How did u manage to get 8.5 in Listening?
MCQ r quite tough for me! I don't know how to tackle it especially when they come in section 3! Matching is challenging as well for me.
Regarding the writing, besides practicing as much as u can, I try to read a great number of samples on different topics in order to have ideas for potential questions as well as enhance the vocabulary. Maybe, If u can afford u can try to send to some professional to assess ur essay n give u a feedback since it seems u r struggling a lot as u said.
All the best man!
I was so concerned with scoring 8 in Listening that I dedicated majority of my time just practicing that module. The most important thing with Listening is to know how information is given in each section. For instance, section 1 and 2, the answer is given quite obviously with no synonyms. So, it is matter of staying in-tune throughout, even when writing the answer. Watch out for traps as they are quite common in section 1 and 3 (conversations).
General tips:
1. Instructions and Question Types: It is very important to read the instructions for each question type. Don't underestimate this. During practices, I made several errors because of this. In addition, you must practice for each question type, because each one requires different way of handling. For example, map questions in section 2, you must know how to follow instructions; you do this by knowing where each landmark and alphabet is as well as your starting position. If a campus is given within the map, then you must know the directions as the instructor would make references to directions (South, West, etc...). I struggled with map, table completion, form completion, and sentence completion questions. However, I overcame this by analyzing why made mistakes and how to correct before next practice.
Regarding your point, Multiple Choice Questions, luckily for me, during my studying times, I practiced a lot this type of question so I didn't have much issue with it. What I do is understand what the question is about and its choices when time is given to go through the questions. Listen to the conversation and make
SURE you understand what's being said. Don't look for key words as most likely at least two of the choices will be mentioned by the speaker(s). By following and understanding what's being said, most of the answers will be obvious. For the ones you are not sure, use the old trick of elimination; this is done by cancelling out clear wrong answers. I did this with two questions in the last exam as I wasn't sure. Thankfully, I got them. MCQ type of question, traps are common specially in section 3 so be tuned throughout. Fortunately, in answers, we don't have to write words so you won't likely miss out an answer while copying.
2. Manage your time. In each section you will be given some periods to either read or revise your answers. Use your revision time that's given at the end of each section to go through the next section. This is so important. For instance, at the beginning of section 1, you will be given some time to go through question 1-to-6 (or 5). As this section is pretty straight forward, for example, addresses, telephone numbers, names etc... You should spend 5-8 seconds to just check then spend the rest of the time reading first part of section 4! Once example part is started, you can go back to section 1 and re-read again - You should not get less than 10 correct answers here in your practices. Once section 1 finishes, you will be given time to check your answers, but instead you must proceed to section 2. You can repeat this till all four sections are completed.
Last 10 minutes of the exams, make sure you check each answer if it fulfills
ISGC (
Instruction: your answer should be as per the instructions.
Spelling: Ensure there are NO spelling errors.
Grammar: This part is so important for complete the sentence questions, the answer should grammatically and logically fit the sentence.
Capitalization: This is important for names, places, etc... and for complete the sentence type of questions, if it is the first word, then it must be capitalized. )
3. Know what to expect: By managing your time and knowing the instructions, you would be somewhat familiar with the topic of that section. Predict what the answer could be, location, date/time, noun, verb, adjective etc... Just get some hint for each fill in the blank question what you would be expecting but also keep open mind in case it is not what you expected. For example, don't fixate yourself to just wait for date when it could be something else. In addition, keep an eye for the next question so you could know if you have missed the current one. This way, you won't be stuck and miss several questions.
4. Quickly recover from missed questions: This is one of the hardest thing to do in the exam - Moving to the next question when you haven't answered the current one. It happened to me in section 4 where I missed hearing the 32nd question but luckily I knew what question 33 was about so I moved on. After finishing the section, I put an educated guess ( I heard 'food' at some point and it did make sense given the sentence , so I put).
I know these tips are also given by the experts but I whole heartily agree with them after many practice tests. I wrote these tips based on my experience.
