Studying for the IELTS test? Learn the top tips and strategies to get a high score in the IELTS listening section. I’ve helped hundreds of students pass their IELTS exam and I know where students lose marks. I’m going to share my experience and let you know how you can dramatically increase your score on this test. By using these IELTS tricks you will see an immediate improvement on your IELTS practice tests.
You need to do the IELTS listening test for the Academic IELTS and the General IELTS. I want you to be confident when you go to the IELTS test center to do the exam. So watch this lesson and get some free tips that will help you get the score you need!
Want more videos to help you improve you IELTS score? Check out EngVid’s many other IELTS lessons at: http://www.engvid.com/english-exams/ielts/
and for more tips on the IELTS, go to http://www.goodluckielts.com/
Test yourself with the quiz: http://www.engvid.com/ielts-listening-how-to-get-a-high-score/
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, everyone. I’m Jade. In this lesson, I’ve put together all the tips I have for IELTS listening, so if you’re preparing to take the test, you’ve got all my tips to help you do your best in the listening exam.
So, it’s 40 marks, and it’s around 30 minutes long, so how can you make the most of your listening exam? Well, it’s true what they say: practice really does make perfect. So you should aim to do as many practice tests of the listening section as you absolutely can. It will really, really help you.
There’s a book that I recommend, it’s the Cambridge Series for IELTS, we’ve got some practice tests. There are other parts in that book, not just for listening, but the listening materials are good, so I’ve used those many times. And you don’t get that many listening tests in the book, but what you can do is do the tests, and then take a break for, you know, two weeks or three weeks or whatever, and you’ll forget, and then you can do it again. So, that’s really important, because I’ll tell you that as a native speaker, yeah, plus someone with a university degree, but I’ll do… I’ll do an IELTS listening test after a long break, and I’ll not get a lot of the answers right. Okay? So what that tells me is that doing IELTS, and the listening part is just another example, it’s as much about learning how to pass a test and learning an exam technique, basically. Because if a native speaker isn’t going to get it all right, it shows you that you need to train yourself to be able to do this listening test. So, anyway, if I do a couple of those tests, then I’m getting them all right.
So what I’m telling you, just from my experience is: the more you practice those tests, you really will become better and better at doing those tests. Even if right now you think that your English is, like, really good and you’re going to get a really high score in the IELTS listening because you’re good at listening, it may be true that you are a really good speaker of English and you understand a lot, but if you haven’t practiced any of the IELTS tests, you might not get a good score, because you haven’t learned the exam technique, and you’re not familiar with those tests. So rule number one: Practice makes perfect.
Also in these tests, you really need to spell carefully, because if you make a spelling mistake, you don’t get the mark. So, try your best to spell things correctly. And especially in questions where they are spelling something to you, make sure you don’t lose an easy point for writing down the wrong letter.
Which brings us to this one: Learn the pronunciation of letters. So, just do a little bit of revision, go back over how to say the letters in British English, because the IELTS test is mainly in British accent. So make sure you know how we say our letters here. But it would also be quite handy for you to practice the letters in American English and Australian English, because these will also be covered in the… In the test. You’ll get these different accents. So there’s a tip for you.
Going back to this one: when you’re doing the test, in between the different parts of the exam (there are four parts), you get a little bit of reading time. When you get this reading time, what you should be doing is reading the questions that you’re about to answer. Not checking the answers that you wrote before. See, a lot of people will just be looking back at what they’ve already done, but when they do that, they’re not preparing for the next questions. So you really need to make the most of that time, and make sure that you’ve read what’s coming. And that will help you, because these listening exams, they’re in chronological order, it means it starts at the top of the page, the first answer’s somewhere at the top of the page, and then it goes down. It’s not like you have to be looking all over the paper for the answers, basically.
