I am very chatty so 8.5 in speaking is very easy for me. My wife is a journalist. She gave me writing exercises and made me write for 1 hour every day for a week before the exam. She checked my answers and corrected the little mistakes in grammar and punctuation. In my previous attempts, I read model answers and went to the test. There is a big difference between reading a written answer and writing it yourself. Little grammar, punctuation and spelling errors can add up. The first day of my writing practice, I barely reached the word count but as I progressed, I got better and scored 8. For reading and listening, just keep yourself awake and be attentive.