Skip to content

IELTS Test Results competition

Student success: Sampath tells the story of his IELTS Band 7.5

You’ve told us how you find advice from people who did well in IELTS useful, and here comes more: today we have tips from Sampath (a Sri Lankan candidate), who received a Band Score of 7.5 in IELTS after just 2 weeks of preparation.

When Sampath passed the exam, he wrote to us and said:

Band 7.5 in IELTS“I got my IELTS results today – I got Band 7.5 Overall, Listening 8.0 and 7.0 for the other three tests. I just wanted to say thank you for all the support from your side. Your blog helped me a lot. I worked according to your plan and I studied only two weeks but managed to get this score. Thank you very much again.”

Naturally, we invited Sampath to participate in our IELTS results competition – in which he won the first place (Academic module). According to our tradition, Sampath shared what he believes helped him, and may help others achieve great scores in IELTS:

Sampath said: “Strategies and tips in that sense I didn’t have much. I mean the only thing I did was following your book. I am an undergraduate student in a Sri Lankan university. Therefore, due to the busy schedule at the university since I was in my final year, final semester at that time and so I couldn’t find much time for IELTS. To be honest with you I had only one and a half to two weeks. What I had done during those few days was just followed the IELTS Target Band 7 book and I did a few exam papers from Cambridge books. Thanks to you and your short and sweet strategies I managed to get a good score.

What I have to say to the future students is, just follow Target Band 7 book and do practice tests from exam books. It is more than enough to get a good score. I am sure if I had some more time to study I would have definitely scored 9.0 in each section. It is that easy with the help of these books.

Finally, I must thank Simone for her great support for all the IELTS students. Reading her book and the tips allowed me to understand ” Hey… I can do this.” and so I did it. I think it is possible for everyone. So all the very best to all of you.”

Student success: how Alicia got IELTS Band 7 after just one day of preparation

Alicia is a young lady whose first language is Indonesian (as you can see from the photo, she’s a musician!). She had to take the IELTS test, and was short of time – but still managed to get an Overall Band 7. This is what she wrote to us about her exam preparation:

Band 8 in IELTS“Greetings. My name is Alicia Nevriana from Indonesia. I would like to express my gratitude to you through this e-mail. I read your book ‘Target Band 7 – How to Maximize Your Score’ while preparing for my IELTS test. I admit that I was late in preparing my IELTS and I just got to know your book the day before I took the test. I didn’t join any preparation course and my only source of study was your book (and a Barron’s book, which I couldn’t manage to study at all). However, I just got my results today and I was so surprised I could achieve overall band score 7.0! If it weren’t because of you and your book, I might not be able to achieve it.”

Not only did Alicia succeed in her IELTS test, but she also won our monthly IELTS results competition! In her own words, this victory “is the proof that the book had helped me achieve what I thought to be nearly impossible before”. Following our tradition of many years share her advice for other test takers:

“I think my best advice for those who are preparing their IELTS is to ‘allocate some time‘. Really, it was my mistake that I prepared it all in a rush (I only spared one day to study).

Follow the study plan that’s attached in the book, it really is helpful. The author always knew that there would be some candidates who didn’t have lots of time preparing it so he usually had tips for those kind of people (like me).

More importantly, do every task thoroughly. If you’re asked to record your voice as a part of listening exercise, do it!

Read and re-read the pocket tips, have them in your pocket, anytime, anywhere.

However, you shouldn’t push yourself too far, know your capacity and take a break.

Last but not least, pray. It worked for me, at least :)”