how are you I'm great yes how are you I stressed out today you know you are I'm sorry I feel I feel
bad that I don't have that solidarity right if everyone at work is stressed out then okay we're
all on the same page but if one person's like everything then you feel kind of bad no anybody
who's stressed out I don't want you to be stressed out I don't want anybody to be stressed out
um especially our IELTS students um guys we have amazing advice for you today a real Insider look
at the scoring system for speaking and how it could be possible to still get a seven on
speaking even if your vocabulary is not great what if your vocabulary stuck at a six right can you
still get a seven um so we got this question from a a YouTube subscriber I love pulling questions
from our YouTube channel uh Aubry can you read that question please yes this listener's name
on YouTube anyway is Galaxy I love that I love it says thanks a bunch guys I have a question
is it possible to get overall 7.0 in speaking if a candidate's vocabulary is 6.0 and this is
it's like you said Jessica it's really interesting to think about because we often say don't stress
about grammar pull up these other three scores but of course it is an average of all four scores so
it is interesting to think about if you get a sixth in vocabulary what would you need to do
to score highly enough in the other sections to still get a seven exactly exactly and yes
of course it is possible right and we're going to explain exactly how that's possible today so let's
start with um what would the scores be and then we'll explain it okay so what would the scores
be for the student to to still get a seven so you would need you know an eight in at least one of
your scores so maybe an eight for pronunciation a seven for fluency and coherence would do it a
grammar six and a vocabulary six would average to an overall seven so you can see how you know if
you're scoring an eight for fluency and coherence then you could get a seven for pronunciation and
still hit that overall seven so we can talk today about what exactly you would need to do in each of
these sections to get those scores yeah I mean we came up with these scores because these like this
is the most likely scenario to my mind like I do think that the easiest eight to get in all of this
would be in pronunciation you know what I mean so we'll we'll get into it guys we'll explain so
let's start with a seven for fluency and coherence what does a candidate need to do to get a seven
there yeah all of your answers need to be a good length so three to five sentences in part one you
would have to speak for the full two minutes for your part two question and then about a minute for
each of your part three questions that's going to be vital that you're not answering with just
one or two words any of these questions because remember fluency and coherence I mean there's
two words there and they're two different things right so fluency is like can you speak for a a
good amount of time does it sound easy for you to talk right and coherence is like is it organized
are you communicating ideas clearly using linking words so yes you do have to show that
it's not hard for you to communicate right for an appropriate length um and all of your answers well
most of your answers at least do need specific details in there and that's something that a lot
of students forget about as part of the fluency score like you have to get specific you have to
um prove that what you're saying justifying your opinion or really painting a picture for
the examiner like you can't just say my hometown is beautiful right you have to tell me why you
think that is it mountains water houses people like what makes it beautiful and to think about
if you are giving three to five sentences if you stay really General and don't give any details
you are going to end up repeating yourself because there's just not enough to say right and get that
three to five sentences you can't repeat yourself you can't stay super General you've got to get
into some good details in order to have your answer be long enough exactly exactly um and
then the hesitations and pauses you can still get a seven with a few hesitations and pauses and ums
and us but just a few just like a couple you know maybe two in the whole speaking test it's natural
to say um and uh sometimes you hear us do it it's natural it's a part of speaking but what you can't
do is have long periods of Silence like long hesitations while you're trying to think right
zero silence if you're gonna get a seven uh now as far as the coherence goes right what about the
linking words yeah you have to have a variety of linking words throughout your speaking exam right
in part one two and three if your ideas are very disjointed sentences and you're not linking them
together then you can't score seven so you have to practice this because we don't all do it that
naturally when we're speaking we don't always use linking words and Link our ideas together we think
about it a little more when we're writing but for the IELTS exam it's also required on the speaking
test exactly exactly so all of these features that we've explained for a seven um you just have to do
more of those to get an eight right so it's like oh for an eight would be like zero hesitations
um almost no pauses and and a wide variety of linking words lots of specific details you know
um and for seven you just have to do some of that in every part all right now grammar six why did we
say six because pretty much everyone gets a six for grammar on speaking it's the most difficult
score to increase um it's fine right let us accept your six and move on it's fine um but having said
that what is A6 for grammar yeah so you have to have some variety of sentence structures
um if you have well-controlled simple sentences many perfect sentences and then even a couple of
mistakes in complex structures you can still score a six for grammar yeah so
um you should have control over the simple sentences right subject verb agreement
um many simple sentences will have no mistakes uh some compound complex structures may be well
controlled but there will also be a lot of errors in those compound complex structures but nothing
that impedes communication right your grammar doesn't cause any communication issues so that's
a six now getting to this student specifically why would the student get a six on vocabulary yeah so
if you're using a lot of easy vocabulary some of it's sort of boring a lot of students use it you
don't have a big range of idiomatic language and more impressive vocabulary you're using quite a
bit of repetition you can still score a six right you're not getting threes and fours on vocabulary
but in order to score seven or higher you're having to use more impressive vocab exactly
exactly so a six student will be communicating clearly like just just like with the grammar
um but just using simple words to communicate those messages now to get a six for vocabulary
you still have to show a few interesting words right if you're only using simple words you're
gonna get a five but if you're using a few interesting words maybe one or two
interesting adjectives or slaying phrases in part one one or two high level words in part three you
can get a six for vocab you know it even if it's surrounded by a kind of boring simple vocabulary
again it's about Clarity you know like a six in these categories it's like there's nothing
very impressive but I but you get the meaning across right exactly I can understand you you're
answering the questions there's just nothing that's really impressing The Examiner there's
nothing you're saying that they're not hearing lots of other students say as well totally totally
now the final category this is how you clinch that seven guys that overall seven you would
have to get an eight in pronunciation if we're getting all these other scores like we've said so
that might sound scary to some people because at eight an eight is like this golden magical number
on IELTS like oh how do we get an eight you know what you could get an eight for pronunciation guys
everyone listening here you yes you I'm talking to you you can get an eight for pronunciation
Aubrey how can they do that yes right so you need to use appropriate stress right syllable
stress word stress and we talk about this all the time on the podcast that you can get that
through mimicking through listening to podcasts and TV shows and mimicking that native stress
you can get to where you can score an eight for pronunciation totally and then intonation we talk
about intonation all the time here because with if you're speaking in a monotone you're gonna
score six or even lower on pronunciation but if you get that variety of intonation or you're
letting emotion show slow down and give space to words to emphasize adjective gives and interesting
words to make sure the examiner understands you and to have that closer to Native up and down
of the intonation we use you can totally score an eight on pronunciation for sure
um you can still have some of your first language accent and get an eight like it's in the rubric
you that's possible guys the key here is to be so expressive um on tomorrow's episode guys we're
gonna give you some sample part three answers and that would be a wonderful opportunity to
start working towards that eight in pronunciation make sure to tune in to tomorrow's episode guys
and when you hear our sample answers use it as a lesson right listen to our answers maybe listen to
you know like five seconds of an answer pause the podcast and repeat mimic how we talk you
can sound like an American and get a nine for pronunciation we would yes absolutely right but
the key is practice I've had so many students that you know they have the strategies they understand
what they're supposed to do but even in their first language they have a tendency to be more
spoken maybe speak in a monotone that's totally fine in your day-to-day life you can speak however
you want but if you don't practice this it's not going to come naturally then just all of a sudden
untested be like okay I know I'm supposed to do this so it's just going to come out of me
correctly you have to practice beforehand in the mirror maybe with a fake face out of a magazine
I love that idea like a face with no expression that doesn't change like the examiner what do you
fake face I was like I thought you were talking about the candidate doing the practice how does
one what do you mean a fake face a fake face but okay so you cut you cut a face out of a magazine
and put it on the wall and then pretend that's the examiner I love that idea right it's gonna
be really similar to The Examiner because they're likely not going to give you much emotion much
response to let you know they can't let you know if you're doing a good job or not so yeah it's
actually a really good idea to practice to the picture of a face that's not giving you anything
fun all right guys please please leave us your IELTS question go to IELTS and
inner tube and put it in a comment or um share your question in a review for the show wherever
you're listening right now guys uh we're almost done as soon as this episode is finished rate and
review the podcast it helps us reach more students wonderful students like you and
remember to come back tomorrow because we will be doing sample part three answers about family
awesome I'll see you tomorrow Jess bye
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