hi there it's Asiya
you know when I started preparing for my very first IELTS exam I was absolutely terrified
back then I lived in Kazakhstan and was dreaming about studying in the UK
now I've been living in London for 10 years
and I've lost count of how many times I've taken the IELTS exam but my score is band 8.5
and today I want to share with you five things I wish I knew when I started preparing for the very first test
because I think they can help you prepare more quickly and more easily and achieve a better score
okay let's get started
you know thinking back about my first exam I lost a lot of my preparation time on things
which didn't matter at the end so one of the key things which do matter is learning how to manage
your time effectively in the IELTS exam there is just not enough time to do everything you want
and it doesn't really matter what your English level is for me today it's definitely not enough
time in listening and writing your goal is to distribute the time you have in the best way to
answer all the questions you can answer with your current level of English so let's talk about each
section IELTS listening each recording is played only once and there are quite a lot of questions
some of them have several long options you need to choose between so there is quite a lot to read too
and it's virtually impossible to listen and read at the same time
so the goal is to read all the questions before the recording starts playing now then you know
what you're looking for if you buy Cambridge English practice test these are the official
practice test and they are just like the real exam so you will hear how the read instructions
how much time they give you to read questions to review questions just like in the real exam
so take several of those tests and memorize how the test is built and then don't listen to
instructions just read the questions instead after each section they give you some time to review
your answers I don't think that's particularly helpful again I think this time is better spent
on reading questions that are coming in the next section the more time you have to read
them and memorize the easy it will be for you to hear the correct answer in Reading you will have
three sections in general training these are up to five texts in IELTS academic three long passages
and questions get more difficult as you progress through the test so the key
is to live enough time to answer all the more difficult questions and not to start too slowly
the official recommendation is to spend 20 minutes on each section but you definitely
won't have enough time for the third section so I think you should go through the first as quickly
as you can ideally in about 15 minutes or even less then you have 20 minutes for the second and
25 or more for the Third don't spend too much time on any single question if you can't find an answer
move on and learn which questions come in order otherwise there's just too much information you
need to know what you're looking for so questions like true false not given are multiple choice and
many others common order so you can read the first question and then you can read the text
until you find the answer then you read the next question continue reading the text and so on
it's easier because then although you have to read the whole passage you can't just skim it
looking for words or paying attention to the first word in the paragraph or whatever so all those
hacks they don't work but you can read quickly and then slow down when you feel the downside
somewhere they spend more time and then continue reading quickly in IELTS reading you really need
the widest vocabulary and the good thing is that sometimes the most difficult words don't matter
they don't determine the answer and that's why it's very useful to concentrate on the meaning
what are you looking for what kind of answer should be there and in the text just pay attention
to the main message but if there are some bits you don't understand you can skip through them and if
you're lucky you won't even lose any points in my first exam I got a very good score I think it was
band 8 in IELTS reading and there were a lot of things I didn't understand so know that you can
do it next IELTS writing two tasks 60 Minutes finishing both within time allotted is not an
easy feat but you really need to do that IELTS for writing assessment is built in such a way
that if you don't finish your answers you lose a lot of points of course there is this requirement
to write at least 150 words in Task 1 at least 250 words in task 2 but actually today examiners don't
really count Words I mean it doesn't matter if you write 145 words or 151 in task 1. but if you run
out of time and you don't write a conclusion for your task to essay that will be extremely costly
so we'll be talking about IELTS writing much more but uh you need to have enough practice sessions
at home in timed conditions to learn how quickly you need to write to finish both in 60 minutes
IELTS speaking the time will be controlled by your Examiner and actually this exam is
very strict your part one and part three must last between four and five minutes
and if your answers are too short there is just not much English choices you need to
talk for longer you need to give open extended answers but if your answers are too long The
Examiner will have to interrupt you to move on to the next question and if you started from my
wake Point hoping to arrive at your answer later you examiner May interrupt you before you answer
the question which is not good so again take questions from recent exams practice at home
time yourself in part one The Examiner must ask you questions on three topics
that's somewhere between 10 and 12 questions in part three there will be questions on two
related topics probably six questions but try to talk about each big question for about a minute
do that at home part two very important you need to talk on a given topic between one and
two minutes that's the official task but if you talk for two minutes your score will be
better because you show that you're more fluent in English you can talk at length and you just
have more opportunities to show your vocabulary in grammar in two minutes rather than in one minute
it's very difficult to do you know to get a task and just keep on talking so again practice at home
time yourself you'll get better my next tip is spend more time preparing for IELTS writing I know
that many people begin with IELTS listening and reading and then they see every mistake they make
so they spend more time on those sections I did exactly the same but statistically we know that
most people achieve their lowest score in IELTS writing so it's definitely worth concentrating on
it's particularly true if you need band 7 because it's easier to achieve band 6.5 than band 7.
so why is IELTS writing so challenging part of that is because of the way it's assessed half of
your score depends on your vocabulary and grammar what I call your English skills the other half
depends more on your writing skills do you answer the question in full is your position clear do you
provide enough arguments are all your arguments relevant do you provide some irrelevant detail
do you cover everything you're supposed to cover or you or you've forgotten one important bit do
you link your sentences do you link your ideas do you develop your ideas so all that is your writing
skills but without those you will find it hard to get a decent score in IELTS writing we have access
to the official is band descriptors that list all the requirements for each Criterion and each band
and basically to get band 7 you need to meet each band 7 requirement across all the criteria
if all of them are band 7 but one is band Six your score will go down to 6.5 unless you meet all the
requirements for band 8 in another Criterion which is much more challenging to do so when you're
preparing for IELTS writing it's really worth learning what the requirements are and how to mean
them you should also learn about different types of tasks in Task 1 and task 2 and what you're
required to do in niche and practice answering each of them then you'll be able to provide
your answers more quickly and answer better I find that official IELTS guides don't really
go in depth into IELTS writing and what's really required that's why I've created my own courses
and if you are interested I will link them in the description next let's talk about IELTS speaking
When I Was preparing for my first exam I felt that I need to demonstrate my skills
I need to sound smart I need to use formal English it's an exam after all
but in IELTS speaking examiners assess your ability to communicate in English
and usually people communicate in quite an informal way so you don't need to use formal
English and you shouldn't try to use more complex words and more complex grammatical structures
that you really need to think about concentrate on answering each question and don't try to be smart
be talkative see whatever comes to your mind in this way you'll be able to answer each question
better you will actually answer those questions and your speech will be more fluent and you
will probably make fewer grammatical mistakes and so your score will be higher as a result
of course if you use complex words and complex grammar that improves your skull but complex words
usually come from using topic specific vocabulary you know you're asked about reverse and you can
talk about all these reverse specific vocabulary so if you know it you will use it if you've heard
about it once like don't try to retrieve it from your memory in exam conditions uh ayat speaking
is stressful enough without it so just try to answer each question and it will go a little
bit more smoothly the next thing I wish I knew when I Was preparing for my first test is that
you should use official practice tests in your preparation the problem is it's very difficult
to create questions that will be at exactly the same level of difficulty and that's what they
do in the IELTS exams and even there candidates may be a bit lucky or a bit unlucky with topics
so if you use unofficial papers the level of difficulty may be different questions may be
formulated in a different way they may contain mistakes and those tests will confuse you
use Cambridge English practice tests for your preparation they are just like the real exam any
and your recent book will do from number 14 to number 17 it doesn't really matter which one you
use they are all about the same and if you want free practice tests there are several official
tests they're a bit older but I will still give you links in my study plan my next advice to you
is don't think that you need to study all the official guide books to get ready for your exam
only the official guide to IELTS is bad thing how much time is it gonna take you to complete all
these exercises there are some official books with vocabulary for IELTS and words and phrases there
are great I bought one of them several months before my exam I opened it and there were so
many words I didn't know I actually got really discouraged from preparation because it just
seemed too much to me and as a result I didn't do much for several months and then I had to prepare
for my test in a very short period of time when the university actually invited me to start one
intake earlier than I expected and you know I got 7.5 so those words I didn't know didn't really
matter at that point what you should do before your exam depends on how much time you have so
I've prepared a Nile study plan for you and I have three versions one week one month three months
those plans will show you all the essential steps for your preparation for each section
and give links to resources where you can learn more about each step
so I think those plans can help you prepare for your exam more quickly and you can download them
for free right now my paid IELTS preparation packs are linked in the description thank you
so much for watching me today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye