IELTS Speaking Task 1 Questions

You may have heard that the IELTS speaking interviewer uses a set of pre-determined questions on a topic to ask you for the first task.  Basically the interviewer will ask a series of questions about your background, but he or she is only able to ask you questions within that “frame”.

Yes, the frame or the examiner frame is true. Does this mean you can find out from other candidates who have previously taken the exams what the questions you will get in your exam? No, the use of frame does not mean that the interviewer will be asking the same set of questions to all candidates on the same day. 

IELTS Speaking Task 1 – Introduction and Interview

It is a certainty that you will be asked at least a few general questions about your background.  This does not mean you should memorize all possible answers regarding your background.  Sounding like the answers had been memorized will get a mark down.

Remember that all the questions you will be getting in this part of the speaking test are general questions about your background; the only hindrance in this part of the exam will be your willingness to talk about yourself, people and things related to you. Show some enthusiasm when answering questions and give even a little bit of detail when answering questions.

Keep Talking and Be Positive– IELTS Speaking Test

First impressions are very important, the speaking test will last a maximum of 15 minutes; you don’t have enough time to change a bad impression.  The first part of the speaking test is where the examiner will be asking personal questions about the candidate; when answering, be as informative, descriptive and positive as you can be.

Do not answer with a simple yes or no to a question and wait for the next one.  Try to be as helpful as you can by providing additional information; if your interviewer asks about your house, don’t just give the address and wait for the next question to come; describe the house, the color, the levels, rooms and bathrooms. Keep talking until the interviewer either stops you or ask a follow up question.

When describing anything or anyone, try to be as positive as you can be. Focus on the positive aspect of whatever it is you are trying to describe, tell your story in a more

IELTS Speaking Fears

Most people don’t see the IELTS speaking test as the hardest, but most would agree that it is the most terrifying of all the sub-test.  This fear may stem from the fear of the unknown; the most common concern I hear is that the interviewer could be extremely intimidating, even purposefully intimidating. 

Intimidate, a verb meaning to frighten into submission, compliance or acquiescence. It also means to fill with fear.  I see no reason for any examiner to deliberately intimidate any candidate; they get no added benefits whether the candidates pass or fail and thus give them no reason to intimidate.  If the candidate does feel fear towards the examiner, it means that the candidate is afraid of what has been imagined about the examiner. 

Since we established that there is no need to fear the examiner, we can proceed to relax and think about the actual IELTS Speaking test.  You should be prepared for the interview; here are some tips to consider when preparing for the IELTS Speaking test:

Earth Hour 2011

I know this isn’t about the IELTS, but it is about our planet.

Earth Hour 2011, one hour to make a difference and show we care about our planet and ourselves.
At 8:30 PM on Saturday 26th March 2011

What to Wear for the IELTS Exam

There is no dress code for the IELTS exam; therefore you may wear anything you wish to wear to the IELTS exam as long as you are not naked or breaking any local laws.  Not having a dress code may let you wear anything you want; it doesn’t mean that you should just wear anything that pops into your head that morning.

There are a few things that you could consider first when deciding what to wear:

Not Finishing the Writing Task in Time – IELTS Writing Test

This is one of the most common questions I get about the IELTS writing test, after all it is a common concern and it is a good question to ask.  There are 3 ways to look at this concern; I just focus on one task (make sure it’s an extremely good piece of work) and not attempt the other task; I attempted both task 1 and 2, then end up not finishing both; I finish one task and not finish the other.

Although I would agree that the second task does have a heavier bearing on the total score, and scoring well on that task will certainly boost your total score; I will not advice devoting the whole hour to try and make sure that you will come up with “the best” task 2 that you can.

How to Improve Your Writing Skills – IELTS Writing

Based on my observation and from talking with our previous students, most find the IELTS writing test to be the hardest.   According to the students, the reason why they find the IELTS writing test difficult is because, they don’t write on a daily basis. 

I did some further digging; majority of our students were nurses, I asked if they had to write reports about their patients and what they did during their shifts.  Most admitted that they did write daily reports, but did not consider it as a writing practice.  I couldn’t blame them for not considering their daily report as practice for their IELTS writing test, as it turns out they could write their report with a mixture of English and our native language (Filipino/Tagalog),

Understanding the Question Task – IELTS Writing

It is important to fully understand what is being asked of you in the IELTS writing test to be able to perform the task properly. If you are still unfamiliar with the IELTS Golden Rule please visit my post on it. To understand what is being asked in the IELTS writing test, we need to find out what the topic is and what the topic question/task is.

Please check the IELTS.org test sample here

The task 2 writing task states:

A Guide to IELTS Writing Presentation

While it is true that the IELTS writing test is not marked for presentation, there is the psychological aspect you may want to consider.  Imagine attending an IELTS review class where the center has litter everywhere and the place doesn’t look like it has been cleaned for months; you would probably be able to focus more intently on the lectures if the place was cleaner and smelled better to.

You are not there in person to present your work to the examiner, try to always make your writing look presentable and easy to read as possible; I’m not suggesting that you have to have the penmanship of a scribe to pass the IELTS, all I’m suggesting is that make sure your work is easily read, I’m sure the examiner will appreciate it and hopefully be kinder when marking your work.

Here are some suggestions you may want to consider when practicing your IELTS writing:

Matching Task – IELTS Reading Task

There are several types of matching task in the IELTS reading test; aside from matching headings there are matching information, matching features and matching sentence ending.  I separated these from matching heading because I believe that these matching tasks assesses the candidates ability to scan for specific information rather than the general information needed for matching headings.

Here are some methods to help you complete the matching tasks:

Matching Headings – IELTS Reading Task

This task is pretty straight forward; you are given a set of paragraphs without their headings, you are to select the right paragraph heading from a list.  In most cases you will be given more paragraph heading choices, than the actual paragraph; if you have 5 paragraphs, you can expect to have up to 7 or 8 paragraph headings.

This task is designed to test your ability to read passages quickly and get some general information about the passage or paragraph.  With that said, the best way to practice this task is to read newspaper and magazine articles.  Understand that reading everything in detail, will not be the best thing to do in this instance; try to notice when reading a

Scanning the Reading Passage – IELTS Reading Test

With 3 passages to read and 40 questions to answer, how are you supposed to manage getting a good score on the reading sub-test?  You can try reading and remembering the details of all 3 passages and answer the questions, if you have a very good memory and an above average reading speed.

Scanning is the method you can use when you need to search a page or passage for specific information as quick as possible.  A good example of scanning is when you are using the White Pages to search for a specific phone number of someone you know; reading all

Time Management – IELTS Reading Test

Most inexperienced IELTS candidate would just start reading the passage right of the bat, and try to answer the questions following the passage.  Unless they have a photographic memory, chances are they will have to refer back to the passage and look for answers or verify some of the answers that they aren’t so sure of.

This technique is of course very time consuming and inefficient.  The IELTS Reading sub-test is to a certain degree, about time management.  This is not a leisure reading session in a café; you are not reading a self help book, trying to absorb all the details the book is offering; you are not reading a novel, where you want to picture in your mind all the details given in the book; nor are you reading a newspaper article to get an idea of what is happening around you; you are reading a passage to be able to answer some general information and some very specific questions.

Short-answer Questions – IELTS Listening Test

In this listening task type, candidates are required to write short answers using information from what they just heard.  A word limit is sometimes given, for example, “NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS and/or NUMBERS”.  Candidates will not get a point if they exceed the stated maximum number of words.

Short-answer questions focuses on specific information.  You should always accurately work out what the topic of the question is, in order to give the correct answer.

An example of this would be if the question was asking “What is the main benefit of joining a fitness club?” The speaker may give several benefits to joining a fitness club, but none of them are the correct answer.  The speaker will mention that the main benefit is…

Sentence Completion – IELTS Listening Test

Sentence completion is one of many tasks you will run into during your listening test.  Some consider this as one of the most difficult task in the listening test.  The reason for this is your grammatical knowledge is as important as your ability to listen, the answers given needs to be grammatically correct within the given sentence.

Sentence completion requires you to know general information and specific information about the topic or event.  It is generally good practice to listen to the news on television or radio, but it would be even better to listen to a news clip that you can play again, to check if you understood or heard the details.

A good practice exercise woul

Be Ready…IELTS Listening Tips

The Listening Test is the same for the Academic Module and the General Training Module.  There are always 4 separate sections and they will only be played once.  The moment you hear the words “Section #” be ready:

·         Be ready to Listen – once the listening test starts, there is no turning back.  Follow the instructions of the speaker, you will be given time (usually 10 sec.) to look over the questions.  If an example is provided, the speaker will most probably discuss the example as well. 

5 Basic Tips to remember for the IELTS exam

These 5 tips are simple and easy to follow, but some still forget to do them.  The most basic tip to remember is to relax, so as not to forget any of the 5 tips in this entry.

·         Make Logical Guesses – remember that if you don’t answer, you don’t get a mark and you don’t get a deduction for guessing wrong. Try to leave a couple of minutes after the reading test for guessing the questions you couldn’t find the answers to.  Try to keep your guess as logical as possible. As for questions that require the True/False/Not Given or Yes/No/Not Given answers, if the question sound logical and true but you don’t remember encountering it in the passage, there’s a high probability that the answer is Not Given.

Read the Instructions in the IELTS test carefully

I can’t stress this enough, please make sure you read all the instructions and examples on your IELTS exam carefully.  Even if you think you know what you need to do, read them.

The instructions will tell you what kind of answer to give and in the listening test, when to answer.  It may also give you some clue as to what to expect from the reading passage or from the listening test.  It is even more important to read the instructions quickly and accurately.  You might not have enough time to finish the test if you are too slow.

The Golden Rule of IELTS

I came across this rule back in 2008, while reading 101 Helpful Hints for IELTS Academic Module written by Garry Adams and Terry Peck.  This book is highly recommended if you are looking for IELTS resource, it has dozens of pages containing hints, tips and Practice test and games for all sub-tests. I will post a link to Amazon for this book at the end of the entry.

The rule is “Always give the monkey exactly what he wants”.  If the monkey asks for a banana, you must give him a banana and not an apple.  This is a great rule to follow, it’s simple and direct. Yet failure to follow this rule is one of the main reasons why candidates do not score as well as they thought they should.

Develop a memory for English and improve your personal speed

For non-native English speakers, it is only natural to think in their native tongue and use local idioms.  When doing any of the IELTS sub-tests, the thinking process takes longer than a native English speaker.

The thinking process for a native English speaker would normally be, think in English and say it in English. Non-native English speaker, would have 2 additional steps; think in the native tongue, translate to English, check grammar and say it in English.

The solution would then be to “think in English”; this of course will take quite a bit of time.   I would advice to start with something simple, your daily thoughts about the things around you could be done in English, an example would be commenting on the weather “it’s cold outside”; if you day dream, try day dreaming in English as well.  Keeping a journal would be very beneficial, keep in mind to think and write the journal in English.

Study Plan for IELTS

It is so important to have a study plan for the IELTS, because the IELTS test has 4 sub-tests.  Normally, if we go about our learning through gut feel, we tend to focus on 1 or 2 sub-tests and neglect the others.

Set aside the maximum number of hour you can spare in a day to practice all 4 sub-tests. Do not focus on your weakest areas.  Having a planned out regular study schedule will be more beneficial.  Make sure you have enough rest or set aside a day of rest and not think about the test, you wouldn’t want to get frustrated or burnt-out.

Choosing a Realistic and Achievable Goal in the IELTS

What I mean by realistic and achievable goal is the time needed to meet the score. You don’t get to choose the score you need to meet to be able to migrate to a certain country or enroll in a certain university. 

It is very important to understand that it takes time and effort to improve, the average time spent by our students was around 2 to 3 months to see improvements.  Some students would see a whole point of improvement in about that time and less for others.  Another thing to note is that the students that improved a lot were attending all the classes and spending most of their free time to learn or practice all the aspects of IELTS. 

Third set of IELTS Myths

Here are a set of IELTS myths that doesn’t come up very often.  Once in a while a student would bring ask one or two of these myths

·         Candidates has to have an accent to get good results in the Speaking exam – a former student told me that she had asked an employee of a test center why they think she only got a 6.5 instead of a seven; the alleged response was that she didn’t speak with a British accent.  This is of course not true, I also doubt that any employee of any test center will speculate on why a candidate did not get the score they were aiming for.