hello there IELTS students prepare for IELTS in 10 days my name is Ben Worthington in this
video I'm going to tell you how you can prepare for IELTS in 10 days and how you can get ahead
how you can get ahead with this exam and get it out of the way and pass so let’s jump
straight into it now admittedly this is not the ideal situation but as we say in the UK
there is no point crying over spilled milk that means there’s nothing we can do about
it now we’ve got 10 days so let’s focus and allocate the different tasks let’s just
allocate the time as best as we can so first these are the quick tips first of all get
familiar with the exam this will make you more confident because you’ll know what
to expect you know the process you know the sequence and if you know what’s going to
happen then you can relax a little bit and allocate more mental resources onto the task
answering the question understanding the examiner all these things next how do we get familiar
with the examine well if you’ve never taken it before you need to do the practice exams
maybe you’ve got time to do a full paper if you do that is fantastic if you don’t
then what you need to do is sort of like get an overview and look at the questions and
look at the answers simultaneously and dissect it deconstruct it and dissect it and this
way you can look like okay so the question format is like this the answers are in this
block of text for example for the reading likewise with the listening maybe get the
listening audio and the transcript and then the question paper and try and just deconstruct
have a look at the different types of questions you’re going to be asked basically it’s
just general familiarity with the exam now if you don’t have the money to spend on
exam papers pass the exam papers or you don’t have the time you can go to script.com and
I’ll put it in the notes and you can just find old practice exams there and people have
uploaded copies of exam papers they’ve had and from books and it’s just an economical
way to get your preparation going so the next part so if you’re using the practice papers
for the reading and the listening we still have the speaking and the writing once again
we want to get familiar with the questions we want to get familiar with the format and
we’re going to do exactly the same deconstruct it analyze it dissect it know certain tricks
or tactics or strategies of the examiners for example in Part 3 the questions might
be repeated but using different words just to see if you can explain the same thing as
you just explained but in a different manner just little components like this so you are
aware of what’s actually happening in the exam now also when we’re preparing for all
of these areas we need to get some points so you need to get feedback with the papers
it’s easy to get feedback because you’ve got the answers there and you can compare
your answers with the official answers however with the speaking and with the writing it’s
slightly different you need to get feedback either from a tutor from a friend from a colleague
from anybody and just say, “Look, are there any words here that you don’t understand?”
or “Is there any way that I can improve my speaking so that you can understand me
better?”
so that’s for the speaking I mean obviously it’s not the most complete way but we’re
talking about 10 days here so with the writing this is a little bit easier because you can
get your essay corrected and you can find out where you’re making errors so it’s
a bit quicker to improve in this area by the way if you are going to go for getting your
essay corrected try and get one with a 24-hour correction because I know that when you’re
preparing for an examine your motivation can come and it can go so if you’ve got fast
turnaround for your essays then it’s more likely you’re going to be motivated when
you get your essay back and another tip is as soon as you get your essay back have a
look at it analyze it and then write your next essay and get another essay correction
okay don’t buy these silly services where you just send 10 essays all at once that’s
ridiculous what you need to do is just sort of like take maybe send two essays get feedback
implement the feedback learn from the errors and then write some more essays okay now if
you are in a very very desperate situation or if you just want to pass this time you
might also want to consider investing in a course I mean if the course costs you I don’t
$150 and the exam costs you $300 then if you buy the course and you pass this time then
you’ve basically saved yourself $150 whereas if you do the exam you fail and do the exam
you fail and then that’s already $600 you have spent and you still haven’t passed
so an online course can guide your through the process and it can give you the feedback
you need and the resources you need now one last tip with your writing so this is a bit
out of sequence but I just remembered with the writing what you really need to do is
upgrade your writing to academic English by academic English I mean we’re going to be
using however instead of but we’re not going to be using contractions we’re going to
be using more formal examples all these areas there are videos about this on my channel
and this is critical because you may have excellent writing skills but it’s different
from having excellent general writing skills to having academic English writing skills
or writing in English in an academic style these two are quite different and they both
have their own registers they both have their own sort of like styles customs and rules
now then next one final tip almost final tip write an essay every single day even if you’re
not getting feedback which would be I know it’s not ideal but sometimes you can’t
afford to be getting feedback every day I understand so what you can do is you should
still write an essay every single day and then you take responsibility and you analyze
it and you self-correct it okay so go through take fragments of your sentence put them into
Google if you find that there are other sentences like this you know doing the exact match search
then it’s probably correct but if you only find you know 300 results of that exact match
phrase then it’s probably spelled incorrectly and you can even use Google Suggest you know
it’s like did you mean this so what I’m saying is write an essay every day get into
the habit and get familiar with the questions next one but if you are doing the essay – if
you are writing this every day it is advisable to get some feedback external feedback from
a friend from a tutor or from an online essay correction service now the final one is if
you’ve got 10 days left to prepare for the exam then you want to immerse yourself in
the language you want to be using it every single day you want to be thinking in English
dreaming in English eating in English so that means fishing trips every single day no I’m
just joking about the fishing trips but you do want to be fully immersed in the language
so if you’re going to the supermarket and maybe you’re in a country like Peru obviously
they don’t speak English there but you want to be like thinking okay how do I say this
in English?
Or what would I say to the cashier if I were in England?
Now I’m just trying like do these mental exercises and start thinking so if you’re
planning your day and you’re like okay I’ve got to go to the bakery I want to go to the
hairdresser and I need to drop off something at the bank how am I going to say this do
that exact thought process in English okay I did this all the time when I was learning
Spanish and it helped me improve vastly because I’m recalling vocabulary I’m recalling
constructions so this is a massive massive advantage it just keeps the language fresh
in your head likewise if you are lucky and you live in Australia or England or another
English-speaking country then you not should be doing this but you can also extend it and
start interacting with other people but that’s another topic in another video so if you got
10 days to prepare immerse yourself in English get familiar with the exam with all components
get the practice papers and get some feedback and focus on improving on the areas where
you’re losing points so my name is Ben Worthington thank you very much for watching if you want
to get ahead with this and good luck with your IELTS preparation goodbye