IELTS Listening Test Lasts for About 30 Minutes

8/3/2019 IELTS Listening Test Lasts for About 30 Minutes

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IELTS listening test lasts for about 30 minutes. It consists of four sections, played on cassette tape, in

order of increasing difficulty. Each section might be a dialogue or a monologue. The test is played once

only, and the questions for each section must be answered while listening, although time is given forstudents to check their answers.

IELTS Reading test lasts for 60 minutes. Students are given an Academic Reading test, or a General

Training Reading test. Both tests consist of three sections, and in both tests the sections are in order of

increasing difficulty.

IELTS Writing test also lasts for 60 minutes. Again, students take either an Academic test, or a General

Training test. Students must perform two writing tasks, which require different styles of writing. There is

no choice of question topics.

IELTS Speaking test consists of a one-to-one interview with a specially trained examiner. The examiner

will lead the candidate through the three parts of the test:



An introduction and interview, an individual long turn where the candidate speaks for one or two

minutes on a particular topic, and a two-way discussion thematically linked to the individual long turn.

This interview will last for approximately 11-14 minutes.

Basic Writing tips

This isn’t, in fact, my weakness. But this skill is difficult to self -study. You need to go to English center

where there are teachers who are willing to check your writing. Here are some suggestions I can thinkof, it maybe can’t help you out. But do your best, you will be fine.

1. Before writing an essay, you must know its basic structure.

2. Do task 2 first, because it is worth more mark and easier

3. Don’t waste too much time on Task 1. Learn all specific writing structure for each type of task 1. In the

real test, you just have to apply that structure with new data and suitable verb tenses. Read sample

essays and take note good structure to have a wide range of academic structures for task 1. Some

structure might be used in task 2 as well.

4. You must complete both tasks. I don’t care how difficult the test is, I don’t care how little time you

got. You MUST complete your test at any cost. If you don’t, you will be penalized very heavily.



5. Again, practice writing. Do both 2 tasks in one hour. You can focus only on task 1 or task 2, but before

the test, you should practice writing both tasks to familiar with time limit.

6. Practice makes perfect. In writing, this statement is completely true. But it is better if there is

someone to check writing for you and you can learn from your mistakes.

7. Writing requires wide academic vocabulary. You also have to buy a vocabulary book to work on and

enrich your vocabulary.

8. Avoid all informal ways of writing. There are some rules of writing you should follow. For example: no

abbreviations, no 1st and 2nd pronoun or possessive (I, you, me, my, your), except in conclusion where

you have to state your opinion.

9. Each body paragraph has to include: topic sentence, supporting sentences (2-3 sentences),

development sentences (evidence: example, experience, data). In many languages (English included),

there are many ways to develop a body paragraph, which results that topic sentence is not the first

sentence. But you are advised to put topic sentence at the beginning of each body paragraph. Don’t be

creative in this case.

That is all I can think of. I hope you will be lucky in your exam and what I wrote will help you in one way

or another. But REMEMBER, to reach success, you MUST make an effort. You should have a clear

motivation and a strong will to overcome difficulties. When I did practice tests, I was exhausted. But no

success comes easily. Practice is the only way to gain success. Don’t just wait for lucky break, it will

never come if you don’t know how to grab it.

THE ANSWERS ARE OFTEN STRESSED AND REPEATED

If you listen carefully to the practice tape, you will notice that important information, which includes



the answers, is almost always stressed and quite often repeated two or even three times. This

surprises many candidates when they know the answer and listen again to the tape.

• Look at Question 9 in Listening Test One:

Destination: (9)

Tapescript: George: Well, yes, I live in France now, but I was born in Switzerland.

Clerk: Swiss. Very good. Flight number: FA-492. Destination is ...

George: ... Paris.

Clerk: Are you connecting with any other flight in Paris, or will you

be staying there?

George: No, I'm spending my vacation in Paris. Well, Sevres, just

outside Paris.



The answer "Paris" is mentioned 4 times (in bold) and is stressed once (bold and underlined).

Guidelines for a good answer

Does the report have a suitable structure?

¨ Does it have an introduction, body and conclusion?

¨ Does it include connective words to make the writing cohesive within

sentences and paragraphs?

Does the report use suitable grammar and vocabulary?

¨ Does it include a variety of sentence structures?

¨ Does it include a range of appropriate vocabulary?

Does the report meet the requirements of the task?

¨ Does it meet the word limit requirements?

¨ Does it describe the whole graph adequately?

¨ Does it focus on the important trends presented in the graphic



information?

Report Writing

Describing the graph in detail

The body of the report will describe the graph or graphs in detail. You will

need to decide on the most clear and logical order to present the material.

Line graphs generally present information in chronological order and so

the most logical order for you to write up the information would, most

probably be from earliest to latest. Bar graphs, pie charts are organised in

different ways and so you need to decide on the organisation of each one.

Concluding sentences



Your report may end with one or two sentences which summarise your

report to draw a relevant conclusion.

Grammar and vocabulary

Avoiding repetition

You will receive a higher mark if your writing uses a range of structures

and vocabulary correctly rather than a limited number. For example, the

candidate who writes:

The number of cases of X disease started at 50 in 1965 and

then went up to 200 in 1970 and then went up to 500 in 1980

and then went down to zero in 1990.

will lose marks for being repetitive. You should therefore practise writing

reports using a wide variety of terms to describe the different movements

in the graphs and different structures to vary your writing.



Describing trends

Trends are changes or movements. These changes are normally

expressed in numeric items, for example, population, production volumes

or unemployment. There are four basic trends

Expressing movement: nouns and verbs

For each trend there are a number of verbs and nouns to express the

movement. We can use a verb of change, for example:

Unemployment levels fell

Or we can use a related noun, for example:

There was a fall in unemployment levels

Verbs

Nouns



Rose (to)

Increased (to)

Went up (to)

Climbed (to)

Boomed

A rise

An increase

Growth

An upward

trend

A boom (a

dramatic rise)

Fell (to)



Declined (to)

Decreased (to)

Dipped (to)

Dropped (to)

Went down (to)

Slumped (to)

Reduced (to)

A decrease

A decline

A fall

A drop

A slump (a



dramatic fall)

A reduction

Levelled out (at)

Did not change

Remained stable (at)

Remained steady (at)

Stayed constant (at)

Maintained the same level

A levelling out

No change

Fluctuated (around)

Peaked (at)

Plateaued (at)



Stood at (we use this phrase to

focus on a particular point,

before we mention the

movement, for example:

In the first year, unemployment

stood at … )

A fluctuation

Reached a

peak (of)

Reached at

plateau (at)

Describing the movement: adjectives and adverbs



Sometimes we need to give more information about a trend as follows:

There has been a slight increase in the value of the dollar

(degree of change)

Unemployment fell rapidly last year (the speed of change)

Remember that we modify a noun with an adjective (a slight increase)

and a verb with an adverb (to increase slightly).

Describing the degree of change

Adjectives

Adverbs

dramatic



dramatically

sharp

sharply

huge

enormous

enormously

steep

steeply

substantial



substantially

considerable

considerably

significant

significantly

marked

markedly

moderate

moderately

slight



slightly

small

minimal

minimally

Describing the speed of change

Adjectives



Adverbs

rapid

rapidly

quick

quickly

swift

swiftly

sudden

suddenly

steady



steadily

gradual

gradually

slow

slowly

Expressing approximation

We use words to express approximation when the point we are trying to

describe is between milestones on the graph.

just under just over

well under well over



roughly nearly

approximately around

about

Comparing and contrasting

One syllable

Adjectives with one syllable form their comparatives and superlatives like

this:

cheap cheaper cheapest

large larger largest

bright brighter brightest

Exceptions:

Good better best



bad worse worst

Two syllables

Some adjectives with two syllables form their comparatives and

superlatives like this:

pretty prettier prettiest

happy happier happiest

But many form their comparatives and superlatives like this:

striking more striking most striking

Although some can form their comparatives and superlatives like this:

Common more common most common

Clever more clever / cleverer most clever /

cleverest

Three or more syllables



All adjectives with three or more syllables form their comparatives and

superlatives like this:

attractive more attractive most attractive

profitable more profitable most profitable

expensive more expensive most expensive

Dont’s In IELTS writing task

1. Using informal English in the IELTS Writing tasks.

Informal English is OK for your Speaking test – it is not OK for your Writing test. Even though not every

informal word gets penalized, the more formal your style is, the better your score will be. To

demonstrate the difference, informal expression “loads of / tons of” should be replaced with “many” or

“much”; “fed up with” should be replaced with “lost his patience”, etc.

2. Using contractions.



Contractions are “it’s” instead of “it is”, “I’ve” instead of “I have”, “we’re” instead of “we are” (th ese are

only a few examples). Contractions are a bad, bad thing to use in your essay, they don’t save you much

time and can cost you marks. Do me a favor and forget about contractions in your IELTS writing. Write

“should not” instead of “shouldn’t”, “could not” instead of “couldn’t”, “would not” instead of

“wouldn’t”. You get the idea.

3. Using slang.

You can use slang any time talking to your friends, but this is the only place where it belongs, in a

conversation between friends. Keep it out of your IELTS essays, letters or reports. You can’t write

“dunno” instead of “don’t know”, “wanna” instead of “want to” or “gonna” instead of “going to”.

4. SMS-like spelling.

We all are typing SMS messages, chatting on Skype and the like, and there is a bunch of shorter ways to

write longer words. We type “u” instead of “you”, “c” instead of “see”, “IMHO” instead of “in my

humble opinion”. None of these can appear in your IELTS work, unless you are specifically trying to mess

up and get a lower score than you deserve. You need to write the full word and spell it correctly, period.

How to get ideas for IELTS essay

Some times it is hard to find ideas for essay specially when you feel you don’t know anything about the

topic .



So here’s something which can solve your problem.

Work on your vocabulary and learn new words, to make sure you will be able to understand the topic or

at least take a very good guess.

Read as many IELTS essays as you can. You can find many sample essays here.We have almost 400

essays written by students . Reading other people’s essays helps with the ideas, if you don’t have any of

your own – “borrow” from others.

Read as much IELTS essay topics, as possible. You can find essay topics in every post in Recent exams

category. Why do it? Simply because sometimes the topics repeat in future exams

Important! Don’t try to memorize essays. IELTS examiners are trained to look for memorized essays and

they will disqualify your work on the spot

What is IELTS writing task 2

I said this many times and I will repeat it again – “to write good IELTS essay, you need to get into your

examiner’s head”. You’ve go to understand what makes you gain or lose marks, because once you do –

you can’t go wrong. What I am about to reveal here can be found in IELTS official site, but I am

explaining it in simple English.

This is how they grade your essay: you receive points for Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion,

Lexical Resource,Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Looks heavy? Never mind, here comes the simple

English version:

“Task Response” means that your essay shows that you understood and covered the topic from all its

sides, aspects, etc. Let’s take this topic for example – “Internet: connecting or isolating people?”. Those

who chose to write about how Internet connects people – loose marks, those who chose to write about



how Internet isolates people – loose marks, those who compare and contrast both sides of the Internet

and give arguments for and against – gain marks.

“Coherence and Cohesion” means how well you connected the paragraphs and sentences inside each

paragraph. You see, all of your paragraphs need to be logically connected. For example, if paragraph 1

explains the advantages of the Internet, and paragraph 2 explains its disadvantages, then paragraph 1

should have last sentence saying something like this: “In spite of Internet being such a help in

communication, its drawbacks can not be overlooked”. This sentence creates the connection between

1st and 2nd paragraphs. If it wasn’t there, examiner could think that you jumped from advantages to

disadvantages without a reason. The same rule applies to sentences inside the paragraph. Every

sentence should lead to the next one.

“Lexical Resource” means vocabulary and different types of sentences, simple and complex. You should

be able to use words and their synonyms.

“Grammatical Range and Accuracy” means spelling and grammar of sentences. You should be able to

spell the words correctly, do not forget articles “a” and “the”, punctuations is also important, etc – you

get the picture, don’t you?

One more important thing to know: the four criteria are equally weighted. It means that if you forgot

about “Coherence and Cohesion” in your essay, you will loose 1/4 of your essay points.

Speaking tips

Speaking is a weakness of analytic learners (who learn English from books and tapes). Moreover, in

countries where English is not a first language, improving your speaking in English is really difficult.



Therefore, I don’t have much experience in practicing speaking. Here are some tips that I got from my

teachers and some suggestions that I think they might be helpful for you.

Pronunciation is the most important feature in speaking. If you speak correctly, academically and

interestingly, but no one understands what you are talking about, you certainly lose your points.

One of my teachers, who is fluent in 5 languages, shares his experience that pronunciation is the key of

learning a language. It might be true since native English speakers can pronounce a unfamiliar word

correctly but don’t know how to spell it. Because English is a combination of many languages, there are

no totally general rules for pronunciation. As a result, you must remember everything.

So how to pronounce the words correctly?

- Firstly, listen and learn what native English speaker said. As I mentioned, listening can help you in

speaking. You can correct yourself in basic words if you listen a lot. Moreover, listening can also help you

to learn how to stress important words, how to speak naturally and even how to organize your speech.

- Secondly, if you learn a new word, you must know how to pronounce it first. Typically, when people

want to learn new words, they revise these words again and again, and write it down so many times. Butnow, to improve your speaking and listening, you must hear electronic dictionary pronouncing and

repeat after it again and again.

- Thirdly, make sentences with new vocabulary. Everybody might know how to pronounce words

correctly, but when they combine them all together, they cannot pronounce correctly anymore, or even

if they do, their sentence may sound unnatural. The reason is they lack of intonation. Listening might

solve this problem.

- Fourthly, practice pronunciation every week (3-4 times a week) by reading out loud a short passage. At

first, you practice to pronounce all the words in that passage correctly. Then read the whole passage

slowly and correctly (pay attention to ending sound).



Afterward, increase reading speed in each sentence (’read’ here means you must speak out the words,

not read in your mind). If you speak quickly but start to pronounce wrongly, that means you reach your

limit, don’t speak faster than that. And finally, you read the whole passage again at normal speed, or

may be a bit faster than normal a little bit, but you MUST include intonation.

To find material for practicing this exercise, you can visit this website:

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com. There are hundreds of short news and audio files spoken by a

native speaker. I guarantee if you practice this kind of exercise gradually, you pronunciation will improve

a lot. (Note: this is the exercise of my teacher, who speaks 5 languages, as I mentioned before)

Now, to prepare for IELTS Speaking test, you should practice some more exercises:

- Pick a topic and stand in front of mirror to practice speaking test. You should go through all three parts

of the real speaking test. Standing in front of mirror will help you improve your body language and also

your pronunciation. You might find it strange that mirror can correct your pronunciation. In fact, there

are some vowels and consonants that you can’t pronounce correctly if you don’t know how to do that

(not just simply remember the pronunciation).

- Try to speak naturally. You are advised to speak fast with intonation (the previous reading exercise will

certainly help you). You should learn and apply some verb phrases, idioms and slang expressions. This is

not the key part of speaking test, but it is better if you know, not only for your test but also for you

speaking skill. If you want to get 7.0, you must master pronunciation, accuracy and intonation.

Important tip #1

When you practice in speaking, you must pay attention to the ending sound. But when you take the realtest, don’t do that, because it will affect your fluency. In the real test, it is the time you show examiner

what you got, not the time you can show them how good you can correct yourself. Using experience you

gained from practicing to prove your speaking skill.

Important tip #2



Another wonderful way to practice speaking is to speak English in your dream. If you never do that, you

do it now. I have already spoken English in my dreams even before my teacher advice me to do so. I just

watch cartoons in English, films in English and listen to songs in English. As a result, I naturally dream in

English. Actually, I can control my dreams, lol, it is very interesting, try to do that. By doing that, I can

think quickly in my mind, but I still have problems when speaking my ideas out. So, you must do 2

previous exercises in order to improve speaking.

IELTS Listening Test Lasts for About 30 Minutes

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