xtremist said:
Hi,
One can give tips, if the person has actually prepared for the exam. But, in my case I had no real preparation.... And yet I was expecting overall 8.5, with 9.0 in Listening and 8.5 in reading and speaking ! I strongly believe..that language is something.. (unless you are learning a new foreign language) requires no actual preparation (atleast in my case) and whatever you read, talk, chat, watch movies etc. in English in daily life..is more than enough for preparation.
From actual preparation point of view (if any), few days before exam..to get some practice of reading, I did read the whole editorials of the English newspapers coming daily at our home and watched a lot more English movies/T.V series! (Btw I do watch a lot of these..generally
)
Also, I did go through the tips for writing, on the website..
www.ielts-blog.com (which I felt is very useful, but didn't make much use of it...), just the day before exam..and out of those tips mentioned on the site, I clearly followed one rule of not using short forms in writing part..i.e writing such as; 've for have, 'll not for will not etc. Also, I followed another tip of using formal English, as much as I could.
As for the exam...(you may get some tips from my exam experience).. I was most worried about the writing section... and I still remember, I was the only guy in entire room who took an extra writing supplement..and I kept on writing... for the task-1 (150 words), I wrote around 280 words... and for task-2 (250 words), I wrote around 400 words (yes I counted..and I was worried that I may actually fail for overwriting, but it seems if you write stuff related to the topic...it doesn't matter if you overwrite, but marks will be definitely deducted if you underwrite). And yeah..I used no fancy words whatsoever..nor paid much attention to the structure..except for the common sense of opening with an intro, the main part and ending with a conclusion. I wrote as I speak..no literature language used..
and you clearly can see my writing style on this and many of my previous posts on this forum,where I write in detail. (I guess, writing these posts 've been a good exercise for me... lol) Hell, I didn't even analyse in detail, and just kept on describing the task-1 graph and kept on writing whatever came into my mind for task-2. Even, after writing so much.. I completed a little before time and much before few of other candidates who wrote much lesser quantity than me (I guess I gave little time to "THINK" and actually "WROTE" more.. which you are supposed to do in writing part!
). Fortunately, I managed to score 8.0, which is totally unexpected, as I was expecting 7.0 in writing and 8.5 or above in other sections.
Reading part was tougher.. as the passages were large, a bit of higher level English, than we commonly use... and given the limited time, it did built up pressure on me! I read the passages once quickly.. and then read the questions, and scanned for the answers. And even though I was confident..., obviously it's clear now... 've made many mistakes..that I scored only 7.5
Listening part was a piece of cake... you got to write the answers as you listen, and I was sure I would score 9.0, but then again since Listening was right at the start, and the listening tape is only run once... and I didn't move my hands / react quickly..and missed 2-3 answers at the beginning... and although I wrote those answers by trying to remember, what was being said on the tape... but by then it was too late and scored only 8.0.
Speaking, I got a weird topic. A topic on which I'm not much familiar or ever expected... it was: Marriage and last marriage attended by you..and marriage in your culture...overall.. all related to Marriage..except for few starting questions on my self. Even though I had never given a thought on marriage and stuff coming for speaking part... still.. I just kept on talking..as to whatever came in my mind... although.. I paused in between twice to think..as to what to tell related to the exact ways, in how marriages take place in our culture and what else happened during the last wedding I attended. Am sure, if I had some other familiar topic for speaking part, I could get surely 8.5, instead of 8.0
That's it... that's how my IELTS was...
