July 19th - Overall band at 8.5 - Thanks to Ryan!!

[jinidgenie]

Hello All,

I could not be more happier seeing my results today. I definitely want to thank Ryan for his videos that helped me a lot. Here is the division of scores.
I practiced sections in this order - Reading --> Listening --> Writing --> Speaking. Since I was more worried on my reading first, I had to take care of it before I moved to the other sections to build some confidence.

Listening - 8.0
Reading - 8.0
Writing - 8.5
Speaking - 8.5
Overall - 8.5

If any of you need any suggestions/help, please let me know.
Ryan - Thank you!! Let me know if you need me talk about my preparation.

Thanks,
Sarojini

[Ryan]

Hi Sarojini,

What an amazing performance! 8.5 in Writing and Speaking is so rarely hit. How many attempts did it take to get to this level?

Yes, I would absolutely love the opportunity to share your story/advice via recorded interview (thanks for offering). I've sent you a PM regarding how we can set this up.

Congratulations on this achievement!

[jinidgenie]

Thank you so much, Ryan!! It was my very first attempt with about 10 days of preparation.

I will respond to your PM shortly.

[rule_breaker]

Hi Sarojini,

Congrats to you for your result. I'm also preparing ielts & right now, I'm at overall 6.5 band level. But,I want to get at least 8 band score. Could you please suggest me any good advice regarding all modules ?

Thanks
Preet

[jinidgenie]

Hello Preet,

Thank you!! As far as the preparation goes, it all depends on what your weak areas are. For instance, if you just fall short of ideas when writing, I would recommend increasing your knowledge database. This means a lot of reading (a lot of articles, listening to the news, even sample essays etc.) to enhance your knowledge on various topics. This will not only help with the ideas in writing but also helps you in understanding how to frame your sentences grammatically correct.This sometimes helps in providing some examples from your own experience, which is a plus.

The next best thing to do is to time yourself while practicing for any section and to be confident on the exam day. I may be able to help more depending on what your weak areas are.

All the best!!

Thanks,
Sarojini

[rule_breaker]

Thank you so much for your precious advice, Sarojini

I'll do it as you said to improve my writing skills. If you don't mind, Could you please give some tips regarding speaking Module. It's my weakest area out of all modules.

Thanks for your good wishes & guidance,
Preet

[jinidgenie]

Hello Preet,

For me, framing grammatically correct sentences was not an issue but I needed to know about the topic to talk about it. As part of preparation, I went through several examples of speaking module. For instance, the most general topics include -

Your Neighborhood/city/country/memorable vacation place etc.
Your hobby
Painter/Artist or Arts in general
Travel/Photography
Museums and national history
Friend/Colleague/relationships between people etc.
Work/Study
Media/Technology

I took IELTS - General Training module. So, I realized that most speaking topics are very general so I need to make sure I have something to talk about them. So, I took each of the above topics and actually prepared on how I would respond if I were given one of these topics and listened to my own speaking to correct and improve myself.
However, I did not know a lot when it came to Arts or Museums. So, I went back to my basics and recollected the days I visited museums and learnt more about them online to be sure I could talk about them.

Also, I started listening to various speaking tests available on Youtube to understand how a band 7 or 8 or 9 person would talk and how I should improve myself. This has helped as well.

This is how I prepared. Hope it helps!!

[rule_breaker]

Thanks a lot for sharing your helpful tips, Sarojini ..... I'll definitely use these tips to prepare my ielts exam. Can i use same strategy to prepare writing module ? Or should i need to do something else ?

I'm also looking for speaking partner on skype. Can you be my speaking partner if you have some time to talk & discuss ? It would help me a lot.

Thanks
Preet

[rituraj]

Hi sorijini, firstly congratulations on ur awesome performance. Had u taken idp or British council. Is it a myth that idp gives longer reading passage as compared to BCL.reading is my weak point.I had taken idp ielts in India twice before.got 7.need 7.5 for plab registration in UK..now im in UK and have booked BCL..wondering which is better idp or BCL for UK

[venkstar]

Dear Sarojini,

Congratulations on scoring an 8.50% band ! That is very impressive indeed. I am going to attempt a IELTS exam (GT module) in 3 weeks and i was a bit short of confidence while prepping (especially the Writing and Speaking modules) and i came here to seek direction and inspiration and i bumped into your story.

Therefore, may i request you to kindly give your suggestions with some specific queries i had which i am going to list down below

1. Writing - For writing, hows does one become a good writer (For both tasks) in the expected format of the exam, in the time given to us. My question is more from the time management perspective than general preparation on structure of writing.

2. Speaking - You mentioned that you had heard some videos on youtube for speaking. Can you kindly share the channel names with us please.

3. How many hours did you spend and how many practice tests did you attempt in those 10 days of preparation for the test ?

Thanks in advance for your inputs to my queries.

Venky

[dgulati]

Hi Sarojini

i read you success story and glad to know that u are willing to help others also

as i have problem in writing and reading .preapred alot for the examination but still not got the score .

so kindly help me to get out of this problem ....


thanks

dg

[jinidgenie]

Dear Sarojini,

Congratulations on scoring an 8.50% band ! That is very impressive indeed. I am going to attempt a IELTS exam (GT module) in 3 weeks and i was a bit short of confidence while prepping (especially the Writing and Speaking modules) and i came here to seek direction and inspiration and i bumped into your story.

Therefore, may i request you to kindly give your suggestions with some specific queries i had which i am going to list down below

1. Writing - For writing, hows does one become a good writer (For both tasks) in the expected format of the exam, in the time given to us. My question is more from the time management perspective than general preparation on structure of writing.

2. Speaking - You mentioned that you had heard some videos on youtube for speaking. Can you kindly share the channel names with us please.

3. How many hours did you spend and how many practice tests did you attempt in those 10 days of preparation for the test ?

Thanks in advance for your inputs to my queries.

Venky

Hello Venky,

Thank you!! Here is what I have for your questions.

1) For the writing, I spend good 5-7 mins on Task 1 and 10-12 mins on task 2 just to think about what to write before I start writing. Once I decide what I want to put in the tasks, I then start writing the points I came up when I thought about the topics. It is just framing sentences on the points I came up with before I started writing.

2) Ryan uploaded on his channel a couple of videos and if you search on youtube for IELTS speaking band 7 or 8 or 9, the videos come up. That is how I got to them.

3) I spent about 3 - 4 hours each day after work and I never took any complete practice test with all modules but I practiced each sections separately.

Listening - Cannot really put a number for this one since each of the recordings are only about 2 mins long.
Reading - Practiced different types of reading passages about 50.
Writing - read at least 150 essays to understand different topics and practiced writing about 3 of each type.
Speaking - Listened to the videos of different people and practiced the basic questions and some common topics that I listed in my previous response. on this thread.

I hope this helps!

Good Luck!

[jinidgenie]

Hi Sarojini

i read you success story and glad to know that u are willing to help others also

as i have problem in writing and reading .preapred alot for the examination but still not got the score .

so kindly help me to get out of this problem ....


thanks

dg

Hello Dg,

I told about how I prepared and what I did for each of the sections in this thread. If you have any specific questions, let me know and I will try to help as much as I can.

Good luck!