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IELTS tips that helped Donmarl get Band 8.0

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Our latest winner, an IELTS candidate from the Philippines, Donmarl Camua explains what he did to achieve Band 8.0 in his Academic exam.

“MY ADVICE

Coming from the Philippines, a country where English is the second official language, I do certainly have some advantage in taking the IELTS. However, in IELTS – just like in any exam – preparation is always the key.

I may be fluent in English, but if I didn’t take time to do homework, attend a class or do online exercises, I may not have the score that I need for my Immigration Application.

If you want to get high scores, dedicate enough time to studying.

WHAT I DID

Prior to taking the exam:

I did some research. I searched and downloaded reviewers and e-books on the Internet. I gathered all the reviewers I could find. I made sure that I do at least one reviewer a day.

I subscribed to the IELTS-Blog.com. I thank the creators of this website, because it helped me a lot during my review. The “overview of IELTS Exams” shared by blog subscribers, helped me plan what to practice.

I took a review class sponsored by the test center, the IDP Philippines, to get tips from the actual examiners. We were given some tips on what the examiners look at in the written exams. We were taught how to do skimming and scanning in the Reading exams.

Again, if you want to be successful in IELTS, make time to prepare.

And when you prepare, prepare to WIN.

Simone says: I would like to ask all the people reading this post – if you achieved Band score 7 and up in IELTS and have tips to share – please click here and let me know.

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IELTS Test Dates for 2009 (July – December)

Most of you probably know about ielts.org, the official IELTS website. In the past they used to have a list of official IELTS dates and those dates had a pattern, 4 dates a month for Academic exam and 2 dates a month for General Training.

Since a couple of months ago they have changed this system and now there are common dates, when you’re likely to have your IELTS exam – but still they change from country to country. And, of course, there is the availability – sometimes you will find that many exam dates ahead are booked and the first available date is months from today.

I’ve looked through most of the countries and compiled a list of IELTS dates for the second half of 2009:

August 2009 :
General Training test: 8th, 22st
Academic test: 8th, 22th

September 2009:
General Training test: 5th, 26st
Academic test: 5th, 17th, 26st

October 2009:
General Training test: 8th
Academic test: 8th, 24th, 31st

November 2009:
General Training test: 7th, 19th
Academic test: 7th, 19th, 21st

December 2009:
General Training test: 5th, 12th
Academic test: 5th, 12th

This list will help to get an idea of possible dates, but I would still recommend that you visit ielts.org and get the available dates in your country and your city, before you start planning. They keep changing their website, so the location of the dates search can move – right now it’s in the right upper corner on the homepage, where it says “Search Test Date”.

Good luck, everybody!