- Hey, everyone, Chris here
from IELTSadvantage.com
with another success story.
And so Priyanka is one of our successful students,
and she kindly agreed to share her success with you guys
so that you could learn from her,
and hopefully be successful yourself.
So Priyanka, can you start off
by just giving us some information about you,
who you are, where you're from?
- Yeah, hi, I'm Priyanka.
I'm from India, but currently I'm staying in USA.
And I'm an IT software engineer,
but from last three years,
I'm staying at home and taking care of my baby.
- Ah-huh. - So, for like three
to four months,
I was working on the science exam,
and I was unsuccessful when I tried in March.
And finally, after joining Chris' course,
I can get my much needed score in May.
- And can you share your scores with everybody?
- Yeah, in March, I got listening, eight,
reading, 7.5, writing, 6.5 and speaking, seven.
And in May, I got listening, 8.5,
reading, nine, writing, seven, and speaking, seven.
- Excellent, those are amazing scores.
So a nine in reading.
- Yes, yes,
And, yeah, I was facing a problem
with two types of questions
which were true and false, yes, no,
and the match the heading questions.
So I always face issue
like in match the heading question mainly,
but after watching your videos on these two questions,
I was able to do it successfully.
- Yeah, will we talk about those?
Will we help everybody?
'Cause I think those are the two questions
on the reading test that a lot of people ask me, like-
- Confusing. - Yeah.
So let's start off with matching headings.
What would you say to someone
who is struggling with matching headings?
What advice would you give them?
- First of all,
I always used to do is, like, I always read the questions
and all the headings,
which question is asking us through.
But we should not do that.
We should just straight away go to the passage
and read the passage.
And with each passage,
we should give a particular idea of that passage
or write somewhere that idea,
so that in the last, you can match it.
What's your idea and what's given in question.
So after doing this trick,
I was able to do it successfully.
All of my questions were like,
they're totally up-to-date.
Like all are right.
- Yeah, that's perfect. - Never no.
- Yeah, That's exactly what I suggest doing
on the course.
Is if you look at the list of options first,
then it can cause a little bit of confusion,
and you're not really think,
you're thinking about the answers
instead of focusing on the actual text.
- The actual text, yeah.
- So focusing on the text and writing.
Imagine you are writing the test
and you have to write your own heading.
So writing your own heading.
And it's amazing how many of them,
not either directly match,
or match like 80, 90%,
and then it's so easy.
Well, not easy,
but much easier
to just match easier to- - Much easier to match.
- To match them up.
Yeah, to match them up. - Yes.
- And what would you say to someone
about skimming for matching headings?
Did you read it very, very quickly
or in a little bit more detail?
- No, I read it more detail,
but you can do,
like, you can skim first two lines
and last two lines of paragraphs also.
But I tried to read it so that my idea should be clear,
I should not like, skip anything.
So that's why I read it completely.
- So I think a big mistake with matching headings
and many other questions
is people hear that,
"Oh, just skim."
And they understand that,
they think that that means just reading everything
really, really quickly,
and then they don't get the meaning,
they don't understand the actual paragraph.
So skipping it or skimming is a useful skill,
but I think for matching headings,
you shouldn't read it as quickly as possible,
because it's kind of,
so people are afraid of wasting time,
but skimming, actually does waste time
because you, I so say if you spend,
you know, let's say you spend 30 seconds
reading one paragraph,
but you don't understand it,
you've wasted 30 seconds.
But if you invest one or two minutes,
then that's not wasted time
because you invested that time
in understanding what you need to do.
So skimming is useful,
but don't think that that's all you have to do.
A lot of students think skimming, scanning,
that's it, that's all you have to do.
It's a little bit more complicated than that.
- Yeah, for true and false also,
you should not skim,
you should read whole paragraph and text,
and then only answer the questions.
- And so what advice would you give to someone,
so the two most common questions we get
about true false, not given are,
like, the first question is normally,
I have no idea what to do.
And then the other question is normally,
how do I know the difference between false and not given?
And what would you suggest to students for that?
- If you have read the paragraph first,
and then you are reading the question,
then it's really easy to know
that it's not given in the paragraph,
so it's not given.
So you should mark it not given.
But when something is there,
and you can correct that sentence,
that means it's a false sentence,
so you should mark as false.
There was one very confusing question
in my question,
it was, in paragraph,
they have written that they have parking lot on basement
as well as on first floor.
And the question was,
so parking lot,
is it true that parking lot is on two floors?
So in some,
in USA, they never consider basement as a floor.
So it was really confusing
that parking lot is in on one floor or two floors,
somebody marked it as false,
but it was true,
because considering that it is on basement,
and one is on first floor,
so there are two floors or two levels.
So that's why it's true.
- So that's a really important point
to not take any prior knowledge about the topic
into the test,
into the reading test.
So the reading test,
you should just go on what the text says.
So looking at the text
and comparing it with the different options,
and not using prior knowledge,
or or you know, exactly what you just said,
just basing it,
okay, is this true or is this false?
If it's true, it matches up.
It agrees with the,
the option agrees with the text.
However, if it is false,
the option does not agree with the text.
You know, it's not correct.
- It does not agree-
- Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
And, I think where most people slip up
is they spend too much time looking for not given.
So, because they're looking for something
that's not there.
It's kind of like walking into a dark room
and not turning,
you know, you're looking completely in the dark
and spending too much time doing that.
I think for many students,
it's about giving them the confidence to write not given.
As many students just keep looking,
and looking, and looking, and looking,
and then they waste
a lot of time. - Yeah.
Just have, if you can't find it,
write not not given and move on.
You could always come back and and check it at the end.
Actually, I used to face this problem without,
when I was not following this trick
that read the passage before
and then question,
I was facing the same problem.
But after using this trick,
I was always be sure that it's not given
- So you always read the text first
before looking at the options for true false, not given.
- Yes. - Yeah.
Yeah, I think a lot of people
just don't take the time to understand the text.
'Cause it is a reading test,
it's testing your ability to read the text,
and many people just immediately look at the questions,
and try and find the answers quickly as possible
without really understanding the text.
- Yeah. - 'Cause it really,
it's testing many different,
you know, reading subskills,
but at the end of the day,
it's testing can you understand listening,
or, you know, when you're reading English,
can you understand that?
So understanding the text is crucially important.
The other question that we get a lot
about the reading test is time management.
How would you respond to someone
who's struggling with time management?
Do you think that they need time management tips
or do you think it's something else?
- Actually, I never faced problem with time management
since I started practicing,
like, from first day,
I was able to complete my test in one hour.
If if it's too hard also,
then also, I was able to complete within the time.
- Yeah, that's exactly what I always say.
I say Band 9 students don't struggle with time management,
'cause many of our students
think that they can learn some time management tips
or time management tricks,
when really what they need to do
is get better at doing the reading test,
improve their reading skills,
improve their vocabulary,
improve their strategy
for all the different types of questions.
And if you do that,
you don't need any time management tips.
So, it's great to talk to a Band 9 student
who agrees with me about that time.
- And each type of question has a trick.
Each type of question has a trick,
like, for filling the blanks
or just answering the question,
you can skim the paragraph.
You are not able,
like, you should not read whole paragraph,
but like, for the true and false
and match the heading,
questions like that,
you have to read the paragraph.
So you should focus your time over there
instead of the matching or filling the blanks questions.
- I'd say strategy rather than trick,
because trick sounds like it's easy,
and you can cheat in some way.
Strategy is a better way to describe it.
- Yes, you can say that.
- And how important was vocabulary
to get a Band 9 on the reading test?
Was it important to have good vocabulary?
- No, I don't think so, it's fine.
Like, in journal training,
they generally tell all those topics
which are like, common to common people.
- Okay. - They are not tough.
They're not using a academic vocabulary.
They're using a very general vocabulary,
so it's really easy. - Okay.
That's interest,
it's interesting that you think the vocabulary is easy,
but I suppose that Band 9 students
would think that the vocabulary is easy.
I suppose that's what you think
- Maybe my vocabulary is okay, okay, maybe.
Like, I am staying here for three,
more than five years in USA,
so that's why I don't find much,
like, tougher words.
- So it's many students who struggle
with the reading test,
it's, everybody struggle,
you know, they should improve their reading skills
and practice reading.
But for many students,
they really need to improve their vocabulary,
because in order, you know, to get a seven, eight, or nine,
you do need to have a certain level of vocabulary.
But it's interesting that you think
that that's not important because, but I-
- Yeah, because maybe here in day-to-day life,
we are using those kind of words everyday.
- Of course, yeah.
- With talking to many other people
while we are going shopping or somewhere,
we are using those kind of words.
So that's why maybe I'm not feeling much-
- No, I'm saying I agree with you
because it's obvious that you do have a good vocabulary,
so you probably didn't realize how important it was,
because you just, you use it all the time, you know.
- And yeah, I failed the same thing
when I was improving in writing.
And I was doing much,
I was focusing much on vocabulary for writing.
And that way,
I can see that I have increased my understanding
by listening also and by reading also.
So that might be a case.
So that's why I haven't focused much on the vocabulary
on reading part,
but I have focused on writing,
so it has improved my reading
and listening also. - Excellent.
So thank you very much for sharing your experience
and sharing your success.
There's a lot of students
who are really going to benefit from that
because there's a lot of confusing
and conflicting information
about how to prepare for the reading test.
So thank you very much for stating it too clearly,
and for students.
And what will you be able to do now
that you've got the scores you need?
- So I'll apply for the immigration process,
and I'll start doing that now.
- Will you stay in USA?
- Right now we are staying in USA,
but we are trying to move to Canada.
- Okay, cool.
- So, yeah, so now-
- We've had so many Indian people move to Canada.
I think we're responsible
for more Indian people moving to Canada than-
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the case.
Actually in USA,
the immigration process
is becoming very stringent right now,
so it's better to move there.
- Yeah, it's quite stringent in the UK
and Australia as well,
so Canada seems to be the most,
you know, the place that's most open to new people.
- Yes. - Moving over at the moment.
So just politics really.
- Yes, yeah, I know.
- So thank you very much, Priyanka.
And it was a pleasure talking to you,
and a pleasure helping you on the course.
And thank you very much again.
- Thank you, thank you, Chris.
Thanks for your support and help.
I wouldn't have done it without you,
so thanks a lot. - You're welcome.
Thank you very much.
Buh-bye. - Bye.