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.