There is nothing better than learning from the experience of those who have travelled the same path.
The following tips were generated by a group of students wishing to study on a postgraduate course in Hospitality and Management who needed the IELTS qualification to be able to enrol on the course. They took the time after their IELTS course to prepare some tips to help other IELTS students also studying for the IELTS exam.
On your behalf I thank them. Please comment below if you found any of them useful.
Reading
- Practise reading daily-you will improve both your speed reading and comprehension skills
- Read a variety of topics in books-this will give you a much wider vocabulary-this is very important for IELTS.
- Do as many mock tests as you can find-this also highlights topic vocabulary you will need and makes you more proficient at the very difficult skills of matching a heading with a paragraph and answering the TRUE/YES/FALSE/NO/NOT GIVEN questions. For these two skills, read the first paragraph first and look at the headings/questions and repeat with the second paragraph etc. This should really help with your speed at finding the answers to these types of questions.
Listening
- Listen to /watch as many varieties of spoken English as you can-especially movies and documentaries
- Concentrate on key phrases, note them down and remember them, especially before going into the IELTS exam
Writing
- What you have practised for the Reading and Listening can be recycled in your Writing
- Study grammar, especially items you find difficult, and put them into use because these are the ones which will make your writing look more complex
- Create a store of expressions and group them into typical exam topics
Speaking
Part 1 (5 mins)
- The examiner asks you basic questions so that you introduce yourself
- Then you might be asked about where you live-in Britain or your own country, your house/flat/room, things of interest, transport etc, how long you’ve lived there.
- Or your job or your studies, why you chose these, what’s good about them, how what you learn from these can be applied in your country.
Part 2 (4 mins)
- The examiner will give you a card with your topic on and you will be asked to talk about it for maximum 2 minutes. You have one minute to make notes-the notes are to help you present your topic logically.
- The topic
- Three points concerning the topic
- Explain why…
- Speak clearly and project your voice.
Part 3 (4 mins)
The examiner asks you questions related to your presentation topic.
Learn more about how to pass the IELTS speaking test here.
Things to be aware of in general
- Read continuously for many days to get used to and improve your reading speed
- Learn new phrases, especially their spellings and ways to link your ideas to improve your writing style
- Practise these new phrases in day to day life, so that they stay in your memory
- Be confident and clear in the speaking test
- Watch and listen to the radio and TV. This will help you to understand a variety of accents and come across useful expressions and phrases that you can recycle in your writing and speaking exams as well as your reading and listening ones.
- Learn to manage your time well, so that you can answer all the questions.
- In the reading and listening exams, do not leave any questions blank. Guess the answer. You might be right and you will not lose marks if you’re wrong.
- Don’t answer the questions quickly. Think seriously about what you write, as there are often tricks to test your understanding.
- Learn to skim and scan. First of all, go quickly through the passage, so as to understand it. Next, underline the key points, and remember that the most important point of the paragraph is usually in the first line and sometimes in the last. This helps you to improve your reading speed by at least 60%)
- Read the questions first and then find the appropriate paragraph with the answer
Once again my thanks go to the students: Arun, Sumit, Sachin, Arpit, Mihir, Sujita, Manali, Anjali, Varsha, Shreegyan, Jyoti, Kalyan and Aniket who took time to capture and consolidate these tips, so others could benefit from them.
I am pleased to publish their helpful work here.
To your IELTS success,
James
P.S. Please Comment Below if you would like to add to these tips.
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