TIPS BEFORE IELTS

In Listening, Reading or even Writing, if you have a doubt about any of your
answers/ideas, immediately move on and dont fret over that
I used to practice for a minimum of 1 hour every day for 3 months.
especially for Reading and Listening modules
I feel that focus is very important. One should have fire in their bellies and
an urge to perform well. Dedication, determination and discipline are
extremely important. Otherwise you cannot separate yourself from the crowd
it is also important to understand ones strengths and weaknesses for
each module. For example, I felt I needed more practice and tips for the
Writing tasks and so put more time and effort towards it.
Believe in yourself.
Always aim at a higher score than you require.
Spend at least 1 hour per day reading/ listening/ writing and speaking in
English. It does not matter what/which/how, as long as all of that is in English
There are 2 things that helped me to succeed: time management (in practice
and in the real test) and learning from the right source
Try practicing on photocopies of the real answer sheet to familiarise
yourself with the test format
Handwriting needs to legible, so if needed, work on yours to improve it.
Practice daily, speak daily, EVEN start thinking in English
After signing up for the test, Ive changed to a more serious mindset and
begun practicing daily using mock tests to get comfortable with the tests
format. I began doing this three months prior to the test, so every day Ive
practiced one section of the test. And heres a tip always try to keep
record of your time during the training
Use the real time answer sheets and by strictly following the test day rules.
This will definitely enhance your confidence on the test day as you have
done it many a times earlier.
Get a very good nights sleep beforehand

READING
Nikonian used the mapping technique understood better the main idea
of each paragraph and that enabled him to find the answers quicker
because he was looking in the right places straight away.
The key thing in Reading is time management.
I counted how many articles were inside and I divided the time required
In every article, I read the questions first and tried finding answers in the
article. This tip helped me focus on important sentences in the article that
contained the answers.
For T/F/NG, this was the tricky part, I agree with the book that says do not
over-think, it is simply a matter of seeing whether the answer is in the
article or it is not. Remember to practice as well.
Dont get stuck on one question, if you dont know, skip it for now, come
back later, you need to keep on moving. Spare 15 minutes to check all of
the answers, grammar and within word limits.
In Reading I attempted the True/False/Not given questions first in each
section, as I found them the most difficult.
In the Reading test, the most important thing is to understand what you are
being asked.
Be careful with the keywords. Its just enough to see a connection between
those words and answer the question with the help of that.
Another helpful tip is to WRITE A BRIEF NOTE (ABOUT 3 OR 4 WORDS),
maybe EVEN IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE, so you can keep the questions
in mind and while you are reading the text, by a glance at your notes you
can answer questions much easier.
For reading, the strategy that helped me TO SAVE TIME was paying
attention to the question types.
This strategy is easier said than done. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND
PRACTISING THIS TECHNIQUE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE for achieving a
very high score.
In Reading I scored 9 bands all because of practice. i practiced reading
tests daily and also used to read english newspapers, which also helped
me enrich my vocabulary, which is crucial for a better score.

 Tip #1 Dont read the whole passage. Train yourself to scan and notice
only the important information. After you go over the text for the first time,
you should know what each paragraph is about, what its main idea is. This
way of reading saves you a lot of priceless time.
Tip #2 - Watch your time closely. Dont divide the 60 minutes you have into
3 equal parts of 20 minutes.
Tip #3 Dont forget to copy your answers to the Answer Sheet.
Tip #4 If you CANT FIND AN ANSWER TO A CERTAIN QUESTION
mark it with a big fat??? so you can easily see it later and move on to the
next one, dont get stuck.
Tip #5 Count the words in your answer EXACTLY WORDS, when even
an a and a the count as a word!
Tip #6 When you practice, read your passage, answer the questions,
compare your answers to the Answer Sheet and pay special attention to
the wrong answers. You need to understand WHY you made those
mistakes and remember them, so you WONT MAKE THEM AGAIN.
We received 4 reading sections. I rapidly scanned through all 4 sections
and questions to identify the easier sections, and then tackled them in that
order.
After selecting a section, I read its questions in detail, underlying key
words in a red pen, and SUMMARISING IT IN 2-3 WORDS in bold red next
to it. For e.g. if the question was how many times did the explorer Captain
Scott return to England after his first trip, I WOULD WRITE NEXT TO IT IN
RED RETURN UK > 1st ?. This helps in quick referral to the question when
studying the main body.
Read the passage carefully, where the answers to the questions could be
hidden.
Be witty enough not to waste too much time on the irrelevant paragraphs.
CONCENTRATION AND PATIENCE are very important in the Reading test.
I only prepared for 7 days and most of time I READ MY FAVOURITE
STORIES IN ENGLISH, which helped me a lot in Reading.
Timing is everything! Learn to scan. Look at blocks of text and scan for
key words, peoples names and places that are relevant, instead of trying to
read each word with equal attention.
Except for the first few times, ALWAYS practice under exam conditions,
forcing yourself to stop after 20 minutes per single passage or even after
60 minutes for 3 passages that you solve non-stop! Use a stopwatch alarm
for this, if you have to.

LISTENING
Do not get bored in the Listening section, and do not try to interpret
something you did not understand.
If you want to score as high as possible in listening, having a pencil to write
highlighted notes on the test paper that can help you remember the
important parts about the answers
Watch a lot of English language TV or YouTube, ditch subtitles
immediately even if you dont understand anything, you will eventually.
Id recommend series and movies over documentaries or educational
materials, because you would be able to observe how people interact in
social situations and what terms they would use, which is what IELTS
(especially GT) is geared towards
The second attempt Nikonian was able to do better, because he did not
panic (in fact he was much less nervous), and because he could
concentrate better.
I started my learning by reading the theory first:
UNDERSTANDING the listening module structure in IELTS,
getting FAMILIAR with types of questions,
learning some BASIC GRAMMAR such as articles, singular/plural, etc.
A. One of the tips that I used was GUESS THE ANSWER. Use this time to read
the questions quickly, underline keywords and guess what the topic is and
what the expected answer (a number, a noun, a verb, a time, etc).
B. When listening, FOCUS ON THE MEANING BY KEYWORDS When you find
the answer, quickly put it in the blank, dont worry about the 3 words limit first
and quickly focus on the next sentence.
1. The hardest part for me during the exam was to match responsibilities (A E)
with each role. So I read A E first, and then instead of trying to match while
listening, I wrote down the keywords for each role, and later on during the 10
minutes given to transfer answers, I matched the keywords with the options
(A E) as I found it hard to match long sentences
2. WATCH OUT FOR SINGULAR/PLURAL (such as apple/apples) and articles
(a/an/the), use the last 3 minutes to check all the answers and ensure your
grammar is 100% correct and your answers are within word limits. Practice
definitely helps! It was pleasing for me to see I could get 9 for Listening as
this is definitely a skill that we can learn WHEN THERE IS A STRONG WILL
AND A CORRECT LEARNING RESOURCE.

a. Listening test, I STILL INSIST on writing those brief notes BESIDES THE
QUESTIONS, so you dont need to keep your eyes on the questions and you
are able to focus on the voice.
b. It is extremely important TO KEEP YOUR FOCUS on the voice while the
recording is playing. TRY NOT TO LOSE TRACK of it even for a second.
Based on my experience, for listening, the MOST IMPORTANT POINT IS TO
FOLLOW THE CONVERSATION AND LISTEN TO ALL THE DETAILS.
o Lastly, practice as much as you can and listen to English regularly through
various media sources.
After I registered for the IELTS test, I INCREASED the number of episodes I
watched every week of my favourite TV shows and also the number of
movies. I also started watching BBC world news as it kept me updated
about the latest happenings all around the world and improved my listening
and speaking skills all around.
STAY FOCUSED! DONT ALLOW YOUR ATTENTION TO WANDER FOR
EVEN A SECOND! Practice a lot with the CDs / audio files included with
your IELTS book.

SPEAKING
speaking cannot be improved overnight, and if the tester feels you are fake or
memorizing that is bad news. But getting familiar with the format of the
speaking test so you dont get surprised, is very important, especially if you
have low skills in that regard. your job here is to show off and flex your
muscles as much as possible, DONT WORRY much about making
mistakes in pronunciation or accent here, only worry about
comprehension and flow.
Be as confident and relaxed as you can, the rest will come naturally.
SPEAK UNTIL THEY STOP YOU, dont just answer the question and stop.
Display you best English. Behave as if it was a driving test keep going
straight until told to turn right, left or park.
I also recommend not to think a lot about your answers as you would in a
job interview
Treat the test as a conversation with a casual friend about random stuff,
nothing more. Also stay on point and dont steer the conversation into
YOUR comfort zone
Talk to yourself in English, might seems silly at first, but eventually you
would only be able to think in English and it will take over your mother
tongue, once you do that you would dominate any test, especially speaking
Avoid speaking with individuals with weak English or bad accents, it
transfers to you, try only to speak with very high level English speakers, or
natives.
For the Speaking test, it is not only your speaking skills that are evaluated
by the examiner, but also your body language, facial expressions and
attitude. So I took extra care to get these aspects right. One has to look
confident and positive during the Speaking test.
Do not be afraid to speak, ever. A lot of my friends are afraid of
embarrassing themselves if they say something wrong.
The more you practice speaking out loud, the more it will seem natural to
you. Speak slowly and clearly, give yourself some time to think, but not too
long

HOW TO GET A HIGHER BAND SCORE IN THE IELTS SPEAKING TEST

Get a passage of text and start reading it out loud. Any word you are not
sure how to pronounce, type in that website and click Say it to hear it.
Repeat it again and again until you remember the right way to say it

Secondly, you can record yourself using a computer or a tape

recorder, an mp3 player, a mobile phone now there are many devices that
allow voice recording. Then listen to your recorded voice and take notes of
which words are mispronounced.
Thirdly, get a recording of the news/radio/anything produced by native
English speakers. Play the recording and repeat after them, trying to
copy the way they pronounce words
The accent doesnt matter in IELTS as long as you pronounce the words
correctly, so work hard on that, and you should be just fine!
In Speaking maintain the flow while speaking and do not forget to use linkers. The
examiners may not show any expressions while you speak, so remember to
maintain your confidence regardless of their response.
For speaking, instead of getting stressed out, I carefully listened to the
examiners questions and answered accordingly. I tried to look relaxed
and considered the speaking test as A FRIENDLY TALK
Then, I scored 8.5 in Listening and 8.5 in Speaking as well. I was able to
achieve this score only because of English language movies and TV
shows. Ive always loved Hollywood movies and I used to watch them first
with subtitles, then without.
Greet the examiner warmly. Such attitude portrays the candidates energy
and fosters interest in the mind of the examiner at the same time.
Speak on the topic, because beating around the bush does not help. Dont
concentrate just on your pronunciation your speech should have
IDEAS, FACTS, CLARITY and COHERENCE.
Quoting examples, case studies or experiences will make your speech more
interesting.
take the test with CONFIDENCE.
Apart from that, HAVING A REGULAR CONVERSATION WITH NATIVE
SPEAKERS CAN HELP YOU DO BETTER AT SPEAKING.
We used to record our speeches and make each other listen to it for
evaluation. This was our speaking practice. Our advice is to take your
mobile phone and record your part 2 (two-minute speaking) on any
subject you like. Listen to it after 10 minutes and you would get to know
where you went wrong.

WRITING
Read at least 1 essay per day from IELTS-Blog.com and copy them by
writing down on paper word by word. You will benefit a lot from doing so.
He began to manage his time better, avoided writing too many words, and
thus was able to make time for proofreading his work at the end of the
Writing section. he had 10 minutes left after finishing both writing task 1
and task 2. This enabled him to find and correct all the spelling and
grammatical errors before the examiner saw them.
In Writing think of the whole answer, then start writing. Also, give put
emphasis on task 2 (its worth more marks).
So I recommend that you read as much essays on this website as you can
and write at least 2 essays and 2 reports daily!
Reading editorial articles in English newspapers will help with your writing.
Always check your word count to make sure you are over 150 words in Task 1
and over 250 words in Task 2.
Writing grammatically correct, simpler sentences is better than trying to
impress the examiner with advanced English words/sentences that
youre not sure how to use.
KEEP IN MIND that you need to describe a Task 1 chart TO SOMEONE WHO
DOESNT SEE IT.
For the essay (Task 2), there should be an introduction, content (the body)
and a well-framed conclusion to set a benchmark or make a point.
For Writing, I think, a proper structure is needed along with accurate
grammar and academic vocabulary.