This is just a brief post to announce that I have added an interactive reading and listening band score calculator to the site. As you are preparing and practising tests it is obviously useful to check your progress. I have also added information and links to explain what the band scores mean.
The calculator can be found here: online band score calculator
This is another of my little but often series. If you are new to this site, the idea is that one of the best ways to learn English can be to do short focussed activities for a short period of time rather than sitting in front of a computer screen or a book for hours. Google News Timeline is another site that could be of real help to… Continue reading
This blog is largely intended for candidates who are studying alone for the IELTS exam. The internet is good, but books are useful too, right? So here are some of my suggestions. There are of course other books out there, but here are some I know and can recommend.
This is one area where it pays to buy quality: the cheapest books may not be the best books.
This article looks at task response in IELTS writing which is one of the 4 grading criteria. In it, I look at what task response means in detail and give examples of common mistakes that candidates make. Understanding these mistakes should help improve your IELTS writing.
There are 4 issues to think about.
Often
These are some tips for what to do on the day of the exam itself and immediately before it. While IELTS is a test to measure your English, it does of course feel like an exam and the people who do best in exams tend to be those who have exam day strategies. This is my selection of what to do and what not to do. I have tried to… Continue reading
This is the follow up post to Why I love IELTS. The message is relatively simple: I hate IELTS because many candidates don’t really understand it and because of that they don’t get their score and because of that their careers go phut. Bad news. Here I am going to try and give some practical and advice on how to prepare for IELTS so you get your target… Continue reading
My Twitter profile says “hate IELTS”. In fact, I don’t. Or not completely. I believe that IELTS is a good test. One reason I do hate it though is that many candidates don’t understand it. What is worse is that because they don’t understand it, they stop learning English. What is even worse is that because they stop learning English… Continue reading
This is in effect a repost from my previous site. I do think, however, it is worth looking at. What I have done here is to organise some RSS feeds from news organisations into the main IELTS categories. These feeds are, if you like, the news as it happens. The basic idea is this. Reading may be good for you, but focussed reading is much better for you. So you… Continue reading
This is just to let you know that I have collected the links to some of my interactive IELTS exercises onto one page. For me, the internet and computer work particularly well for this type of exercise. I also like them because they are fun and fun does tend to be good for learning.
I aim to add one or two exercises each week… Continue reading
Youtube is a fantastic IELTS resource and there is a lot of extremely good material out there. Perhaps there is too much, so here are two places to start:
voxguru: for me the king. The videos are low tech and unexciting, but the advice is as good as you will find anywhere.
EnglishRyan: also very sound advice here on the process of writing. This… Continue reading
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