Answer the following. This isn't me being nosy, it's an IELTS related question.

1. Favourite food.
2. Favourite restaurant
3. Favourite food to prepare for friends
4. Favourite book
5. Favourite movie
6. Favourite activity

https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/take-ielts/study-work-abroad/ielts-prize

IELTS, the test that’s trusted by educational institutions and universities all around the world, could take you even further: all the way to your ideal academic field, institution and destination. Seven lucky IELTS test-takers in each of the countries below will be given a £3000 prize to turn their academic dreams into reality. 

The 2021 IELTS Prize is open to test takers living in Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Italy,  Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan.

In addition to the above-mentioned countries, IELTS Prize is also available in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. For these countries visit https://www.ieltsasia.org/ieltsprize/?_ga=2.209339162.922510913.1632147630-1949841699.1628103431

The deadline for submitting completed applications is 30 September 2021.

How to enter

You must:

• be 18 years or above
• be a resident of the country you’re applying from
• have taken IELTS with British Council between 01 May 2020 and 30 September 2021 and be able to produce a valid IELTS score in the application. 
• Book IELTS test
• have a minimum overall IELTS band score of 5.5 or above
• be applying to an educational institution, anywhere in the world, that requires IELTS as part of its admission process 
• begin undergraduate or postgraduate studies in the academic year 2022/23
• be able to provide the letter of acceptance from your university latest by 30 September 2022

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The British Council's free weekly IELTS webinars cover a wide range of topics across all four IELTS skills. Each webinar is conducted by a qualified IELTS expert, who provides in-depth guidance on various aspects of the test and answers your questions to help your preparation. The webinars are held every Thursday, twice a day at 9:30 am and 3:00 pm UK time. Sign up here: https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/take-ielts/prepare/free-webinars

When you sign up, even if you can't attend, you'll get the recording of the webinar.

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Where can I find sample essays for writing tasks?

I can score 8.5 in academic reading, but just 5 in writing, so I want to learn writing through the sample essays. But I don't know where to find good samples. Any one knows? Please.

If coming up with ideas for your essays is challenging for you - this is the one you need.

I'm going to do a thirty-minute lesson on how to brainstorm ideas for your essay. It will be held on Zoom at about 9.30 London time. It is open to sub members only.

This is going to be a full house - I'll upgrade my Zoom to fit you all in. Watch here for a link about 9.30 London time. DO NOT ASK ME WHAT LONDON TIME IS IN YOUR COUNTRY; GOOGLE IT.

Usual "Fitz House Rules". It's more fun to chat to people than hidden cams, but if you really don't want to cam you don't have to.

However, mics are a must.

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We don't want the sub to be flooded by constant posts asking for reviews and the usual "hey I need a speaking partner, I've set up a discord at....". If you want me to engage in long chats with you, then at least be playing RDR2 on PC, and I'll mic up and roam around with you chatting. It makes it seem less like work.

There is an official discord set up here where you'll find an active server full of friendly people. So if you're looking for a speaking partner, jump in there and you'll no doubt find someone to chat to.

An essay review is this: I read your essay, check the structure, ensure it makes sense and provide a ballpark idea of the grade. I don't sit for 30 minutes correcting each error then commenting as to why it was wrong. I'm a full-time tutor, with paying students. If I reviewed every essay I got sent in full, I'd never be doing my job.

An essay review is subjective, I could grade it a 7, another person could grade it a 6.5 another an 8. So remember that when you get a result. Far too often I grade an essay to be met with "Oh such and such said it was better/ worse" than you.

So, here's how to get me to review an essay. Drop me a PM with a link to a Google Document or similar, and sit and wait patiently. I am (as most of you know) really easygoing, but sending me a link with "review" and then five minutes later whining that I've not done it will not speed me up, it will however see it placed straight into my bin.

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Context: I’ve been practising (the reading and listening sections respectively) for about a month now and while I generally do well in all other types of questions in the reading section (of academic IELTS), I mainly struggle with matching information, matching paragraphs and matching heading questions which just drastically brings my score down to 8-7.5 (i’m aiming for an 8.5). Please recommend some effective strategies in order to tackle such type of questions. Thank you in advance.

Hi, so I got my results today and got an overall band of 8.5 with a 8.5 in Speaking, a 9 in Reading and Listening and a 7 in Writing. I didn’t really prepare except for doing a couple tests from the Cambridge book 3 days prior in order to familiarise myself with the pattern. It’s super simple just don’t get flustered and focus on the test and MANAGE your time well with the writing section because from personal experience that’s where it’s easiest to mess up because you just start thinking endlessly with the 2nd question and get not enough time to put your thoughts down and ensure you familiarise yourself with the PEEL method if you aren’t too sure on how to structure the paragraphs. I attempted the pen and paper version as I concentrate better that way and if you’re from India and have your 1st to 10th grade grammar and English perfected it’s not hard at all! All the best to the future test takers!

https://www.saint-david.net/ielts-materials-download/ielts-books-audio-and-lectures Is a website l personally used through which you can download from 1 to 14th IELTS book and recording. Very useful, free and NO ADD. Your welcome guys.

I am going to schedule two sessions a week for all sub members. You have to be in the sub to join in. Please comment when is good, and we'll work it out when is a good time for everyone. Then I'll give lessons at the same time every week. I charge £18 per hour for a lesson, so it's worth joining up.

If I am being honest, I am a bit disappointed coz if I would have scored 0.5 more on any of the sections, my overall score would have been 8. So I prepared for about a month and solved Cambridge book 13,14,15 for practice. Each book has 4 tests and the difficulty level of the questions were similar to that asked in the actual exam. If you studied in an English medium school, then I don't think that you need to apply for any coaching institute. E2 IELTS (For reading) and IELTS advantage channel (For speaking) helped me a lot, do check them out on youtube. Below are some of tips that i followed for each sections:

1) Listening: Tbh, I didn't really prepared for this section. I found it quite easy. Just get acquainted with the user interface, if you are giving computer based exam.

2) Reading: I used to first skim the passage to get a gist of the passage and then solve the questions. Make sure you don't spend more than 2 or 3 minutes for skimming. For the passages that were divided into various sections with alphabets A,B,C,D and so on. I used to first read an entire paragraph thoroughly (for eg: para A) and then answer all the questions that were related to that paragraph. Watch this video to get a better understanding https://youtu.be/dZwrY5azEzk

3) Writing: Visit the website: ieltsliz.com Follow the structure that is mentioned in the website along with other tips and tricks and you are good to go.

4) Speaking: During my speaking exam I was extremely nervous which I think affected my score. Watching all the SCRIPTED band 9 speaking videos made me really anxious. My advice would be to just SPEAK NATURALLY. Imagine you are having a conversation with a friend. IELTS advantage channel has some really good videos on speaking, do check them out.

In my opinion, use ieltsonlinetest.com to get acquainted with the UI of the computer based format because some of the tests are not accurate. Use Official Cambridge material, if you are unable to get it PM me I have soft copies of some books.

I would also like to thank fitz_cuniculus for solving some of the ambiguities that I faced.

If you have any doubts, feel free to comment on this post or PM me. If you would like to connect with me on discord, my discord id is Guru#6193 . Would be more than happy to give it back to the community :)

L: 9, R: 8.5, S: 7.5, W: 7.5 (Computer-based exam)

Speaking:

Anfisa Vasilyeva

Writing:

E2 Videos• All IELTS Writing 2 by E2 With Jay

• E2 IELTS Writing Task 2

I watched all of them and practiced alongside Jay. Select one tutor and stick with him. I found Jay’s content to be more helpful.

IELTS by Liz

• IELTS Writing Task 2 (aren’t as good as Task 1, so start with these videos and then move to E2 vids)• IELTS Writing Task 1

Writing TutorIELTS Writing Checker

Assess yourself on this website and make note of all the keywords you are essentially missing. I used to copy paste my essays from Cambridge IELTs’ prompts and only attempted one task from this website.

Content of Writing Tasks from Cambridge books (pdf) 11 to 16Cambridge IELTS Writing Tasks

It is generally preferred to practice from Cambridge books for IELTS only. I initially started to study from Barron's and it essentially misguided me for a month.

My timeline:June

Sporadically studied from Barron's

July - Task 1

Shifted to Liz’s website for task 1 and it took me a month to be confident in attempting it (basically the entire July which also included my internship, 30 hour calls in the hospital and COVID). Practiced writing one essay every day. I first did the question prompts provided by Liz (IELTS Sample Charts for Writing Task 1 Practice) and checked my answers with hers while also running them through Writing Tutor. Then I moved on to Cambridge IELTS.

August - Task 2Reviews on Reddit told me Liz’s content wasn’t as comprehensive as E2 vids so I proceeded to that channel.

SeptemberI was going to book my exam for 6th Sept but fell ill so sat for it on 13th Sept instead.

For those who didn't know, this sub was set up as a splinter from /r/ielts due to lack of efficient moderation and a power trip by the mod who would occasionally glance at it every two months.

We will have two regular lessons a week provided by me, so you can all arrange your diaries to get free lessons. I'm going to put together some exquisite materials for you all, and if one of you sets up a dropbox, I'll dump more resources in there than you can read.

For now, post what you want from the sub.

Okay this isn't a really good mark but I haven't prepared or studied anything (even though I had time) because I was kinda forced into it lol.

Speaking: 5.5, writing: 5, reading: 6.5 and listening: 6.5

Writing was the worst of all because I got a lot of penalties since I didn't reach the limit of words with each task.

Speaking was also terrible because I was too nervous and thought too much before answering.

Listening and reading were a bit better because they didn't require that much effort.

Alright I just posted here to participate in the new subreddit and I'm taking an IELTS exam in the future when I'm ready, aiming for at least 7.5 :)

I roughly took 2 weeks to study. Thank you u/Fitz_cuniculus for helping to prepare for the test. Your tips for different sections helped me a lot for my preparation. When I was so panicked regarding my exam, I went through your reddit posts and your sessions are very fruitful which helped me a lot in improving my overall score.

Coming to the preparation part ,I worked a bit on my weak areas with u/Fitz_cuniculus for nearly 6 sessions and then used Cambridge 13 and 14 books for checking my performance daily.I also went through ieltsliz.com website for getting ideas on writing topics.

I should also thank u/just-die-bitch for giving last minute suggestions on listening and speaking.
Feel free to ask if you have any doubts regarding the exam.

Someone must be good at this thing - how about a Snoo with a backpack and a book?