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  What makes IELTS Semi-Formal Letters so difficult?

  21 September 2021

  IELTS Semi-Formal Letters If you are a general training student, the most important elements of your score for Task Achievement in writing task one are addressing the bullets and having the right tone. However, while the tone of formal and informal letters is quite black and white, students often struggle with IELTS semi-formal letters as the tone may vary depending on the topic of the letter. Today, Nick and I look at 6 IELTS semi-formal letters that appeared in recent exams to show you how you should consider the topic of the letter when deciding on the tone. We will see that it is not who you are writing to that is most important, but what you are writing about.[…]

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  IELTS Letter Questions 2021 Archive

  19 September 2021

  IELTS Letter Questions 2021 Hey! This is an archive of all the reported IELTS letter questions 2021. If you are taking the General Training IELTS exam and are looking for questions from the most recent IELTS exams, then you should go to this page, which I update every month.   What you will find here are the reported questions from exam-takers all over the world. I have used my experience as an IELTS examiner and trained exam creator to edit the letter prompts so that they are as close to the original exam question as possible. However, if you have one of these questions in your exam, you MUST read the question carefully as it may be that it differs slightly. I also[…]

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  6 more IELTS Essay Questions from 2021 broken down!

  14 September 2021

  6 more IELTS Essay Questions from 2021 broken down! Yes! Nick and I are back with one of our most popular episodes – breaking down IELTS essay questions from recent exams! Today, we look at 6 that I think are interesting because they either introduce a new topic that we have never seen covered in the exam before OR are a common essay question format that students often find difficult

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  20 Recent IELTS General Training Task 1 Questions

  07 September 2021

  20 Recent IELTS General Training Task 1 Questions Hey! On this page you will find the 20 most recent  IELTS General Training Task 1 questions. I updated the page every month, so the questions here will change frequently, but you will be able to find older questions in our IELTS 2021 Letters Archive.

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  How to approach an IELTS 2-Part Essay

  07 September 2021

  How to approach an IELTS 2-Part Essay Over the last 12 months, I have noticed a definite trend in the type of questions that IELTS students are being asked to address in writing task two. It seems that the classic “problem / solution” questions are appearing less and less and, instead, test-takers are being asked to write an IELTS 2-Part essay. But, what is a 2-part essay? And how should you approach one to maximise your chance of a high score? That is what Nick and I are discussing in today’s podcast episode! Below, you can find a summary of the episode, which includes all of the links to useful materials and the times of each part of the discussion[…]

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  IELTS essay skills – Writing about IELTS Social Trends

  10 August 2021

  IELTS essay skills – Writing about IELTS Social Trends In the world of IELTS we often discuss “types” of essay (Discuss Both Sides, Advantages and Disadvantages, etc) and common topics (environment, work, education, etc), but we rarely talk about common “themes”. Today I want to talk about one theme that often appears but is rarely discussed: essays that focus on social change. These are essay questions which present a current social trend (the increase in crime, the loss of community,  etc) and then ask you to examine it in some way. Today, Nick and I explain how to recognise IELTS social trend questions and how you should approach them to make sure that your writing is 100% on-topic. Below, you can[…]

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  Want to Improve your IELTS Paraphrasing?

  03 August 2021

  Want to Improve your IELTS Paraphrasing? In the writing exam you will be given a topic that you need to address in an essay. One important IELTS skill, therefore, is being able to talk about the topic without repeating the sentences from the task. This is called “paraphrasing” and is one area where many students struggle. Why? Well, it is because there is so much false information about IELTS paraphrasing online (and in classrooms). Many students have been told that you must NEVER repeat a word from the task. This is not true. Others think that they will be penalised if they repeat a word multiple times in the body of their essay. Again, this is not true. So, what[…]

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  Podcast – Improve your IELTS Coherence and Cohesion score by removing “people” from your essay

  13 July 2021

  Improve your IELTS Coherence and Cohesion Score One of the great things about working at My IELTS Classroom is that it gives me the chance to collaborate with a range of great highly-qualified teachers. Juliet has been working with us for over 3 years now and, as a teacher who specialises in Cambridge exams that are not IELTS, she always brings a fresh approach to her teaching. One particular point that Juliet has been focussing on recently in marking is encouraging students to move away from using “people” repeatedly in their essays. This is not something that I had considered before, but once she had pointed it out, I realised that doing this can make a massive difference to a[…]

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  Podcast – What do we think of the essay questions in Cambridge IELTS 16

  29 June 2021

  Hey! On July 8th, the latest edition of the Cambridge series will be published. In celebration of this, Nick and I explain what makes these books such a powerful resource for IELTS test takers. Then, we will go through the 4 essay questions reportedly included in Cambridge IELTS 16 (Academic) to give our verdict on the new topics. Trust me – you want to listen to this, as one of them is unbelievably difficult! Below, you can find a summary of the episode, which includes all of the links to useful materials and the times of each part of the discussion (so you can go directly to the part you want to listen to) 🚀 Subscribe to My IELTS Classroom podcast[…]

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  6 IELTS lexical errors you probably make if you are Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi!

  24 June 2021

  Hey! Here at My IELTS Classroom, we work with students from all over the world. In fact, one of my favourite things is keeping a list of all of the countries that our students come from. There are well over 100 now, which is absolutely mind-blowing! The great thing about working with such a wide-range of test-takers is that you start to see patterns in the mistakes that they make as a result of the influence of their first language. So, today, we are launching a new series of blog posts that focus on one region and their specific language errors. In this first post, we are going to look at the lexical errors made by our students who come from[…]

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