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  6 Real IELTS Essay Questions 2022

  16 August 2022

  Hey! It’s time again for Nick and I to generate ideas for some recent IELTS essay questions. Today, we look at 6 real IELTS Essay Questions 2022, which were all taken from exams in July and August. You are welcome to sit and passively enjoy the episode, but you will get a lot more out of the lesson if you actively take part. So why not scroll down now and attempt to brainstorm ideas for each question BEFORE you listen, so that you compare your ideas to ours? Remember, the questions we will cover today are just a small fraction of those featured in this blog post, which I update every month to include the 50 most recent IELTS essay questions 2022, so click[…]

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  Academic Writing Task 1 Maps 2022

  16 August 2022

  Hey! Maps have long been a possible question-type in Academic Writing Task 1. However, until recently, 99% of maps focused on changes that happened in a town. In recent exams, however, there have been more maps that focus on changes to specific buildings or road systems. The problem is that many students still try to use the same key features and organisation for these maps as traditional town maps. The result? A very poor report! Today, Nick and I discuss how you can find better key features for building and road maps, and how you may want to organise these in an entirely different way if there are few changes to the original structure. In other words, you will learn everything[…]

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  IELTS Success Story: Yiqi, China

  26 July 2022

  Hey! It has been a long time since we featured one of our student success stories. Why? Good question! I think that I have been so busy teaching lessons, making YouTube videos, and running the school that I just forgot! That’s what I am delighted today to introduce you to Yiqi – one of our IELTS success stories from China. Yiqi was accepted onto a PhD course in the UK, but needed a 7.5 overall, with no less than 7.0 in writing. She found that the overall score was easy to achieve as she was able to hit a 9.0 in Reading and Listening, but after 4 attempts, she was still no closer to a 7.0 in Writing. Want to[…]

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  IELTS Reading Multiple Matching Questions Unlocked!

  19 July 2022

  Hey! A couple of weeks ago, Nick and I looked at how you should approach multiple multiple choice questions in IELTS listening. Today, I thought that we would look at the similar questions that appear in the reading exam – IELTS Reading Multiple Matching Questions. These also ask you to select more than one correct answer from a list, but the technique that you will need to successfully complete them is different. In fact, as you will see in today’s lesson, there are actually two different approaches that you should be prepared to use.

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  Cambridge IELTS 17 Academic essay questions analysed!

  12 July 2022

  In August, the new Cambridge IELTS 17 Academic book will be published. However, as always, the essay questions are already circulating on social media, so Nick and I thought that we would spend today analysing the four new essay questions to give you our ideas for each. More importantly, we will spend time discussing how we would organise each of the essays, and why we think each one is difficult or easy (because there really is ONE easy question here!).

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  IELTS test format change 2022!

  28 June 2022

  Hey! One complaint that IELTS test-takers have been making for decades is the order that the exams are taken on test-day. Starting with listening and ending with writing often means that students are tired when the attempt the most difficult (and often most important) section of the test.This week IDP and the British Council announced that there will be an IELTS test format change 2022.

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  IELTS Listening Multiple Multiple Choice

  21 June 2022

  In the IELTS listening exam, there are two types of multiple choice questions: those where you are given 3 possible answers and asked to choose ONE, and those where you are given 5 or 7 possible answers and are asked to choose TWO or THREE. Today, we are going to look at the second type of question or, as I like to call them, IELTS listening multiple multiple choice questions.

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  The 5 worst pieces of advice for the IELTS speaking exam!

  14 June 2022

  The role of any teacher is to help their students maximise their exam scores. However, over the years Nick and I have noticed that many teachers are giving advice for the IELTS speaking exam that could actually harm their scores not improve them. Obviously, this is not intentional, but it can be difficult as an examiner to sit and watch a student put into practice “techniques” that they have been given by a teacher, knowing that they could have reached a higher score if they had just responded naturally to the questions. 

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  Let’s do a full IELTS speaking test together!

  31 May 2022

  Hey! Today Nick and I are continuing our “Let’s do” series by completing a full IELTS speaking test. First, you will get a chance to answer the questions in a similar way to the real exam, and then you can listen on as Nick (our very own native speaker who is an ex-examiner) attempts the same test. That way you can listen to how the test is actually conducted and compare your answers to his. Plus, you will be getting the opportunity to hear what a Band 9.0 test sounds like!

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  Learning IELTS vocabulary in context

  25 May 2022

  Today, Nick and I look at the importance of learning IELTS vocabulary in context. We will start by analysing this Instagram post with synonyms for “highest” to show how the dictionary can definitely NOT be your friend.

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