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June 2010

IELTS Preparation tips from Uli, Band 8 in General Training (part 1)

Uli Rantch is one of our Best IELTS Results Competition winners in May. Not only he scored a whooping overall Band 8, but also wanted to help other test takers by sharing his way of preparation. His tips will be posted in 2 portions, one today and the other tomorrow – there are many tips and I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed. Here is what Uli says:

“I really did not expect to be among the winners of the competition and actually participated ‘just for fun’. I’m pretty excited, thank you! Of course I’d be happy to give some advice to the other blog-readers.

In order to be well prepared for my IELTS test I started practicing well ahead of the actual test-date – five weeks to be precise. I imposed myself the obligation of learning at least 30-60 minutes a day and although this was not always easy it was one of the key-factors to success.

Internet forums and user ratings in online reviews helped me to determine which books had been useful to other learners before. I bought a bunch of five and worked through them one after the other and recognized that especially my scores in reading and listening improved day after day. While I could hardly understand anything at the beginning of my training I got much better by and by and finally scored 8 points in the listening section and even 9 in reading.

You simply have to get used to it by practicing it over and over again. Get yourself some good training-material to find out what to expect in these sections. It made me feel very comfortable to know the question-types and to know how to approach the reading-section. The training-material taught me how to skim and scan information in a text in order to quickly find the passage you need.

Tune in to English radio-broadcasts (via web), listen to English news on TV or concentrate on understanding song-texts to improve your listening skills and vocabulary. Read English online-newspapers or books to cope with the reading-section. I myself read the Australian Google News on a daily basis. It does not take more than 15 minutes but you get to know a lot of new vocabulary, you improve your reading skills and along the way you stay up to date ;).”

Stay tuned, more tips are coming tomorrow!

IELTS test in Singapore and Thailand – June 2010 (Academic Module)

IELTS exams in Singapore and Thailand were identical, and our kind friends P, M and C collectively remembered the following:

Listening test

Section 1. A telephone call related to travel, the person was asking about a program, transportation, meals, insurance, price, etc.

Section 2. About a listening problem of a student, they talked about ways to develop listening skills such as dictation and movie subtitles.

Section 3. Academic lecture about a tree, general background, colors, formation stages, etc.

Section 4. Don’t remember.

Reading test

Passage 1. About ships and their inventors.

Passage 2. Problem at Everglade in the US, background, 3 researchers who explained the cause of the problem (some theories that were opposite to one another).

Passage 3. About science fiction books, their authors and the definition of this particular genre in literature.

Writing test

Writing Task 1 (a report)

There were 2 pie charts. 1st pie chart showed the proportion of people’s spending on fashion, housing, food, clothes, luxury, travel and entertainment in certain European countries in 1958. 2nd pie chart showed the proportion of people’s spending on fashion, housing, food, clothes, luxury, travel and entertainment in certain European countries in 2008.

Writing Task 2 (an essay)

Not many young people living in rural areas have access to university education. Universities should make it easier for people from rural areas. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Speaking test

Interview

– Where are you from?
– Do you work or study?
– What is your career?
– is your job popular in your country?
– Is it hard to get your position?
– Do you think mobile phones or cell phones are good or bad? Why? Describe disadvantages of a mobile phone.

Cue card

Describe a piece of advanced equipment in your home, please say
– What is it?
– How did you get it?
– How often do you use it?

Discussion

– In your country, do elderly people use advanced devices?
– Is using advanced devices difficult for the elderly?
– Do you think people have advanced devices without a real need for them?