Sharing about IELTS

Halo, Assalamu'alaikum! Welcome back! I think it's been two months since my last post. I, actually, postponed some posts to write this one because I consider it is way more essential. To make it short, I would like to share my experiences in learning IELTS. I joined IELTS course for about 2 months and directly took its test. Today, I officially finished my course by taking a post test. It was incredibly meaningful memories since I did not know IELTS at all before and here I gained plenty of knowledge after accomplishing a series of course. Okay, let's move on to particular topic.

Source: WVC

IELTS?

Well, I have faith that most of this blog's readers have already known about IELTS in general, but unfortunately some might not. So, as I know, IELTS is International English Language Testing System which is used to measure your capability in English (of course) through four parts, which are listening, reading, writing, and speaking. For commoner, they might build an idea that IELTS possibly the same as TOEFL ITP as most Indonesian already experienced. Yap, I knew that. At the beginning, I thought they were, but after I took my pre test before entering the course, I realized that "Okay, they could never be as typical as I thought at the previous moment". IELTS is absolutely more complicated than TOEFL ITP. Those who already took TOEFL ITP test definitely know that the questions and the answers are not excessively different. IELTS is using complex words, mainly paraphrase of words. For instance, in TOEFL ITP if the question asking about where cactus is growing, the answer in the passage will exactly be the same as the question. Yet, in IELTS you almost never find precisely the same as the question, instead you might find the paraphrase of words mentioned in the questions. To avoid some perplexities, I would like to share some beneficial elucidations about IELTS' parts in which you might interested. 

*) Listening (30 minutes & 10 minutes to transfer the answers to an answer sheet) 

In this part, you will be given 30 minutes to listen to the questions and answer those, then 10 minutes to transfer your answers to an answer sheet. Why is it so? Because you are able to make mark or write some notes on your booklet. After that, you will be offered sometime (which is 10 minutes) to move those notes written to the answer sheet. Listening part consists of four sections. I'll explain in details below.

1. Section One
You will be given some questions (1-10) to complete a form. Usually there are two people having a conversation about booking hotel, asking for some information, and so on. The stage of difficulty here is not quite hard, but you must pay attention to several distractions you might hear in those conversations.

2. Section Two
You will be given ten questions which numbered 11-20 and listening an explanation about something. It is sometimes a monologue about maps, location, an organization, and so on. Again, the stage of difficulty is one step harder than the previous one, so be careful for every word you are listen to.

3. Section Three
You will have another ten questions 21-30 and those are way much challenging than before. Generally, the conversation is built among two or three people having a discussion about academic things, such as presentation at their school or a project given by their teacher/lecturer. In this case, you have to listen accurately and keep focus, because once you are "day dreaming" you will lose your answer and it could develop flurry in yourself.

4. Section Four
Last but not least, you will have the rest of the questions (31-40). In this part you will confront the most difficult questions (according to my experience so far, but in some occasions, section 3 is more challenging hehe). The questions mostly (or obviously) about scientific things. It could be history, marine science, food technology, physics, space travel and stuff like that. Thus, you MUST keep your concentrating on your booklet of questions.

NOTED!
In terms of training your ability in listening, I highly suggest you to watch "Britain movies" or you can say the movies spoken in English British accent, for instance Harry Potter (my favorite!). You must also pay attention to the order of each section, because you perhaps be misled by "tricky questions". Here I attach an example.

Taken from Cambridge English Module 11. Edited by Casilda

 - ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER means you must answer ONE WORD and ONE NUMBER or ONE NUMBER ONLY.
- NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS means you merely permitted to insert your answer three words maximum. If you write more than what already ordered, your answer even maybe it is correct will be marked as wrong.
- NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS just the same with the order above
- ONE WORD OR A NUMBER means you must answer ONE WORD or ONE NUMBER ONLY.

You MUST pay attention to the order given, because if you write outside the rules, your answer will be marked incorrect, and that is unfortunate. Nah, I also want to share IELTS' listening band score, so you can predict how much you could achieve in practicing IELTS to prepare your IELTS exam :)

Source: ieltsliz.com

*) Reading (60 minutes without any additional time)

Second part is Reading. You will be provided 60 minutes to complete three passages in this section. There is no additional time given to transfer your answer as allowed in listening section. Thus, you have to use your time wisely. Similar to listening, you must concern to the rules of answering questions since there are numerous cases which have succeeded been misled by those orders as they do not notice them. Three passages in reading part are incredibly demanding as those are taken from scientific journal or articles. You perhaps find tons of uncommon vocabularies and have some trouble in guessing the key point of the passage's topic. But, it is also an advantageous chance to gain your English vocabulary (hehe). Regarding to these problems, I immensely recommend you to download Cambridge English Module from 1 to 12. You could possibly download it on Google since those are free of charge. Here I share a sample of reading section taken from Cambridge English Module 11.

Take a look on those words, like what I have mentioned before, you, definitely, will find a lots of unique words and it will benefit you to enrich your English vocabulary.

Oh, I almost forgot to attach IELTS band score in reading section for academic purpose in terms of measuring your ability when you have IELTS practice in order to prepare your IELTS test :)

Source: ieltsliz.com

*) Writing (20 minutes for writing task 1 & 40 minutes for writing task 2)

The following part is Writing! Some who already took an IELTS course or still taking it will totally think that this one is the most interesting yet challenging part among others. Okay, so, you will be given 60 minutes in total but divided by two tasks, which are task 1 20 mins and task 2 40 mins. Here I attach example for each task in order to explain more about them both.

WRITING TASK 1

Taken from Cambridge English Module 11. Edited by Casilda

 In writing task 1, you should describe a graph, like bar chart, line chart, maps, process cycle, or table into paragraph which consists of at least three paragraphs and minimum words of 150. Actually, you could write up to 150 words but as I got from my course, the teachers advise me to write 150-180, not more than that, because I happen to make errors when I write too much. Despite all of those things, you have to make sure that you ONLY put key features, not all. It could affect your score if you explain overly detail. For a sample answer of this type, I will share it on another post, wait yaa!

 WRITING TASK 2

Taken from Cambridge English Module 11. Edited by Casilda

Contrary to that, in writing task 2 you must write minimum 250 words and consists of four paragraphs, at least. In this part, you are asked to answer the same as you writing an essay, that is why you given 20 minutes longer than the earlier task mentioned. Another particular feature is every question has different style to answer. There are four general types, which are opinion question, discussion and opinion question, discussion question, and situation question. For further information I will later share it on another post after this one is published.  

*) Speaking (approximately 11-15 minutes)

My favorite part of IELTS is speaking! In this occasion, you will and of course be tested by a Native Speaker! Mostly they come from Europe (British Accent) or Australia (Australian Accent). As I went through the speaking test, the examiner was speak very clearly and ease me to understand what did he mean. In this section, you will have three parts which explained below.

1. Part One (General Questions)
You will be asked some questions related to your daily activity, or you can call it general questions. It could be hobbies, movies, foods, arts, musics, and many more. The time taken to this part is depend on the examiner, but as I know it takes around 4-5 minutes.

Taken from Cambridge English Module 11. Edited by Casilda

2. Part Two (Cue Card)
You will be given a cue card which has some questions in it (3-4 questions) also be given a paper and a pen to make some notes needed to help you answering the questions. Generally, it consists 5W 1 H and could be something more specific than in part one, such as the most interesting thing about your country, the equipment you successfully repaired, the book you have read recently and etc. The time offered only 1 minute to make a note and 1-2 minutes to answer your question by explaining to the examiner.

Taken from Cambridge English Module 11. Edited by Casilda

3. Part Three (Questions related to Part Two - Discussion)

You will be given some questions related to part two but those are deeper and end up with short discussion. The examiner possibly ask you follow up questions regarding to your answers. But do not worry, they are mostly nice and speak fluently and clearly. If you can not hear their spelling or pronouncing, you are welcomed to say "Pardon?" or "Would you mind to repeat the question please?". It is allowed :)


DONE!
OKAY! This is the end of my post. I, in syaa Allah, going to write another post about incredible sources to boost your ability in IELTS (website, YouTube, modules, and etc). I am still learning to, so I'm sorry if I have written something incorrect, you might correct me by leaving a comment beneath this post. Hope my post will be useful for those who read! Thank you and see you!