Hi Friends! In this video, we're gonna talk about how you can prepare for the Duolingo
English Test in just 30 days, I'm going to give you seven useful tips or strategies to help you
prepare quickly for this exam. So if you're taking the exam soon, this video is gonna be very helpful
for you. We will jump into tip number one in just a second. But I want to say if you're new to this
channel, Hi, I'm Teacher Luke from DETREADY.COM. Our website has lots of tools and information to
help you prepare for the tuning go English test. So if you need to study more, I recommend visiting
our website, there is a link below in the description. And tip number one then is to learn
the structure of the test. So the first thing you should do if you only have 30 days to prepare for
the exam is to learn the structure of the test. Because the Duolingo English test is a bit
different than the other exams like the TOEFL or IELTS, it's different in a few key ways. Firstly,
it's a mixed skills test. So all of the questions are in one section. They are not separated by
skills like on the IELTS and TOEFL Next, there are 10 different question types on the test, which are
graded, and two, which are ungraded. And another key point you should know is that the Duolingo
test is an adaptive test, which means that the questions are tailored to your level as you go
through the test. So for example, if you keep doing well, then the questions will get harder and
harder. So that's important to know, if you notice that your questions are getting more and more
difficult, then maybe that's a good thing. Maybe you're doing well on the test. The next thing you
should do if you only have 30 days is to learn some methods. Now for some of the different
questions on this exam, there's not really a method or a strategy you can use to improve your
score, like on the vocabulary ones, you either know the answer, or you don't. So the best thing
to do is just to improve your English or in this case, improve your vocabulary. But for some of the
other questions, there is a method or strategy you can use which can help you to do better on those
questions. And if you only have 30 days to prepare, I recommend you practice these methods.
Let me give you an example. Here we'll talk about a simple structure or method you can use for
writing about a photo. For this question type you have one minute to describe the photo in at least
one sentence, but I recommend you try to write more than one sentence. So here's a simple
structure you can memorize sentence number one, you give a general overview of the photograph. For
example, this picture shows two young women holding hands in a green field. Sentence two, you
can talk about who is doing what or what is where you can go into more detail here. A woman on the
right is taking a photo with her camera and laughing loudly. And sentence three, if you have
enough time, you can speculate something like they must be best friends.
As you can see here, learning a method or a structure for answering this type of question will
be greatly beneficial on the exam because you will know how to structure your answer even before
you've seen the photograph, then you can concentrate solely on what is in the photo
practice every day. So the point here is that you want to be able to apply the methods I've just
taught you into your answers easily and quickly. When you take the test, you don't want to be using
a method for the first time. Instead, you want to have already done it hundreds of times, so you
know how to do it exactly. This will save you valuable minutes when you take the exam. So how
can you practice? Well, there are two ways on the Duolingo English test, you can take an official
practice test, which gives you a score at the end. That's great. Another way to practice is to use
the practice platform I've made on my website. Here you can practice all of different question
types lots and lots of times, and you can check your answers immediately. I think this is probably
when the best way to prepare for this exam. There is a free and a paid version, you can find a link
to it below in the description. Tip number four is to understand the scoring criteria. So this tip is
really important for the speaking and writing questions. So the production sub score. If you
want to get a good score in production, I highly recommend you look at this scoring criteria. So
let's take a look together. So this is the scoring criteria for the speaking of writing questions.
Like I mentioned, the first two are all about grammar point three and four are about your
vocabulary. Point five is about task relevance. So the quality of your answer six is your fluency in
writing and speaking. And number seven is about your pronunciation. This of course is only for the
speaking questions. So understanding the criteria here is really important because now you know what
you need to do to get a good score. Let's take a look at those first two points. Again, the ones
about grammar is talking about grammatical accuracy. So how correct is your grammar and the
grammatical complexity? Do you use a range of simple and complex sentences? So you're watching
this video in English so I can assume that your English is pretty good. So your simple sentences
are probably great, but I see a lot of students making mistakes or completely avoiding complex
sentences. But if you want to get a good score, you need to use them well. So let me show you some
quick examples here.
So what is a complex sentence? Well, a complex sentence is basically linking two ideas or two
simple sentences together. When making a complex sentence, you want to use one of these
subordinating conjunctions. That's a fancy word for these words here on the screen. Basically,
they link ideas together. So for example, let's say you have these two ideas. Many students like
playing sports, other students prefer making art. Now these are two simple sentences, but you want
to make him complex. So you would use one of these subordinating conjunctions. These two simple ideas
show a contrast. And these subordinating conjunctions are used to show contrast, we need to
use one of these subordinating clauses to link these ideas together. Although many students like
playing sports, other students prefer making art. The subordinating conjunction is although, and it
shows a contrast between my two ideas. Notice here I did use a comma. So when you're using a
subordinating conjunction at the start of your sentence, you need to use a comma before your
second idea. You could also put this subordinating conjunction in the middle of the sentence like
this, many students like playing sports, whereas other students prefer making art. If you put this
subordinating conjunction in the middle of the sentence, you do not need to use a comma. So
that's what a complex sentences you basically link two ideas together using a subordinating
conjunction. There are other types of complex sentences as well, such as compound sentences.
I've made videos on that in the past, go and check my old YouTube videos, but for today, you need to
remember that you need to include at least one of these in each of your speaking and writing answers
if you want to get a good score in production. So if you only have 30 days to prepare for this exam,
I recommend you study this carefully. Tip number five is to improve your vocabulary. Of course,
improving your vocabulary is so important to improve your English and get a good test score.
But it's especially important for the Duolingo test because the Duolingo exam has two question
types, specifically related to vocabulary. We have the read and select and then the listen and select
these question types test your vocabulary directly, which is unlike the other exams like the
IELTS and TOEFL. So for the Duolingo English test, you need to learn new vocabulary you need to learn
how they are spelt and how they are pronounced. Of course, learning the pronunciation will help you
with the listen and select question. So how can you learn new words easily? Well, unfortunately,
there's not really a simple solution to this. Reading is probably the best way and taking notes
of any new word. You see, after you've written it down in your notepads go on to an online
dictionary and listen to how it's pronounced that will help you improve your listening and your
speaking another way is to test yourself by using Word Lists. The Oxford Learner's Dictionary has
lots of word lists you can use at different levels to test yourself. So just go through each one and
see how many you know at each level. Again, this can be found at Oxford learner's dictionary.com
It's a fantastic resource to improve your vocabulary. Next tip is to improve your typing
speed. Now on the Duolingo English test, you do have to type quite quickly for the writing
questions for the describe a photo one, you only have one minute to write at least one sentence,
but you should at least write two in my opinion. And then in the other writing question, you have
to write at least 50 words in five minutes. But again, you should try to write more. So if you're
quite slow at typing, then this could hurt your potential to get a good score. Because you can't
write enough a great website I use a lot to improve my typing speed is called 10. fast fingers
calm on this website, you can improve your typing speed by competing with yourself or against others
by typing out all of the words that they give you. It's a fun way to improve your typing speed. And
the last tip is to know the score you need to get not every university or institution want the same
score. So it's important to know what score you're aiming for before you take the exam. You can find
this by going to the Duolingo test website. When you go to the Duolingo test website, click on
institutions who accepts the test. And here you can type the name of your university. For example,
if you want to go to Warwick University in the United Kingdom, click on the link and then you can
see the requirements you need to get into this university. So an overall score of 115 with no
less than 90 in each of the sub scores. So those were seven tips to help you study. I recommend you
now watch this video here to practice all the questions and see some sample answers. I hope this
was helpful. Thank you very much and see you soon. Bye