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IELTS strategies & tips

This was a man who failed in business at the age of 21;
was defeated in a legislative race at age 22;
failed again in business at age 24;
overcame the death of his sweetheart at age 26;
had a nervous breakdown at age 27;
lost a congressional race at age 34;
lost a senatorial race at age 45;
failed in an effort to become vice-president at age 47;
lost a senatorial race at age 49;
and was elected president of the United States at age 52.
This man was Abraham Lincoln. If you study history, you will find that all stories of success are also stories of great failures. But people don’t see the failures. They only see one side of the picture and they say that person got lucky: “He must have been at the right place at the right time.”

Learning: Try, try, try…until you succeed. You will definitely make your dreams come true!

If you seriously want to achieve success, then you must keep trying until you succeed. Only by working hard,  you can finally open the right door that leads you towards realizing your goals. For success in the IELTS exam, you may try more than once; but if you have the right training with the right trainer, once is enough!

IELTS is short for “International English Language Testing System”. It is the English language test taken by those planning for work or migration or further studies in selected countries around the world. It is designed to assess different English language skills – listening, reading, writing and speaking. The test is useful at all stages of life, preparing you for real life situations, whether it is to talk to your international colleagues at school, to your clients at work or even during a trip abroad.
As an IELTS training instructor, I’ve trained people of all ages and backgrounds, and from a wide variety of cities. In fact, meeting people from different backgrounds is one of the perks of being an IELTS instructor! Over the years I’ve learned that the reasons for taking the IELTS varies as much as the people who take the test! Listed below are some helpful strategies and tips for each module:

Listening module

  • Expose yourself to a variety of spoken English, like watching English movies, speaking to family, friends and co-workers in English or join community activities where English is mainly spoken.
  • The answers are always in the order of the recording.
  • Remember, you will only hear the audio once. You will need to read, write and listen all at the same time.

Reading module

  • Reading the question first for keywords is very important to start with.
  • To find out related words in the passages given, it is better to use the strategies of skimming and scanning rather than reading it word-for-word. Skimming involves running your eyes quickly over the text to find out the main ideas contained within it. Scanning involves looking for a word or sentence to find the information you are looking for. These two strategies work together.
  • Don’t read aloud, make use of your eyes and not your voice.

Writing module

  • Assessment falls into following four categories. These four sections are interdependent, and thus performing poorly in one often lowers performance in others.
  • The Task Achievement portion of the mark gauges the extent to which the candidate is able to fulfil the requirements of the essay task.
  • Coherence and Cohesion is a measure of the candidate’s ability to deliver and connect ideas in a way that expresses a message clearly.
  • The Lexical Resources portion assesses the accuracy, variety and relevance of the vocabulary a candidate uses in their essay.
  • Grammatical Range and Accuracy grades the candidate’s demonstration of grammatical competence and execution.

Speaking module

  • The speaking test has three sections and these are not scored separately.
  • The examiner rates the student’s performance as a whole and neither section is more important.
  • Section 1 is supposed to be quite easy (like a warm-up), so you won’t get a high score if you only do well in this part.
  • Section 2 is when the examiner really gets a chance to assess how good you are. He/she will now have an idea of what scores to give you.
  • During section 3, the examiner is making his/her final decision. A good performance here can boost your score.

For more valuable tips ….

inquiry@caleinterfaces.com

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