Last week, I received a frantic phone call from my student, Anish. He had just written his IELTS exam and while thinking about his writing test, he realised that he wrote ‘pie chart’ instead of tables. A similar incident happened to Arjun, who realised that he’d said ‘nani’ instead of ‘grandmother’ (the term carries a …
IELTS Mistakes & Scores: What can reduce your scores? Read More »
So, you took the IELTS again, and disappointingly enough, your speaking score is still 6.5. Frustrating, isn’t it? Especially when you’ve followed tons of “tips and tricks” from YouTube? What should you be doing, then, to finally achieve that band 7? Read on! Far too often, test-takers will deliver short, curt, direct responses to an examiner’s questions on …
Giving well-developed responses on your IELTS Speaking test Read More »
Which words are considered as ‘one’ word and which ones are considered to be ‘two’ words? A frantic student messaged me a week before her test, asking: Any contracted forms, which were originally two words, will be counted as one word. Why? There is no space between any of the letters! The same rule goes …
Which words are not counted in IELTS writing? The answer will surprise you. Read More »
Do rural Punjab centers give better IELTS band scores? Is the exam particularly “easy” in Punjab? Is there an easy way to pass the exam? Google sometimes returns peculiar suggested searches for the IELTS: These can be quite the rabbit hole if you venture deep enough! What I find interesting is that many students look …
A lot of people seem to be following the wrong sort of methods when it comes to the IELTS Speaking test. In this part 1 instructional video, I explain with the help of a student what needs to be done during the test. Much of the advice here is applicable for the other parts of …
The IELTS Listening module is generally regarded as an easier module than the other three, but it certainly isn’t simple and does come with its own set of challenges. Most, if not all, students I’ve taught had quite a couple of things in common when it came to the IELTS Listening test. They’d generally get …
Get an 8 on IELTS Listening: FIX these 4 errors now! Read More »
Last month, I had the unique opportunity to have a chat with a room full of IELTS examiners, and the conversation soon turned to one of their pet peeves: common test-taker errors in the Speaking exam. Knowing that this was something most of my students initially struggled with, I asked them what they wished test-takers …
Three things you should AVOID on the IELTS Speaking exam Read More »
