IELTS Practice Tests – One way to help you prepare for the IELTS exam is to invest in IELTS Practice Test books.
These test you on all the IELTS skills of Reading, Writing, Listening and give you ideas for the topics in the Speaking Exam. The books will also give you the answers and an idea of the IELTS band you will achieve according to the score you obtain in the book’s tests. The more of these tests you try, the more accurate your answers will be, and in the Reading Tests especially, you will become more proficient at reading and understanding dense texts in a faster time. A very useful skill for the Reading part of the IELTS exam, which students usually find the most difficult.
When you are buying IELTS Practice Test Books look for ones not only with the answers but also with explanations of the answers, too. These explanations will make you think more about the answers you choose, when attempting the tests. You will realise, for example, that one of the skills being tested in the IELTS Reading Test section is the extent of your English vocabulary. Either the question or the correct answer will be another way to say the phrase from the text. An application of the same skill is used in the IELTS Listening tests. Thus, if you record all the variations of expressions that you encounter when using the Practice Tests you do and then make sure you can remember them, you will be much better prepared when you take your IELTS exam and you will attain a band from the higher end of the possible IELTS scores.
The Practice Test books which include the explanations will also highlight useful phrases for the writing tests, in particular Writing Task 1. Having attempted a task one test and checked the sample answer from your Practice book, you will then appreciate how simple it is to apply the variety of expressions to similar Writing Task Ones. Likewise, the format of the sample answer, including idiomatic expressions and complex sentences, for Task 2 can be drawn on to improve your future attempts to improve your writing tasks.
Again, the topics offered in the Practice Test books will inspire you to watch, listen and read for further ideas to broaden the content of your speaking. These efforts will be highlighted, when the examiner asks for your opinions on various topics in the Speaking Exam, once more enabling you to improve your IELTS score.
Having read this article and absorbed its wise advice, the only conclusion you can form is that you must invest in IELTS Practice Books to enable you to improve your score by making use of them to study independently.