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Listening tips

How to prepare for the IELTS Listening test, tips and techniques that help to raise your score

IELTS in India – online registration and free books available

British Council in India has impressed me very much, I think that Indian IELTS candidates are very lucky. If you haven’t heard already, here is how they help people with their IELTS exam preparation:

Firstly, you can register for the exam online and reserve a seat for the date you need. Click here for online registration.

Secondly, you get access to free resources with your registration. They are located here and this page here explains about the exam preparation.

Thirdly, after you’ve taken the exam, you can get your results also online, all you need to do is to choose your exam date, the city and your passport number. Click here to check your score online.

I wish more countries were doing the same for their IELTS candidates. If you know of a similar service in your country – please let me know. Leave a comment on this post or use this contact form to send me an email and thanks for your help!

How to get ideas for an IELTS essay

You guys often ask me this question in the emails: “How do I get ideas for an IELTS essay, when I don’t understand the topic?”. And you’re right, it is extremely hard to write about something you don’t understand.

So here’s what you can do to solve this problem:

  • Work on your vocabulary and learn new words, to make sure you will be able to understand the topic or at least take a very good guess.
  • Read as many IELTS essays as you can. You can find many sample essays here. Reading other people’s essays helps with the ideas, if you don’t have any of your own – “borrow” from others.
  • Read as much IELTS essay topics, as possible. You can find essay topics in every post in the Recent exams category. Why should you do it? Simply because sometimes the topics repeat in the future exams 🙂
  • Important! Don’t try to memorize essays. IELTS examiners are trained to look for memorized essays and they will disqualify your work on the spot.