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December 2008

How Tony got Band Score 8.5 in IELTS exam

I “virtually” met Tony when he bought my book “Target Band 7” and we kept in touch. When Tony sent me an email and told me about his IELTS result, it blew me away. A score like that I definitely don’t see every day – he got Overall Band Score of 8.5 in IELTS. His weakest part was the Writing test – Band 7, Reading test – Band 8, Listening and Speaking tests – both Band 9.

Naturally, I asked how he did it and here’s what he says:

“Hi Simone,

Thank you very much for the compliments.

I didn’t have too much time to actually prepare for this exam. I read through your book and focused on the timing issue. I battled a bit with the reading paper as time was really an enemy. My good fortune was that two of the passages were things that I had come across in my studies, so I could relate to them. The third was a shocker of a note and exceptionally boring. I finished 5 minutes before the time was up, and quickly read through some of the things that I battled with and filled in the missing answers.

I also looked out for the traps that your book warned about, especially in the listening exercise. However, in fairness, I have taught ESL for fourteen years and should perhaps have scored better!?

Wouldn’t it be lovely if they had tested your oral skills first and then decided whether this whole process was necessary? I might have missed out on at least some stress!

Bottom line is that I made it!!!!!!

Have a stunning day!”

IELTS Essay, Topic: Is financial education at school a must?

Financial education should be a mandatory component of the school program. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

In many countries the discussion about financial education getting more serious due to financial problems of young generation. Some people that financial education should be considered a mandatory subject at school.

The common problem for those young people is that they don’t know how to spend money in right way. As we can see many advertisements often carry out the message, “Only 10 dollars a week, no deposits” which is misleading think that living in debt is normal. Financial education is one of the solutions for . The basic idea of financial education as a core school subject is to teach those young ones to understand the concept of using money and to estimate a risk of borrowing money to buy something in the future.

However, another factor we need . In my opinion, the role of financial education is getting more important and it should be a part of the school program but the parents are also important and have responsibility to how to manage the money. More than 70% of young people’s money is from their parents. In addition, it has to be considered that a student might become person, talking about money all the time in class or even in a public place. It can be harmful for some students and affect their normal social life.

In conclusion, I that financial education will have a positive effect on all young ones and other such social commutations should be considered just as important as financial education.

This essay needs work. It covers the task and presents enough arguments for and against, the structure on the essay level is fine. However there are many poorly structured sentences, many inappropriate expressions and many grammatical errors (see comments underlined in blue for more details). Overall, this looks like a band 6 – 6.5 essay.

Click here to see more IELTS essays of band 6

is
believe
Continue and mention the other side of the argument
and causes those young ones
the above-mentioned problem
poor structure makes this sentence hard to understand
write ‘there is’, do not use contractions in your essay
to think about / to consider
teach their children
coming
a money-minded
believe
subjects