IELTS Simon

IELTS Advice: expose your weaknesses

In last Sunday's lesson I suggested that you identify and work on your weaknesses. It's not always easy to identify your own weaknesses, so here are three tips to help you to expose them:

1. Break each part of the test into smaller tasks. For example, you could spend time working on multiple choice questions in the reading test, idea generation for speaking part 2 (see yesterday's lesson), trend descriptions for writing task 1, or main body paragraphs for writing task 2. If you practise "small pieces" of the test, it's likely that you'll discover which "pieces" are problematic.
2. Put yourself under pressure. Some people only discover their weaknesses on the day of their real IELTS tests. A good way to create this kind of pressure at home is to give yourself less time than normal. For example, you could try to write a task 2 essay in just 30 minutes, finish a reading test in 50 minutes, or do a full listening test with no breaks (i.e. fast forward the recording every time there is a break). Going too quickly will expose your weak points, and then you can go back and analyse them.
3. Ask a teacher. If nothing else seems to work, you'll need to get some feedback from a teacher. Ask your teacher to identify the main weaknesses that are stopping you from getting a higher score.

Note: Be careful with point 2 above. It's fine to test yourself or "go too quickly" occasionally, as a way to expose weaknesses, but you should spend most of your time preparing slowly and carefully.

IELTS Speaking Part 2: 'ideas' practice

In this lesson I suggested that you spend some time thinking of ideas for writing task 2. You could follow the same advice for speaking part 2: take a list of questions, and spend some time brainstorming ideas for each one.

For example, here's a short list of speaking part 2 tasks:

• Describe a happy childhood memory.
• Describe a present that you received as a child.
• Describe a food that you enjoyed eating when you were a child.
• Describe a favourite toy that you had when you were a child.
• Describe a game that you enjoyed playing as a child.

Notice that all five questions are about the topic of "childhood" - it might help to focus on one main topic area. Don't worry about giving full answers for now; just spend some time noting down your ideas and memories.

IELTS Writing Task 1: simplify to avoid mistakes

Compare the sentences in last Thursday's lesson with the five sentences below. By simplifying the sentences, we can avoid mistakes and communicate a much clearer message.

1. In the year 2000, business travellers spent the most money per day.
2. Three different categories of visitors are shown on the graph.
3. The figures for all three categories fluctuated.
4. In 2005, the figures for business travellers and tourists were similar.
5. Those visiting friends or relatives spent the least.

IELTS Writing Task 2: balanced answer?

A student asked me to suggest how we could write a balanced answer to the following question.

Some people think that employers should not care about the way their employees dress, because what matters is the quality of their work. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Can we write a balanced answer? How?

Listen for collocations and phrases

About a month ago, I wrote this advice about collecting collocations. One way to build your collection of collocations and phrases is by listening to native speakers as often as possible.

But listening alone is not enough. You need to notice and write down the collocations and phrases that you hear, and you need to start using them yourself.

For example, watch the first 2 minutes of the following presentation, then fill the gaps to complete the collocations and phrases below it.

mm
Collocations and phrases from the first 2 minutes:

• real, substantial _____
• make a difference
• putting obstacles and barriers in our _____
• I’ll give you some examples of what I mean
• information laid _____ clearly
• the manner in which we… (do something)
• put a price _____ on (something)
• freedom of _____

Of course, if you find the talk interesting, watch the rest of it!

IELTS Reading: try this 'time' experiment

IELTS students often say that "not having enough time" is their biggest problem in the reading test. But is time really the problem?

Try this experiment to find out how time is affecting you:

1) Normal speed
Give yourself one hour to do a full reading test (from one of the Cambridge books). Or just take one passage and do that in 20 minutes. How many correct answers did you get?

2) Too fast
Give yourself just 30 minutes to do a full reading test, or only 10 minutes to do one passage. Use skimming, scanning, guessing, or any other 'trick' to get through all of the questions. This goes against my normal advice, but it's fine for this experiment.

3) Too slow
Give yourself 2 hours to do a full reading test, or 40 minutes to do one passage. Read everything slowly and carefully, and aim for a perfect score!

Results:
What happened when you performed this experiment? What scores did you get at normal, fast and slow speeds? Was time really the big problem, or did the experiment highlight any other difficulties?

IELTS Advice: work on your weaknesses

It's often the case that just one particular weakness is stopping people from getting a higher score. For example, the student that I wrote about yesterday had a problem with idea generation. His English was very good, but he struggled to think of good ideas, especially when under pressure.

I told him to stop writing essays and to spend time working only on his weakness (as described yesterday). In other words, we identified a weakness, we isolated it, and then we came up with a simple action plan to tackle it. Perhaps you can do the same.

IELTS Advice: practise generating ideas

I got chatting to a student in a café the other day, and he told me that his big problem was not being able to think of good ideas for writing task 2.

When I asked the student about how he practised for this part of the test, it became clear that he wasn't working on his weakness. He wasn't practising idea generation.

So here's a summary of the advice that I gave the student:

• First, watch my video lesson about planning ideas.
• Then print a big list of questions, like this one.
• The next time you're sitting in a café, take your list out and try brainstorming ideas for two or three of the questions.
• Don't write an essay or even any sentences. Just note down ideas on a piece of paper.
• If you can't think of good ideas in English, try thinking in your own language. Don't translate the ideas into English at this stage. Your only aim is to turn on the creative part of your brain!
• Start with your real opinion. Ask yourself what you really think about the topic; if you were debating the topic with a friend, what would you say?
• Start with examples. If the topic is 'unhealthy food', think about McDonald's or Coca Cola. If the topic is 'work', think about doctors, teachers, computer programmers etc.

Imagine spending 15 minutes each day just thinking of ideas, questioning your own opinions, and making notes on a wide range of IELTS topics. With practice, I'm sure you can turn a weakness into a strength!

IELTS Speaking: read, record, compare

Try this exercise:

First, take one of my sample answers for any speaking question (part 1, 2 or 3). For example, you could use the first answer in last Friday's lesson. Read my answer a few times and try to remember it.

Next, hide my sample answer and try to answer the question yourself, using as much of my answer as you can remember. Record yourself giving the answer.

Finally, listen to the recording and compare your answer with my original answer. Did you make any mistakes or miss anything? If you have time, transcribe the recording so that you can analyse your answer more closely.

IELTS Writing Task 1: improve the sentences

Can you correct, change or improve the following sentences?

1. Overall, at first, in the year of 2000, average daily spending of business visitors was the highest and the peak point.
2. And the spending trend divided into three different categories.
3. Overall, all three categories showed fluctuation trend.
4. Between 2000 and 2010 precisely at the middle it was just a slight different between the business and the holiday categories.
5. Visiting friend or relatives is considered to be the least amount of expenses people spend on.

IELTS Writing Task 2: my mental picture

Last week I showed you the following 'mental picture' of a task 2 essay:

Here's what I was trying to represent:

• There are 13 coloured lines to represent 13 sentences.
• The white spaces separate the 4 paragraphs (2, 5, 5 1 sentence structure).
• The purple lines are my 'essay skeleton': introduction, main paragraph topic sentences, conclusion.
• The grey lines indicate a 'one idea' paragraph. The topic sentence is followed by 4 sentences that develop the same central idea.
• Paragraph 3 could be a 'Firstly, Secondly, Finally' paragraph. The orange lines represent the first idea and perhaps an example or further explanation. The blue line will be a second supporting idea, and the green line is the final point.

This is the basic 'blueprint' that I have in my head when I'm writing an essay. It really helps to have a clear mental image like this. Otherwise it's like travelling without a map; who knows where you'll end up!

IELTS Listening: gap-fill practice

Listen to two students talking about lectures and seminars at university, and fill the gaps in the summaries below.

Note:
Don't worry if you have to listen several times to get the answers. This is an exercise that I made myself, not a real IELTS question.

Click here to listen

Student A
University lectures involve everyone on a course ______ up and receiving information from one of the ______ about a particular topic. Seminars, on the other hand, are ______ group meetings in which students discuss in detail the ______ of ideas that they heard about in a lecture.

Student B
A university timetable will consist of a ______ of lectures and seminars. The number of people in lectures can ______ depending on the course. For my course we have about 400 people in a big lecture ______. The number of people attending a small-group seminar ______ between 10 and 20.

IELTS Reading: two websites for daily reading

People often ask about extra reading practice: Is it a good idea to read newspapers or magazines, and which ones are the best for IELTS practice?

Two good places to find articles are The Economist and National Geographic. Try to spend a few minutes every day reading something from one of these sites. Make a note of some new words or phrases, and gradually your reading will improve.

IELTS General Writing: 'job reference' letter

I haven't looked at a General Training task 1 question for a while, so here's one that we could try:

How do you think we should begin this letter? What job could we choose? What qualifications, skills and personal qualities can we describe?

Tip: Imagine that you are writing this letter to recommend a real colleague or friend. Think about that person's qualities and invent a job that might suit him/her.

IELTS Advice: simple and difficult

Many students are concerned that the language they use might be too 'simple', so they try to find more 'difficult' words or phrases.

In my opinion, words and phrases are never 'difficult' in the way that a subject like mathematics can be difficult. Anyone can understand and learn a word or phrase. What is difficult about learning a language is building a large repertoire of words and phrases that you can use flexibly to express a wide variety of ideas.

Examiners don't really think in terms of 'simple' and 'difficult'. They look for:

• range and variety of vocabulary
• detailed explanation of relevant ideas
• ability to put groups of words together correctly (e.g. collocation)
• accurate use of small words (e.g. articles) as well as big words

IELTS Speaking Part 3: common question types

Here are 3 common question types that the examiner could ask you:

1. Compare and contrast
2. Give an opinion
3. Imagine

For example, if the topic is 'cities', the examiner might ask:

1. How is life different in cities compared to rural areas? (compare)
2. How do you think life in big cities could be made easier? (opinion)
3. What do you think cities will be like in 50 years time? (imagine)

In my answers below I've underlined a few 'markers' that show comparisons, opinions and future predictions.

1. Firstly, the cost of living in cities is much higher. Housing is much more expensive in cities compared to rural areas; everything costs more. I think life in cities is more difficult. There are more people, so there's more competition for jobs. Life is a lot slower in rural areas, everyone knows each other and there's a sense of community. I don't think rural areas experience the social problems that you find in cities, like crime and homelessness.
2. In my opinion cities need to be well-planned. Good public transport can definitely make life easier because there are so many people and it can be really stressful just to move around. Public areas like parks are also important because people need space to relax, and I think cities should be made into healthier places to live and work.
3. I imagine cities will be less polluted because we'll have electric cars and better public transport. More people might work from home so maybe cities won't be so busy. But I think there will probably still be problems because more and more people are migrating to cities. So I'm not so optimistic about issues like crime, homelessness and unemployment.

IELTS Writing Task 1: don't describe lines separately

In last Thursday's lesson I showed you a graph that would never appear in an IELTS test. The reason why you won't see that type of graph is that it only has one line and there's nothing to compare it with.

IELTS line graphs always have two or more lines, and your job is to compare the lines; don't describe each one separately.

This also means that it is pointless to practise sentences like this:

"The percentage of x rose gradually between 2005 and 2008, and then remained stable for the following two years, before dropping again in 2011 and reaching its lowest point in 2012."

It's unlikely that you'll ever write such a long sentence about only one line on a graph. Hopefully you'll be too busy comparing figures for more than one line!

IELTS Writing Task 2: a mental picture

Last Wednesday I suggested that you should have a clear mental picture of what you aim to produce each time you write an essay.

I decided not to explain what I meant because I was hoping that people would think about this idea and discuss it in the 'comments' below the lesson (which some people did).

I'm going to continue with this idea of having a 'mental picture' by asking you to think about the image below. This is part of my 'mental picture' of a good essay. Can you explain what I'm trying to represent?

Mental picture of an IELTS essay:

IELTS Listening: the best way to improve your score

The people who do well in the listening test are those who have a "good ear" for English. In other words, they are able to follow fast speech and distinguish individual words easily. How did they develop a good ear? They listened to a lot of English.

If you're trying to improve your listening score, stop searching for techniques! Spend your time listening to as much English as possible. Expose your ears to the language and they will gradually become better at hearing it.

IELTS Reading: try making your own questions

The people who write the questions for IELTS reading do something like this:

1. They take a reading passage.
2. They read through the passage and stop when they find something interesting.
3. They make a question about that part of the passage, usually by paraphrasing it. For example, if the passage contains the phrase "elderly people", the question writer might create a question with the words "senior citizens".

Have you ever tried writing your own IELTS reading questions? It's a good exercise to get you thinking like the question writer, and hopefully you'll see why the keyword technique is so useful.

Tip: If you try this, start by writing your own 'true, false, not given' questions.

IELTS Advice: intelligent comments

Yesterday I mentioned that people are writing some really intelligent comments below lessons here on the blog. Today I'd like to share a comment written by Kali. I think this is a great example of 'deep work'.

Kali took five of my task 2 essays and shared the following analysis:

• Each essay averaged 13 sentences, the longest 32 words, the shortest 10 words.
• One in three sentences was complex in the sense that it contained a subordinate, noun, or relative clause.
• On average ONE of the following: "Though/although", "because", "whereas", "while", "whilst",or "if" occurred ONCE per essay.
• "In conclusion" ONCE per essay.
• "Also" almost ONCE per essay.
• Either "On the other hand" or "however" ONCE per essay.
• "This" (as a cohesion device) in two out of five essays.
• "but" occurred on average once or twice per essay.
• "or" comes up about twice per essay.
• "and" seven times per essay on average.

Here's Kali's summary of the above analysis:

In my view, what this demonstrates is that Simon's writing is both normal, and that its simplicity is deceptive. There is comparatively little reliance on connective adverbs, such as "moreover" or "consequently", at the start of sentences. Although some sentences are technically and grammatically more complex, the complexity passes unnoticed to the average reader.

If you find this kind of analysis useful, read the third comment below this lesson (written by csaj). This is a great example of how Google Books and Ngrams can help us.

IELTS Advice: using Google Books and Ngrams

Over the last few months I've noticed that people have been writing some really intelligent comments below lessons here on the blog.

In particular, many people are searching 'Google Books' and using the 'Google Ngram Viewer' to check collocations and phrases.

Some of you may be wondering what I'm talking about, so let's discuss the two tools in the comments area below this lesson. How can we search Google Books and use the Ngram Viewer to "investigate" the English language?

IELTS Speaking Part 2: useful vocabulary

Here's a list of useful vocabulary from last week's 'journey' description.

First, some collocations:

• took a journey, made a journey
• a bad journey
• a peaceful trip, a quieter trip
• a half-empty train
• a prepaid ticket
• an available seat
• loud voices
• the station concourse
• football fans
• a big match
• find a seat
• noisy fans, excited fans, friendly fans, good-natured fans
• a comfortable seat

And some nice phrases for stories:

• I'll never forget this particular time
• something happened that I wasn't expecting
• It was a (Sunday) morning
• I was due in (London)
• But my first surprise came when...
• I was still wondering about this when...
• Suddenly I realised what was happening
• Luckily I managed to
• In the end, I just...
• All in all, it wasn't (a bad journey)
• I would have preferred
• Even so, (I made sure that...)

Try using some of the phrases above when telling your own stories.

IELTS Writing Task 1: don't practise this!

I don't recommend that you practise describing graphs like the one below. Can you explain why I'm giving this advice?

IELTS Writing Task 2: do you have a 'mental picture'?

If you want to become a good essay writer, you could start by thinking about the following question:

Before you write an essay, do you have a clear mental picture of what you're aiming to produce?

IELTS Listening: choose from the list

Listen to the following excerpt from a lecture about effective teachers.

Click here to listen

Choose three characteristics of effective teachers from the list below.

A) They use the largest number of exercises
B) They know how to choose examples
C) They pick the right technique at the right moment
D) Being older can be an advantage
E) They are chess players
F) They pay more attention to students

IELTS Reading: more keywords

It's always a good idea to write down the 'keywords' from any reading test or exercise that you do. Here are the keywords from the last few reading lessons here on the blog:

IELTS Vocabulary: weekly review

There were plenty of good phrases and collocations in this week's lessons. Here are just some of them:

From the reading lesson:

• internationally known
• a teaching philosophy
• create an environment
• to foster good moral character
• pick up their native language
• acquire their native language
• become proficient
• raise generations of children

From the writing task 2 lesson:

• a positive trait or attitude
• in the realm of education
• diligently follow instructions
• achieve good grades
• take their first steps
• the path to a successful career
• in an employment setting
• the most motivated, industrious and committed individuals
• rise to the top
• experts in their fields
• an unhealthy obsession with
• outcompeting others
• neglect family and relationships
• stressed and irritable
• a positive trait

Task: Can you list the good phrases and collocations from Friday's speaking lesson?

IELTS Advice: 'deep work'

Did you quickly scan through this week's lessons here on the blog, or did you spend the time to do some 'deep work'? For example: Did you write all of the useful vocabulary in a notebook? Did you analyse my task 1 and task 2 paragraphs carefully, looking at organisation, coherence, grammar and word choice?

If you read through my lessons quickly, I'm sure you'll pick up some useful tips. But if you go deeper, you'll learn a lot more!

PS. There's an interesting book called 'Deep Work'. You can read about it here.

IELTS Speaking Part 2: public transport anecdote

Describe a time you travelled by public transport. You should say

- what type of public transport you used
- where you travelled from and to
- what you did during the journey
- and explain how you felt about travelling in this way

I've tried to give my answer (below) in the form of an 'anecdote':

I’m going to describe a train journey that I took last year between Manchester and London. I’ve made the same journey many times, but I’ll never forget this particular time because something happened that I wasn’t expecting.

It was a Sunday morning and I was due in London that afternoon. There was no traffic at all as I drove in to Manchester, and I was expecting a nice, peaceful trip on a half-empty train. But my first surprise came when I tried to print my prepaid ticket at one of the ticket machines: there wasn’t a reserved seat number on my ticket, which meant that I would have to find an available seat. I was still wondering about this when I heard loud voices and singing coming from the main station concourse. Suddenly I realised what was happening - I was going to be on a train full of football fans travelling to a big match!

Luckily I managed to find a seat before the train filled up. However, the noisy fans made sure that I couldn’t concentrate on any work; I couldn’t even read the newspaper without being interrupted by laughter, singing and football stories. In the end, I just sat and relaxed with a cup of coffee, watching and listening to the excited fans.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad journey; I love travelling by train and at least I had a comfortable seat so that I could sit back and relax for a couple of hours. I would have preferred a quieter trip, but the football fans were all friendly and good-natured, so I can’t really complain. Even so, I made sure that I avoided them on the way home later that day!

IELTS Writing Task 1: shorter version

Here's a shorter version of the answer that I shared in last week's lesson:

The line graph compares three types of traveller to New Zealand between 1997 and 2017 in terms of their average daily expenditure.

It is noticeable that spending by these international visitors was at its highest between the years 2000 and 2003. Overall, business travellers spent the most per day, while people visiting friends or relatives spent the least.

In 1997, business visitors to New Zealand spent an average of almost $260 per day, while holidaymakers spent around $190 and people visiting friends or relatives spent less than $120. Over the following five years, spending by all three types of traveller increased dramatically, to peaks of around $330, $270 and $220. However, visitor spending suddenly fell again between 2003 and 2005.

From 2005 to 2015, the daily expenditure of business travellers and tourists fluctuated around the $200 mark, whereas people visiting relations or friends spent roughly 60 to 80 dollars less per day. By 2017, daily spending had risen to approximately $250, $210 and $140 respectively for vacationers, business people and those visiting loved ones.

(174 words)

Task:
Compare the answer above with the longer report that I shared last week. How did I manage to reduce my answer from 240 words to 174 words? What can we learn from the differences between the two answers?