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IELTS listening test lasts for about 30 minutes. It consists of four sections, played on cassette tape, in
order of increasing difficulty. Each section might be a dialogue or a monologue. The test is played once
only, and the questions for each section must be answered while listening, although time is given forstudents to check their answers.
IELTS Reading test lasts for 60 minutes. Students are given an Academic Reading test, or a General
Training Reading test. Both tests consist of three sections, and in both tests the sections are in order of
increasing difficulty.
IELTS Writing test also lasts for 60 minutes. Again, students take either an Academic test, or a General
Training test. Students must perform two writing tasks, which require different styles of writing. There is
no choice of question topics.
IELTS Speaking test consists of a one-to-one interview with a specially trained examiner. The examiner
will lead the candidate through the three parts of the test:
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An introduction and interview, an individual long turn where the candidate speaks for one or two
minutes on a particular topic, and a two-way discussion thematically linked to the individual long turn.
This interview will last for approximately 11-14 minutes.
Basic Writing tips
This isn’t, in fact, my weakness. But this skill is difficult to self -study. You need to go to English center
where there are teachers who are willing to check your writing. Here are some suggestions I can thinkof, it maybe can’t help you out. But do your best, you will be fine.
1. Before writing an essay, you must know its basic structure.
2. Do task 2 first, because it is worth more mark and easier
3. Don’t waste too much time on Task 1. Learn all specific writing structure for each type of task 1. In the
real test, you just have to apply that structure with new data and suitable verb tenses. Read sample
essays and take note good structure to have a wide range of academic structures for task 1. Some
structure might be used in task 2 as well.
4. You must complete both tasks. I don’t care how difficult the test is, I don’t care how little time you
got. You MUST complete your test at any cost. If you don’t, you will be penalized very heavily.
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5. Again, practice writing. Do both 2 tasks in one hour. You can focus only on task 1 or task 2, but before
the test, you should practice writing both tasks to familiar with time limit.
6. Practice makes perfect. In writing, this statement is completely true. But it is better if there is
someone to check writing for you and you can learn from your mistakes.
7. Writing requires wide academic vocabulary. You also have to buy a vocabulary book to work on and
enrich your vocabulary.
8. Avoid all informal ways of writing. There are some rules of writing you should follow. For example: no
abbreviations, no 1st and 2nd pronoun or possessive (I, you, me, my, your), except in conclusion where
you have to state your opinion.
9. Each body paragraph has to include: topic sentence, supporting sentences (2-3 sentences),
development sentences (evidence: example, experience, data). In many languages (English included),
there are many ways to develop a body paragraph, which results that topic sentence is not the first
sentence. But you are advised to put topic sentence at the beginning of each body paragraph. Don’t be
creative in this case.
That is all I can think of. I hope you will be lucky in your exam and what I wrote will help you in one way
or another. But REMEMBER, to reach success, you MUST make an effort. You should have a clear
motivation and a strong will to overcome difficulties. When I did practice tests, I was exhausted. But no
success comes easily. Practice is the only way to gain success. Don’t just wait for lucky break, it will
never come if you don’t know how to grab it.
THE ANSWERS ARE OFTEN STRESSED AND REPEATED
If you listen carefully to the practice tape, you will notice that important information, which includes
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the answers, is almost always stressed and quite often repeated two or even three times. This
surprises many candidates when they know the answer and listen again to the tape.
• Look at Question 9 in Listening Test One:
Destination: (9)
Tapescript: George: Well, yes, I live in France now, but I was born in Switzerland.
Clerk: Swiss. Very good. Flight number: FA-492. Destination is ...
George: ... Paris.
Clerk: Are you connecting with any other flight in Paris, or will you
be staying there?
George: No, I'm spending my vacation in Paris. Well, Sevres, just
outside Paris.
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The answer "Paris" is mentioned 4 times (in bold) and is stressed once (bold and underlined).
Guidelines for a good answer
Does the report have a suitable structure?
¨ Does it have an introduction, body and conclusion?
¨ Does it include connective words to make the writing cohesive within
sentences and paragraphs?
Does the report use suitable grammar and vocabulary?
¨ Does it include a variety of sentence structures?
¨ Does it include a range of appropriate vocabulary?
Does the report meet the requirements of the task?
¨ Does it meet the word limit requirements?
¨ Does it describe the whole graph adequately?
¨ Does it focus on the important trends presented in the graphic
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information?
Report Writing
Describing the graph in detail
The body of the report will describe the graph or graphs in detail. You will
need to decide on the most clear and logical order to present the material.
Line graphs generally present information in chronological order and so
the most logical order for you to write up the information would, most
probably be from earliest to latest. Bar graphs, pie charts are organised in
different ways and so you need to decide on the organisation of each one.
Concluding sentences
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Your report may end with one or two sentences which summarise your
report to draw a relevant conclusion.
Grammar and vocabulary
Avoiding repetition
You will receive a higher mark if your writing uses a range of structures
and vocabulary correctly rather than a limited number. For example, the
candidate who writes:
The number of cases of X disease started at 50 in 1965 and
then went up to 200 in 1970 and then went up to 500 in 1980
and then went down to zero in 1990.
will lose marks for being repetitive. You should therefore practise writing
reports using a wide variety of terms to describe the different movements
in the graphs and different structures to vary your writing.
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Describing trends
Trends are changes or movements. These changes are normally
expressed in numeric items, for example, population, production volumes
or unemployment. There are four basic trends
Expressing movement: nouns and verbs
For each trend there are a number of verbs and nouns to express the
movement. We can use a verb of change, for example:
Unemployment levels fell
Or we can use a related noun, for example:
There was a fall in unemployment levels
Verbs
Nouns
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Rose (to)
Increased (to)
Went up (to)
Climbed (to)
Boomed
A rise
An increase
Growth
An upward
trend
A boom (a
dramatic rise)
Fell (to)
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Declined (to)
Decreased (to)
Dipped (to)
Dropped (to)
Went down (to)
Slumped (to)
Reduced (to)
A decrease
A decline
A fall
A drop
A slump (a
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dramatic fall)
A reduction
Levelled out (at)
Did not change
Remained stable (at)
Remained steady (at)
Stayed constant (at)
Maintained the same level
A levelling out
No change
Fluctuated (around)
Peaked (at)
Plateaued (at)
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Stood at (we use this phrase to
focus on a particular point,
before we mention the
movement, for example:
In the first year, unemployment
stood at … )
A fluctuation
Reached a
peak (of)
Reached at
plateau (at)
Describing the movement: adjectives and adverbs
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Sometimes we need to give more information about a trend as follows:
There has been a slight increase in the value of the dollar
(degree of change)
Unemployment fell rapidly last year (the speed of change)
Remember that we modify a noun with an adjective (a slight increase)
and a verb with an adverb (to increase slightly).
Describing the degree of change
Adjectives
Adverbs
dramatic
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dramatically
sharp
sharply
huge
enormous
enormously
steep
steeply
substantial
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substantially
considerable
considerably
significant
significantly
marked
markedly
moderate
moderately
slight
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slightly
small
minimal
minimally
Describing the speed of change
Adjectives
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Adverbs
rapid
rapidly
quick
quickly
swift
swiftly
sudden
suddenly
steady
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steadily
gradual
gradually
slow
slowly
Expressing approximation
We use words to express approximation when the point we are trying to
describe is between milestones on the graph.
just under just over
well under well over
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roughly nearly
approximately around
about
Comparing and contrasting
One syllable
Adjectives with one syllable form their comparatives and superlatives like
this:
cheap cheaper cheapest
large larger largest
bright brighter brightest
Exceptions:
Good better best
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bad worse worst
Two syllables
Some adjectives with two syllables form their comparatives and
superlatives like this:
pretty prettier prettiest
happy happier happiest
But many form their comparatives and superlatives like this:
striking more striking most striking
Although some can form their comparatives and superlatives like this:
Common more common most common
Clever more clever / cleverer most clever /
cleverest
Three or more syllables
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All adjectives with three or more syllables form their comparatives and
superlatives like this:
attractive more attractive most attractive
profitable more profitable most profitable
expensive more expensive most expensive
Dont’s In IELTS writing task
1. Using informal English in the IELTS Writing tasks.
Informal English is OK for your Speaking test – it is not OK for your Writing test. Even though not every
informal word gets penalized, the more formal your style is, the better your score will be. To
demonstrate the difference, informal expression “loads of / tons of” should be replaced with “many” or
“much”; “fed up with” should be replaced with “lost his patience”, etc.
2. Using contractions.
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Contractions are “it’s” instead of “it is”, “I’ve” instead of “I have”, “we’re” instead of “we are” (th ese are
only a few examples). Contractions are a bad, bad thing to use in your essay, they don’t save you much
time and can cost you marks. Do me a favor and forget about contractions in your IELTS writing. Write
“should not” instead of “shouldn’t”, “could not” instead of “couldn’t”, “would not” instead of
“wouldn’t”. You get the idea.
3. Using slang.
You can use slang any time talking to your friends, but this is the only place where it belongs, in a
conversation between friends. Keep it out of your IELTS essays, letters or reports. You can’t write
“dunno” instead of “don’t know”, “wanna” instead of “want to” or “gonna” instead of “going to”.
4. SMS-like spelling.
We all are typing SMS messages, chatting on Skype and the like, and there is a bunch of shorter ways to
write longer words. We type “u” instead of “you”, “c” instead of “see”, “IMHO” instead of “in my
humble opinion”. None of these can appear in your IELTS work, unless you are specifically trying to mess
up and get a lower score than you deserve. You need to write the full word and spell it correctly, period.
How to get ideas for IELTS essay
Some times it is hard to find ideas for essay specially when you feel you don’t know anything about the
topic .
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So here’s something which can solve your problem.
Work on your vocabulary and learn new words, to make sure you will be able to understand the topic or
at least take a very good guess.
Read as many IELTS essays as you can. You can find many sample essays here.We have almost 400
essays written by students . Reading other people’s essays helps with the ideas, if you don’t have any of
your own – “borrow” from others.
Read as much IELTS essay topics, as possible. You can find essay topics in every post in Recent exams
category. Why do it? Simply because sometimes the topics repeat in future exams
Important! Don’t try to memorize essays. IELTS examiners are trained to look for memorized essays and
they will disqualify your work on the spot
What is IELTS writing task 2
I said this many times and I will repeat it again – “to write good IELTS essay, you need to get into your
examiner’s head”. You’ve go to understand what makes you gain or lose marks, because once you do –
you can’t go wrong. What I am about to reveal here can be found in IELTS official site, but I am
explaining it in simple English.
This is how they grade your essay: you receive points for Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion,
Lexical Resource,Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Looks heavy? Never mind, here comes the simple
English version:
“Task Response” means that your essay shows that you understood and covered the topic from all its
sides, aspects, etc. Let’s take this topic for example – “Internet: connecting or isolating people?”. Those
who chose to write about how Internet connects people – loose marks, those who chose to write about
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how Internet isolates people – loose marks, those who compare and contrast both sides of the Internet
and give arguments for and against – gain marks.
“Coherence and Cohesion” means how well you connected the paragraphs and sentences inside each
paragraph. You see, all of your paragraphs need to be logically connected. For example, if paragraph 1
explains the advantages of the Internet, and paragraph 2 explains its disadvantages, then paragraph 1
should have last sentence saying something like this: “In spite of Internet being such a help in
communication, its drawbacks can not be overlooked”. This sentence creates the connection between
1st and 2nd paragraphs. If it wasn’t there, examiner could think that you jumped from advantages to
disadvantages without a reason. The same rule applies to sentences inside the paragraph. Every
sentence should lead to the next one.
“Lexical Resource” means vocabulary and different types of sentences, simple and complex. You should
be able to use words and their synonyms.
“Grammatical Range and Accuracy” means spelling and grammar of sentences. You should be able to
spell the words correctly, do not forget articles “a” and “the”, punctuations is also important, etc – you
get the picture, don’t you?
One more important thing to know: the four criteria are equally weighted. It means that if you forgot
about “Coherence and Cohesion” in your essay, you will loose 1/4 of your essay points.
Speaking tips
Speaking is a weakness of analytic learners (who learn English from books and tapes). Moreover, in
countries where English is not a first language, improving your speaking in English is really difficult.
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Therefore, I don’t have much experience in practicing speaking. Here are some tips that I got from my
teachers and some suggestions that I think they might be helpful for you.
Pronunciation is the most important feature in speaking. If you speak correctly, academically and
interestingly, but no one understands what you are talking about, you certainly lose your points.
One of my teachers, who is fluent in 5 languages, shares his experience that pronunciation is the key of
learning a language. It might be true since native English speakers can pronounce a unfamiliar word
correctly but don’t know how to spell it. Because English is a combination of many languages, there are
no totally general rules for pronunciation. As a result, you must remember everything.
So how to pronounce the words correctly?
- Firstly, listen and learn what native English speaker said. As I mentioned, listening can help you in
speaking. You can correct yourself in basic words if you listen a lot. Moreover, listening can also help you
to learn how to stress important words, how to speak naturally and even how to organize your speech.
- Secondly, if you learn a new word, you must know how to pronounce it first. Typically, when people
want to learn new words, they revise these words again and again, and write it down so many times. Butnow, to improve your speaking and listening, you must hear electronic dictionary pronouncing and
repeat after it again and again.
- Thirdly, make sentences with new vocabulary. Everybody might know how to pronounce words
correctly, but when they combine them all together, they cannot pronounce correctly anymore, or even
if they do, their sentence may sound unnatural. The reason is they lack of intonation. Listening might
solve this problem.
- Fourthly, practice pronunciation every week (3-4 times a week) by reading out loud a short passage. At
first, you practice to pronounce all the words in that passage correctly. Then read the whole passage
slowly and correctly (pay attention to ending sound).
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Afterward, increase reading speed in each sentence (’read’ here means you must speak out the words,
not read in your mind). If you speak quickly but start to pronounce wrongly, that means you reach your
limit, don’t speak faster than that. And finally, you read the whole passage again at normal speed, or
may be a bit faster than normal a little bit, but you MUST include intonation.
To find material for practicing this exercise, you can visit this website:
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com. There are hundreds of short news and audio files spoken by a
native speaker. I guarantee if you practice this kind of exercise gradually, you pronunciation will improve
a lot. (Note: this is the exercise of my teacher, who speaks 5 languages, as I mentioned before)
Now, to prepare for IELTS Speaking test, you should practice some more exercises:
- Pick a topic and stand in front of mirror to practice speaking test. You should go through all three parts
of the real speaking test. Standing in front of mirror will help you improve your body language and also
your pronunciation. You might find it strange that mirror can correct your pronunciation. In fact, there
are some vowels and consonants that you can’t pronounce correctly if you don’t know how to do that
(not just simply remember the pronunciation).
- Try to speak naturally. You are advised to speak fast with intonation (the previous reading exercise will
certainly help you). You should learn and apply some verb phrases, idioms and slang expressions. This is
not the key part of speaking test, but it is better if you know, not only for your test but also for you
speaking skill. If you want to get 7.0, you must master pronunciation, accuracy and intonation.
Important tip #1
When you practice in speaking, you must pay attention to the ending sound. But when you take the realtest, don’t do that, because it will affect your fluency. In the real test, it is the time you show examiner
what you got, not the time you can show them how good you can correct yourself. Using experience you
gained from practicing to prove your speaking skill.
Important tip #2
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Another wonderful way to practice speaking is to speak English in your dream. If you never do that, you
do it now. I have already spoken English in my dreams even before my teacher advice me to do so. I just
watch cartoons in English, films in English and listen to songs in English. As a result, I naturally dream in
English. Actually, I can control my dreams, lol, it is very interesting, try to do that. By doing that, I can
think quickly in my mind, but I still have problems when speaking my ideas out. So, you must do 2
previous exercises in order to improve speaking.