Skip to content

IELTS preparation tips from winners

IELTS high achievers share their secrets

James shares IELTS tips responsible for his Band 8

Today I am happy to share with you the tips from Chia-Hang (James) Chen, an IELTS test taker from Taiwan, who successfully passed his exam with Band 8 and won our results competition last month.

Here is what Chia-Hang (James) says: Band 8 in IELTS

“These are the techniques that I used:

Listening

I listen to the radio whenever I can. On the radio, the pace of talking is much faster than in an IELTS listening recording. So when you can understand what people are saying on the air, I am sure IELTS listening wouldn’t be too hard for you. I also pay my full attention when listening to native English speaking friends. When getting involved in a daily conversation with native speaker, you get a better idea of the local way of saying different things.

Reading

What I did was to have loads of practice with mock exams. Every now and then I would read some articles if they interest me, but I am not that into reading. My advice of regular reading habit is to start with something that you indeed have interest in. If you force yourself to read articles that you actually think are boring, you might find it hard to persist. For those who worry about the amount of vocabulary, I personally think that the technique of skim reading can get you a higher score.

Writing

I spent most of my time getting this component right. I wrote an essay every two days and got it revised by my girlfriend. After revision, I made sure that I understand what can be improved. It would be the best if you take down notes every time, but sometimes I get lazy and skip this part.

Speaking

Try to talk to English speakers more often every day. You really have to be brave and express your thoughts, otherwise there won’t be any improvement. Another thing I tried was to say the same thing in different ways. The differences between 6 and 7 is the level of explanation. Every time you talk about one thing, think about a better way to describe it. That’s the main differences between talking and communicating.

In general, not everyone needs a perfect score. If you’re serious about achieving your ideal result, it’s worth knowing how far away you are from it. Focus on your weakness first. For me this means to get my speaking right instead of reading lots of articles, which might be unnecessary when it comes to improvement.

I think that’s it. It’s also advisable to be confident in yourself and have a firm belief that English will only be a piece of cake for you!”

Ankush Abat (Band 8) shares practical IELTS tips

Ankush Abat is a 33 year old IELTS test taker, whose first language is Hindi. When Ankush won our monthly IELTS results competition, we asked if he had any advice for the other candidates. Here is what he said:

Band 8 in IELTS “I am a working professional. I am sure that most people such as myself are generally out of touch with their English skills (in IELTS perspective) for a long time before they decide to appear for IELTS.

Therefore, I was not getting good scores when I initially started my preparation. Also, for various reasons I had to get a high score in IELTS in less than two months which added to the pressure.

So here is my advice to aspirants and also what I did when I prepared for the exam:

Speaking and Writing
Try to speak in English as much as you can. Sometimes in non English speaking countries it is not always possible to find people all the time who can speak in English with you.

So, do NOT just speak. Force yourself to start thinking in English as well. For instance, If I am traveling and I see an accident on a street, I would try to think in English about it in my subconscience instead of thinking in my native language. This will do good to both writing and speaking tests scores as you may get confidence in expressing yourself.

Listening
Listen to English music or watch English channels on TV. It will also be good to watch debates in English over a particular topic which are usually shown on News channels.

Reading
Read good English newspaper editorials and magazines (The Economist / Harvard Business Review, etc) for at least an hour daily. While reading, do NOT just read. Read critically and try to appreciate how the writer has come up with ideas so brilliantly in a short article. Read as if you can make use of the same words or ideas in your own essays.

The most important thing is that after each test, give yourself ample time to analyze why you got an answer wrong. For example, in writing, it will be good to get your essay/letter evaluated and get feedback by an English teacher or a friend or anyone who you think is good in English. Then try to rephrase and analyze what would be a better way to write the same sentence or an idea. Then, re-write the essay using better words and presenting the same idea in a concise manner.

In Reading, re-read the paragraph and see why you made a mistake when an answer was actually right in front of you in a paragraph. Also, be very sure of FALSE and NOT GIVEN questions. If you are getting confused in those then, take some time looking at the correct answer and paragraph again and try hard to figure out the rules of when an answer will be FALSE and when NOT GIVEN.

Although regular test practice matters a lot, I feel that the most important thing is to evaluate and re-evaluate each test you give and force yourself in NOT repeat the same errors again.”