Suju.the.Archer: September 2007

Saturday, September 22, 2007

IELTS TIPS - SPEAKING

IELTS TIPS SPEAKING:

I appeared for IELTS more than 2 yrs back.

The methods mentioned below are what my various teachers and gurus taught me and that I used to appear for this IELTS and various other Tests.

This is the smallest section.

Download those 32 audio mp3 mentioned in my Set 3 of the blog IELTS Audio & eBooks Download Links

These are real speaking tests, you will come to know and understand how people respond to questions.

Listening is a one to one interview – only the examiner and you will be in the room. This complete interview is recorded on a cassette.

Believe this – the examiner doesn’t know you and is seeing you for the 1st time so he/she is not asking you questions and his/her intention is not to harm you – so you need to speak out and don’t be afraid.

Speaking is very simple but you need to use varied words like for example I can say Romeo loves Juliet or I can say Juliet is loved by Romeo.
Or I love cricket and then again during my speech I can say cricket is my favorite sport. All these various ways of telling a thing actually means the same.

Another important thing when they ask you questions please don’t keep your answer short. For example – which is your favorite sport? And you may say Cricket and stop.

This is absolutely wrong – your answer should keep on going like this – My favorite sport is Cricket because I come from India and we Indians play cricket from childhood and my father used to play and he taught me how to play cricket. Then I was also in my school cricket team and blah blah blah --------- keep on saying something or other about the topic until the Examiner changes the question.

Or your reply for this question can also be – Actually I am not a sports person - I like to watch cricket and football in outdoor games but I like indoor sports like billiards, chess and others………

It’s a good idea to make it up if you don’t know the topic – that means tell lies. If you don’t like cricket – just take it as your favorite sport and speak about it as if you like the game. The examiner looks for your vocabulary and grammar and not your knowledge/ common sense about the subject. Just keep on talking.

Sometimes the Examiner by his facial expressions or hand movements will tell you to speak more about the subject. And also he/she may draw you attention to speak more loudly because the interview is recorded.

There are in total 3 parts in the Listening Section.

Part 1 – 1 min - this is a normal introduction – you will be asked your name, background, why are you appearing for IELTS? Your favorite sport / hobby? How do you spend your leisure time? And others.
The intention of this section is to remove your fear of the examiner, which is to become friendlier.

Part 2 – this section is for you to speak for 2 mins – like telling a story.
Normally a topic will be given to you – or may be related to the above asked subjects.
The examiner will provide you with a piece of paper which mentions the topic and what all points need to be covered in your speech.
For example: Describe your room/office and furniture?
Name the different furniture in your room?
Mention its various locations in the room?
Materials used to make it? The color / the texture?
Which is your favorite furniture?

When the examiner hands over the paper to you – you are given half a minute to think over the topic and during this time take your pencil and write down the points and details that you will cover while talking about this topic - like write down - how many tables/chairs and a bed and coat, the color and material used – the shape of the table – whether round/square-
Looking at these written points you have to keep on speaking when the examiner tells you to start – he/she will be looking at his/her watch to check the total speaking time. He/she will encourage you to speak more and help you.

Keep on speaking but slowly – word by word so the recordings will go on well and the examiner can understand what you speak.

You have to speak for 2 mins. It’s really a long time – try to explain your bedroom in front of your mirror and you will see that you are only able to talk for 1 min and the actual 2 min is a long time.

Its better to practice this at home - practice to talk about your kitchen, bedroom, living room, your garden - they can also ask about your travel to school/college or work or even explain your travel to this exam center. In this tell them how you travel – the mode of transport/ the people that you meet and see, the surroundings like the tall buildings/lake/hills and others. You can add your imagination too in this talk.

Again Speak word by word - loud and clear because speaking test is recorded for giving marks or revaluation.
If you need to think in between - talk word by word and at the same time - build your answer in your mind and then continue

For example - to explain your kitchen tell where is the window, what color - how is the kitchen arranged, your gas stove color and material, utensils used, your favorite utensil, you can add your favorite section in the kitchen.

Topics can be like sports, furniture, fashion, dress and others common everyday subjects.

Part 3 - checks your sense and your ideas – contains 12-15 questions

For example – whether Internet is good or bad? pc games good for kids?
You can go on the bad side but you need to support your views or can go on the good side but support is needed.
Around 12 -15 questions will be in it – you need to give solid explanations with examples.

Or can even can say good as well as bad.

The main thing that the examiner looks here is your vocabulary,grammar and how well you understand the questions asked and the way you answer to the questions. Also the relevance of the answer with the question asked. Sometimes when we answer we may say things that don’t at all relate to the questions. This is bad and your mark will go down.

The examiner has a big book with all sets of questions, they can ask you anything.

If you don’t understand the questions asked, you can request the examiner to repeat the question – may be you can use this time to rethink your answers. You can even request the examiner to change the topic if you are not at all comfortable with the topic asked.

More will be added shortly – if any.

Keep smiling and practicing. Take some topic and Talk with your mirror for better practice.

May God Bless You.

Suju.the.Archer

Monday, September 17, 2007

IELTS - Audio & eBooks Download Links

IELTS TIPS - READING

IELTS TIPS - READING

I appeared for IELTS more than 2 yrs back.

The methods mentioned below are what my various teachers and gurus taught me and that I used to appear for this IELTS and various other Tests.

READING

This is my toughest section – because I am not a good and fast reader.

I think it has 3 reading articles. Most probably 1 of these articles will be tough. This is used by IELTS for research purpose.

The most important skill needed here > you need a habit of fast and good reading.

To improve this > start reading newspapers and slowly you will become a fast reader. Actually fast reading means skimming through the article very fast – you don’t need to understand each and every aspect. Just read it as fast as possible.

Actually time allotted to read the articles and answer the questions is very very less – you will mostly be short of time to complete the answers to all questions.

This section is not in sequence as mentioned in my other Blog > IELTS TIPS - LISTENING in the listening section. The answer of the question 2 will not follow answer to question 1. May be your 10th question answer will be in the 1st paragraph and 1st question will be in the 8th paragraph. Unfortunately there is no sequence for this section. But this doesn’t mean that answer to a question in the 2nd article will be in the 1st article.

As you will be short of time to complete all answers to all questions you can follow the same trick as mentioned above in the Listening section:

Read the questions and look for what they are asking for and then look into the article to find where this particular answer can be found out and get its answer. But sometimes IELTS questions may be asked in a tricky way. For example: the question may be asking for characteristics of a product/person – but no where in the article this word CHARACTERISTICS will be mentioned instead it may be mentioned as BEHAVIOUR/HABITS/SPECIFICATIONS/TECHNICAL DETAILS or any other word that has this similar meaning. So these are places in the article where you will find the answers to these questions.

Sometimes you may be asked to match paragraphs A-D for example with the titles 1-6, This is indeed tough – as there are only 4 paragraphs but 6 titles > 2 of the titles will not fit the paragraph titles. But some of the titles may look similar to each other and may be fitting to the same paragraph > this is just to increase more confusion. So select the best matching title for the paragraph. As far I remember sometimes you may also be asked to arrange the jumbled paragraphs A F D C B E in a correct order, as it should appear. For this you will have to understand each paragraph and arrange it 1 after another exactly as the flow of the article should be.

Practice a lot for this section.

More will be added shortly – if any.

Keep smiling and practicing.

May God Bless You.

Suju.the.Archer

IELTS TIPS - LISTENING

IELTS TIPS - LISTENING

I appeared for IELTS more than 2 yrs back.

The methods mentioned below are what my various teachers and gurus taught me and that I used to appear for IELTS and various other Tests.

LISTENING

In this section I think there are 3-4 listening episodes. Most probably 1 of these episodes will be tough. This is used by IELTS for research purpose.

Listening to English News that come in BBC/CNN and try to watch a lot of English movies can develop the listening skills – You need to train your ears for these English accents. This comes only by practice.

For example – Watch and Listen to BBC news – and during the re-telecast of this news turn your back to the TV and just listen to the news and write down the names of places/persons or number of dollars invested by a company or other information, these are just few examples and other critical info. After that when the news repeats again – watch and listen to this news and check whether u have noted down the details correctly including the spellings. Initially it will tough but slowly and gradually you will improve in it.
Remember, “Slow and steady wins the race” from the story of the hare and tortoise.

There are no negative marks in this section for wrong answers. So if you have optional answers then if you have missed this answer in the audio just tick most appropriate and immediately move on – if you spend more time on 1 question then your next question answers will move ahead of your listening. Never leave any questions unanswered whether right or wrong. Another important thing is the spelling mistakes > if u have mentioned a correct answer but written the wrong spelling then it’s considered wrong. For example > if the audio says boys and if write boy: it is wrong, another > babies and if you write babys or baby’s : its wrong

How to tick most appropriate?
If there are 4 optional answers for 1 question and you are not sure as to which to mark most appropriate > first discard one by one from the 4 answers the option that can in no way be the answer and then u will be left with the best probably correct answer. Best of Luck.

The questions are arranged in such a way that it is in sequence with the audio. Which means the answer to question 2 will always follow answer to question 1.

And never answer to question 1 will follow answer to question 2. So if you miss an answer to any previous question don’t ponder your time on it. Instead concentrate on the next coming questions.

In between each set of question the audio says to review your answers – please do not do that – u will not remember what they said in the earlier set – instead read the next set of questions and look for target specific words that will tell u to look for those related words in the audio > for example > in the next set questions u may be asked to fill HOME ADDRESS/PERSONS NAME/ NO.OF BOOKS > home address will be alphanumeric, persons name will be alphabetic, no. of books will always be numeric –
Other examples can be directions like > left right, east west north south and many – so if u read the next set of questions u will know what to actually listen in the audio. Many times there will be audio which is of no use and sometimes it’s just used to create a small confusion.

Then after the above > again the audio says before the next set starts to read the question > so this gives us a second chance to read the next set questions and answers to get ready for the actual audio. One another important method can be followed > when u review or do the 2nd read cycle > underline the target word in question > this will help u to know what is asked for and what u have to listen.

This section may have diagrams and sketches to mark or locate.

For listening a separate answer sheet is provided by the examiner and the guidelines to fill it up it mentioned on this answer sheet.

So u can first mark all answers in your question booklet and then when prompted by the audio to fill your answers – copy the answers from your question booklet to answer booklet. Normally people make mistakes here when the copy the answers from question booklet to answer sheet. Be very careful with this.

A good pencil and eraser can be used for all the sections of IELTS – it is in fact a perfect idea as u can erase if u have made mistakes.

All the best for the above section. Best of Luck.

How can you check your score when you practice?
The below method doesn’t give you your correct score but will give u a rough idea about your score level.
Each section’s max score is 9. So suppose u get 23 correct answers out of total 30 questions then u can calculate like this > 23/30 * 9 = 6.9 out of 9.

More will be added shortly – if any.

Keep smiling and practicing.

May God Bless You.

Suju.the.Archer

Basic tips for IELTS Test

Appearing for IELTS

It contains 4 sections - Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking.

Basic tips - read the newspapers daily - cover all topics of general interest. This is needed because - here’s an example - if the examiner asks about Global Warming in the speaking test section - if you don’t know the topic then you cant speak. Another advantage of this reading is - you will get more ideas. This Global Warming idea - you can use for writing essays or letters and the more you read - you will become a fast reader and you will be able to scan through articles at rapid speed in the reading section.

Reading will help you directly and indirectly in listening, reading, writing and speaking.

General Version exam is much easier and enough but if you have a plan to join some education then you should go for Academic Version - the results are valid for 2 yrs and more (depends on the institution). If you appear for general then you cant use the score to enroll into studies.

I remember a conversation with an old professor-
The talk goes like this - I asked him
“Sir, can you tell me from my current communication with you – what will be my score in IELTS?”On this he asked me my age - it told him 27 yrs. Then he said
"Whatever and what all English you have learned in your last 27 yrs will only fetch you marks, and by practicing for a couple of months will not boost up your score. Suppose your English level is in the 6 marks band then by practicing for a couple of months it will only increase upto 6.5 and nothing more. And if your band is only 5 then never you can get 6.5 – because there is no particular syllabus for this test. Your normal English is tested"

That was a real wise answer.

All the best. I am planning to blog more specific tips of each section shortly.

Keep smiling,

Suju.the.Archer.

Suju.the.Archer

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