One component of your score for Lexical Resource in the IELTS writing exam is spelling. I am often asked how many IELTS spelling mistakes a student can make and still receive a 7.0. The answer is “it depends”. There is no fixed number of errors that automatically results in you getting a 5, 6, 7, or 8 for lexical resource. This is simply because not every spelling errors is the same.
Hey! Today, Nick and I take a look at what we think are new Cambridge IELTS 17 letters. In other words, although the book was published in July, we were unable to get our hands on a copy, so we are hoping that these are the real questions as we got them from a third source!)
Hey! I have noticed over the last few years that IELTS test-takers really struggle to write letters that are genuinely informal. Even good students who follow all of the language rules for an IELTS informal letter send me one to mark that feel “cold” and “stiff” and simply still “too formal”. Why is that? Well, that is what I sat down this week to ponder, and the result is this podcast! Today, Nick and I will show you how you can turn your good IELTS informal letters into great ones by making PERSONAL COMMENTS.
Hey! Every week, Nick and I mark at least a dozen first assessment essays from our students. This is the first essay that students send as part of their writing package, and gives us an opportunity to see what their current score is and what areas we will need to work on to help them reach their target score. Obviously, all students are unique and have their own problem areas, but time and time again we see students making the same mistakes. Today, Nick and I want to show you what the top 5 IELTS writing errors are, and explain how you can avoid them.
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[…]
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.
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!).
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.
Hey! One element of your score for grammatical range and accuracy will be good use of punctuation. This includes accurate use of capital letters. You may think that this will be easy, but time and time again, I have seen students make the same mistake with capital letters in IELTS Writing Task 1!
Hey! Every student sitting the exam needs to make sure that they have enough IELTS Academic Task 1 vocabulary to achieve a high score. However, I have noticed over the last few months that many students are making the same mistake again and again. They are using the word “maximum” to try to compare items on a chart.