Friday, 24 July 2015

IELTS Materials and the IELTS preparation strategy that never fails!

In this podcast / video / blog post you will get a treasure chest of IELTS resources, ranging from practice tests, online exercises, and even preparation strategy (at the end of the post).

Professional Online Preparation

Without doubt the best place for IELTS writing preparation and it even comes with a guarantee.

This site is run by a very handsome fellow, who will push you to improve fast.

ultimate ielts course

To get the absolute value from this material you need to APPLY it and practise, practise, practise, and for that you need IELTS MOTIVATION. I would also advise you read the section at the end regarding getting a plan.

This site has TONNES of IELTS material for free.

For example you can get Cambridge IELTS 8, and Cambridge IELTS 9, or how about a few practice exams? This book for IELTS vocabulary looks pretty useful also.

IELTS material

http://ift.tt/1IiYBan

30 GIGABYTES OF IELTS Material?

Torrents may be a little riskier, but you do get the audio versions which are useful for listening practice. This torrent is almost 30 gigs! Use a download client like uTorrent.

Torrent

Amazon

Isn’t a bad option if you have the cash, but the problem is if you are in a hurry you will have to wait a few days. Below are two of my favourite books.

 

IELTS Material to improve your Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Are you fed up and annoyed about ARTICLES???? I think about 99% of all English language students have challenges with articles. This little baby will help you, but first watch the tutorial on how to use it.

An online video for the students going for Band 9?

This video is quite advanced material even for native English speakers, so be careful!

These sites are powerful when used with a plan (see end of article)

ESL Punctuation Online Quiz – Great if your writing suffers from punctuation abuse!

Reading Test – Now this is absolute GOLD for the reading test. Why? It uses current news so you can keep up with world affairs. It has different levels so you can push yourself, it’s really quick and easy to use, and finally there are even audio recordings of the text! Hearing the text will increase the chances of you remembering the vocab, and also guide your pronunciation challenges.

The IELTS preparation strategy that never fails!

The usual approach is to download or buy everything, then make crazy goals like “25 hours a day!

No socialising until IELTS is nailed!

No X-Box until I get Band 9!

I totally understand these ideas but from personal experience they hardly ever work.

What does work are smaller, more realistic, easily attainable goals, with the view to making them a habit. For example you could determine to do one hour a day, for 6 days a week.

In the first week write out a sample IELTS essay every morning and do then do a reading quiz.

Basically, consistently executing smaller steps is usually more attainable and more satisfying than going for outrageous unrealistic goals, also with the latter we often feel down when we don’t reach our own expectations.

I would also recommend careful planning, way way in advance of the exam. Then follow this really simple strategy.

  1. Allocate a specific time for focused IELTS preparation, an hour a day.
  2. Do practice tests to identify your weaknesses
  3. Focus on that specific area
  4. Do more practice tests to check for improvements.

IELTS is like a mountain, it cannot be accomplished in 3 hours, it needs to be climbed step by step, consistently over the space of at the very least a month.
Listen to the podcast here:

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Here is a quick brief video I made for this post:

The post IELTS Materials and the IELTS preparation strategy that never fails! appeared first on IELTS podcast.

Monday, 20 July 2015

090 It took him 16 times to pass IELTS Writing

How Kevin Passed IELTS

Imagine you have taken the IELTS exam 16 times!

How would you feel?

Where would you go?

Well this happened to Kevin, check out this email from him:

Dear Ben:

My name is Kevin. I am currently live in Sydney and struggling for passing IELTS 7777 for a long time. I really need your help on both my speaking and writing obviously. Look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin

Well what did he do?

He got in contact and started following the Sentence Guide a few months later I get this wonderful email: 

Dear Ben,

I’m glad to tell you that I have passed the IELTS test today! What a trip after all this entire year (from 20/Jan/2014 to 6/Jan/2015). I got Listening:7.5 Reading:8 Writing:7 Speaking:7 in the IELTS exam which held in 13th/Dec/2014. Actually I have just bought your Sentence guide for 2 or 3 days by that time. I read through the starting 3 chapters and practiced once. Then I decided to try to implement your essay “skeleton” on that test, well, obviously it works! I wish I could have found you earlier so that I probably am able to use your fantastic writing technique to my previous 16 tests. I couldn’t believe it until the moment that I hold the result sheet in my hands. Right now the scene by applying your visualisation technique every day has finally become the truth, my dream come true. I just wanna say thank you x 100,000 times to you for not only your book and help but also the encouragement and inspiration in your podcast which keep me in believe.

Thank you again, and sadly I have to quit the 2015 IELTS scheme…

I wish you all the best in this beautiful year and all the years after.

Yours faithfully,

Kevin

How cool is that? Well I was very happy and wanted to invite him on to the podcast to help inspire other students.

You can download the full podcast or watch the video below.

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The post 090 It took him 16 times to pass IELTS Writing appeared first on IELTS podcast.