So, I realize I have to take the test and English is my Native (and only - except for a couple of years of Spanish classes in high school) language. I have a US graduate degree but wife only went through secondary school. Both native English speakers. How hard is the IELTS test; will it require much/any studying?
IELTS for Native English speakers
- Thread starter drewinoakville
- Start date
http://ieltsonlinetests.com/catalogue
take the tests and see for yourself ...
Ielts general is what you need to take for EE ...
however,the listening reading & speaking modules are more or less the same (for both academic and general)...so u may try all the tests for practice...
try the tests and see how you fare.....
Spouse's score gains you addl points...itsnt mandatory but helps to get you ahead of many other profiles with additional points...
take the tests and see for yourself ...
Ielts general is what you need to take for EE ...
however,the listening reading & speaking modules are more or less the same (for both academic and general)...so u may try all the tests for practice...
try the tests and see how you fare.....
Spouse's score gains you addl points...itsnt mandatory but helps to get you ahead of many other profiles with additional points...
Thanks for the link. Will definitely look into. This should be quite useful. In addition, was hoping for (English as a first language) people's opinions in general as well.
IELTS is tough unless you know what to focus on. Let me break it down for you.
1. Speaking - If you generally converse in english (since english is your native language) it should be easy. But you have to make sure what to focus while speaking. Since you cannot go back and check your answers like you do in Reading and writing it is advised to practice with your wife or a mirror. there are a lot of sample videos in youtube. If everything goes well you can easily score 7.
2. Listening - This is one of the easiest test you can take and score high marks. There is nothing to focus like you do in speaking and writing, rather you have to practice a lot, take a lot of sample test so that you will get used to listening to the audio and differentiate each and every section and score easily around 8 or 8.5.
3. Reading - This is the most easiest test since all you need to do is read the content and look for answers. Though it has some tricky sections, but in practice 8.5 or 9 is a piece of cake.
4. Writing - This is the most difficult test since we are not used to write using a pencil or pen we have to concentrate more on this test. This test has a lot of things to focus. The Vocabulary, the fillers used, the connecting words used, the way the letter is wrote (formal, informal or semi formal), handwriting and lot more. There are a lot of websites who specifically talk about the IELTS writing test. In practice 6.5 or 7 is an achievable score.
In conclusion the weightage goes, in increasing order
1. Reading
2, Listening
3. Speaking
4. Writing
A month practice of 2 to 3 hours daily and extra hours on weekends is more than enough to score 8 band.
In case if u need any preparation materials inbox me !!
All the best buddy !!!!
The 'speaking' part is actually more tricky than most people think, especially the native speakers. It is NOT a test of how good you can converse with people in English. To me it is actually a written test done orally because the assessors won't have a lot of interactions with the test takers or responses to answers.
Basically it goes like this:
Assessor: Here is some background information. Tell me your thoughts on question XYZ
Test taker: Blah blah blah (until being told to stop)
Assessor: Okay, next question, xzy
Test taker: Blah blah blah (until being told to stop)
...
How one structures thoughts (the blah blah parts), expresses opinions clearly and at the same time uses correct grammars is critical to get the highest marks. Also one needs to treat even the most simple question seriously, Even one like 'what's your name?' deserves a serious answer.
Native speakers here - here are my thoughts on each part based on my and my husband's experiences:
Speaking - easiest part. The main thing is to actually answer the questions so just think about your answers like you would in a job interview, and if you use any dialects make sure you use standard English (example: "should have went" is common where I live - correct yourself to "should have gone" in that case, etc.). Even if you flub up a few things though you should have no problem maxing out your CRS points on this one.
Reading - fairly easy, just don't overthink it and be very specific/precise. One issue (this applies to listening too) that seemed to be harder as a native speaker is that certain terms will be more specific on the test than in colloquial English. For example, I think on my test there was something like "after a car crash one's _____ will increase" and my instinct would be to write in "insurance" but in the reading sample the sentence included "insurance premiums" and thankfully I caught that because I bet if I left off "premiums" I would have been marked wrong. So watch out for things like that. There's also likely to be a section where you choose if the contents of a sentence about a reading are true, false, or not given, and false vs. not given can be tricky so find practice versions of that and think carefully on your answers there.
Writing - a pain but not too bad. Try to use some idioms and stuff if you can include them naturally, and look at the grading rubric on the IELTS site to get an idea of the other things they look for. It wasn't too hard to max out the CRS points on this one but my husband's score was just high enough to do so. He had problems with overthinking/over-analyzing it though, especially when writing arguments. Just choose a few points and go with them even if they're not what you would choose if you were debating someone on the in real life . For example, if there's something about a current hot topic and there's Point A that you might argue that mostly makes sense but you know that you recently saw an article about how it turns out new research shows issue X with it, ignore X and just write about Point A and don't waste time questioning whether you should argue A given that you know about X. They're not nit-picking your arguments that deeply at all so just commit and start writing
You also may up better off arguing for something you don't actually believe if you can quickly think up a few points that support that viewpoint, so keep that in mind too. Whichever side you more quickly think up points for, just go with that.
Listening - the hardest for both of us and it actually caused my husband to take the IELTS twice because the first time he got hung up on one section and made a CLB of 8 so he had to retake to get us enough CRS points to have a chance at an ITA. You really need to focus on what's being said and missing a little bit can really mess you up. Focus, watch for the colloquialism issue I noted in the reading section since it applies here as well, and remember that the answers are very sequential, so follow along closely and don't worry about hearing the answer to blank C after you've already answered D. If that happens, something's gone wrong. Just focus on one sentence and one answer at a time. All that will make more sense once you go through some practice tests.
Overall, my advice would be to practice a LOT for the listening test because it's so easy to lose points on that badly and there's no re-listening on test day, plus it's early in the morning when you do that section and you may have had a long drive to the test center so focusing can be extra hard. Reading is worth practicing at least with what the IELTS site offers and if you have trouble, find a test guide and do some extra through that (I could get some through my local library so my husband used those before his re-take). Writing is worth looking at the rubric and past prompts and thinking about what your approach would be but you likely don't need to do more than that, and don't worry about speaking besides planning to make sure you answer the questions you're asked clearly (again, like a job interview - don't get sidetracked and not answer the specific point asked).
I actually did well with just doing the practice reading and listening from the IELTS website but my job is very English-heavy so that was okay for me, but my husband had trouble with listening that first time (and was only just over the minimum scores for the CLB 10 level on writing and maybe reading and we wanted every single point we could get) so he ended up doing a lot of practice listening tests before his 2nd test and I think he practiced the harder sections of a few reading tests in the book he had, plus he went over writing prompts and approaches to them with me (which is how I noticed the overthinking issue). After that he nailed CLB 10 level scores on every section.
Speaking - easiest part. The main thing is to actually answer the questions so just think about your answers like you would in a job interview, and if you use any dialects make sure you use standard English (example: "should have went" is common where I live - correct yourself to "should have gone" in that case, etc.). Even if you flub up a few things though you should have no problem maxing out your CRS points on this one.
Reading - fairly easy, just don't overthink it and be very specific/precise. One issue (this applies to listening too) that seemed to be harder as a native speaker is that certain terms will be more specific on the test than in colloquial English. For example, I think on my test there was something like "after a car crash one's _____ will increase" and my instinct would be to write in "insurance" but in the reading sample the sentence included "insurance premiums" and thankfully I caught that because I bet if I left off "premiums" I would have been marked wrong. So watch out for things like that. There's also likely to be a section where you choose if the contents of a sentence about a reading are true, false, or not given, and false vs. not given can be tricky so find practice versions of that and think carefully on your answers there.
Writing - a pain but not too bad. Try to use some idioms and stuff if you can include them naturally, and look at the grading rubric on the IELTS site to get an idea of the other things they look for. It wasn't too hard to max out the CRS points on this one but my husband's score was just high enough to do so. He had problems with overthinking/over-analyzing it though, especially when writing arguments. Just choose a few points and go with them even if they're not what you would choose if you were debating someone on the in real life . For example, if there's something about a current hot topic and there's Point A that you might argue that mostly makes sense but you know that you recently saw an article about how it turns out new research shows issue X with it, ignore X and just write about Point A and don't waste time questioning whether you should argue A given that you know about X. They're not nit-picking your arguments that deeply at all so just commit and start writing
You also may up better off arguing for something you don't actually believe if you can quickly think up a few points that support that viewpoint, so keep that in mind too. Whichever side you more quickly think up points for, just go with that.Listening - the hardest for both of us and it actually caused my husband to take the IELTS twice because the first time he got hung up on one section and made a CLB of 8 so he had to retake to get us enough CRS points to have a chance at an ITA. You really need to focus on what's being said and missing a little bit can really mess you up. Focus, watch for the colloquialism issue I noted in the reading section since it applies here as well, and remember that the answers are very sequential, so follow along closely and don't worry about hearing the answer to blank C after you've already answered D. If that happens, something's gone wrong. Just focus on one sentence and one answer at a time. All that will make more sense once you go through some practice tests.
Overall, my advice would be to practice a LOT for the listening test because it's so easy to lose points on that badly and there's no re-listening on test day, plus it's early in the morning when you do that section and you may have had a long drive to the test center so focusing can be extra hard. Reading is worth practicing at least with what the IELTS site offers and if you have trouble, find a test guide and do some extra through that (I could get some through my local library so my husband used those before his re-take). Writing is worth looking at the rubric and past prompts and thinking about what your approach would be but you likely don't need to do more than that, and don't worry about speaking besides planning to make sure you answer the questions you're asked clearly (again, like a job interview - don't get sidetracked and not answer the specific point asked).
I actually did well with just doing the practice reading and listening from the IELTS website but my job is very English-heavy so that was okay for me, but my husband had trouble with listening that first time (and was only just over the minimum scores for the CLB 10 level on writing and maybe reading and we wanted every single point we could get) so he ended up doing a lot of practice listening tests before his 2nd test and I think he practiced the harder sections of a few reading tests in the book he had, plus he went over writing prompts and approaches to them with me (which is how I noticed the overthinking issue). After that he nailed CLB 10 level scores on every section.