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September 2008

Update from an Academic IELTS exam, France

Special thanks to our French friend G. who told us what his Academic exam was like:

IELTS test in France

Listening test

Section 1. A real-estate information form to fill (with phone numbers and name spelling).
Section 2. Sport venue locations to find on a map and a table completion task on them.
Section 3. A filling-in-the-gaps exercise about requirements for a master degree for South-American students (quite hard as they were speaking fast).

Reading test

Passage 1. Cow manure-made water filters (I found the text: click here to read), task type: a gap-fills exercise.
Passage 2. About Pioneer 10 & 11 satellites going astray, task type: headings matching.
Passage 3. Prehistoric research struggles of the scientists in Australia, task type: multiple choice questions.

Writing test

Writing Task 1 (a report)

We were given a table showing visits to London in 1996 and 2001 by UK-residents and overseas visitors. Visitors were sorted by categories (business, family, holidays, other).

Writing Task 2 (an essay)

Machines are becoming very sophisticated and workers are benefiting from that. Discuss to what extent advantages of machines outweigh the disadvantages.

Speaking test

Interview

Discussion of bicycle.

Cue Card

Talk about a good advice you were once given.

Discussion

How to give advice to others and in particular to children and teenagers.

Update from an Academic IELTS exam, Vietnam

This is what our friend P from Vietnam had to say about a recent Academic IELTS exam.
IELTS test in Vietnam
“Oh my God, it was terrible!

Listening test

The listening test was quite easy, but I didn’t do well because I couldn’t concentrate.
Section 1. Don’t remember.
Section 2. About diving.
Section 3. About a man asking about a course in zoology.
Section 4. About a particular perfume.

Most of the questions were filling in the blanks except in part 4 where all the questions were multiple choice. However, part 4 was not easy. I lost concentrate from the very beginning, and it was a disaster (maybe because I have been sick).

Reading test

Reading test was even more difficult (in my opinion). The articles were simple, but the questions were not so simple. I could only do well in Passage 1.

Passage 2 I couldn’t understand. It pointed out some views of scientists. I was very keen on reading the whole passage, but I still didn’t understand. I wasted a lot of time on this.

Passage 3 was about English as an international language. I could understand this article, so I think I did the matching of the headings well. But in the matching task and summary completion I couldn’t do well (maybe because of lack of time).

Writing test

Writing Task 1 (a report)

We were given 2 bar charts, both had the same subject (the number of students studying each subject in a specific school), just different years (1990 and 2005). So I had no difficulty to combine, compare and contrast the information from the two charts.

Writing Task 2 (an essay)

Some poor students and students from rural areas find it difficult to get access to the university education. For that reason universities should make it especially easy for people from these backgrounds. In what extent do you agree or disagree?

Speaking test

Well, I hope I will be fine in speaking test. The examiner was very kind, she asked all the easy questions since I told her that I didn’t do well in the test.

However, I spoke pretty fast. If I’d slowed down, I would have paid attention to pronunciation. That is my weakness, I think. I made a lot of mistakes in grammar, but it seems the examiner understood what I said.

I am afraid that there is no certain topic for each test. There were 4 examiners in the speaking rooms, so obviously, each person would have a different topic. My topic was about education (pretty easy). My friends had topics about fashion and remarkable memories.”