Since the plan is to keep the most unlucky of you to keep reading to the end of this Blog, so I am going to tell you, ladies and gentleman, about my uneventful unplanned only trial with IELTS and how did I get the required dreadful score of 8 overall, with no less than 7 in any individual testing area.
Firstly, my German teacher (I know what you are thinking, the best way to start talking about a great approach to IELTS is to start with German right?!!), anyway my German teacher, and i have to say a simply awesome one at that, told us one time in the class that the BEST way to learn any language is to read a lot. The trick is to know what you are reading for. So always ask yourself, are you reading to improve your reading? listening? or writing?
If you are reading to improve your reading, then always to sort whatever your reading into paragraphs and like have a heading for each and try to understand the idea behind each one and the general idea of the whole piece. Does he agree or disagree and what is his or her intake on the subject?
Now reading the SAME article but thinking about writing, then you should focus on how did the writer write this? how did he make his sentences? short or long? how did he or she link them? how, when and where did he use the punctuation marks and try to figure out why were they used in the way they were used. At this point, if you need to open a book to read something related to grammar or punctuation, that will definitely stick more than just reading with no purpose.
Reading for listening, would be all about the new vocabulary, reading and not missing a word that you don't know (usually with normal reading you don't have to understand word for word, if you know the meaning of 80% of the words, you will definitely get the whole idea). You add on to your vocabulary and know their meaning. Now you will just have the different accents to suffer with, and good luck with that :D :D but at least half the work is done. Once you figure what the hell is being said, then you are sure you will understand it :D.
Last but not least, is reading for speaking, it is pretty obvious that not all the vocabulary you know is ok to be used in speaking and that is the trickiest part but don't worry, once you start using that and you find the other person looking at you quizzically then it means you probably shouldn't have used those words or you might have said something inappropriate, who knows! ah I almost forgot, focus on idioms, they come in handy and you get graded higher when you use them more frequently. I guess those can mostly be picked from movies. To be honest, I think they are the best, cause you get a situation played right in front of you, showing you with the best time AND way to use that idiom. If you pick it while watching, I assure you, you will never forget it.
Now that's reading in relation to each part of the IELTS exam and I also believe, as my teacher did, that reading is the best way to learn a language. The only drawback is that it takes a lot of time to see its effects, yes you will use that language at an extremely high level and you will not easily forget it but it takes really long time. So my advice is to start early, a lot of people that I knew ended up trying for IELTS for a year, maybe 9 months. I would suggest daily reading and I personally believe would have got the score they wanted from the first trial but taken longer and the effects of learning would be longer-lasting.
So now back to my own experience, firstly, i had no plan to take the IELTS when I did, my brother told me that they plan to make the exam more expensive so I thought I would have my first trial when it is cheaper, in case I didn't get the score so that I wouldn't pay twice the more expensive fee. I think I had like 3 weeks before my test and putting my own advice to use I got the "1984" novel by Goerge Orwell (was my first time to read it) and read it (yaaay a novel I always wanted to read behind my back). I watched youtube videos for IELTSLIZ.com to know the exam tips and tricks (I made the youtube videos on 1.5 and sometimes 2 times the playback speed just to get used to faster speaking and to cover more videos in less time) and did the 10th book of Cambridge (just the reading and listening though) writing tasks of 2 tests of the 4 in that same book.
I almost had no idea about the speaking part and didn't practice it at all, when I got to the task 2 in the exam, I was so nervous, I finished all I had to say in like 30 seconds and was blocked and couldn't even get a peep out till the examiner went to task 3. She was even doing the hand gestures, like telling me, common for God's sake say anything, or maybe she was just bored as hell from me sitting there, and as I was leaving, she told me, next time try to practice more!! I was like "DAMN, I must have sucked for her to tell me that", well she was an amazing lady, and gave me 7 :D couldn't be more happier with that.
And that's my experience with IELTS. I know pretty lame, right? but for me, I don't really care as long as i got the required score and didn't have to go under exam condition one more time. I think as a medical school graduate that's how one came to calculate his life by how many exams he is going to take or took, how many failed or passed or have to redo and one of those less is always a huge thing.
Firstly, my German teacher (I know what you are thinking, the best way to start talking about a great approach to IELTS is to start with German right?!!), anyway my German teacher, and i have to say a simply awesome one at that, told us one time in the class that the BEST way to learn any language is to read a lot. The trick is to know what you are reading for. So always ask yourself, are you reading to improve your reading? listening? or writing?
If you are reading to improve your reading, then always to sort whatever your reading into paragraphs and like have a heading for each and try to understand the idea behind each one and the general idea of the whole piece. Does he agree or disagree and what is his or her intake on the subject?
Now reading the SAME article but thinking about writing, then you should focus on how did the writer write this? how did he make his sentences? short or long? how did he or she link them? how, when and where did he use the punctuation marks and try to figure out why were they used in the way they were used. At this point, if you need to open a book to read something related to grammar or punctuation, that will definitely stick more than just reading with no purpose.
Reading for listening, would be all about the new vocabulary, reading and not missing a word that you don't know (usually with normal reading you don't have to understand word for word, if you know the meaning of 80% of the words, you will definitely get the whole idea). You add on to your vocabulary and know their meaning. Now you will just have the different accents to suffer with, and good luck with that :D :D but at least half the work is done. Once you figure what the hell is being said, then you are sure you will understand it :D.
Last but not least, is reading for speaking, it is pretty obvious that not all the vocabulary you know is ok to be used in speaking and that is the trickiest part but don't worry, once you start using that and you find the other person looking at you quizzically then it means you probably shouldn't have used those words or you might have said something inappropriate, who knows! ah I almost forgot, focus on idioms, they come in handy and you get graded higher when you use them more frequently. I guess those can mostly be picked from movies. To be honest, I think they are the best, cause you get a situation played right in front of you, showing you with the best time AND way to use that idiom. If you pick it while watching, I assure you, you will never forget it.
Now that's reading in relation to each part of the IELTS exam and I also believe, as my teacher did, that reading is the best way to learn a language. The only drawback is that it takes a lot of time to see its effects, yes you will use that language at an extremely high level and you will not easily forget it but it takes really long time. So my advice is to start early, a lot of people that I knew ended up trying for IELTS for a year, maybe 9 months. I would suggest daily reading and I personally believe would have got the score they wanted from the first trial but taken longer and the effects of learning would be longer-lasting.
So now back to my own experience, firstly, i had no plan to take the IELTS when I did, my brother told me that they plan to make the exam more expensive so I thought I would have my first trial when it is cheaper, in case I didn't get the score so that I wouldn't pay twice the more expensive fee. I think I had like 3 weeks before my test and putting my own advice to use I got the "1984" novel by Goerge Orwell (was my first time to read it) and read it (yaaay a novel I always wanted to read behind my back). I watched youtube videos for IELTSLIZ.com to know the exam tips and tricks (I made the youtube videos on 1.5 and sometimes 2 times the playback speed just to get used to faster speaking and to cover more videos in less time) and did the 10th book of Cambridge (just the reading and listening though) writing tasks of 2 tests of the 4 in that same book.
I almost had no idea about the speaking part and didn't practice it at all, when I got to the task 2 in the exam, I was so nervous, I finished all I had to say in like 30 seconds and was blocked and couldn't even get a peep out till the examiner went to task 3. She was even doing the hand gestures, like telling me, common for God's sake say anything, or maybe she was just bored as hell from me sitting there, and as I was leaving, she told me, next time try to practice more!! I was like "DAMN, I must have sucked for her to tell me that", well she was an amazing lady, and gave me 7 :D couldn't be more happier with that.
And that's my experience with IELTS. I know pretty lame, right? but for me, I don't really care as long as i got the required score and didn't have to go under exam condition one more time. I think as a medical school graduate that's how one came to calculate his life by how many exams he is going to take or took, how many failed or passed or have to redo and one of those less is always a huge thing.
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