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This is a question that I see time and time again in Facebook groups. Well, actually, it’s not usually a question, but a complaint. An angry complaint that accuses the examiner of ruining the student’s speaking performance.
If I was allowed to give one ONE tip to an IELTS test-taker before they sat their writing exam, it wouldn’t be to learn how to organise all of the different types of essay, it wouldn’t be make sure they included lots of complex sentences in their work, it wouldn’t even be to make sure they directly answer the question! No, it would be BE CAREFUL OF PARAPHRASING in IELTS essays!
Imagine this – there are five minutes left in the exam and you are only halfway through your second body paragraph! What do you do?! WRITE A CONCLUSION!
IELTS Speaking Part 1 lasts between 4 and 5 minutes, during which the examiner should ask you between 7 and 11 questions. Think about that – 5 minutes for 11 questions. That works out at about 27 seconds per question (including the time it takes the examiner to ask them!).
I think that nothing that fills an IELTS test-taker with fear as much as the idea of being handed a Speaking Part 2 cue card and having NO IDEAS. In fact, just the idea of sitting there for 60 seconds with nothing but the the sound of your own beating heart in your head and the taste of panic in your mouth is the stuff of nightmares 💀. But, fear not, in today’s blog, I want to show you six techniques that you can use to make sure that you ALWAYS have something to say in your two-minute talk.
I want to start this post by telling you something that you might find a bit shocking. Are you ready? In IELTS Speaking Part 2, you don’t need to address all of the bullet points on the IELTS cue card. That’s right, there is no penalty for missing one, or two or even three! 😲
We learned A LOT in my first post about IELTS True, False, Not Given questions. We learned how to identify keywords (even in difficult passages); what the difference between true, false, and not given REALLY is; and how important it is to go back to the beginning of a sentence (or even a paragraph) when you are reading in detail for the answer. But, here’s the thing. Even after learning these skills and practicing them for hours, many students still find that they have problems answering IELTS T/F/NG questions, and they don’t know WHY. And so, they reach a road block and get stuck 🚧. I mean, if you don’t know the REASON for your problem, how are you ever going to fix it? So, in[…]
I love using Podcasts to help IELTS students improve their listening skills. In fact, if you join me in My IELTS Classroom, you will soon get bored of me recommending episodes to listen to! But, why do I love podcasts so much? ❤ Well, there isn’t one answer to that question, there are six! Seriously, if you are struggling with listening or need a very high score (for CLB9 for example) then podcasts really are the way forward.
We all know the IELTS exam is a high-stakes exam: it’s often the only barrier that stands between a student and their new life. Test-takers spend a lot of time and effort preparing for the exam and, as a result, exam day can feel very high-pressure. Plus, IELTS is expensive! Nobody wants to pay those fees more than once! But, one of the most important things you can do on exam day is TRY TO STAY CALM🧘♀️.
In IELTS Speaking Part 3, you move from the personal to the general. While Part 1 and Part 2 ask you to answer questions based on your life experiences, in Part 3 you are asked to comment about abstract topics. And for me, this this is the part of the test where the examiner really gets to test your language and academic skills. That means that for IELTS Speaking Part 3 success, you will need to be able to discuss abstract topics with ease. Learn how in this blog post.