Today we’re sharing the advice from high achievers who got Bands 8 and 7 in their IELTS exams. We met them through our monthly IELTS results competition and here is what they said in response to our question,
“How did you score so high?”
Hellyben (IELTS Band 7, native Gujarati speaker)
Thank you so much… this means a lot! And I’m so Happy 🙂
The thing I want to recommend the students preparing for IELTS examination, they should definitely follow IELTS-Blog.com. It is a very useful source. I personally have learnt a lot from their sample essays.
Ramesh (IELTS Band 7.5, native Gujarati speaker)
It is my pleasure to share my experience with you guys. I would like to suggest the IELTS candidates to fully concentrate on what they are reading and listening to. Use more and more vocabulary in writing and speaking. Try to write essays with punctuation marks, and re-read your essay once you wrote one paragraph. I have just worked for 3 days [before the exam].
Rahul (IELTS Band 8, native Hindi speaker)
I will be more than happy to share my secrets of success with you. I am just your average next door software engineer with a dream to study abroad in a prestigious institution. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious before my IELTS. This was my first attempt and I was terrified to shell out $200, more so when I was working over 55 hours a week! I gathered some courage and filled the British Council form.
Although English is my second language, I can’t say I had zero knowledge of English. Having done my studies (till high school) in a convent school, I definitely had an edge here. The preparation I went through wasn’t too much. I just completed the British Council handbook over 7 days and kept reading a lot. I believe if you read a lot, you will eventually start thinking in English and reading/writing/listening/speaking becomes eventually easier. I would also like to tell future candidates that the key to cracking IELTS is getting hold of your nerves. Yes you will be anxious and nervous, but once you get over it, the sky is the limit!
Tanishq (IELTS Band 8, native Gujarati speaker)
When I started, I was already pretty fluent in English because from a very young age I studied in an English medium school. As far as preparing particularly for IELTS was concerned, I focused the majority of my time on working on my listening and reading skills. And whatever free time I had at home, I spent it getting accustomed to the accents in the audio recordings. That really helped me understand the words better and faster.
Writing skills was something hard to prepare for, as the topic is given on the spot. So the main thing here is ideation. Once you have a steady stream of ideas, don’t directly write them down. First make a rough flow chart or diagram with a light pencil and after you think you have found your outline, only then write it down quickly. The same goes for speaking skills, as ideation is important. And the most important thing in speaking is confidence. No matter what kind of answer you give to a question asked, give it with confidence, and without pauses. You receive scores for fluency, not your opinion. These were the main things I kept in mind while practicing for IELTS. Hope they help someone else too.