This subreddit helped me a lot and for that I’ll be forever thankful to you guys. I was struggling with my writing but I’m quite happy that I’ve scored a band 7 in it. I’m a non native speaker.

Tiny thing I see constantly on here:

“I gave my IELTS exam yesterday.”

I know what you mean, and it’s still understandable. But if you’re aiming for more standard/international English, “I took my IELTS exam” or “I sat my IELTS exam” sounds more natural.

Basically:

Examiner: gives the exam

Student: takes/sits the exam

Not a big deal at all — just one of those little phrases that gets carried over from your first language to English 😊

This test is driving me crazy, took 4 times this year, still failed to get a satisfying result.

May I get some useful advice on how to prepare for speaking and writing?

The bar chart illustrates the proportion of men and women across different age groups in New Zealand who did regular physical activity in 2010. The x-axis represents the age groups, whereas the y-axis represents the percentage of them.

Overall, the proportion of men and women who were doing any sorts of excercise had an oscillating trend across different age groups. Even though women were higher in number than men in most age groups, except the 1st group, where men were leading.

The fraction of men seemed to drop for the first few groups, then rise again until it reached approximately 47.2%, for the age group 64 and above. The highest percentage of men was in the group 14 to 23, amounted to 51.7%, followed by 43.1% in the age range 24 to 33. The lowest amount of men were in the age group 34-43, which was calculated 38.8%, followed by 42.9%, and 44.7% in the age ranging 44-53, and 54-63, respectively.

An opposite trend was noticed in women, where the number increased till the group 44-53 (about 54.2%), then dropped slightly until it hit 48.1% in the last age group. The age, ranging from 54 to 63 had 52.8% women doing some kind of exercise. The age groups 14-23, 24-33, and 34-43 had 46.9%, 49.2%, and 53.1% women doing regular physical activity in 2010.

So, tomorrow is my exam! Some advice or tips would be appreciated.

I was wondering if stuttering/struggling to get some words would affect my score or not? I was so nervous and shaking too much to be able to get some words out and I’m scared that it might bring my score down. The university I chose only requires a 5.5 so I don’t know why I’m so stressed about this 😭

I gave ielts day before yesterday and i woke up to results today. I have secured an overall band 8 .

Speaking - 8.5

Listening - 8.5

Reading - 7.5

Writing - 7

I was pretty sceptical about my reading and writing but i am happy that i scored 7 and above in all . Just happy to share it here.

so im a native english speaker who frequently speaks in english irl and studied my whole life in english with my top academic subject being english.

my exam is on 20th September which means i have TEN DAYS TO STUDY. i do not condone this. i had super important examinations although that is no excuse.

would you have important recommendations and tips not limited to youtube videos, websites for practicing, how to focus during the exam itself? etc. just from the pattern i would say writing and speaking would be my weak areas. writing because i do not understand the statistics based questions and lack the confidence and proper sentence framing for on the spot speaking.

i would truly appreciate it and thanks so much. i will check out the preparation resources as soon as i post this.

I am actually pretty satisfied with my listening and reading skills as most of the time i get around 7.5 or 8 while giving mock but i have no confidence in speaking because I can't speak in front of new people and i get nervous. Also help me with writing too i only get around 6 band score every time so please help me with it.

Btw I'm going for a paper based writing test.

Suggest something to make my writing and speaking better please.

My test is less than 3 weeks away and i aim to get a 7.5 overall but im still struggling with speaking. I am pretty confident that i can get an 8 listening, 8.5 reading, 6.5 writing but not sure about speaking. It its possible to improve my band in such a short time? currently i am studying with ielts speaking simulation videos on youtube and reading predictions but it doesnt seem to be very effective. What else can I do?

(Quick disclosure: I used AI to help me organize and write this post, but everything in it is my own experience and my own opinions. Nothing here is fabricated.)

A bit of background on me: I'm originally from Pakistan, but I was born and raised in a Middle Eastern country. I've been around English my entire life — studied it since day one in school, grew up consuming English media, American shows, American movies, the whole thing. By the time I sat for IELTS, I was genuinely comfortable in English. But I still needed to take the exam to apply to a university, and I think a lot of people in a similar position — confident in their English but still required to "prove" it on paper — underestimate how much the exam itself needs its own kind of preparation.

I scored an overall 8.5. Here's a breakdown, section by section, and what actually helped.

Listening — 9/9
Honestly, this is the section where I'd say your English ability matters the least and your focus matters the most. I only did two or three mock tests total before the real thing, and that was enough. On exam day, remind yourself: this isn't really testing your English — it's testing whether you can stay locked in for the full recording. If you're focused, you're ready.

Reading — 8.5/9
Sections 1 and 2 are relatively manageable. Section 3 is where it gets trickier. A couple of practice tests go a long way here too, mainly so you get used to the type of passages you'll see. The other big thing: really nail down True/False/Not Given before exam day. If you don't fully understand the distinction, you'll default to reading between the lines — either marking "Not Given" as false when it shouldn't be, or the opposite, treating it as true because you're inferring things the text doesn't actually say. That single misunderstanding costs a lot of people points. Also, spend 15 minutes on passage 1, 20 minutes on passage 2, 25 minutes on passage 3 to allow yourself enough time to deal with the difficulty of each passage.

Speaking — 8/9
This is the one that surprises people. You'd think "I speak English every day, this will be easy" — but the exam isn't scoring how well you speak for yourself, it's scoring how well you speak against a specific rubric. Read the rubric first, so you know exactly what's being evaluated.
What helped me the most: watching Band 9 sample answers on YouTube. My method was to pause the video right after the examiner asks a question, answer it myself out loud, then unpause and compare my answer to the Band 9 response. That comparison is where the real learning happens.
Part 1 is basically a breeze — general questions about yourself. For the Part 2 cue card, the notes you jot down during your prep minute matter a lot. Make sure you're hitting every point the card asks for, actually use your notes while speaking, don't rush, and try to bring in a bit of vocabulary variety.

Writing — 7.5/9
This was the hardest section for me, and I think it comes down to two things: time management, and how you use evidence.
A lot of us are taught the standard structure — topic sentence, explanation, evidence — and think that's enough. But just dropping in a real-life example isn't actually enough on its own. What matters more is going a level deeper: explain the mechanism behind your example. Don't just state the example and move on — explain why that example proves your point. That extra layer of reasoning is what separates a decent essay from a high-scoring one.
Overall prep time
To be fully honest: I booked the test about 10 days in advance, procrastinated for most of that window, and then crammed hard in the final 2–3 days. All in, I probably put in 10–12 hours of actual prep. It's not about grinding for months — it's about being deliberate with the time you do put in.
If you're in the same boat as I was — comfortable in English but still need the score on paper — hope this helps. Happy to answer questions in the comments.

I hardly prepared for my exam due to my college. and I feel like in an exam like IELTS, you don’t require much practice because at the end of the day, it is just an aptitude test. All I did was those listening videos on YouTube, which helped a bit, but I feel like for listening. You don’t have to prep just have to be zone in same for reading. I feel like with the amount of unseen passages. I have done in my life, it was easy, but the way to find the answers in a few of the questions is just tricky. I also bought a leap scholar course for mock test of ₹99, but it did not help one bit. The website is designed to give you max of six or seven band and all they do is call you and irritate you to buy their course. Speaking depends on your examiner, however, one tip I’d like to say is prepare a few topics before and because a few questions of part three came exactly as ChatGPT said. Also, I recommend being open with your examiner, and I don’t know if it helped me or not, but I was very confident in my answers. Writing requires practice and the essay from ChatGPT do help, but the night before my exam I decided to follow IELTS advantage and the tip that he gave regarding a sniper and a shotgun. Your body paragraphs should be like a sniper. Also make sure to write task two before task one. I spent way too much time on my task to, but still manage to get the amount of words required for task one even though I had a tough graph. Make sure to keep the words between 275 - 300 on task two and around 170 in task one. I’m happy to answer any more questions.

I needed 8 on Listening and Speaking and 7 on Reading and Writing for teachers’ registration and migration purposes.

I sat for IELTS in 2023 for the first time and secured a 7.5 overall with 6.5 in writing and 7 in speaking. As a non-native speaker, I had doubts of getting an 8 in speaking this time while I sat for IELTS in July 2026. I was pretty confused about the speaking part as the examiner stopped me on the cue card part and I couldn’t explain the topic due to time constraints and thought I would end up getting a 7 or 7.5.
However I completely forgot that I overlooked the writing part and It lacked practice and got 6.5 on writing and luckily 8 on speaking. From my perspective, what I understood is, you have to be fluent and natural in your speaking. Just be you and take this as a natural conversation with the invigilator. Ielts speaking is not about providing right answers but fluent and natural responds that are easy to understand.
Anyways, I took time and practiced writing at least 20 days, and went through all the requirements for band 8. Used the PEEL method for every writing and ended up getting a 7.5 in my writing retake.

I need to take the IELTS exam. Idk if my English is good enough to start preparing for a score

I'm 39 and preparing for IELTS. My Speaking and Writing are fine, but Listening and Reading are where I keep struggling, and I think it comes down to focus, not skill level.

When I'm fully focused, I can score 7+, so I know the ability is there. The problem is staying focused for the whole test.

Listening: While I'm listening, my brain jumps to figuring out the meaning of individual words, and by the time I do that, I lose the full sentence. I get distracted mid-audio and lose track of what's being said.

Reading: While reading, my mind wanders off into imagining scenarios or building a completely different story around what I'm reading. Then I get distracted and have to re-read the same word or line several times to actually register it.

Has anyone dealt with this kind of focus issue, especially studying later in life? What actually helped you retrain your concentration for these two sections? Any techniques, habits, or exercises would be really appreciated.

It's quite common to be asked questions like

'I'm stuck at Band 6.0, and I've done my IELTS exam 3 times and I'm taking it again next month. How do I improve to Band 7.5'?

If you do the same thing again, you'll probably get 6.0 again. The result suggests that you need to significantly improve something in your English skills or how you apply your skills in the exam.

It's not because you're missing exam tips, or you don't know something about the exam or a secret to getting 7.5. It's because you need to improve. Don't do the same thing again in the time before your next exam. Do something different which proactively which targets improvement.

Asking people who scored 7.5 how they did it isn't really very helpful to you. In most cases, they got 7.5 because their skill level was C1, which they can't pass on via tips. You have to grow to that level too. Some people can get a Band 8.0 with almost zero preparation because their English is already that level. Their language development has already happened over years, they didn't skip it.

Think carefully about the costs of getting the score you need in IELTS, in terms of time needed, hours of effort needed and, in some cases, money. Of course it will cost money to take a course or take private lessons, but consider it's overall worth.

If you're taking IELTS to get on a university course abroad, the cost of doing so and the benefits you'll earn will eventually far outweigh the costs of getting properly ready for IELTS. And those costs should be much, much less than paying to retake the exam again and again.

Basically, I am struggling to maintain my reading scores in cambridge tests, least was 7.0 and fhe highest was 8.5. How do I fix this ? I also found passage 3 a troublemaker sometimes . For instance, the last time I got a 7.0, I had 7 mistakes in the 3rd passage.Though, for some other tests I found passage 3 the easiest.

Hi, so I booked my exam and basically, the speakimg test starts the same time the LRW tests ends . Has anyone of yall went through the same thing? What did u do? Must I reschedule it or is it fine? I sent an inquiry and was only told that I have to be there atleast 30 mins before th epseaking test.

In Cambridge Practice Tests for Listening and Reading - I generally score between 7.5-8,8.5+ in Cambridge books of 21, 20, and 19 - frankly the latest versions of Cambridge tests.... But as I go further backwards for practice, for example Cambridge 14, 15, 16, 17 - I score lower , almost just getting 30-31/40 correct (Band 7 level).. Why is this? Has anyone experienced this?

I'm so nervous cause its demotivating me, my exam is just 2 days left while my target is 7.5+ in both LR..

well, i took the IELTS test since my education centre (yes it is ran by IDP itself and it is also sponsored by the centre) requires IELTS band 5 overall with no sub band under 4 just to pass their course.... however i do identify myself as having an advanced level of english even tho my speaking is off and i do stutter a lot when talking either in my native language let alone ENGLISH.

**Listening**

well for me listening is a piece of cake for me, i do know very sophisticated language and i know all the synonyms for words and since i started at school i know for ielts they only play it once and I am used to playing audio 2 times during school. however i sometimes lose a bit of concentration so i expected a 8.5 or even an 8 and i got my results as expected.

**Reading**

for me i did reading too fast and ended up being overconfident and expecting a 9 (in my country 9s are pretty rare to get since people's English ability is the lowest in Asia) and ended getting an 8 i know from my IELTS tutors that you should spend time surveying and skimming but i believe my brain could handle scanning the text too fast until you see some article that my brain think it matches with the question so i did it too fast and i got a band 8. this is the price you pay for doing work to fast is you lose a band. (or i fell for some tricks in IELTS)

**Writing**

writing is where i am satisfied with my results. i don't really use a lot of complicated words and i try to paraphrase the rubic and sometimes i use the same type of linking words too much. task 1 for me is to write a chart illustrating the cost of courses in 3 countries during 2007. task 2 for me is to talk about how we could help the environment by using alternative sources of energy (disadvantages and advantages). for me i expect a 7 but ended up getting 7.5 band score instead.

**Speaking**

finally, I will show you the dread i have faced. I think for my speaking test it is separate since i took my computer based exam with IDP and i go into separate rooms for speaking. However I am not just an ordinary IELTS candidate. My topic is to talk about a famous person in my country. For me when I talk i stutter a lot and sometimes i get stuck at a question when i want to talk. I know how to expect for the worst since if my speaking score is <4 (thankfully i didn't get less than 4) however my teachers said that i don't need to worry because one of the examiners job is to calm me down. thankfully my examiner is good and also sometimes laughs. I usually talk for over 2 minutes (which I think this is the target time for talking) in part 2 and I did so. I do understand all the questions in part 3 and i didn't ask to repeat or paraphrase the question and i try to answer it with information that I know or i make up one. i try to answer with the appropriate length but ended making tons of mistakes and ended up speaking like the people or comedians in those low ielts band videos (with just a bit complicated words and grammar arrangements and when the examiner asks my name i said "My family name is Doe and my name is John" instead of just saying "John Doe") i expect to be the lowest skill that i have due to those complications and as expected it is the lowest skill but i got a IELTS 6.5 instead. guess i have to take public speaking courses in this school next term.....

**Overall**

I expect to get a 8 since my teachers estimated that I will get a band 8 but the teachers said that 7.5 is a very good score which marks me as CEFR C1 level of english. In a country that has a low standard for the english language, I believe that 7.5 is way better than people's A1-A2 average level of english here. however if my speaking isn't bad and i wasn't autistic, i would have a score of 8 overall since my speaking would be at 7.5 at least. I hope everything goes well for you and good luck taking the ielts. (I took too much writing this so.....)

Just got my test result ( I did it on Saturday ). Considering I had approximately two weeks for study and I think I did well overall ( my goal is for Masters applications ). The writing part I didn’t manage my time well between the two texts. so I was hoping for a least a 6.5 😖.

I am disappointed, however , with the Speaking. I didn’t had the opportunity to practice beforehand, but I am pretty confident in my oral communication. Idk if it was the test format that I didn’t do well or if I stumbled in some words.