In my two exams I took it at British Council. My first result is disheartening: Writing 6 and Speaking 6.5. I know how to speak and listen and write in English all my life since it is medium of instruction in my school from Kindergarten to College. And then the FSWP closed its doors on 2012 and as such my IELTS results became useless.
However on my second take something got my attention: I got two most important tip from a British Council staff. One is that to get the highest grade one only have to hit all the criteria for scoring. And criteria for each section is different so one has to be familiar on how each section is graded. I studied via Googling 'IELTS tips' and watch the tip videos in each section on Youtube which the IELTS themselves produced. And two is just keep talking and connecting with the examiner on speaking test even if you do not know the topic, telling them that its from your friends or somebody else experience (that really saved me as I'm not talkative at all) and that in writing just invent if you do not know what to say and just make it cohesive enough to make the whole writing looks flow smoothly as long as you answer all the questions being asked in each task 1 and 2 (each has two or three pointers like cite example, agree or disagree, explain, etc.).
As such I was able to get the grade I needed to perfect in FSWP.