IELTS exam in London, UK - July 2009 (Academic Module)

IELTS exam in London, UK – July 2009 (Academic Module)

IELTS in London, UK was very interesting. Today I’ve received an update from S who took Academic Module and here’s what he says:

“In preparation I used the IELTS-Blog and your book, Target Band 7, and nothing else to practice for my test. And I think it went OK.

Listening test

Section 1: A lady was calling a person working at an activity center. She was doing some research on a trip she was going on with some colleagues. It was about hiking, camping, equipment, price, what skills they would learn.
Questions: Filling in gaps.

It wasn’t hard but it started quite suddenly, so I didn’t catch the first word for the gap.

Section 2: A radio interview about a tree-festival, why it is important to plant trees and also some questions about some other festivals.
Questions: Filling in gaps, multiple choice.

Section 3: A guy sees his lecturer because he has hurt his hand and needs to rearrange his plans for test, assignments and so on.
Questions: Filling in gaps.

Section 4: About a psychology study on how the old style lectures should be superseded by new types where students are more actively involved and have more breaks.
Questions: Sentence completion, fill in gaps.

Reading test

Passage 1: about Jupiter and some comet, there were many numbers and details about chemicals and so on.
Questions: Labeling of a figure, filling in gaps, multiple choice questions.

Passage 2: Children’s diet and how it was influenced by campaigns and ads. It was a bit confusing because it was like a review study with a lot of different opinions and research results that were mentioned were contradicting one another.
Questions: Filling in gaps, multiple choice questions.

Passage 3: A very difficult text about psychology, talent and how it can be defined, how companies can recruit the best staff. Questions: Headings to paragraphs matching, which was very hard.

Overall, in the reading test I didn’t manage to spend least time on the first, a bit more on the second and most on the last. I would strongly advice others to do that, because 20 minutes for the last were not enough.

Writing test

Writing Task1 (report)
There was a bar chart showing how five different age groups used the internet daily over 4 years. That means every age group had 4 different percentages: quite a lot of information to try to group together, but fairly easy.

Writing Task 2 (essay)
Many countries face violent football supporters. Write from your own experience and knowledge about the reasons and how this problem could be solved.

I hated this topic since I have no interest in football, but used your template with introduction, reason 1 and so on, and managed to write two pages.

Speaking test

Interview
- Where are you from?
- Do you work or study?
- Do you intend to do more courses?
- Why do you think people have paintings in their homes?
- Have you got paintings?
- Did you have art classes as a child?
- Do you think it is important for children to have art classes?

Cue card
- Talk about a film you saw recently at home or cinema, you should say:
- What kind of film was it?
- When , where, who did you see it with?
- What was it about?
- Why did you like it?

Discussion
- What do you think is the difference between seeing a movie at home or on DVD?
- What do you prefer and why?
- What does a movie need to be good?
- Do you prefer dubbed or subtitled films, why?
- What actors do you like?
- About vegetables:
- Do you think they are important to get?
- Can you get fresh vegetables in your country?

Overall, I think the oral test was easy, but as has been noted on the blog, it feels a bit awkward in the beginning because it’s a lot of questions and you try to answer short but not staccato.

Practicing with a watch as you recommend helped me sense when to stop talking in order for the interviewer to move on.

Thank you and good luck to everyone,
- S.