IELTS in South Africa – September 2009 (General Training)

Thanks to N. from South Africa, we know a lot about the IELTS exam there:

Listening test

Section 1: It was about a burglary, an inspector was talking to a woman who owned the home (not rented). The entrance was made through the back door as nothing was opened or broken at the front. The PC was stolen and the inspector asked the woman for the serial number. Money was stolen as well.

Questions: How long have you lived here? Write down the serial number of the PC. What type of purse it was and its colour or type of fabric (in my test it was silver).

Section 2: A lady calls a reception to advise that there is no hot water in her room and and the receptionist tells her how to turn the hot water on.

Questions: Which knobs to turn for hot/cold water – fill these details in the blanks, then we had a diagram labeling.

Section 3: A continuation of Section 2. Regarding spare keys and where they are kept, light bulbs and where to find them.

Section 4: Organic vegetables.

Reading test

Passage 1: Three articles regarding 3 tours in and around the city.
Questions: True / False questions, short answer questions (one word).

Passage 2: Cannot remember.

Passage 3: An article about a person who went to other countries to get native plants and bring them back to England. Each section was broken into pieces and marked A to H.
Questions: Information matching, such as “Which paragraph did he almost die and lose all of his seedlings in?”

Writing test

Writing task 1 (a letter)
Write a letter to your friend overseas, invite them to a party and explain how to get to your home.

Writing task 2 (an essay)
Many parents use TV and computer games as ‘baby sitters’ (allow children to watch too much TV and or play computer games for too long). What are the reasons for this situation? What are the effects of watching too much TV or playing computer games on children?

Speaking test

Interview
- Your full name.
- Where do you live?
- What type of work do you do?
- Do you like working alone or with other people?

Cue card
Think of an advertisement you liked and say:
- Why you liked the advertisement.
- What in it would make you want to buy the product.

Discussion
- Why do you think the advertisement worked?
- What types of advertisements work?
- What types of advertisements have you seen on the street corners?
- What type of advertising is more effective, on TV or on the radio?

IELTS in South Africa – September 2009 (General Training)

Thanks to N. from South Africa, we know a lot about the IELTS exam there:

Listening test

Section 1: It was about a burglary, an inspector was talking to a woman who owned the home (not rented). The entrance was made through the back door as nothing was opened or broken at the front. The PC was stolen and the inspector asked the woman for the serial number. Money was stolen as well.

Questions: How long have you lived here? Write down the serial number of the PC. What type of purse it was and its colour or type of fabric (in my test it was silver).

Section 2: A lady calls a reception to advise that there is no hot water in her room and and the receptionist tells her how to turn the hot water on.

Questions: Which knobs to turn for hot/cold water – fill these details in the blanks, then we had a diagram labeling.

Section 3: A continuation of Section 2. Regarding spare keys and where they are kept, light bulbs and where to find them.

Section 4: Organic vegetables.

Reading test

Passage 1: Three articles regarding 3 tours in and around the city.
Questions: True / False questions, short answer questions (one word).

Passage 2: Cannot remember.

Passage 3: An article about a person who went to other countries to get native plants and bring them back to England. Each section was broken into pieces and marked A to H.
Questions: Information matching, such as “Which paragraph did he almost die and lose all of his seedlings in?”

Writing test

Writing task 1 (a letter)
Write a letter to your friend overseas, invite them to a party and explain how to get to your home.

Writing task 2 (an essay)
Many parents use TV and computer games as ‘baby sitters’ (allow children to watch too much TV and or play computer games for too long). What are the reasons for this situation? What are the effects of watching too much TV or playing computer games on children?

Speaking test

Interview
- Your full name.
- Where do you live?
- What type of work do you do?
- Do you like working alone or with other people?

Cue card
Think of an advertisement you liked and say:
- Why you liked the advertisement.
- What in it would make you want to buy the product.

Discussion
- Why do you think the advertisement worked?
- What types of advertisements work?
- What types of advertisements have you seen on the street corners?
- What type of advertising is more effective, on TV or on the radio?

Common Mistakes at IELTS Intermediate

Author: Pauline Cullen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

This invaluable little book highlights the real mistakes that students make in the exam - and shows how to avoid them. Based on analysis of thousands of exam scripts, each unit targets a key problem area. Clear explanations and exercises help students to use the language accurately. Regular tests offer students a further opportunity to check and consolidate what they have learnt.
• Highlights common mistakes that learners really make.
• Based on analysis of thousands of exam scripts.
• Short, snappy explanations focus on key problem areas.
• Includes exam-style exercises.

Thanks to original uploader:
Download
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IELTS in Birmingham, UK - July 2009 (Academic Module)

IELTS in Birmingham, UK was described as follows by M, who managed to remember and share the questions. Later on I found out from another student that IELTS in Hyderabad, India was exactly the same.

Listening test

Section 1: Opening a bank account.
Questions: There was a form to fill.

Section 2: A conversation regarding sports club.

Section 3: A teacher who started a new website for online studies.

The rest M didn’t remember.

Reading test

Passage 1: Cant remember.

Passage 2: Gestures and how different countries have different meaning for the same gestures.
Questions: Find a paragraph with the given statement, True/False/Not Given.

Passage 3 : Complicated text on marine biodiversity - a little confusing and difficult.
Questions: Multiple choice, matching headings to paragraphs, matching sentences to paragraphs, filling in the gaps words from passage, overall rather difficult.

Writing test

Writing task 1 (report)
We had a simple table with 2 columns showing number of motor vehicles per 1000 population in 8 countries in the years 1999 and 2000.

Writing task 2 (essay)
Looking into family history is considered very valuable by some. Others live for the present and for the future. Discuss both opinions and give your own opinion.

Speaking test

Interview
- Full name?
- What should I call you?
- Tell me about where you live now.
- Transportation facilities where you live, what are they?
- Fruits and vegetables - what do you think of them as a part of your diet?
- Do you read?
- Should kids be encouraged to read?

Cue card
Talk about a conversation you had with someone, you should say:
- Whom you had it with.
- What made it important to you.

Discussion
- Have you had this conversation with anyone else?
- In which situations do strangers talk to each other?
- What are the conversations that are usual in your country?

IELTS in Colombia – September 2009 (General Training)

IELTS test in Colombia was shared by A. (thank you so very much!), who remembered the following topics and questions:

Listening test

Section 1: Subscribing to use the library.
Questions: Filling in the gaps on a form.

Section 2: There was a map of a seaport.
Questions: Identify places on a map.

Section 3: About 5 types of whales.

Reading test

Passage 1: don’t remember.

Passage 2: About a place in Sydney where students can get a job experience from an unpaid job.

Passage 3: Experiences of students who were working in the place above in Sydney.

Passage 4: The flavor notation: how scientists hasn’t figured out the notation of flavor and how are they working on this subject.

Writing Test

Writing Task 1 (letter)
Your friend bought tickets to the theater for both of you. Write a letter to a friend to tell him that you can not go to theater, in your letter
- Apologize,
- Explain the situation,
- Tell him what he can do with the extra ticket.

Writing Task 2 (essay)
In some countries, most of the people prefer to rent a house rather than buy one. What are the advantages and disadvantages of renting a house?

Speaking test

Interview
- Do you work or study?
- Who does the cooking at your home?
- What was the last time you went shopping?

Cue Card

Talk about a library you know, you should say:
– Where it is,
- In what type of building it is located,
- Describe it.

Discussion
- Do you usually go to the library?
- Do you think libraries should be free?
- What type of books do you find in a library?
- What skills should a person have to work in a library ?

IELTS in Australia – September 2009 (Academic Module)

IELTS test in Australia was shared by P (thanks a lot!), who remembered many details:

Listening test

Section 1: A lady puts her daughter in a new school.

Questions: Fill the form with her address, phone number and some details about her daughter, a little bit about school: how many students and which subjects her daughter will be taking.

Section 2: A newly opened shopping centre.

Questions: how many car parks, how many department stores, public transport access, then a table about events in that shopping centre.

Section 3: 2 students were discussing their assignment/survey.

Questions: Charts in one question asking about proportion in their survey result, Multiple choice questions, then choose 3 options which were mentioned in the conversation, that schools need to improve or rebuild.

Section 4: A lady presented her research/project. She talked about how she got the info, the details of her project, agriculture in the past, how to fertilize the soils, why poorer farmers could produce more crops than richer farmers.

Reading test

Passage 1: Development in child education (how the first kindergarten has been settled). It was about the theory of child education that was invented by 2-3 child behavior experts.

Questions: Matching headings to paragraphs, Yes/No or True/False questions, Match the period with events, Match the persons name with the things they have done.

Passage 2: Malaria in Italy. The cause and the regulations of Malaria in Italy in the past.

Questions: Yes/No or True/False questions, Gap fills (no more than 2 words).

Passage 3: How to clean the beaches that were soiled by leaking oil in several countries.
Questions: Gap fills (no more than 3 words), Multiple choice questions.

Writing test

Writing task 1 (report)
We had a line graph about energy sources used to produce electricity in The UK between 1996-2006 (not sure about the period) There are 4 kinds for energy sources: natural fuel, oil, coal and nuclear energy. The trends were as follows: 2 lines quite stable, one was upwards and one was downwards.

Writing task 2 (essay)
What in your opinion is better, encouraging young people go to university or train to be car mechanics and builders, which are needed by the local community.

Speaking test

Interview
- Where do you live?
- How convenient is the transportation from your place?
- What were you reading when you were young?
- What are you reading at present?
- Do you shop for fruit and vegetables?
- How important is it to eat fruits and vegies?

Cue card
Describe a conversation you had and that was important to you in some way.
- Who you had it with,
- Where you had it,
- What it was about.

Discussion
- Conversation in family: what kind of conversatios do you have as a family?
- Conversation between 2 men and 2 women – how different are they?

IELTS in Pakistan – September 2009 (Academic Module)

IELTS test questions were shared by U. from Pakistan (thanks a lot!) and it turns out the Listening module was the same as in General Training IELTS in Bahrain. Here are the other parts:

Reading test

Passage 1: Developments in Public Transport.
Passage 2: A text about the sense of smell.
Passage 3: A text that emphasized the use of simple English.

Writing test

Writing task 1 (report)
There was a bar chart that compared two levels of two pollutants in four big cities (Los Angles, Tokyo, New York, ? ) during 2002.

Writing task 2 (essay)
Computers nowadays are used in every field of life. Where in your opinion is the role of computers in education and where is the role of teachers in education.

Speaking test

Interview
- What is your full name?
- Are you a student or a worker?
- What do you study?
- Where are you from?
- How often do you go to your friends?
- What do you prefer, have friends come to your home or go to their place? Why?
- Do you like to go out with your friends?
- Where do you like to go with your friends?

Cue Card
Talk about a journey that you have missed in the past, you should say:
- When was it,
- Where was it to,
- Why you missed it,
- How you felt about it.

Discussion
- What is the difference between tourism tours and business tours?
- What should we do before going on a tour?
- Do you think that with development of Information technology business tours will be eradicated? Why ?

IELTS Listening and Reading tips from Band 8.5 achiever

Listening tips

This time I followed IELTS tips from sunentrance.blogspot.com. My friends, as you are all know, in listening the last section is the toughest of all other sections and we usually loose marks in that. I would suggest you all to concentrate more on that section rather than focusing much on others. In last section we usually have to answer 10 questions without a pause. So my advice is to practice last section a lot in order to achieve a higher band score in listening.

Reading tips

As far the reading is concerned, when reading paragraphs if you do not know the meaning of any word, after finishing the passage you must look it up in the dictionary so that you know the meaning of that word for the next time you see it. Once you have finished reading and you have checked your answers, you must go through the wrong answers to find out the reason for their wrongness.

IELTS Writing tips

IELTS Writing tips

It is better to write in regular, not very sophisticated English, than to use phrases or structures you don’t fully understand.
If you need Band 6 - no need for complex sentence structure. If your goal is Band 7 - then show advanced sentence structure, language and vocabulary.

Don’t write more than 260-265 words in IELTS Writing 2 task. Why? Not because you will get lower mark, but because of these 2 reasons:

1) It takes more time
2) More words = more mistakes

If you are told to cover specific points in your essay/letter - cover every point, examiners actually count them.

Don’t overuse connecting words (like However, Furthermore, Moreover, etc) - examiners are watching for you to do that.

IELTS Speaking - interview tips

Speak until they stop you, don’t just answer the question and stop. Display you best English. Behave as if it was a driving test - keep going straight until told to turn right, left or park.

It is quite possible that you have to speak about something you have never heard of, or have no opinion of. If you don’t know the subject - tell the examiner immediately, so he could ask you another question. If you don’t tell him and start trying to speak, he might think that it is not a knowledge problem, but a language problem.

Since many of you have been asking me for tips in Writing, I though a useful collection of connective words would help. It was kindly shared by a stud

Since many of you have been asking me for tips in Writing, I though a useful collection of connective words would help. It was kindly shared by a student and I am sure that using those words in your essays, letters and reports will positively affect your score.
This is part 1, part 2 is coming tomorrow.

Addition

in addition

and similarly

likewise as well as

besides further more

also moreover

and then too

not only … but even

besides

Sequence

first(ly) initially

second(ly) etc.to begin with then

next earlier/later

after this/that

following this/that

Consequence

as a result

thus

so

therefore

consequently

it follows that

thereby

eventually

then in that case

admittedly

Contrast

however

on the other hand

despite

in spite of

though

although

but

on the contrary

otherwise

yet instead of

rather

whereas

nonetheless

even though

compared with

in contrast

alternatively