IELTS TEST - how to prepare?

Why overgeneralising is damaging your IELTS essay score! I sometimes think that the world that I live in is very different to the one that IELTS test-takers live in. For example, when I was a child, my sister and I played a lot of computer games. The result? A lot of happy memories and good hand-eye coordination. However, if you ask IELTS test-takers what the result of playing computer games is, the answer is always the same: blindness, lack of social skills, and maybe, a life of crime! Do you see the problem? These results are just TOO BIG! In IELTS overgeneralising is specifically mentioned in the band descriptors as a mistake that stops students getting an 8.0 for Task Response or The post My IELTS Classroom Podcast 32: Why overgeneralising is damaging your IELTS essay score! appeared first on My IELTS Classroom Blog.

3 common IELTS Grammar Mistakes I know, I know, I know – not everybody likes grammar! In fact, even Nick hated it when he first started teaching. The problem, though, is that 25% of your score for writing and listening will be awarded based on your sentence structures. There are many places where students can make errors in the writing test, but day upon day, Nick and I see the same 3 common IELTS grammar mistakes again and again. What are they? Well, you will need to listen to find out! Below, you can find a summary of the episode, which includes all of the links to useful materials and the times of each part of the discussion (so you The post My IELTS Classroom Podcast: 3 common IELTS Grammar Mistakes appeared first on My IELTS Classroom Blog.

50 Recent IELTS Essay Questions  Hey! It is so important that when you sit down to practice IELTS writing, you only use questions that are “genuine”. This means using either questions that come from the IELTS Cambridge 1 – 14 series or those that have been created by an exam writer, like those in my 100 IELTS essay question blog post. However, many students like to practice recent IELTS essay questions i.e. topics that have been reported by recent test-takers. I understand why students want to do this – knowing what the recent IELTS essays questions are and checking that you can answer them is reassuring. However, unfortunately, test-takers rarely (if ever) manage to accurately remember the wording of the question that they The post 50 Recent IELTS Essay Questions appeared first on My IELTS Classroom Blog.

IELTS Line Graphs Last week, we focussed on General Training Writing Task One and the importance of having the tone in your letters. Today, we move to Academic Writing Task One, to look at how you can tackle the tasks to make sure that you have clear key features and make comparisons. How are we going to do that? We are going to focus on ONE type of chart – IELTS line graphs. I think that this is the chart that students struggle with most, but is actually the easiest one to answer once you know a few simple strategies. And, guess what? Those are what we are going to show you in today’s episode! Below, you can find a The post My IELTS Classroom Podcast 28: IELTS Line Graphs Made Easy appeared first on My IELTS Classroom Blog.

IELTS Discuss Both Sides Essays – are you making this mistake? Hey! There is a lot of discussion in IELTS forums about IELTS discuss both sides organisation. However, what many people fail to consider is what information each paragraph should actually contain. So, today, I want to address the most common (and dangerous) error that students can make in a Discuss Both Sides essay – discussing the topic instead of the views. I always think students learn best when they are involved in the lesson, so let me explain what I mean by using this simple (fake) question as an example: Some people think football is the best sport for children to play. Others think that boxing is better. Discuss both sides and The post The most damaging error you can make in an IELTS Discuss Both Sides Essays appeared first on My IELTS Classroom Blog.