IELTS Secrets - Tips from IELTS EX-Examiner

Today I'm going to share with you some IELTS secrets which you probably don't know but you should because they affect your score. I learned them from someone who used to be an IELTS ex- examiner already. Let's get started.

Writing

1. Let's begin with IELTS writing as you may know. There is a requirement to write more than 150 words in task 1 and more than 250 words in task 2 and if you fail to do that your task achievement or task response scores will go down. You'll be penalized. In reality IELTS examiner's don't count words anymore. It saves them a lot of time and it doesn't matter if your essay is hundreds of 147 words or 152 words. Which expressive sense but if your essays are short you won't be able to fully answer the questions so your task achievement or task response course will not be high anyway. To be honest that's a piece of information about the paper-based exam and I'm not sure how they treat computer-based answers where words are counted automatically.

2. Now the little tip is your task 1 and task 2 answers are graded by different people. It means it's okay to repeat different phrases and expressions from the first answer to the second. 

3. If it were ever to happen the next bit of information is really important when you are writing your answers. You should really concentrate on developing ideas in your body paragraphs. It means your introduction is less important and you should write it quickly usually. When I write an introduction in my task 2 essay, I present both sides of the argument and I present my main ideas and a hint at what my opinion is. But there is a quicker way to do that you can write what I call a simple ceases it's simple because it doesn't mention your ideas. It just gives this generic statement.

For example, if you have a question like if the advance vaccinations outweigh the disadvantages you could write despite certain risks associated with vaccination. Here, I am convinced that its benefits are far more significant so, in the introduction. I haven't mentioned any single idea I'm gonna use in my body paragraphs. 

4. But that's alright you should also know that irrelevant ideas and details hurt your score. What are irrelevant ideas? When you write something it doesn't help you to answer the question. Each sentence in your essay should contribute to answering the question and if it doesn't it shouldn't be in your essay at all. Because it's only not helpful. It's actually harmful and what are irrelevant details we can often find them in examples: 

• Let's say you're writing an essay about teenagers playing computer games and you need to say if it's a positive or a negative development and you say teenagers spend a significant amount of that time playing computer games such as counter-strike, mafia civilization or whatever they play today I haven't played in years myself in any case names, of things are irrelevant because it doesn't matter what they play right. So you shouldn't mention them at all. It does help to make your essay longer but because those details are irrelevant. So, they are going to hurt your score. They're not going to help you 

• When you quote some research don't say professor Peterson from the University of Oxford has discovered because all that is irrelevant. You can simply say research shows or just say whatever you want to say without mentioning that it's someone's research at all.

5. Next, each sentence should give new information. Try not to repeat yourself.  Don't say the same thing in the introduction and in the body paragraph and then in the conclusion. I don't mean you need to change your opinion should be the same throughout your essay but you need to present it in different ways. And also you shouldn't say the same thing several times inside your body paragraph. It's actually very easy to do.

Let's say, traveling by train is faster than traveling by car, trailer trains travel at a higher speed and make fewer stops as such those taking a train arrive at their destination more quickly than those driving a car well. Basically, all three sentences say the same thing. So you should put it all into one and you may need to learn how to develop ideas in your body paragraphs.

There are many common myths for IELTS writing. You should check here. These going to really help you. And I will write a separate article on How to develop ideas in your body paragraph very soon.

Listening

Let's talk about the IELTS listening. Well, students often ask if you need to capitalize any letters in IELTS listening answers or if you can write down your answers in capital letters in listening. The answer is yes. 

• Basically in every IELTS listening test, you need to write down the name of something, a name of a street, the name of a person. Those are proper nouns. It means you need to capitalize the first letter. If you don't do that. It's a mistake. In IELTS listening, it's acceptable to write down all your answers in capital letters.

• Those questions with missing words when you have the sentence and you need to write down one or two or three words that are missing. Once you find those words and the sentence should become grammatically correct. There it's really easy to make a mistake. Let's say your noun is singular but it should be plural or you've missed an article so read the sentence info and check if it's correct or not. 

Speaking

1. I have some really good speaking tips for IELTS. First of all, it's an informal exam. It means you can speak informally which is a great thing. Because when you're formal, it's more difficult to find what to say.
2. However, you never run out of things to say to your friend right. So the talkative be chatty. Don't try to be smart and I often get asked.
3. Can I use phrasal verbs or idioms or slang in your speaking exam? The answer is yes to all of them.
4. Speaking verbs are very common in spoken English. So you should totally use them with idioms. It's absolutely fine to use them but your idioms should sound natural so if you just stick something which is completely out of context. It's not going to help you but if you can think of an idiom which would be really good to say. Like, feel free to do that.
5. You can even use slang in your exam if it's natural to you but don't use too much. 
6. Another thing is being expressive show emotions use, use gestures. Just communicate like you do in real life. Of course, your smile or you're gesturing it's not gonna bring you a higher score automatically. But the core is to show the examiner that you can communicate in English naturally that you can express yourself in English. If you use all that it feels like it's easy for you to speak.
7. Imagine if someone says I was really surprised to learn about it. That's not natural and it feels like someone is struggling speaking English. But if you say as you can imagine. I was really surprised to learn about it. I didn't say it any more quickly but just because of the way I said: it feels much more natural and just like I'm talking English. So use it to get a higher score in IELTS.
8. Speaking part 2: You'll be given a card with the question and several sub-questions. So, it's really important to read this main question carefully. Answer it as directly as you can. Let's say the question is to tell me about a motivational book you've read recently. So you should tell about only books. Neither magazine nor newspaper.
9. Answer this question what about sub-questions well those would be something like what book was it when did you read it. Why did you enjoy reading it? Things like that and you can completely disregard them those sub-questions.
10. Bullet points are just there to help you develop your answer and speak for two minutes but you can speak on your own. And if you don't want to follow them, don't.

This is the end of  IELTS Secrets article. Thank You for reading. I hope it will really help you.

Do not make an excuse that you don't have a partner to practice IELTS speaking. If you really want to crack IELTS. You must to it yourself. I have written down an article How you can practice IELTS speaking without partner Click Here.   If you like this article please comment below and share this article who really needs this.