- Hi, everyone.
Chris here from IELTS Advantage.
And in this lesson,
we're going to look at how to start your IELTS preparation
with three simple steps.
And by the end of this video
you'll see how incredibly simple it actually is
to start your preparation
and move forward and get the scores that you need.
Okay, so let's get into it.
So what we're gonna do
is get you to ask yourself three simple questions.
And when you ask yourself these three simple questions
you will be able to start your preparation effectively.
This is for people who have both done the test before
and have not got the score that they needed,
or if you are a complete newbie
and you've never done the test before,
these three questions are going to help you out as well.
And I want you to think about your IELTS preparation
in the same way that you would think
about going on a journey.
So right now I am here in Ireland.
So imagine I wanna fly to Boston.
I would have to know where I am, where I wanna go,
and how to get there,
and that's what we're gonna give you in this video.
We're gonna give you clarity on where you are right now,
where you need to go, and exactly what to do
in order to get there.
Lots of you will have many many different questions
related to IELTS.
What we've done is we've covered them all in a free course
that you can join right now.
And if you click the link below,
you will be able to join our IELTS Fundamentals course
that will basically answer
every single question you have related to IELTS,
so that is below.
So, before you start your IELTS preparation,
ask yourself three questions.
The first question is, where do I want to go?
Imagine again you want to fly somewhere.
If you don't know where to go,
how are you going to get there?
All right, this sounds incredibly simple
and that's because it is.
IELTS preparation is not that complicated.
Students make it complicated.
Teachers make it complicated.
It doesn't need to be complicated.
So, what do I mean by where do I want to go?
So first of all, you need to think about
whether you need to do the academic test
or the general training test.
Most importantly, what score do you need.
All right, don't ask me what score do you need
for a particular country or a particular course,
you need to find that information out yourself.
There's this wonderful tool called Google
and you can go on Google exactly
whether you need to do academic or general training
for whichever course or country or job you need to apply for
and exactly what score you need.
You need to know exactly what score you need
before you move on.
Because if you don't know where you're going,
you will never get there.
So look that information up yourself
and then you can ask yourself the second question.
And the second question is extremely important,
where am I right now?
Okay, so whether you've done the test before
or you've never done the test,
you need to ask yourself this question.
And most importantly,
where are you in relation to where you need to go?
So if you've already done the test,
the work has been done for you.
So it wasn't great that you failed the test,
you didn't get the score that you need,
but the good thing is
you know exactly where you are right now.
You know the scores, you know your level right now.
If you've never done the test before,
there are a few different options.
Reading and listening past papers,
you can get these online.
Make sure you do use the official Cambridge papers,
any other papers are not real,
or are not gonna give you real scores,
and these are either very very cheap or freely available.
And you can do these under exam conditions
and it will tell you your reading score
and your listening score.
Speaking and writing are a little bit different,
you're going to have to spend a little bit of money
doing a speaking mock test or writing correction service,
but this is going to be a fraction of the cost
of going and doing the real test,
which I think is about $150 to $200,
on some countries even $250.
So you can do a mock speaking test
or writing correction test.
There are many many services out there,
choose the most reliable one.
And if you choose an unreliable one
they're going to give you unreliable scores,
and this is going to give you a very very good idea
and it's gonna save you a huge amount of time
and stress and worry in the future.
So if you've already done the test,
now you know where you are.
If you haven't, go and do these things.
And this is just an example of a student
who has asked themselves these two questions.
So, imagine we have a student who,
these are the scores that she needs.
She needs seven in speaking, reading and writing,
and she needs about a band eight in listening,
she wants to go to Canada.
And she did the test and she didn't get the scores
that she needed first time,
and she got a band seven in speaking,
a band eight in listening, a band eight in reading,
and a 6.5 in writing.
Why is this important?
Why are these two questions really really important?
So what we're trying to do here
is to understand where to put our focus.
Because where we put our focus
our energy is going to flow into that area
and we're gonna spend our time focusing on that area.
So for this student, she can forget about reading.
All right, she's already got a band above what she needs,
it is highly unlikely that she's gonna drop
a band and a half to a 6.5.
For listening and speaking,
she needs to pay attention here
because this is the level
and she could drop down about a half a band,
so I would pay a little bit of attention to these
and make sure that she stays at this level.
The best thing for this student would be
to understand what are her weak areas
in listening and speaking.
In other words, what are the areas
that could cause her to drop down half a band maybe.
But she doesn't really need to focus too much on this.
Obviously the main thing
that she needs to focus on is writing.
And it might not sound much
to people who are not IELTS experts
or haven't been through the process that much,
you might look at this and think,
oh it's just a half a band.
For many people, this is completely insurmountable,
it's like climbing Everest.
For other people, when they know what to do,
when they answer the third question,
they are able to quickly go from a 6.5 to a seven.
So this is where the focus should be for this person
because it doesn't matter really what she does in reading,
she needs a little bit of work
maybe in listening and speaking,
but writing is where her focus should go.
This is why it's so important to ask yourself
these two questions.
Because what most students do is
they start off and they just go and do the test
with no preparation whatsoever,
so they haven't really understood where they are
and then they get the scores they need.
Or they go and do a general course or a crash course
and just try and do absolutely everything,
which is a complete waste of time
for this student for example.
Or they try and look for tips and tricks and hacks
and they're not gonna get there,
they're not gonna be able
to improve their scores in this area.
So it's so important that you ask yourselves
those two questions.
And then the third question is,
what do I need to do to get there?
Again, extremely simple.
It's not easy, but it is extremely simple,
it doesn't need to be that complicated.
If you're watching this video
you're probably really frustrated
with the whole preparation process.
What we do for our students is just break things down
and make it as simple as possible.
Where do I wanna go?
Where am I right now?
What do I need to do to get there?
And this is the most important one, number three.
So, say this student again.
6.5 to seven.
In between her 6.5 or seven are things she needs to do.
She needs to improve those things,
identify what those things are and work on them unimproved.
And that's all it is.
Again, not easy but extremely simple.
Between here and here are a number of things
that she needs to do to improve.
So if we look at this question in a little bit more detail,
what do I need to do to get there?
You need to think about what your key weaknesses are.
Everybody is different, everybody is an individual.
This is why going to general courses
or reading general books about IELTS
is not really going to help you.
It's like if your car broke down
you wouldn't go and read a whole book on how to fix a car,
you would take it to a mechanic
and they would fix the exact problem.
Same as if you were ill, if you go to the doctor,
they will identify the exact problem
and they'll fix those problems.
It's exactly what you need to do
with whether it's writing or speaking
or reading or listening,
you need to identify the key areas of weakness,
the exact things that are stopping you
getting the score that you need and fix them.
So imagine, we use this student again,
and she has no problem with reading,
her listening and speaking are pretty good,
so she's no big problems there,
but she has a big problem with writing.
She shouldn't go to a general writing course
and learn everything there is to know about writing,
because her three main problems,
the three problems only that are
causing her to get a 6.5 are,
articles related to grammar,
paraphrasing related to vocabulary, and idea development,
how to write main body paragraphs basically.
This might be the case for you,
probably it is two or three other things.
But until you identify these things,
these things that are stopping you
getting the score that you need,
you are never going to improve.
And this is why people get 6.5
again and again and again and again,
because they never ask themselves this question
and they never find out this information.
And I'm not gonna tell you that you should join my course
or anything like that,
I'm gonna give you a free way of doing this.
I'm gonna give you a very fast way of doing this,
and then I'm gonna share with you some pitfalls,
some dangerous things
that cause people to stay here and get stuck.
So, there is a slow way and it's also the free way.
We like to give you guys
as much free information as possible.
Use reliable resources, reliable books,
reliable online channels that are going to help you.
But the keyword there is reliable, all right.
If you're gonna use unreliable resources
then you're probably going to go backwards not forwards.
And you can teach yourself.
So many of you watching do not have hundreds of dollars
to join an expensive course,
so this is your option here.
I wish that free things were a bit faster,
but unfortunately they're not, that's the real world.
The faster way, and the more expensive way of course,
is to find a real expert
who's gonna help you identify your key weaknesses
and then help you fix them, all right.
So I've underlined three key things here,
a real expert.
Not someone who calls themselves
an IELTS expert on the internet.
Someone who has worked for a reputable school,
has been an examiner before,
and most importantly,
has hundreds and hundreds of past students
that they have helped.
They will help you identify your key weaknesses,
not just give you a bunch of videos,
or not just put you in a classroom
with 30 or 40 other students.
They will help you identify your key weaknesses
and then help you fix them.
Because if you don't do those three things
you're not going to improve.
The dangerous things,
and these are the reasons
why a lot of people get stuck at 6.5 is,
they do crash courses.
That's not going to help you identify your key weaknesses
and improve them.
General courses.
Again, why would you sit through weeks of a reading course
when there's no problem with your reading
or same with listening, speaking or even writing.
Focus on your key weaknesses.
Unreliable resources, we've already talked about that.
Cheap teachers and courses.
Really, really good teachers
do not work for a very small fee.
There are a lot of teachers out there that are amazing,
in general, they are a little bit more expensive.
But if you think hiring a professional is expensive,
try hiring an amateur.
It's going to be much, much, much cheaper
for you to hire someone who knows what they're doing,
who is a little bit more expensive,
but is going to get you the scores that you need.
And relying on tricks and tips and hacks,
trying to go for the easy way out,
that is going to make sure that you are stuck at that score.
You need to identify your real weaknesses and then fix them.
And if you do that
it's incredibly simple and straightforward,
and you're going to get the score that you need.
So just to review,
before you start your IELTS preparation
ask yourself these three simple questions.
Where do I want to go?
Where am I right now?
And what do I need to do to get there?
And if you're able to answer those questions
and most importantly,
do the things that are going to get you
to improve your score,
then you're going to get the score that you need.
But if you don't do those things,
obviously, you're not going to get the score that you need.
As I said at the beginning of the lesson,
if you have more questions,
we have a free course called IELTS Fundamentals,
that is going to take you through the key principles
of both writing, speaking and even listening,
and reading, in a completely free course.
Just click the link below and you can join that instantly.
If you need help with your IELTS preparation,
feel free to send me an email,
chris@ieltsadvantage.com is my email.
Feel free to get in touch, we answer every single email.
And if you want more information about the IELTS test,
check out ieltsadvantage.com.
Thank you.
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