So here is the exam that i got and some tips to do better. Date: 17th December 2016
Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Speaking:
Examiner: British guy in his late 50’s.
Part 1:
1: Describe the place where you live.
2: Is public transport near to the place where you live.
3: Do you want to live in the same place in the future
4: Do you sing
5: Do people in your country like to sing
6: What kind of music do you like to listen to
7: Another question that i totally forgot – sorry
Part 2:
Describe an app that you recently downloaded on your phone or computer
Later – Question asked: Does your friends use that app very often ?
Part 3
1: Do you think children are spending more time on their phones and should be supervised by parents.
2: Technology is changing and updating itself very rapidly. What you think are the negatives of this trend on people and society.
3: I totally forgot what was the third question
Overall View on Speaking:
1: My exams seemed shorter to me than i had expected especially that the examiner only asked me 3 questions in part 3.
2: He did not cut me at any given time so that was good.
3: The examiner was very friendly and was interactive during the exam which made it a whole lot easier.
But when exam is easy, most of us are dumb enough to mess up. So here are the mistakes i made:
1: The speaking exam is not an interview. Giving them correct, straight and logical answers does not give you any edge and that is what i did. You have to expand each answer in a way that it showcases new vocabulary, sentence formation and language. If you give straight answers then you hardly have anything else to say other than the answer you just gave which in most cases is not enough to impress the examiner. Although i gave all the right answers, to the point but i could have expanded them, added some extra information to showcase my skills.
2: Do not stress for impressing the examiner. I did that and inspite of having the most friendliest examiner, i feel i lacked in many questions. Although my fluency was the best but other areas suffered, especially lexical resource.
3: Always speak at a moderate speed so that you can think and talk at the same time. Speaking quickly might reward you in fluency section but you would get lower score in other criteria.
4: Walk in there, have a smile, listen to the question carefully, speak at moderate pace and keep track of your language. I repeated words and i regret it a lot.
Writing:
Section 1:
There was a table divided into male and females. Each gender further divided into Underweight, Normal weight and over weight against three years, 1999, 2004 and 2009.
The question said that these are the weight changes among men and women in some country.
Feedback:
1: I spent 33 minutes to complete it because i am an idiot but i did well on it.
2: Just listen to Atul lessons on Task 1 and study all his model answers very carefully for each type of question such as Bar Chart, Pie Chart etc. Take note of the language and how he chose and ignored parts of information while reporting. It helped me write a master piece according to me.
3: I read a lot of comments here on this Blog where people ask the same question again and again, saying that their own personnel teacher said something else. Guys, you can only follow one tutor at a time. I would say follow Atul as this made alot of difference in my prep.
Section 2:
Today our society has changed into a “Throwaway society” where people use thing little time and throw them away. what are the causes of this and what are its effects.
Feedback
1: Pretty straight forward question. Not an opinion question. Here i would strongly recommend everyone to buy Atul's Ultra Course as they helped me totally change my approach to writing section 2. Its worth every penny, trust me.
2: Although i only had 25 minutes left when i started this question, i had watched and studied Atul’s lessons so well that i could nail a really good piece and still finish a minute before the time finished. I even used an extra sheet to write more.
Listening was very easy and i will probably easily score a 9 on it. Only way you can do better is by practicing listening more and more. I did all the cambridge books and did another two books recommended by Atul for listening.
Reading was easier too. I don’t remember the first reading section but the second one was on Ice and water while the third one was language and its changes. I would definately score between 8-9 on reading. Only tip is to do as much reading as you can. I finished all the cambridge books for this part of the test. The more you do the better.
Overall tip:
Please follow this blog very closely as this is your ticket to Band 7,8,9.
Once again thank you to Atul and other people here.

 

Did you recently take the IELTS test?

Help other students by sharing your IELTS questions and topics that you got in your test in the comments below. Make sure that when you share your questions, you mention the following:

  • Type of IELTS test - Academic or General
  • Date of IELTS test
  • Location of IELTS test

Good luck to everyone preparing for the IELTS test.

For unlimited feedback with detailed corrections for speaking and writing tasks, sign up for IELTS Twenty20 Online Course today!

Study 20 minutes a day for 20 days and Ace the IELTS exam.

Tags:

©2012-2024 All prices are in USD. IELTS Online Practice is provided by Wisekangaroo Pty Ltd (ABN: 86 159 373 770)

CONTACT US

Send us an email with any questions about our courses and we'll get back to you, asap.

Sending
or

Log in with your credentials

Forgot your details?