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My IELTS Blog!

Here you’ll find our posts and podcasts on a wide range of subjects to help you on your IELTS journey! Join us at My IELTS Classroom today for our video courses, marking service, 1-2-1 lessons and so much more…

Our posts & podcasts

• All Posts, 
• Writing, 
• Speaking, 
• Listening, 
• Reading, 
• Grammar, 
• General Advice, 
• Podcast

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  Top 5 IELTS Writing Errors

  27 September 2022

  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.

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  IELTS Cue Card Feedback 2021

  20 September 2022

  IELTS Cue Card Feedback 2021 Hey!  Last week, Nick and I set our listeners the challenge to record themselves attempting three current cue card questions. Today, we will be going through a selection of those recordings to give feedback and advice that we think will be helpful for every test-taker. 

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  Let’s do the IELTS Cambridge 17 Test 4 listening test!

  13 September 2022

  Hey! Join Nick and I today to complete the full IELTS Cambridge 17 Test 4 listening test. We will starting by giving you a chance to listen and complete the test on your own, before going through each question to give you the correct answers and to discuss why some items were easy and others were more difficult.

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  Cambridge IELTS 17 Reading Timur Gareyev

  06 September 2022

  Join Nick and I today to complete the Cambridge IELTS 17 Reading Timur Gareyev, which is Passage Three from Test Four. In the lesson, we will demonstrate how you can use our Read Once, Read Well technique to ensure that you have time to read the entire text. If you have not listened to our previous episode about the technique, then I strongly recommend that you do so before you listen to today’s lesson.

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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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  6 Real IELTS Essay Questions 2022

  09 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.

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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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  Everything you need to know about IELTS General Training Reading Part 2

  05 July 2022

  I think that IELTS General Training Reading Part 2 is the most overlooked part of the exam. 99% of the time, teachers focus on the more difficult texts in Part 3, (which is understandable as this is where you could meet the dreaded Headings Match or Multiple Choice questions) or the True / False / Not Given in Part 1.

Posts navigation

• All Posts, 
• Writing, 
• Speaking, 
• Listening, 
• Reading, 
• Grammar, 
• General Advice, 
• Podcast