How to prepare and pass IELTS: personal experience

Hi, Habr! I am a teacher and methodologist in EnglishDom. In this article I want to share the experience of how I passed IELTS. For those who are not familiar with this international exam, at the end of the article there will be a spoiler with a description of the objectives, structure and typical mistakes on the exam.

Initial data

• To prepare for the surrender, I spent almost 9 months.
• The level of English, which began training - Advanced / C1.

Listening

I have never had problems with the conversational part, but I tried to tighten the rest of the moments.

Listening was more difficult to quickly make notes, and right and right.
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For practice, I again took the timer and noted how long it took me to one task and to mark it together with checking the recorded one. It is very important to learn to make notes for yourself briefly and briefly, a maximum of 1-3 words per answer.

At first my attempts were terrible - a bunch of incomprehensible notes, more words than necessary. Therefore, I selected to listen to audio recordings for at least 15 minutes a day and tried to work out a system of abbreviations for myself, in order to mark the whole word with an icon or a number. This helped to spend significantly less time on recordings. You can also pre-mark the right word in a sentence or question in order to quickly find an answer - after all, time is always given to become familiar with the questions.

The result - 8 points for this part. It's a shame, but in a hurry I could not recognize some of my marks correctly and decided not to transfer them to the answer form.

Reading

I had to remember what we were taught in the university at the philological department - introductory reading. It is important to be able to “scan” the text, without going into every detail, and also not trying to translate all unfamiliar words. This will necessarily lead to a loss of time, but there may be no question about this word or phrase. And the text itself can be very boring and difficult.

That is why I began to read a wide variety of articles in English - from the technical details of launching a new rocket to new discoveries in medicine, biology, etc.

With the help of a timer, I started doing exercises from a test book (once or twice a week). Allocated up to 20 minutes to work with one text (you never know which one will be easier or more difficult, so it is better to make sure right away) to spend up to 60 minutes for three texts.

The hardest thing was to do the assignments on Yes / No / Not Given - it was necessary to analyze the meaning of each question and figure out whether there is a clear answer in the text.

During the exam, I came across a legend about Beowulf, an article about platelets and a nice light text about Guy Fawkes. The second text took me the most time, because medicine had never been so interesting for me to constantly read only texts about it.
Received 8 points for this section (more attention was paid to the most difficult text).

Writing

The writing part for me has always been a difficult task, especially an essay. The first part, where you need to write a letter or message to a friend \ in social services or something similar, turned out to be simple. It is important here not to forget about the polite treatment at the beginning and end of the letter (he wrote to a friend about a holiday in a terrible hotel, where there was bad staff and food).

But on the essay had to spend more effort, especially in sections "for" and "against." It was necessary to write the correct entry and conclusion. Therefore, I wrote down to myself as much as possible the phrases for the introduction, the division of the text into sub-paragraphs and arguments, the conclusion and the expression of a point of view. Then he printed everything out and hung it around the house to stumble upon them from time to time, besides those days when I wrote an essay.

For me, it was a great discovery to write a plan for an essay, because this is almost 50% of the entire work. Two times a week I wrote texts of this kind, choosing controversial topics (Capital Punishment and the like of this) so that you can give negative and positive arguments.

My recipe was simple:

• make a plan for an essay;
• write key phrases and words;
• use introductory phrases and structure in 5 paragraphs.

This will help to spend no more than 30–35 minutes on writing, so that there will be 5 more minutes to re-write.

At the exam I got 8 points because of the topic for the essay (Animal research) and marks when writing - in some places the text was blurred, and the examiner probably could not understand the main idea of ​​my second paragraph. I advise you to write in pencil, if there is such an opportunity - then it is easier to correct marks.

Speaking

I passed the last part of the exam in a week and was calm for it. I prepared and memorized a story about myself, my interests. Then he repeated various topics for discussion and phrases that would replace Yes / No - I believe or I don't think and so on.

On the exam, after telling about myself, I got the topic “Types of transport and which of them are more popular in our country”, and then we suddenly switched to the third part, where I even had to stop at my talk about the future of electric cars. As a result, I received 8.5 points for Speaking. And the total score was 8 points.

general information

IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is a standardized English test. The received certificate is valid for 2 years from the date of receipt.

What is possible thanks to the IELTS certificate:

• To live and study abroad.
• Participate in international internship programs.
• The rating system is from 0.0 to 9.0, in increments of 0.5 (the score can be either whole, for example, 5.0, or half 5.5).
• The concept of a passing score is different for different countries, but, as a rule, the average grade below 4-4.5 is impassable for most countries and universities.
• It usually takes up to 2 working weeks to get results.
• This exam is more interesting for those who study the British version of English, but the certificate may be suitable for American / Canadian universities.
• The exam will need to communicate with a living person - a native speaker.
• There are two types of exam - Academic (more complex, but gives the opportunity to study in foreign universities) and General (more simple, gives the opportunity to live and work in an English-speaking country).
• In order to understand exactly what type of exam you need, it is better to consult the university / organization where you plan to study / work.
• It is safe to say that IELTS Academic is more difficult, so if you prepare for it, and not for IELTS General, you will be prepared for both options at once.

Exam structure

First the written part is rented, then the oral part with a break of up to 7 days between them).

Listening

• 40 minutes (30 minutes listening and questions, 10 minutes to write everything in the form) - only 4 parts.
• In each part there is a small pause for familiarization with questions, then audio and a couple of minutes for reconciliation.
• 40 questions (one answer - one point).
• Questions are as follows: choosing the right answer from the options, choosing two or more answers from the list, filling in the gaps and marks, sticking to a certain number of words.

The audio recordings themselves become more complicated with each next recording, which will sound only once, so you should first answer clear questions and go back to difficult ones later if you have time.

Reading

• 3 parts, 60 minutes (20 minutes for each part).
• Texts gradually become more complicated: the first is the easiest, the third is the most complex.
• 40 questions (enter the correct answer in the pass, a choice of several options (Multiple Choice), questions with statements that must be answered with Yes / No / Not Given or True / False / Not Given).

It is better to first perform more understandable tasks and leave time for complex or incomprehensible at the end.

Writing

• 2 parts and 60 minutes.
• The first part - 150 words on the topic (a letter to a friend or a request to the company).
• The second part is an essay of 250 or more words on a specific topic.
• Both written works are evaluated independently. The grade for the first part is 1/3 of the final grade, for the second the remaining two thirds. It is very important to remember this and not spend more than 20 minutes on the first part (ideally, not more than 15).

It is very important to keep the essay structure correct and not to forget about the pros and cons. To do this, you need to plan about 5 paragraphs and also invest in 40 minutes in planning and writing an essay, so you need to practice drawing up plans and sketches of key phrases for essays that will help you remember the right arguments.

Speaking

• 3 parts and 15 minutes for: acquaintance, dialogue on simple topics and three leading questions (a minute to prepare a small monologue).
• The questions in the third part may be similar in scope to the task of the second part, but here there are more general points that need to be answered in more detail (at least 3 sentences for each question).

When to start preparing

• Approximate calculations - from zero to the IELTS 7.5 exam, you need 1000–1200 class hours with a teacher. Hours of self-study, training, assignments, etc. need to add to this figure.
• In practice, most of the students who wanted to pass one of the exams spent at least a year with a Upper-Intermediate level and about 2-2.5 years, having an Intermediate level first. In both cases, students spent 2–3 hours on classes with a teacher and about 3-4 hours on homework on their own per week.
• It is important to understand that you will be able to use the certificate when taking the exam for at least the next 18 months, otherwise you will have to spend money on passing the test itself again.

Common mistakes and recommendations

• An attempt to take an exam with a lower level of language, based only on online tests or other insufficiently reliable sources.
• Passing the exam without plans to use it in the next 2 years. If this does not happen, you just lose your money and time to retake.
• More answers than the task requires.
• In the task, where you need to "give one answer" or "answer in three words," they withdraw points for more or fewer words, and this leads to a loss of points.
• If you lose track of time, no one will tell you when to finish one task and start the next.
• Looping on incomprehensible moments - you need to move to simpler or understandable questions, and then return to difficult, if there is time.
• Too detailed and detailed reading and an attempt to translate all the words from the text. It is better to tag key phrases and words to make it easier to find the answer.
• Not checking answers is a big mistake. It is worth checking that the answers are at least written in the desired column. If the answers accidentally moved up or down a point, but were correct, the examiners will still consider all the following answers as a mistake.
• If you know that you can better talk about the benefits of smoking than sports, then you do it, and do not try to speak only the truth in the exam.
• The desire to impress the examiner may lead to the use of phrases and words that you are not sure of.
• Answers "Yes" and "No" on the oral part should not be given, because the goal of the examiner is to talk to you and also to check the vocabulary.

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