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IELTS preparation tips from winners

IELTS high achievers share their secrets

12 IELTS preparation tips from a Band 8 candidate

I receive many thank-you letters, which make me very happy, but normally I keep them to myself. This letter is different – it was meant for YOU, the people out there, working hard to get a good score in IELTS.

It was written by Shahriar from Iran after he prepared to IELTS on his own, in just 3 weeks and aced his test, receiving an awesome score of overall Band 8, with Listening 9!, Reading 7.5, Writing 7 and Speaking 8.5.

I asked Shahriar how he prepared and what would his advice be to other students, and here is what he says:

“Dear Simone,

You asked what helped me achieve such a high score? I think I could have done even better with more time to practice.

1. First of all, I did some basic research on the Internet and looked at other people’s experiences and suggestions. I gathered a good set of references to start and work with.

2. I subscribed to your newsletter.

3. I watched quite a few movies in their original English language in the last 6 months.

4. I had a good background in English (Studied Computer Science during 1978-1984 in the USA, and got my master of science degree). Although my English skills were pretty much rusty in some areas after a 25 year recess and not being in an English speaking environment.

5. I looked at the basic guidelines set out for clean, clear and organized ways of writing an essay. I tried to write a few (150 & 250 words) essays in the allowed 60 minutes time. I went back and saw my weaknesses in writing.

6. I gathered the results of the last 10 tests administered by the testing organization in my country and concluded statistically that on the average highest scores were achieved in Speaking, then Writing, after that Listening and the lowest were in reading. So to compensate I spent most of my time on Reading and then Listening.

7. I read “Ace the IELTS” book by you. Highlighted the important ideas and summarized it.

8. I extracted and summarized the questions asked on around 30 recent speaking tests (as published in your newsletters). I went over the questions and answered them out loud a few times the day before speaking test and up to one hour before taking the test.

9. I read “How to get a higher IELTS score by building a positive image in the examiner’s mind” by Donna Miller carefully and tried to implement the ideas.

10. I read “IELTS Secrets Your Key to IELTS Success” and tried to follow the suggestions.

11. I practiced all of the reading and listening tests presented in Cambridge official IELTS practice tests books 1 through 6, observing the time limits for each test. I started only 3 weeks before test date and I did a test every night.

12. I saved the test results and made a line chart out of it to see my progress. I looked at the answers to see the reasons behind my mistakes and tried to correct them when taking the next test.

Most of my reading tests were Academic, which made me perform even better on the General reading samples. I think this was the most effective component of my training.

If you ask me to summarize the whole experience in one sentence, it would be: Practice, practice and practice more.

Thanks again, you were definitely a major contributor to my success.

Yours sincerely,
Shahriar ”

Gana’s tips for raising the score in Writing and Speaking

If you’ve just joined IELTS-Blog, let me fill you in – yesterday we started discussing Gana’s success story and this is the rest of it. Today I am bringing you his tips for Writing (where his score increased from 6.5 to 7.5) and Speaking (from 7 to 8). Gana suggests some pretty modern techniques for the people who prefer typing to actual writing and who prefer reading online to reading printed books, so I think you’ll find his ideas interesting. Here goes:

“Writing

It’s paramount to learn the rules of the game here. Don’t ever assume that you write enough emails at work (very true for GT folks) and that will automatically take care of the writing part for you. Letter writing in IELTS has some rules that you got to play by and Simone has done a wonderful job in her book explaining all that you may need to know. The essay writing also requires that you adhere to IELTS rules, and it’s important to learn them. Again, Simone does a terrific job in her book (and did I tell you, I don’t work for Simone’s marketing department!).

If you are not writing a CBT (Computer Based Test), then you are allowed to use a pen for the writing section. Practice and evaluate relative advantages or disadvantages of choosing one over the other. This is very important if you are at disadvantage with your handwriting; I had a serious problem here and it turned out that writing with a pen was a better choice for me.

Practice to get an idea how many pages you may need to write to reach 250 words. This will vary depending on your handwriting. You can also check how many words you usually write per paragraph and that gives you an idea where you are.

If you have spelling problems, use a text editor with spell check disabled or write in paper and then later transfer it to a text editor that can do a spell check for you. In writing, you will usually employ a few words always thats regardless of the topic. Practice is the only way you can detect and correct a spelling error. In the worst case, you can at least use alternative words when in doubt of your spelling.

Speaking

Enough has been said before and I’m not sure I can add much value here. If you think, you are very weak in speaking, one way to improve is to read a lot of blogs. The reason is, blogs are usually conversations, and the language used is somewhat closer to how you communicate through speech.

The language and tone used in blogs are not excessively formal, but I would consider them to be informal for an IELTS writing. Still they help you with learning to frame complicated sentences. Of course, you should try to read blogs written by native English speakers.”