pretty happy with it. I would say to do a little practice just to get used to how long 150/250 words actually is.

Speaking. This was actually the one I found hardest. Not because I couldn’t speak English, but because I couldn’t think of a whole pile to say about the topic I was given. I was asked to speak about a product that you would like to buy that isn’t made in this country. This is probably a fairly regular question but because I hadn’t done any practice for this section, it wasn’t something that I had a lot of info on.

Anyway overall it was ok and I ended up getting 8.5 in each section so I was very happy to get the 20 points.

Hope it goes well for you.

zweton

Thanks Guys:)

lynnyloo

Hi Guys,

I did my 3rd Ielts exam today in UCC. Jesus talk about pressure.
On 2 previous tests (UCD) I got 8s and 9s across the board excluding the reading which I only managed to get 6.5.

In general I thought I did quite well but for some reason I just cant get the mark 7 for the reading. I have studied from day one and I have also managed to get some advice from Ielts tutors including their course work.

I really need it this time as Im about to send all info to WA for sponsorship and time is not really on my side. I am aware that many Irish are experiencing the same problem. It is soo frustrating :mad:

How is everyone else getting on with it ?? Id love to know.
Thanks:)

ps Zweton, When is your test ?? Just remember and practice time management for the reading. In the general there was 4 sections and time is valuable. Hope all goes well..

zweton

Lyn,

I did the test saturday morning in Melbourne, it was grand not sure if i got all 8s though as thats what i need for the visa.
Writing was trickier than i thought but its done now so we will see.

lynnyloo

Fingers crossed for you. I should have my results in two weeks. Its some nightmare but Im sure you did really well.
Let me know how you get on...

Best of Luck:)