I have been recently preparing for General Test IELTS.This exam has four sections as follows:
1)Listening – 20 mins
2)Reading -1 hour
3)Writing-1 hour
4)Speaking – 11 to 15 mins
Let me explain you what are DOs and DONTs for each section.
1)Listening
What this section is really testing is whether you are able to listen to certain recording and able to answer the specific objective or 1 /3 word fill in the blank questions.The key hear is to listen with full concentration and not to miss out any word.It is also very important here not to spell answer incorrectly.For this please make sure you are able to spell all the ‘general words’ correctly .By ‘General words’ I mean name of all the months , days , address related words e.g ROAD , AVENUE,BUILDING.The list goes on. Please make sure you are able to spell all ‘Academic words’ also correctly as out of 4 tasks 2 are going to be from the academic environment sections e.g a formal university lecture or monologue from a trip guide ..So one must know correct spelling and meaning of words such as essay,assignment, dissertation,library.Please make sure you are not making any spelling mistake on your listening answer-sheet.
Following link has list of most misspelled words in English.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html
2)Reading
General Test Reading has 3 Sections. 1st section contains advertisements,short essays on which you have to answer different type of questions e.g TRUE , FALSE, NOT GIVEN , Fill in the blanks 1 0r 3 words or objective questions with 4 options . The good example of the passage in the Task 1 might be magazine main cover where different article titles may be given along with the page number and there will questions based on the page numbers.Section 2 is also the same. The last section usually starts from question # 28 to question # 40 (13 questions) it is generally the a long passage with various types of questions e.g completing the heading , for a particular given year choosing the activity from the list of activities. Objective questions with 4 options , Fill in the blanks with 1 , 2 or 3 words.I generally start the Reading section by solving last 13 questions first in initial 20 mins. But this might be very risky strategy as it is better to solve the easy questions (1 -27) first.Moral of the story , practise a lot of reading from general sources like newspaper articles , magazines and old IELTS question papers.Once you practice a lot you will come up with the strategy which best suits you.
3)Writing
This section contains 2 tasks. Task 1 is the letter and Task 2 is the argumentative or situation essay.Here also spelling and the sentence structure is important.You should be able to write complex, error free statements about any general topic.I have got 6.5 many many times in writing and I was desperately looking for 7.0 score.It is not cristal clear to me what exactly was going wrong in my essay but I could say if you are making many grammatical mistakes then better to revise grammar using some basic grammar books e.g “Wren and Martin” and to write just upto the minimum word length. For example if you are not good writer then it is in your benefit to write essay just 260 to 270 words (the essay word limit is 250 words) similarly the letter word limit is 150 so , do not ever write letter more than 170 words.There are few good sample essays and good tips at the following link:
http://www.ielts-blog.com/ielts-writing/
4) Speaking
Many think this is the easiest part and do not pay enough attention to the speaking section.The key is to record your 2 min speech on a particular topic and listen to it again and again to see what mistakes you are making.The general mistakes non-native speaker makes is to use filler like Ah, Amm,you know,i mean ..try to avoid these fillers because IETLS examiners are looking for such fillers ..Also be confident and answer questions in your natural speed of speaking….If you can use few unusual words correctly then it is generally counted as a good impression.Exam is divided into 3 sections .Section # 1 is general information about your self which contains questions as follows:
1)What is your full name ?
2) Do you work or study ?
3) What is your work ?
4) Do you like your work ?
5) Will you be doing same type of work in next 10 years ? Why ?
After this there will be section 2 which will contain topic on which you have to talk about 2 mins continuously. e.g
Describe your ideal house. Please say
- What it will look like,
- Where it will be situated,
- Who will be living there with you
It is very important to cover all the sub-question parts in your answer also you need to maintain the same sequence.For instance the sample answer to above question would be …
” I would like to talk about ideal house.I would like to construct my answer as per the points / subquestions given here.There is nothing like ideal house.What really makes home is not the cover or quality of walls. It is the feeling of unity among all the people living in that home.However , Firstly , I think my dream home would look like …..Secondly, I think it would be near the sea somewhere at the coastal side of California or Hawai…I am not sure who will be living there but I would definetly like to take my wife there and we might be having some close friends there for celebration..“
Hope you have got my point.The Section # 3 contains some general information about topic in section # 2.e.g
1) What type of housing is popular nowadays in your country ?
2)How was housing in your country 10 years before ?
3) Do you think culture has any impact on housing ? Why ?
I will post more sample essays , speaking answers in coming days.
Thanks,
Ajay
