My success: scored 8.0 after one week of preparation

Did you achieve the mark you need? Motivate others by sharing your story.
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Vita
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jan 14, 2014 5:04 pm

My success: scored 8.0 after one week of preparation

Post by Vita »

Hello everyone. My name is Vita and I'd like to share my success story. I hope some of you may find my experience useful.

I took Academic exam a month ago after a week of actual preparation. I scored 8.0 overall with the following breakdown: listening 8.5, reading 9.0, writing 8.0, speaking 7.0.
I am a non-native speaker and I haven't formally studied English for the last 8 years.

So here is what I did in terms of preparation during that week. I had 6 days and I could devote to studying 1-2 hours every evening.
First I learned about the exam and its parts on the official site. Then I searched Youtube for some strategies of the preparation and that's how I found Ryan's videos. I watched 1 video on a different topic every day in the following days.

I tried several tasks for listening and reading on the first day to understand the format and figured out that I could do both parts with just a few mistakes. In reading the most difficult type of question for me was the TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN so in later days I researched tips and tricks on this topic. As for the listening part the only problem I could work on during this limited time was the fact that I'm more accustomed to the American accent so I downloaded about 10 podcasts on scientific subjects by Discovery BBC and listened to them during commute every day till the exam.

I felt less comfortable about writing, especially graph description. I found model essays for different kinds of graphs on ieltsbuddy. In order to get the feel of the structure I copied by hand one essay of each kind (6 essays in total). While copying I tried to actively understand the order of the arguments and why certain phrases were chosen. I also read actively 1 or 2 essays for the second part every evening. I didn't write anything because I didn't want to lose the time that I could spend on analyzing model essays and the other reason was that I was too tired after work (quite hectic week I had).

During the exam I didn't have any particular difficulties with listening. Probably I could've been more attentive but I'm happy with the result anyway. As for the reading I had to reread the third text several times because even though I understood every word and the text in general it was still hard to answer TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN questions and I'm a bit surprised that I got 9.0 after all ;) In the writing part I managed to finish both essays just in time (turned out my method worked). Speaking part was the only part that I hadn't had time and opportunity to practice and that's why I think I've got significantly lower score.
delvydavis
Posts: 57
Joined: Sun Aug 18, 2013 1:44 pm
Location: Santo Domingo
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Re: My success: scored 8.0 after one week of preparation

Post by delvydavis »

great achievement!!

wish you good luck my dear
PAST IELTS:
(09-06-2012) L-7,R-6.6,W-5.5,S-8.5 ; Overall-7.0
(06-07-2013) L-6.5,R-7,W-5.5,S-6.5 ; Overall-6.5
(21-09-2013) L-6.5,R-6.5,W-7.5,S-7; Overall-7.0
(07-12-2013) L-8.0,R-7.0,W-7.5,S-8.5 Overall-8.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFn4S3z_WO4
rizwan149
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2014 7:01 am

Re: My success: scored 8.0 after one week of preparation

Post by rizwan149 »

@ Vita:

I am looking to practice speaking part of IELTS as i feel, i am a bit hesitant in speaking. Please add me on skype: rizwan_149
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Ryan
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Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:02 am
Location: Dubai, UAE

Re: My success: scored 8.0 after one week of preparation

Post by Ryan »

Hi Vita,

It was wonderful speaking to you earlier this week. Many many thanks for taking the time to share your story. I think I speak for everyone when I say how inspirational it is! Wishing you all the best for your studies in Iceland. :)

Here is the entire interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDNarwfUZXI
masimshehzad
Posts: 44
Joined: Sun Nov 24, 2013 7:57 am

Re: My success: scored 8.0 after one week of preparation

Post by masimshehzad »

I am following same strategy
Thanks
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