Here Are the 5 Mistakes to Avoid To Get A High Band Score Of 8.0
This week, 37 out of the 87 emails I received are questions about
How to Achieve an Overall Band Score of 8.0.
Specifically, one of my newsletter subscribers asked me.
“Sir, why can’t I get an Overall Band Score of 7?”
The article that follows is my reply;
In my 7 years + of training students on IELTS, both face to face and online.
I have realized that the main reason most students fail IELTS repeatedly is PPT.
Stay with me, and I promise you that you will discover what PPT means at the end of this article.
It saddens me to see people burn N75,000 in the name of taking the IELTS test over and over again.
Yet, they can’t go beyond a 6.0.
What does that tell you?
It shows that the exam is not the problem; instead, the individual taking test is!!
I have narrowed down the Human Factors responsible to just Five.
If you can Avoid these Mistakes,
Boom!! You will Succeed in the Test.
Follow me; let’s dive right in…
Mistake #1: They Don’t Have an IELTS Plan
In the words of T. Boone Pickens
“A fool with a plan is better off than a genius without a plan.”
One mistake I see some people make is they try to combine preparing for IELTS with other things.
For instance, A busy banker with a tight schedule tries to combine work pressure to prepare for the test. This isn’t much of an intelligent strategy.
It might work for some, but more often than not, the majority don’t do well when they prepare for the test this way.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you should suspend your life because of IELTS. No!
It’s always better to dedicate a PERIOD, Preferably Your Leave (i.e., if you are doing a 9 – 5 job), to prepare and take the test.
Dedicating such a period will help one become focused on the task at hand.
It will significantly impact your mindset because your mind will always be on IELTS for those periods.
Trust me when I say this “IELTS Demands Time” if you want to do well in the test.
As a golden rule, before you open your IELTS exam preparatory book,
You must plan out your study schedule to take the actual test at the end of your study period.
It doesn’t make sense to prepare without a goal.
You can give yourself a minimum preparation period of a month, depending on your current level of English.
But make sure you have booked a Test date already,
This will motivate you to take your preparation seriously.
Mistake #2: They Are Not Completely Honest With Themselves
Many who attempt the IELTS test lie to themselves about their current level of English
Or better still, they assume they know better.
While in reality, they DON’T.
They forget that IELTS is a test of your NATURAL ABILITY.
To achieve a high band score, one has to be good at all the skills being tested.
And if you aren’t good enough, it will reflect on your band score.
Simple, Isn’t it?
But It is the interpretation of this same BAND SCORE that most people lie to themselves about the most.
Lets Take Two students, for example,
Student A is stuck in band 6 and keeps retaking the test hoping that one day he will get lucky.
But that day never comes.
Out of frustration, he blames the test for being inaccurate and inconsistent.
He even goes as far as suspecting foul play.
Forgetting to see himself as the problem.
But the other student with an open mind scores a 5.5 and says to himself or herself.
“OK, my English is not good enough to get a band 7 yet,
so I’m going to take an IELTS Course of study either online or offline and improve my English before I do the test again.”
Students who think like this are always going to do much better and improve over time.
The key takeaway from this is;
“Identify Your Area Of Weakness And Work On It.”
Mistake #3: Solving Past Questions
E shock you?
Wait, let me explain.
I see most people make this mistake of thinking IELTS is like their professional exams
where your level of success is determined by the number of past questions they solve.
If this were to be the case, then the failure rate in IELTS won’t be this much
considering the enormous past questions and resources on IELTS we have online.
Some even go as far as believing IELTS will repeat questions on the test day.
More often than not, they get disappointed and FAIL the test.
So what am I saying?
Solving past questions doesn’t guarantee anything.
Rather what you do with the Past question is what matters.
Let’s say you attempt a Reading Practice test and score 25 out of 40.
You go over the passage again, this time slowly, with the aim to understand the complex passage.
You check the questions you missed and try to find out why you missed them,
Note, the keyword here is “WHY”.
When you know the reason why you missed that question, you have also identified the problem you have in that particular question type.
This will help you work on it so you won’t make such a mistake again.
In writing,
I have observed that most students run away from practicing it because they find it tedious writing every essay they come across.
I agree it’s hard work, but there is a way out.
It is better if you just studied other high band score IELTS essays written by a professional.
Study their structures, ideas and try to find out what makes them a high band score essay.
You will learn more this way, and guess what?
You will be better than someone who has written over 50 essays without knowing the structures of an ideal IELTS essay.
I hope you get the point now.
“Past Questions are good only when you use them aright.”
Mistake #4: Wrong Practice Technique
I have seen a lot of people make this mistake;
they cultivate bad preparation habits.
For instance, You are given an hour to take the IELTS Reading exam, and when you are practicing, you give yourself 2 hrs 45mins because
“IT’s NOT THE EXAM.”
What you are doing unknowingly is that you are teaching yourself how not to finish the reading test in 1 hour!
Or you want to practice writing, you write a paragraph, leave to attend to something else, come back, rinse and repeat.
What do you expect with such indiscipline, Off course there won’t be any improvement.
So to fix this, this is what you should do;
Treat every practice session as if it were to be in the exam hall.
Then your practice will become efficient and effective.
If the exam is 1 hour, you can try practicing using 50 mins.
Since on the main day, you will be seating for 2hrs 40mins.
It is highly recommended that few weeks to the exam day, practice Reading, Listening and Writing for that same time (i.e., 2hrs 40mins) without distractions.
When you do this, you are training your stamina and focus on matching the exam condition you will meet on the exam day.
So always practice under exam conditions; trust me, you will observe a massive improvement.
Mistake #5: Not Having a Formula to Tackle the Question Types
One mistake most people make is to use a ONE SIZE FITS ALL APPROACH in IELTS.
For instance, in reading, the traditional thing is, you read a passage then answer the questions.
The fact is, for most question types, this strategy will work, but there are few that when you use this method, you will be stuck in that passage till your time elapse.
You are meant to use different strategies to attempt the question types; that’s why IELTS has many question types.
So it is a flawed strategy when you use the same approach for all the question types.
Just like mathematics, when you have a working formula, you can use it to discover the correct answers quickly and easily, no matter the question you are given.
PS: Here is why I wrote the article –Many people who want to move to Canada, UK, Australia, e.t.c, are stuck because they can’t get the required IELTS band score.
They lose a lot of money to tutorial houses, several Online Courses and what is more? N79,000 IELTS Registration, gone just like that!
It is often neither the fault of the tutorial houses, coaches, nor themselves.
Instead, the Way they make use of the resources is wrong.
For this reason, I have created a short Video Training that will show you how to Prepare for the IELTS Test Using My Unique High IELTS Band Score Prep Framework.
In this Training, I will show you,
- How to create an IELTS plan that ensures you achieve a band 8.0 without Stress
- Discover How to know the proper IELTS preparation channels that suit your schedule and lifestyle
- How to tell if you are ready to take the test
- How to Understand Complex questions Types in IELTS and come up with unique formulas to tackle them.
- Learn the 3 secrets I use to deliver outstanding results for my students, that they have no other choice but to hit band 8.0
The best part, Is FREE but available for a limited time, after which it will be taken down.
Sign up now to have the Training Sent to Your Email.
However, If You are Not Interested,
Kindly share this page with those you feel will be interested,
or you can simply Close this Page.
Thanks
Mr. Emmanuel Geoffrey
Your Success, My Priority
PPS: Less I Forget PPT stands for Poor Preparation Technique
You can also check out another article of mine titled:
The One Trick That Guarantees An Overall Band Score Of 8.5 in IELTS Reading
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