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Get your personal IELTS Examiner to access your speaking and give you a band score: https://tinyurl.com/ielts-common-mistakes
Full tutorial here: https://www.ieltspodcast.com/audio-tutorials/common-grammar-mistakes-ielts/
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0:00
ielt mistakes and how to avoid them so
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you can see in this picture the students
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are climbing up trying to get over that
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band seven barrier and this tutorial is
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going to help you get there it's going
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to help you get to melbour or wherever
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you want to go you know to Toronto to
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Scotland to England or even to Melbourne
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and see those beautiful sites there so
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let's go through it first mistake I see
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is students taking test after I test
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after test and personally I did this uh
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when I was learning to drive I kept on
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failing and I was like okay if I just
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take another test straight away get
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right back in while my skills are hot
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I'm going to get it I'm so close I'm at
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6.5 and I'm going to get there but no
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what I should have done and what you
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should be doing if you're in this
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situation taking I test after test after
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test is take a step back
1:00
take a step back review where you're
1:02
going and just give yourself time and
1:05
then approach the exam when when you're
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going for a band 7 you want to be at a
1:10
band 7.5 and then when you take it your
1:14
more obviously you're more likely to
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pass rather than going in there where
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you're just scraping by on a 6.5 and you
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think oh I'm so close I'm just going to
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go in again and I maybe I might be able
1:26
to chance it and get a band seven doing
1:29
it that way again and again and again is
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incredibly
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expensive and it's just going to be
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incredibly
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infuriating for you as an i student so
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the next mistake I see is students
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focusing on exam skills and just
1:47
watching YouTube and you know is it
1:51
should I do the reading test this way or
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should I do the reading test that way
1:55
now there is some value in looking at
2:00
YouTube but most
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cases especially with the
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writing it's better just to start
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writing and get feedback as much
2:10
feedback as possible and nowadays in the
2:15
past used to have to send your essay to
2:17
a tutor wait a day or two and then it
2:19
gets sent back and it's incredibly
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frustrating nowadays though you can use
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online AI essay Checkers get instant
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feedback and get guidance and improve
2:30
faster spot your mistakes but
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unfortunately what a lot of students do
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as I said is they're just watching
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YouTube and figuring out oh is it my
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vocabulary is it my paragraphs whereas
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really what you need to be doing is just
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putting pen to paper writing and getting
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feedback um as I say in my podcasts you
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cannot learn to ride a bike with a book
2:57
you have to get on the bike and it's the
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same with your essay writing next one
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information overload this is is related
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to what I was talking about just a
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second ago do not confuse watching
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tutorial after tutorial after tutorial
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thinking it's iot's preparation it is
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but it's the mildest weakest form of
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preparing what you really want to be
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doing is finding one tutor and sticking
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with that tutor because if you're
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watching my tutorials and then you're
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watching another uh tutor's tutorials
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then you're getting this information
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overload and it's just compounding it's
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just adding to the frustration and a
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frustrated stressed mind is not the best
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way to prepare so just be careful on how
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much information you are actually
3:52
consuming next one urgent preparation
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every day I get emails saying I've got
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my exam coming up in 5 days I've got my
4:00
exam coming up next week it's in 24
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hours can you help me yes I can help you
4:06
what I do in this situation is I look at
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their essay and I'll say okay we're
4:11
going to do this quick fix using exam
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skills and some cases it works we get
4:17
them to a band seven but in most cases a
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student who's uh in those cases when we
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can get them to a band seven quickly
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what we've done is we've taught them the
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Quick Fix exam skills and and they've
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already got solid language skills now
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what happens is a lot of students are
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struggling with the language skills and
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these take a lot of time they take
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longer not a lot of time they take
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longer to improve especially if we have
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like fossilized errors where you've been
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doing it wrong for like a year or two
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and now you just you don't even see
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those errors and you make the same
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mistakes all the time and that's why
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getting quick feedback on your work
5:00
is essential to improving so as I said
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there's a link below to check out our
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essay Checker and you can also do apply
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the same knowledge with your speaking
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exam and check the language mistakes and
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the exam
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mistakes and just improve faster next
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one a common mistake is using your
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spoken English skills and transferring
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it into your academic writing task to
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essay what do I mean by this I mean you
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using your contractions basically
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writing the same way that you speak and
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in I Els task to we cannot do this we
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need to use the full version we cannot
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use informal language such as kids we
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have to use children and you need to be
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aware whether your language is formal
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informal and the best way to do that is
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to get feedback on it is to get someone
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to look at it uh or a tool it's even
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faster and this way you can find where
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your errors are but a lot of students
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will just write exactly how they speak
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and it can be incredibly frustrating for
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them because they're like well I speak
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perfectly fine everybody understands me
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but I'm still getting six 6.5 in my
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essay what's going
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on those are the types of students that
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I mentioned before with a high English
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level but they just need to learn that
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last skill which is academic English and
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some exam skills and these students
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improve faster
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the next common mistake is not doing any
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practice tests now hardly anybody as far
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as I'm aware would go into the a test
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without doing a practice test with the
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reading or the listening that's just
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common sense you've got to do those but
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by the way when you are doing them try
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different approaches try looking at all
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the questions first then looking at the
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answers try reading all the text first
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then looking at the answers and vice
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versa you need to find the strategy that
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works for you now what a lot of students
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do and this is mainly for the speaking
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is they'll go in there and they've never
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done a practice test and this is
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understandable a few years ago or even
7:14
last year but now with tools like the I
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speaking test simulator that we've got
7:21
at I podcast you can do this is going to
7:25
sound so amazing and so sexy but you can
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do test speaking tests all day and it's
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like your own personal IELTS examiner
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available 247 giving you feedback and
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you can note which vocabulary is scoring
7:42
you points and which vocabulary is
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costing you points you can identify the
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complex sentences and you can get a ton
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of feedback and it just makes the whole
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Improvement a lot faster a lot smoother
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and far less
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stressful final one terrible tutors now
8:02
back in the day when I was
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interviewing IELTS examiners exils
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examiners and professional um like
8:11
Linguistics uh linguistic
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experts I heard this story about a tutor
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who had prepared the students completely
8:20
wrong and now this is it's quite a
8:24
difficult situation because as a student
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how do you know if your tutor is
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proficient or or not how do you know if
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they've got an accent or not it's quite
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difficult um
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so this is I think the best way is to
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either one use a professional tool like
8:44
I said or and this is a an issue that
8:48
well throw money at the problem just
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invest in high quality expensive tutor
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but I know that's
8:58
quite insense sensitive advice because I
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know a lot of students do struggle
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financially so therefore you're probably
9:05
best using a tool and there's
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pronunciation tools out there there's
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the test simulator like I
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said and just doing it the Modern Way
9:16
can just make it a lot smoother so we're
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coming to the end of the tutorial and I
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just want to say look you've got this
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you can do this this I know it is tough
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and I know that you're struggling but
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with every minute that you put in to
9:34
some serious preparation you are going
9:37
to get closer and sooner or later you
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will get that band seven and you'll be
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able to go to Toronto to Vancouver start
9:46
your new life start your new cost you
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will get there just keep moving don't
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give
9:52
up and all the best and good luck in
9:55
your ILS exam
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