Some typical IELTS mistakes I've seen this week

Some typical IELTS mistakes I’ve seen this week

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This week I have noticed some very common mistakes that many students made and wrote to tell me about. I also know that a lot of students have their exam coming on 21st of February and this little warning can (hopefully) save some marks.

First, many people shift the answers on the Answer Sheet. In a rush it can easily happen and that means that all of your hard work goes down the drain. If the answer to question 24 is written in the box on question 25, you get 0 marks for it, plain and simple. This brings me to another point – try practicing at home in copying answers to Answer Sheet and that way you won’t get confused during your exam.

Second, many people don’t make the essay/letter/report long enough. Guys, that can cost a whole Band (I don’t know exactly how much they deduct but that is my guess). Counting words is easy and you don’t have to count every single word to get a very close estimate of how many you’ve written.

Statistically speaking, any hand-written line has 9 words. If you need proof, have a look at any of your essays and count how many words per line you write. The requirement for essay is at least 250 words, which equals 28 lines and you should count the lines, not the words. Any letter or report should be 150 words long, that’s 17 lines.

That’s it for today, good luck to everyone, hit the books!