hi everyone it's Therese with Ielts English Gurus and today we're speaking about how to get started
for the ielts exam maybe you've heard about ielts and you're thinking about doing it
but you don't know where to start then this is the perfect video for you we'll cover a four-step
strategy to get you started firstly we need to identify your level in english next we need to
speak about the format of the exam we'll talk about the resources to collect and also how to
get ready on starting your study plan we need to identify your level in english are you beginner
or elementary in english then you can do a fundamental english course to build up your level
are you intermediate in english in that case you're ready to start your ielts preparation
course and you can aim for band scores 6 6.5 or even 7. are you an advanced or proficient level
in english if that's the case you can do an advanced ielts preparation course and you
could be aiming for band scores seven eight or even nine there are three types of ielts exam
so the academic ielts prepares you to study in an english-speaking country whereas the general ielts
can prepare you for professional life or a job in a non-speaking country and then the uk vi
is an exam that people do when they prepare their visa application for the united kingdom to join
family members on a permanent basis there are four parts to the ielts exam reading writing
listening and speaking if we start with reading academic reading is 60 minutes and general reading
is also 60 minutes but in the academic you have three longer passages between 700 and 1000 words
40 questions and in general you have three to five passages and overall general is easier than the
academic in the writing exam there are two tasks so in the academic you have to describe a visual
in task one it could be a bar chart or a line graph or any type of visual and then you have
task two you need to write an essay in task one of general writing you need to write a letter formal
or informal letter and you also have to write an essay in task two the topics may be easier
in the general ielts writing task too moving on to listening it's exactly the same for the academic
or general listening and there are four sections section one you have a conversation section two
it's a monologue section three you have four speakers and section four you have a lecture
now the speaking part of ielts is also exactly the same for academic or general and it's something to
keep in mind that the speaking test often takes place on a day different to the rest of the exam
so it could be a week later or it could be a few days after the other parts of the exam
but the reading writing and listening all take place on the same day at the same center
and of course when you book your test you'll have the choice to choose between a paper-based
and a computer-based test which one is better well in the computer-based test you have headphones
in the listening this is definitely an advantage but you have less time in the
listening because in the paper-based you are given 10 extra minutes to transfer your answers
but overall i would say personally the computer-based test is better because i'm used
to using a computer and perhaps that's the same for you let's talk now about resources one of the
best books on the market today is this one right here it's the official cambridge guide to ielts
and i love this book because it covers both the general and the academic ielts at the start of the
book you have a lot of explanations that are very clear and it goes through all parts of the exam
and then you have practice tests general and academic so that's great and there's also a cd
that goes along with it in terms of other books for grammar raymond murphy's essential grammar and
use is one of the best books for grammar i mean i've been using it for decades because i've been
around for decades and it covers articles subject verb agreement all the fundamental grammar that
you need and that are often difficult for ielts students and also the cambridge ielts vocabulary
book is very good because it also prepares you for lexical resource for ielts now in terms of online
resources i highly recommend our website so that's english gurus.com we offer free articles and also
an essay correction service and i also recommend our facebook group where you can meet friends
you can get free support and also maybe find some speaking buddies to practice your speaking with
the ielts.org site is also fantastic because they have free practice tests free resources and you
can book your test online on that website so now you need to prepare your study plan and what i
often recommend is to devote 20 minutes a day to some sort of ielts practice so for example
on monday you can do reading practice on tuesday you can do your writing wednesday prepare your
speaking with the speaking buddy from our group and then maybe on thursday you could do listening
so devote 20 minutes a day to ielts preparation if you ever have any problem i'm here as your support
you can reach me on the facebook group and also on the youtube channel so please subscribe and
thank you so much for watching good luck in ielts preparation see you in our next video
bye