Appearing for IELTS exam? That’s a brilliant decision! Hopefully, you have an effective plan chalked out for IELTS preparation. Preparing for IELTS in the right manner can save your time and efforts and ensure that you score the highest grades. Well, if you need clear guidance and IELTS preparation tips, this blog is exactly what you must read to find out how to prepare for IELTS exam. The blog tries to bust the common conception among students that preparation for IELTS exam is tough by exploring each aspect of the test in detail and offering useful tips and resources that will help you create an action plan aligned with your individual needs.
Prepare for the IELTS exam
Seemingly, the IELTS preparation is difficult as there is a lot of information and students find it hard to sift out resources they can trust. The preparation can take up months of hard work and thousands of rupees in coaching and test fees, creating a lot of pressure on students to clear it in the first attempt itself.
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IELTS is basically an English language test that tests your level of English, the better your command of the language, the higher your score will be. The three areas that you need to focus on while preparing for the exam –
- The level of English: Simply doing practice tests or studying test skills will not work if your knowledge of the English language is not very good.
- Test skills: The IELTS test has four parts – Writing, Speaking, Reading and Listening. Each part has many questions that test a specific skill.
- Test format: The most effective way to achieve a high your score is to understand the test format properly and exactly give what the examiner wants from you.
The largest part of your preparation should be devoted to learning these skills and improving your level of English. Let’s us discuss each area and see how you can improve your test score:
Stepwise guide to IELTS Preparation
1.Purpose of taking the test:
Usually, people take the test either for academic reason, that is, they want to study abroad and get a job there or for general training purpose, that is, they want to migrate to an English-speaking nation. Whatever be the purpose, they need to prepare for speaking and listening skills test in the same way. For those taking the test for academic purpose, the reading test comprises of academic topics whereas the reading test for GT texts comprises of topics relevant to the daily life of the English-speaking country.
2.Understand the Test Format
The test comprises of four parts, each testing a specific skill. Listening test has 4 sections containing 40 questions to be completed in 30 minutes. Reading test has 3 sections containing 40 questions to be completed in 60 minutes. Speaking test has 3 sections that the candidate has to converse with the examiner. The duration for the Writing test for both Academic IELTS and GT IELTS is 60 minutes.
You will be marked on a scale of 0-9 for all the four test skills. These marks will then be averaged to give an overall score. Writing is judged on the success of the task, its structure and logic, linguistic resource, and syntactic range and accuracy. Speaking is judged on your fluency, pronunciation, linguistic resource, and syntactic range and accuracy.
3.Set practical targets
There are different types of questions in each skill test that requires a specific strategy and preparation. Effective IELTS preparation begins with setting realistic goals. You will succeed only if you aim for a practical score and work towards achieving it. This will ensure you score the marks you want and not rest your effort and hope on miracles.
4.Develop your vocabulary
The most important aspect that is tested IELTS exam is your vocabulary. If your vocabulary is not good enough, you need to develop a vocabulary perfection plan. Start by practicing speaking in English a little every day. Read something that you enjoy. The more you read and speak English, the more your skills will improve. You can read common IELTS topics and write your own views on topics like your surroundings, the latest technology, modern education, etc. Practicing listening and writing on these topics will improve your knowledge and your thoughts and at the same time improve your English. You can search for the common academic writing and speaking topics on the internet and read them to understand how they are structured.
5.Take practice tests
IELTS practice tests help you to evaluate your current score and also familiarize you with the test format. Practice only those tests that you obtain from official and reliable sources. There are a lot of fake tests that you need to steer away from as these are often misleading and prevent you from knowing what a test is actually like. Practicing sample tests is important but it is only one part of IELTS preparation. If you base your preparation entirely on these practice tests, you will never improve your vocabulary or your current score for that matter. You must spend a good amount of your preparation time on improving your standard of English and your test skills rather than only doing practice tests.
6.Ask an expert to assess your writing and speaking skills
It is extremely important that you find a qualified teacher who can evaluate your writing and speaking skills. He/she will be able to assess your current skill level and even point out your weaknesses. Identifying your weaknesses is the most important part of IELTS preparation. If you know your weaknesses, you can focus on improving them without wasting much time. Focus on eliminating your weaknesses and have your work evaluated again by an experienced teacher. They will be able to assess your progress and advice on what to concentrate on next. If you want some experienced teacher to assess your writing work, Source essay experts are willing to help. You can contact the experts and have your paper evaluated.
Successfully taking an IELTS test opens endless possibilities for you to study or get a job at various foreign universities and multinational employers. This test is recognized as one of the basic requirements to access the global education and employment platform. The test is designed to evaluate English language skills – reading, writing, listening and speaking. The IELTS preparation trains you for everyday situations like interacting with your international classmates at college, with your co-workers in the office or during a meeting abroad.
If you want to prepare for IELTS exams, the foremost thing to consider is that you must have good English communication skills. Source essay experts recommend that you prepare for the exam under trained experts in order to polish your language skills and pass the test.