0:06
you are now listening to the I podcast
0:08
learn from cheors and ex examiners who
0:11
are masters of I outs preparation your
0:15
Worthington hello there I students in
0:18
this tutorial we are going to look at
0:21
exam skills you will need to get a band
0:25
seven or higher in the IELTS test this
0:30
overview and for the most part I'm not
0:33
going to just tell you what to do I'm
0:37
going to tell you how to do it as well
0:39
to make sure we're delivering Extra
0:42
Value to help you on your journey to get
0:46
the results you need to get to Australia
0:49
the UK to Canada to start uni to start
0:54
work to get the legal
0:56
papers and I know the legal papers the
1:00
ation is such an absolute money grabbing
1:04
nightmare because I've been through this
1:07
recently with my uh wife trying to get
1:11
her to get her settled in the UK let's
1:15
jump into it actually before we start
1:17
let me tell you who I am if this is the
1:19
first time you are watching or
1:22
listening my name is Ben Worthington
1:26
I've been helping students pass the ILS
1:28
exam now for over 12 years and it just
1:32
got easier how did it get easier well we
1:35
launched our I speaking test simulator
1:38
and recently not recently about a year
1:41
ago we launched the Aisa Checker as well
1:44
and there's never being a better time
1:49
students like yourself so let's jump
1:52
into it the first one is time management
1:55
I've been working with a student um for
1:58
the last I think about the last month or
2:00
so and what we did because she was
2:03
struggling with time management for the
2:06
writing I'm just going to give you
2:07
practical tips for the writing regarding
2:12
but she was stuck at 6.5 like a lot of
2:15
students are and I said look just forget
2:20
about the time requirement right now
2:23
we're going to focus on the basics
2:25
building a basic essay then we're going
2:28
to focus on making a band s essay and
2:33
then once we've got that under control
2:35
we're going to start doing it again and
2:37
again until we can do it under 40
2:42
first stage of your preparation forget
2:46
about time management and just get it
2:48
right first just get it right get the
2:52
basics in place then learn the more
2:54
advanced skills like the vocabulary and
2:56
some other skills I'm going to share in
2:57
a minute and then the last thing you
3:00
want to do is focus on your time
3:03
management now of course this is
3:06
incredibly more difficult if you've got
3:08
your exam coming up in six days that's
3:10
why I always suggest like a month bare
3:13
minimum a bare minimum to prepare right
3:18
then next skill once you got these basic
3:20
skills in in place you need to master
3:24
hedging because the amount of essays I
3:28
see where it's where we we have a
3:30
sentence like I traffic jams is an issue
3:37
or traffic management is an issue for
3:39
all cities or traffic jams and traffic
3:42
issues are issues for cities in 2025
3:49
whatever however this isn't true and
3:53
this is what the examiners will pick you
3:54
up on because what you're saying there
3:57
is you've just said all cities in the
3:59
world have a traffic management issue
4:05
it's probably not true so this is why we
4:07
have to say most cities in the world
4:11
okay or the vast majority of the cities
4:14
in the world have a traffic issue in
4:22
okay this is called hedging and it comes
4:25
from the phrase hedging your bets which
4:27
is an Old English phrase but it just
4:32
100% because if when you commit 100%
4:35
you're making a sweeping generalization
4:37
which is just not done in academ in
4:40
Academia and at the end of the day we
4:42
are writing an academic
4:45
essay again when we're proposing
4:48
Solutions or when we're proposing causes
4:51
we say the the most likely cause of this
4:53
issue okay we can't say the cause of
4:56
this issue is C because it might not be
4:59
has in all of the cases it could be um
5:03
tiny roads it could be road works so
5:06
this is why we say in most cases the
5:08
issue might be caused by cars or the
5:11
issue could be caused by excessive Road
5:16
cities next one ideas generation
5:24
development there's two types of
5:26
students one type of student sees an
5:29
essay question and does not know what to
5:31
do does not have any ideas their mind
5:34
goes blank the second type of student
5:40
ideas if you are the first type of
5:43
student with no ideas then you start you
5:46
need to start reading
5:48
bbc.co.uk every morning or bbc.com or
5:50
CNN and just start filling your head up
5:53
with some of the major issues in the
5:56
world and the ielt vocabulary topics uh
6:00
the podcasts that we do about the ielt
6:03
vocabulary are an insanely fast way to
6:07
get ideas on a certain topic and we go
6:10
very specific I've been recording some
6:13
about juvenile crime about
6:16
globalization about tele medicine about
6:21
equality listen to that take notes and
6:23
you'll get ideas you'll get
6:26
positions and then it's a case of
6:28
developing those positions
6:30
next for the student who gets an
6:33
explosion of ideas then I recommend
6:37
using a system where at the beginning of
6:40
your SE writing process you generate
6:43
your ideas and you select the best some
6:46
tutors with no experience or no
6:48
ideas no experience about preparing
6:52
students with no brainstorm but of
6:54
course you don't spend 15 minutes
6:56
brainstorming ideas you spend Maybe 1
6:59
minute 2 minutes and get the and choose
7:02
the ideas that are easiest to explain
7:06
and the more you do this the faster it
7:08
gets so in the exam you can usually get
7:12
it down to about 30 seconds you review
7:14
your ideas and then you review and you
7:16
choose you select the easiest idea to
7:20
explain and develop as I've said before
7:23
the ILS exam is a language exam it's not
7:26
a test of intelligence or the quality of
7:28
your ideas is a test of communication
7:32
it's language so we're going to
7:35
develop the easiest idea to
7:39
develop next you need a system for
7:42
tackling writing task to what do I mean
7:46
by this well let's just apply the AI
7:49
essay Checker okay you write an
7:52
essay and then you review it in the Aisa
7:56
Checker and what I always do with my
7:59
is we break it down into smaller
8:01
components and this helps with the
8:05
overwhelm you know and it just makes it
8:07
more manageable so back to writing task
8:11
two we might see on the essay Checker
8:13
we've got a lack of complex sentences
8:17
we've got we don't have enough complex
8:20
sentences so what do we do we can look
8:23
go and listen to a podcast by Ben
8:25
Worthington for example about complex
8:28
sentences right those sentences down
8:31
start playing with those sentences and
8:33
then do another essay or even better
8:37
write the same essay now with your
8:40
sentences repeat this until we've got
8:43
the issue of complex sentences sorted
8:46
and then we might move on to the next
8:48
issue which the Aisa Checker might
8:50
highlight for us which could be
8:51
vocabulary and this is a bit faster to
8:54
improve because you get suggestions when
8:56
you're using the AI ESS Checker at I
9:00
example and we can apply this system for
9:04
the reading test for the listening test
9:06
for the writing test for the speaking
9:08
test now that we've got the speaking
9:09
simulator up and running as
9:12
well and doing this will just help you
9:15
reduce anxiety it'll help you move
9:17
forward in a more controlled way and one
9:21
side note here when you're doing this I
9:22
suggest journaling making notes writing
9:25
a debrief after each session that you do
9:28
for example Le worked on complex
9:32
sentences going to spend two more hours
9:35
on this and then work on vocabulary so
9:39
the next time you go into to start
9:41
studying for the IELTS you can pick it
9:44
up from your journal and you're like
9:45
okay it's here here are the links to the
9:47
last essay I can review and I can get I
9:50
can start being productive in my study
9:54
time immediately or almost immediately
9:57
rather than starting out
10:00
zero next one reading
10:03
comprehension soon I will be releasing a
10:06
tutorial about paraphrasing and we go
10:09
into a lot of detail but you want to be
10:13
able to read it uh a chunk of text and
10:16
then extract the main ideas from this
10:22
text and one of the best ways of doing
10:25
this is doing mock IELTS reading tests
10:29
using the Cambridge IELTS books I think
10:31
these are the best because they're
10:33
slightly harder than the original one
10:36
than the official tests only very
10:39
slightly um and you can also try
10:42
different techniques you can reverse
10:44
engineer the reading test by looking at
10:46
the answers then looking at the
10:47
questions um and the same with the
10:50
listening test um which brings me on to
10:53
the next Point listening comprehension
10:56
and in both cases to improve your
10:58
reading and your listen in comprehension
11:00
a great way is immersion just
11:03
making every minute count so you're
11:07
waiting for a bus or you're in your car
11:10
and you're listening and it's it can be
11:13
exhausting I fully understand it can be
11:16
exhausting actively reading or actively
11:19
listening um so just give yourself you
11:23
know room to switch off sometimes but
11:25
just keep the immersion going just keep
11:30
the total amount of time you spend in
11:32
the English language as high as possible
11:35
and the best way I know to do this is
11:38
just making use of your downtime like I
11:40
said a few seconds ago such as you're on
11:44
the train you're on the bus you're in
11:45
the car you're cooking and you could be
11:48
listening to Mr Ben Worthington for
11:52
example the next point I want to mention
11:55
is confidence in speaking you're not
11:59
going going to get higher than a band
12:02
seven without confidence now as I said
12:05
right at the beginning any tutor can say
12:09
oh you need this they can say what you
12:12
need but the real decent tutors in my
12:15
honest opinion uh those who tell you how
12:18
you can achieve what they say you need
12:24
confidence and this goes beyond
12:27
confidence just for the the
12:30
exam because you know it's going to be
12:33
impossible to be confident in the exam
12:36
if you still struggle with face-to-face
12:39
interactions um what usually happens
12:42
with a lot of students is that they say
12:44
oh I can speak with my friends all day
12:47
in English uh but when it comes to the
12:53
bits because this is such a common
12:58
problem we develop the IELTS speaking
13:02
simulator so you can take test after
13:05
test after Test full 12 15 minute exams
13:12
online your answers get transcribed and
13:17
transcription and we give you feedback
13:20
and it's all automated so you could do
13:24
like I know four tests an hour you could
13:27
do 12 tests every every 3 hours and how
13:31
does this help you it helps you in two
13:33
ways number one you're going to get
13:38
exam and number two you are going to get
13:42
familiar with the topics on the exam
13:47
you're going to get familiar with how
13:49
long 2 minutes feels like for the qcad
13:54
and most importantly you're going to get
13:56
that feedback so you're going to be able
13:58
to pinpoint accurately where you're
14:02
losing points is it repetition is it
14:05
vocabulary is it a lack of
14:08
fluency and just getting this feedback
14:11
and working on those specific errors is
14:15
going to help you and there are some
14:19
other confidence building techniques you
14:22
can do and these might sound a little
14:29
they cost nothing to try so you can do
14:33
exercises you can just jump onto YouTube
14:35
try the breathing exercises you can do
14:38
visualization exercises where you
14:40
visualize yourself having a successful
14:44
exam you can start talking a little bit
14:48
louder so you appear confidence and
14:51
there this so you appear confident and
14:54
there's this phrase in the UK in the US
14:57
fake it till you to until you make it
15:02
and you know you do enough practice
15:04
tests at a louder voice it's kind of
15:06
sound weird at first but if you do
15:08
enough soon it'll start becoming the
15:11
norm another way you can improve your
15:13
confidence is just by speaking a little
15:17
slower this will give you more time to
15:20
compose your answers and just like we
15:22
said at the beginning beginning of the
15:24
tutorial at first um well it comes down
15:28
to breaking it down into small
15:30
components so you can practice speaking
15:33
slower you can practice speaking louder
15:36
don't try and do them all at once though
15:39
because it gets a little bit
15:42
overwhelming another final technique is
15:45
paraphrasing the question so for the
15:48
examiner if the examiner says imagine
15:51
we're in part three The Examiner says um
15:55
do you think the elderly are being well-
15:58
look after in your country and what we
16:01
do is we reflect pretty much what we
16:04
hear in the interrogative form but we
16:06
reflected in the affirmative form and we
16:09
say yes I do believe the elderly are
16:13
being well- looked after in my country
16:17
because and then after we've reflected
16:22
sentence we say this is because in the
16:24
second then we give an example and then
16:27
we go back right to the beginning and we
16:29
say and that's why I believe the elderly
16:33
are correctly looked after in my country
16:36
and this sounds robotic it sounds very
16:38
structured at first but the idea is you
16:40
use it numerous times until it starts
16:43
becoming automatic and just having that
16:47
framework there will help you boost your
16:50
confidence now the final skill you
16:54
undoubtedly definitely need for getting
16:57
a band seven or high in the ILS exam is
17:03
concentration if you have one of these
17:06
mind that I think it's called a monkey
17:09
mind where you just bounce all over the
17:11
place and you really struggle for
17:14
concentration you need to figure out how
17:17
to do this now personally I have
17:19
struggled with this as well what I find
17:23
before I sit down to do a working
17:25
session I might do a meditation I might
17:28
do a breathing exercise whm Hof method
17:31
on YouTube works perfectly for me I find
17:34
if I do lots of sports and eat healthy
17:36
my concentration goes through the roof
17:39
but if I'm eating garbage drinking Dr
17:42
Pepper or whatever I have a really
17:45
brutal time trying to focus and you need
17:49
every little help you can get and having
17:52
a high level of concentration and a high
17:55
level of um focus or the abil ability to
17:59
focus can only help you especially in
18:02
the reading and the listening
18:05
exams that's it for me today I'm wishing
18:08
you a beautiful day and good luck with
18:11
your IELTS exam you will get there it's
18:15
just a case of putting in the time
18:18
getting organized being disciplined with
18:21
your preparation time and also using
18:25
tools using tools to improve
18:29
it's 2024 now the we've got essay
18:33
checking tools at ieltspodcast.com we've
18:38
simulator it's there's never been a
18:41
better time to prepare for the exam so
18:44
good Lu in your exam thank you for
18:46
watching or listening and have a
18:47
beautiful day cheers
19:10
thanks for listening to IP podcast.com
