Yes they are similar...
I suggest you to even practice from the following books -
--> Kaplan IELTS
--> Barrons IELTS
Tips for Reading
1. Beat the fear – read as much as possible
My first IELTS reading tip is to read as much as possible. By this I don’t mean do endless IELTS practice tests, I mean do as much general reading as possible. I suggest you focus on reading short articles on topics that interest you or on topics that are common in IELTS – newspapers and magazines are a great resource here.
One reason why this is such a good idea is that many candidates freeze in the reading believing it is too hard and so fail to get their band score. If, however, you read enough “native English” before the exam, you will become more and more confident in looking at texts where you don’t understand every word. Confidence is a very important concept in IELTS.
2. Improve key skills – skimming and scanning and reading in detail
A major problem in the exam is the length of the texts and you will not have time to read them all carefully. You need to train your speed reading skills so that you can read as efficiently as possible. 2 skills here are skimming which is reading quickly for general meaning and scanning which is looking for specific information.
You may sometimes see advice saying that you don’t need to read in detail. Incorrect. Bad advice. You shouldn’t read the whole text in detail but you will need to parts of the text in detail – if you want to get the right answer. Put simply, skimming and scanning are useful skills to help show you where the answer might be: reading in detail tells you what the answer is.
3. Focus on the question – avoid careless errors
The texts in IELTS are typically quite hard, so candidates spend as much time as possible reading the texts. Mistake. Why? Well, a huge amount of mistakes are made by not focusing enough on the exact question. It can be easy if you are in a hurry to miss a word such as “always” or “often”: the problem is those sorts of words can change the meaning of questions.
There is an easy solution to this problem: it is to go back and look at the question before you write in the answer. Make sure that the question says what you think it says. You will normally save yourself 2/3 marks this way.
4. The questions follow the text – normally
This is a very practical piece of advice and could save you a lot of wasted time. Typically, the questions will come in the order of the text: so the answer to question 3 will come after the answer to question 2. This can be very helpful in the exam if you are a quick worker who goes through the questions once for the easy ones and then a second time for the harder ones. If you have answer 4 underlined (see 7 above) and answer 6 underlined then you know where answer 5 must come.
One word of warning. In certain types of question (eg paragraph matching) the order of the questions are jumbled.
5. Beware word matching – be careful with key words
One very common mistake is to match a word in the question with a word in the text and to think you have found your answer. It is almost never that simple and I am tempted to say that if the words do match, then that is not your answer. What you are normally looking for are either synonyms (words with a similar meaning) or paraphrases (short bits of text that say the same as the question.
One reason candidates make this mistake is that teachers (myself included) tend to say look for key words in the question. This is helpful advice to show you where the answer might be and which paragraph it might be in. After that you need to go back and read the whole question carefully to see what the answer is.
6. Learn how to underline
This is a very specific piece of advice. You may believe it is wrong to write in books and generally I’d agree with you, but IELTS is different. A very strong suggestion is that you should underline words in the text in the exam. There are at least two reasons for this:
if you underline key words in the text, it can help you organize the text and this will save you time in the exam
if you find an answer, it is sensible to underline the part of the passage that relates to the question as a check and to write the number of the question next to it in case you find a better answer later
How you do this will depend on you and your style. Some people underline different types of words in different ways.I’d only add that less is more: if you underline too much, it can become confusing.
Tips for Listening
1. Read before you listen – predict the answer
One difficulty in the exam is that you are not just listening, but reading the question and writing the answer all at the same time. One simple tip is to read the questions before you listen so that you know what you are listening for. It is a difficult skill to master, but it can sometimes help to try and predict the type of answer you are looking for: is it a name for instance or a number?
2. Read as you listen – focus on the whole question
A huge proportion of mistakes are made not because you haven’t listened well, but because you you do not focus on the question. As you are listening focus on the precise wording of the question.
3. Look at 2 questions at once
One difficulty is that the answers to 2 questions often come quickly one after the other. Can you get both answers? Maybe, maybe not: but the only way you can is if you are ready for the next question.
I’d add that it’s no problem getting one question wrong, the real problem is if you lose track of where you are in the listening and you are still listening for question 13 when the cassette has moved onto question 15.
4. Don’t leave the writing to the end
Sometimes candidates leave the writing part to the end, thinking that they will remember what they heard. In my experience, this almost never works: there’s a lot of information, you’re under stress and, most importantly, after each listening you should be moving onto the next set of questions to read them.
5. Practice your shorthand
You do not have to write everything that you down: you have 10 minutes at the end to copy your answers onto the answer sheet. So what you need to do is to learn how to write down enough for you to recognize as you are listening so that you can write it out in full later. The one exception to this is in part 1 with numbers and names where you have to write everything out in full as you are listening – that is the challenge.
6. Numbers and names – check your spelling
In part 1, you are almost invariably required to spell names and/or write down numbers. This looks easy, but in my experience can often go wrong and the problem is that if you get any spelling wrong, you lose the mark Of course you know the alphabet, but some letters can cause problems even for advanced learners, in particular:
J & G
Y
A & E & I
My tip is to make an association that you can remember: these are mine, but I suggest you make your own:
J is for Jesus, but G is for God
How do you spell “why”? W-H-Y
A is for apple
E is for elephant
I is for ‘I”
7. Don’t write the answer too quickly
Sometimes you hear what you think is the answer, but the speaker goes on to correct themselves or give slightly different information:
“So I’ll see you on Wednesday afternoon”
“Sorry, I’m busy then. How about Thursday evening?”
“Fine, Thursday at 7 0′clock”
8. Don’t leave any blank answers
There are 2 reasons for this. Firstly, your guess may well be correct, particularly if it is a multiple choice style question. Secondly, there is a danger if you leave a blank that you write the answers in the wrong boxes on the answer sheet and that can be a disaster.
9. Listen for repeated information
This doesn’t always work, but sometimes the words that are the answer are repeated: if you need to make a guess choose the words you hear repeated, they could well the be answer.
Tips for Speaking-
1. In the exam – listen to and answer the question
The best advice for IELTS speaking is very simply to listen to the question and answer it. The reason for this is for this is the one time you are face to face with the examiner and nerves are a significant problem. If you are trying to remember complex advice, you are likely to become more nervous and not perform to your best. Keep it simple.
One example here is in part 1. If you here a question in the past tense:
Eg “What sports did you play as a child?”
A good answer will use the past tense – the examiner will be listening for this.
2. Before the exam – practice
Following on from the previous advice, you need to practice before the exam to make sure that the appropriate skills are automatic. This will only happen if you practice sufficiently. However, you also need to practice the right skills – each part of the speaking paper tests a different skill.
3. Immediately before the exam – speak English
The problem for many people is not speaking English, rather it is moving from their own language into English. The advice here is plain: make certain that you are already speaking English before you go into the exam.
4. Key advice – extend your answer appropriately
If there is one key piece of advice, it is to extend your answer appropriately. For example, this is inappropriate:
Question:” How many languages do you speak?”
Answer: “Two. Chinese and English.”
Better would be:
Answer: “I speak two languages. My first language is Chinese and I speak English too. I’ve been learning English since I was 10. I started learning it when I was in primary school.”
Be aware, however, that very long answers are not always a good idea. It is possible that you will go off topic and lose coherence.
5. Make eye contact
A large part of communication is non-verbal. You are marked by the examiner in the room and you should do everything you can to show that person that you are a good communicator. If you do not make eye contact with the examiner, s/he is probably going to be less impressed with your performance.
6. Do not learn answers
One temptation is to learn answers before the exam. Do not. The examiner will notice and your score will be badly affected.
7. If you don’t understand the question – ask
This is a speaking test and not a listening test. If you don’t understand the question, ask the examiner to repeat or explain it – you should not be penalised for this. If you try to answer a question you do not understand, you will almost certainly become incoherent.
8. Give yourself time to think – repeat/reformulate the question
In parts 1 and 3 you are not given any thinking time: you are supposed to start speaking immediately. This does not mean, however, that you need to start answering the question straight away. What you can do is start by repeating/reformulating or commenting on the question:
“What did I enjoy doing as a child? Let me see…”
“That’s not something I’ve thought about before. It’s an interesting question.’
This has several benefits. It is good communication. It allows you a little time to think. It should also make you answer the question and not the general topic.
9. Correct yourself – if you can do it immediately
If you make a mistake and you can correct it immediately, do so. This will show the examiner that you have control over the language. If, however, you are unsure how to correct yourself, move on: the examiner may not have noticed the mistake in the first place and if you try unsuccessfully to correct it, a small mistake may become a much bigger one.
10. Do not relax too much – it’s not a conversation
This is an exam and you need to show the best side of your spoken English. If you relax too much and become too conversational, your English may suffer. You need to recognize that this is not a true dialogue between two people: it is more of an interview with one person speaking and the other listening.
In a conversation the speaking conventions are quite different: you expect the other person to share 50% of the talk time and to react to your comments, typically one person will not speak for any length of time.
warblade25 said:
Any advise on how to get a high score? Is the Cambridge or British IELTS Practice test much the same as the actual examination? Pls advise. Thanks
