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August 2016

IELTS test in Australia and New Zealand – August 2016 (Academic Module)

The IELTS tests in Australia and New Zealand were the same, according to our friends V and B. They took their exams in these countries on the same day and remembered the following Writing and Speaking questions:

Writing testIELTS test in Australia

Writing task 1 (a report)

We were given the plans of a particular street with two diagrams, in 1960 and at present. We had to describe the changes and compare where possible.

Writing task 2 (an essay)

Many people believe that the gap between rich and poor is widening nowadays, because in the current economic situation the rich become richer while the poor become poorer. What are the problems this situation may cause? What measures can be taken to solve them?

Speaking test

Interview

– What is your full name?
– Can I see your ID?
– Where are you from?
– Do you work or study?
– Do you live in a house or an apartment?
– Can you describe it?
– What is your favorite place in the house?
– Why is that?
– What would you like to change in your house? Why?
– Is bike-riding popular in your country? Why?
– Do you think bikes are safe to use in cities?
– Do you think it is important to study the history of your own country?
– What about the world history?
– How is the history preserved in your country?

Cue Card

Talk about a happy childhood experience you remember. Please say

– What was the experience?
– When and where was it?
– Explain why it is an unforgettable experience for you.

Discussion

– Do you think childhood experience is very important to people? Why?
– Why do people like to talk about their childhood experiences?
– When you hear others sharing their childhood experience do you believe it?
– Do you think it’s real or just made up stories?

The story behind Pradeep’s IELTS Band 8

Pradeep was born in India and has spoken Tamil from birth. His dream was to immigrate to Australia, and to get there he needed a very good IELTS score. His first score was lower than required – because of Band 6.5 in writing he didn’t get the additional 10 points that would have helped his visa application. But Pradeep didn’t give up, he decided to work harder, and one month later we received this delightful email from him:

Band 8 in IELTS“I would like to convey my gratitude for all your support in helping me achieve this big milestone. I received my IELTS result and I feel proud to let you know that I achieved the Overall Band Score of 8. My scores in individual modules are as below:

Listening – 8.0
Reading – 8.0
Writing – 7.5
Speaking – 8.0

I can say without any hesitation that it was only with your help that I was able to achieve this score and I now have enough points to apply for the Australian immigration. I am happy to have chosen the right material and partner in nurturing my skills and preparing me for the exam with confidence.”

Yet another victory for Pradeep was winning in our monthly IELTS results competition, and in his winner’s interview he told us how he prepared for the exam:

“Reading and Listening

Practice makes perfect !!! The only way to succeed in these two modules is to train our ears to listen and identify answers, and our mind – to read, skim and process data in a short time span.

There is no substitute for practice and I did all the question papers that came with “ACE THE IELTS” plus tried various exercises from different websites.

Scoring a Band 8 in these modules should be easy once you get your brain and ears tuned up for the format and the content of these two modules.

Writing

Personally, this was the most difficult part of the IELTS exam and something that can easily be overlooked by people, particularly when they think they are good at writing. Unfortunately, there is a catch: IELTS essays are marked based on various aspects such as Cohesion, Coherence, Grammatical range, accuracy, structures and Lexical resources. Therefore, it is important to understand what they really mean and practice different essays by meeting all these criteria to achieve a better band score. I was able to push my score up by a whole band just because I started using the appropriate structures relevant to each essay type and I got great help from the IELTS blog’s essay correction team who gave great feedback after they reviewed my essays.”