(This post was originally written for my blog on 16th February 2017. It was added to my blog by taking permission from the writer, for which I thank them. The writer chose to remain anonymous.)
I got the following scores in my first attempt:
listening:7
reading:8
writing:7.5
speaking: 7
During practice at home I got the highest marks in the listening section, but at the beginning of the exam which started with listening I was so anxious and kept thinking of an answer that I missed, then at the 3rd section I changed most of the answers while transferring it to the answer sheet for unknown reason! Then I began to calm down as the exam progressed. So my advice to you is to chill out.
For listening:
I am used to listening to movies and programs in English, you can show subtitles in English too.
I answered Cambridge test books from 6 to 10. I had also barron cds and practiced its exams.
Reading:
This is the section I hate most because I’m a slow reader and tried that skimming scanning method but it didn’t work for me. There trick here is to spend the least time in the 1st passage as most of the answers are in the same order of the questions i.e the answer of the fourth question wont precede the answer of the 3rd question .This applies to the 1st passage only. Then you can spend more time in 2nd and 3rd passage.
Speaking:
I had Mark Allen ebook and audios ,and the few days before the exam I read the questions of recent examinees on ieltsliz.com this was more than enough ,and all questions in the exam were familiar to me
Writing:
That hideous stumble for many people wasn’t bad for me. I reviewed Ryan videos on youtube for task 1 and 2 and followed his steps. I also reviewed his band 9 essays ,took notes of them and rewrote them myself . Simon ideas pdf file was of great help as well. I wrote essays and people on facebook corrected it for me and gave me advice regarding the use of complex grammar and words and paraphrasing .That Facebook group is IELTS/WRITING. I had my exam with idp and they offered me a writing exam and corrected it to me. It was highly valuable as they gave me a lot of tips concerning punctuation, grammar, writing numbers.
Prep Duration:
The duration of study for IELTS greatly varies from one person to another, but the rule is to keep practicing exams everyday. For me, having an exam at least per day was fundamental, then the last 10 days before the exam I concentrated in writing, but I think you shouldn’t omit other sections too, so maybe one exam per day is good.
