ILETS EXAM

An overview of the IELTS test

The IELTS exam is an international test of English. People in lots of different countries take IELTS
to show how well they can speak, write and understand English. People take IELTS for lots of
reasons. Many people, for example, need to take IELTS because they want to study at an
English-speaking university. Others want to go and live in an English-speaking country.

The IELTS exam tests all four skills – Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking.

You take the Listening, Reading and Writing exams on the same day, one after the other in a
2.5-hour session. You may take the Speaking test on the same day, or a few days before or after
the rest of the exam. The Speaking test takes 15 minutes.

What score can you get?

A few weeks after you take the exam, you will get your score. This is between 0 (no English!) to
9 (native-speaker level). You get a score for each skill separately, and these scores are added
together and divided by four to give a score for the whole exam – that is the important score.
For example, if you get 4 in Listening, 4 in Reading, 3 in Writing and 3 in Speaking, your score
for the whole exam will be 4+4+3+3÷4 – that is, 3.5 (three point five). An intermediate (B1)
student should score from 4.0 to 5.0; an upper-intermediate student (B2) from 5.5 to 6.5. Most
English-speaking universities ask for a minimum score of 6.0 to 7.0.

What do you have to do in the Writing exam?

The Writing exam lasts 60 minutes. There are two parts – Task 1 and Task 2. Task 2 is longer,
and has twice as many marks, so you should spend around 20 minutes on Task 1 and 40
minutes on Task 2.

Task 1

In Task 1, you usually have to write a report based on a visual – a graph, chart or table showing
statistics. Sometimes you have to describe a series of pictures showing a process. You have to
describe or explain what is shown in the visual using a minimum of 150 words (although in
practice activities in this course, we say to aim for over 120 words). Here are some examples of
visuals:

Line graphs show changes in amounts over a period of time.

Bar graphs also show changes in amounts over a period of time.

Pie charts show the different percentages that make up the whole of something. The
percentages together add up to 100%.

Process diagrams show the stages of a process or lifecycle.

Task 2

Task 2 is an essay. There is one question to answer – you don't choose. There are different
types of question – for example discussing two different opinions, giving your own opinion,
talking about the advantages and disadvantages of a situation, describing a problem and a
possible solution, etc. You have to write at least 250 words.

1) Listening
The IELTS Listening test

The Listening test takes 30 minutes and you listen to two conversations and two talks. After you finish
listening, you have ten minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.

There are four sections in the listening test. Each section has ten questions and there is more than one
task type. For example, you have five multiple-choice questions and five sentence-completion questions.
Each section is more difficult than the last, so the most difficult section is Section 4.

Section 1

In this section, there is an everyday conversation between two people. One person is asking for
information and the other is giving information. For example:

Someone is looking for accommodation and is speaking to an agency.

Someone is at a sports centre and is asking about what activities the centre has.

A student is phoning a language school to get information about classes and facilities.

Section 2

In this section, there is a talk about a general topic. Only one person is speaking, and the topic is not
academic.

Section 3

In this section, there is a conversation between up to four people. The context is education or training.
For example:

A tutor is discussing an assignment with students.

A group of students is planning a project.

Section 4
In this section, there is a university lecture. You don't need special knowledge to understand the lecture.

For all sections of the Listening test, you need to:

1. Check the instruction

Read the instruction carefully. Check you know how many words and/or numbers you can write in the
gaps. You can write on the question paper, so underline the number of words and/or numbers to help
you remember this when you are completing the activity.

2. Read the questions carefully

Make sure you read the questions carefully before the conversation or talk starts. You will have time to
do this.

3. Check your answers

When you finish, go back and check your spelling. If you spell something incorrectly, your answer will be
wrong. It doesn't matter if you use capital letters or not in the gaps – your answer will still be correct if it
is the right answer.

Preparing for the test

IELTS is an international test, so you will hear speakers with different accents. Speakers are usually from
the UK, Australia, New Zealand or North America and the accents are not strong. Make sure you listen to
different accents when you are preparing for the test.

Writing

How to answer Task 1 and Task 2 questions

There are two tasks in the Writing exam. The style and purpose of each is quite different, but in
both Task 1 and Task 2, your writing should be easy to understand, presented in a logical order,
and structured so that there is just one main idea in each paragraph.

Here are some other things you need to know about each task:

Task 1

For Task 1 you need to write at least 150 words. You should spend a total of about 20 minutes
on it. In Task 1 you only need to say what the visual shows – your writing does not need to be
interesting, and you mustn't put in any personal opinions.

Here is an example Task 1 visual. It shows the different ways that children in a place called
Newport get to school.
Here is what you have to do:

- Say what the visual shows – how children in Newport travel to school.
- Say what you notice about the bars – do they generally get higher, get lower, or stay the
same?
- Give details about interesting numbers – the highest number and lowest number of
users for any form of transport.

Task 2

For Task 2 you need to write at least 250 words. You should spend a total of about 40 minutes
on it. It is different from Task 1 because you have to write your own ideas. Your ideas do not
need to be very clever or very interesting, but they must make sense. Here is an example Task 2
question:

Nowadays more mothers go out to work while fathers stay at home and look after the children?
What do you think the reasons are for this? Is this a positive or a negative development in your
opinion?

Here is what you have to do:

- Read the question carefully so that you understand what you need to write.
- Start by saying in just a few words what the question is, and what your answer is.
- In a new paragraph, give one reason for your answer and follow this with another
sentence (or two) giving an example or other information that helps to explain your
point.
- In a new paragraph, explain another of the reasons, giving different examples and
information.
 - In the last paragraph, summarise in just a few words what you have said in the essay.

Reading
Different ways to read

There is more than one way to read a text, and for the IELTS exam it is good to be able to
read in different ways, depending on the kind of task you have to do.

Scanning vs skimming

Sometimes you need to skim a text. This means to read the whole text quickly to get the
most important ideas.

Scanning is needed when you want to find a specific piece of information. When you scan,
you do not read every sentence or every paragraph.

Locating specific information

You often need to scan for a name, a number, a date or a place. Your eyes can scan quickly
for numbers and capital letters to locate this information, and this sometimes helps.

In the paragraph about Kimchi, you probably used scanning to quickly find 2 million tonnes
and then you were able to look just in that sentence to find the answer to 'How often'.

Scanning for synonyms

In the IELTS test, the words used in the questions are often different from the answers you
need. Read the question, think of synonyms and then scan the text, looking for those words
or phrases to find the paragraph where the answer is located. For example:

each year = annually

find out = learn, gain knowledge

tourists = visitors

Reading

Identifying keywords and synonyms

In the IELTS Reading test, you often need to find specific pieces of information in a text to
answer questions. To save time, it's a good idea to identify keywords in the questions that
you can scan for in the passage. For example, in this True/False/Not Given question, the
 names of world regions are keywords. As they will be the same or similar in the text,
scanning for these keywords will help you find the relevant part of the text quickly.

Statement:

Cultural preference is the main reason why people in Asia, South America, Africa and the
Middle East take traditional herbal remedies.

Text:

In fact, according to the World Health Organization, 70% to 95% of Asian, South American,
African and Middle Eastern people use traditional medicine as their primary source of
health care. This is partly due to cultural preference, but a more powerful reason is
economic.

Note: Here, the noun forms of the regions (e.g. Asia) are used in the statement, but the
adjectives (e.g. Asian) are used in the text. It is often a good idea to scan for words in the same
word family, e.g. addiction/addicted; improve/improvement; safe/safety

Synonyms

The writers of IELTS texts often don't use the same words in the text and the questions. If
they can find a synonym to use, they usually will. So, identify keywords in the questions but
also think of any words and phrases that have similar meaning. You can then scan for these
to find the relevant part of the text to answer the question.

Here are some examples:

a quarter = 25%

condition = medical problem, illness

evidence = studies

prove = show

free = not have to pay

complementary medicine = traditional medicine

plants used as medicine = herbal remedies

knowledge is passed down = people learn how to...

from generation to generation = from older people within their community

Remember, use keywords and synonyms to find the relevant part of the text quickly but it is
essential then to read that part carefully.

Listening
Letters

It might seem basic, but make sure you don't make mistakes writing letters of the alphabet. It's
probably been a long time since you learned them, and some of the names of the letters are
different from the sound they represent. So spend some time getting to know them again.
Letters that commonly cause confusion include ones that:

rhyme with day: a, k, j

rhyme with be: e, c, g, v

rhyme with my: i, y

rhyme with few: q, u, w

rhymes with car: r

z rhymes with bed in British English (zed), and with be in US English (zee).

Remind yourself how each of these is pronounced. Remember that when two letters the same
are next to each other, we normally use double:

carry: C-A-double R-Y

Remember that when you write the name of a person, a city or country, a company, a hotel,
etc., you need to start the word with a capital letter (also called an upper case letter). For
example, Pepsi (not pepsi).

Email addresses

The symbols you need to know are:

@ "at"

. "dot"

_ "underscore"

- "hyphen"

For example, reza-aslan_home@tmail.com would be expressed as:

"Reza hyphen Aslan underscore home at T mail dot com."

Numbers

The important things to remember are:

0 = "zero" or "oh"

. (as in 1.5) = "point"

In English countries, a dot is used to show part of a number (1.5) and a comma is used to show
a thousand number (35,000). In many countries, these are used in the opposite way.

When saying a telephone number or similar, double is again often used for two of the same. For
example, 077 could be expressed either as "oh double seven" or as "zero seven seven".

Prefixes

Negative prefixes
A lot of adjectives can be made negative by adding a prefix. A prefix is a syllable that is added to
the start of a word to change its meaning. Some of the most common prefixes are:

un-: unhelpful, unhealthy

The receptionist was very unhelpful – he just kept saying "I don't know."

in-: ineffective, inflexible, inactive

Just rereading your notes again and again is an ineffective way to study.
im-: impossible, impractical, impolite

I have children, so taking an evening course would be impractical for me.

il-: illegal, illogical, illiterate

Although it seems illogical, it's useful to test your knowledge before you study a subject.

ir-: irrational, irresponsible

I have an irrational fear of birds.

non-: nonexistent, nonsmoking, nonstop

These links are to nonexistent websites.

It's useful to collect these negative forms, as recognizing them can make the difference
between a right and a wrong answer in a listening test.

Listening

In the map-labelling task, it's important to be able to understand immediately where places are.
There are various prepositions, verbs and phrases which are commonly used to describe
location. Here are some ones you should know:

Heathrow Airport is to the west of the city.

London City Airport is in the east of the city.

To the north, south, etc. means outside a place; in the north, south, etc. means inside a place.
So, Heathrow Airport is outside London and City Airport is inside London.

To say that something is close to the side of something else, you can use:

alongside

by

by the side of

next to

There is a row of stalls alongside the road.

To say that places are opposite, you can use:

(just) across from

facing

opposite

or the verbs: to face / to overlook

The hotel overlooks the harbour.

There's a shopping mall just across from the park.

To say a place is further away, past another place you can use:

beyond

on the far side of

Beyond the main road there are no more buildings.

To say a place is behind another place or area you can use:

behind

at the back of

to/at the rear of

on the other side of

The car park is at the rear of the hotel.

To say the opposite, you can use:

in front of

on this side of

Taxis stop in front of the main entrance.