Ahmed explains how he got Band 7 in IELTS

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You may remember Ahmed Saber as one of the winners in the IELTS results competition in October. Ahmed prepared for his exam using the book Target Band 7 and submitting essays to our writing correction team. When we asked him what else he thinks is important in IELTS preparation, here’s what he said:

“Thanks a lot for choosing me the winner of last month’s competition. I feel proud indeed. Now I’d like to give some advice about what helped me to get a high band score. Your blog is doing a great job in helping all those who are preparing for the IELTS exam.

My advice:

To acquire Academic reading and writing skills, reading newspapers is the most beneficial factor.

In listening, concentration is very important, and then the questions are not too hard. Even if you miss a question but you have listened properly, you can make a genuine guess.

In reading test do not spend time reading the passage. After reading the title, go directly to the questions. Read 3 or 4 questions together and start searching for the answers for all of them.

For writing and speaking you need an expert’s help who can tell your range of score by a sample writing or speaking. This can be done by IELTS-blog staff.

To improve listening and speaking skills, my suggestions are to listen carefully to native speakers, radio and TV news programs (BBC news).

For the Speaking test it is very important that you practice real IELTS test questions for this module. Believe me, the questions DO repeat! Practice speaking under exam conditions.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. As they say, practice makes perfect.

Personally, I practice English speaking with my son Omar and my daughter Roa (who can speak English very well), as well as my wife.

I hope future IELTS test takers will benefit from these tips.”