IELTS: comments, impressions and tips from our freshmen

IELTS - these five letters serve as a ticket to adult life for those who entered the first year of our program as in order for the University of London to enroll the students it is necessary to prove that you have sufficient level of English for studying subjects in a foreign language. In order to pass the exam it is essential to score a minimum of 6 points out of 9. Recently our first-year students have written the exam. In this article the guys share their comments and advice on preparation. 

The first one who volunteered to talk about his impressions is Sadi Shabanov, a very friendly and cute freshman as well as the headman of the second group: “It sounds somewhat self-confident (although, in fact, it is), but I expected that I would write without problems at 8.5 with my level of English. 

When I came to the evaluation test already after the first couple of phrases the speaker put me on “advanced” and after that I spent some time on preparation. I was preparing more for English for Special Purposes and General English couples, I especially spent a lot of time writing because I knew that I could face various topics. After seeing the results (7.5), I was a little shocked by such average points, because I was sure that I had written better, especially in the Speaking part since compared to others I had a lot more experience and expected the maximum score, but for this part I got 8.5 which surprised me a little”. 

Katerina Baklanova - another responsive person from the 1st course - scored 7.0: 

“For the exam itself I began to prepare only at the university because I had not previously thought about the importance of passing IELTS in advance. But now I advise everyone to pass it before entering university, so as not to waste time on preparation during the first year. I was preparing at the classes and at home, sometimes solving tasks that I found on the Internet. For me, the most difficult part was Speaking. I am not good at improvisation and therefore I was afraid of unexpected questions that I would have no idea how to answer. Since the exam assesses the natural speech I tried to find more different questions on the Internet and work them out beforehand. Unfortunately, this tactic did not work, and I still got a question that surprised me. Another rather difficult part is Writing, because an essay requires to quickly come up with, structure and correctly present your ideas, and there is always not enough time for the exam. In general, I am not very happy with my result, but for HSE and my program I have passed the minimum threshold which is good news. I will advise anyone who is going to take IELTS to solve a lot of tests in order to get used to the format and try not to worry during the oral part”.

 

Elizabeth Kulichkova, scored 7.5: “I decided to take IELTS in December, because there was a huge load of work, there were a lot of pairs, and, frankly, I just wanted to reduce my class hours. Besides, at General English I understood that I was studying material that I already knew. I only found out some useful techniques on how to pass exam successfully and some new evaluation criteria but by and large in terms of knowledge I didn’t get anything new, so I felt I was wasting my time and I wanted to pass it earlier. 

I did not prepare on purpose, only during classes until December at university and I wrote several essays asking the teacher in advance for giving me the topics (in fact, I did not have time to write everything), as well as materials on the descriptions of graphs. I hoped that my abilities would be enough, in general, it turned out to be so. I was afraid most of all for the Writing part for which I received the lowest score - 6.5, but still I passed. I wasn’t really worrying, I just didn’t want to retake the exam a second time. Before the oral part I had to worry because it was delayed for an hour, moreover, we had a class but in general I passed more or less normally”.

Catherine Konovalova, scored 8 points:
“It is always exciting to take an exam but it was also interesting because IELTS not only assesses your skills but also allows you to define the level of the language. Of course, the general level of training and confidence in their knowledge play a major role, but IELTS, in the first place, is a test which means that you need to be well aware of the format.

Preparation with a lecturer at the university helped me to delve into the specifics of the test and adequately assess my capabilities in order to understand what to work on. During the process of preparation the most difficult part for me was the reading and writing ones. 

The Reading part was compiled with the calculation of 20 minutes per 1 page of printed text, the volume of texts is large, and 3 pieces are proposed; The questions are varied and sometimes not very pleasant. Fast reading, almost “scanning” pages, helps to evaluate the material, it is also useful to first look at the questions and then begin to perform the tasks.

IELTS Writing is notable for the variety of forms of writing assignments, therefore I recommend to study and try everything. The most important thing is to read the tasks carefully: the structure of the essay in IELTS is flexible (the number of paragraphs is not fixed) and all the requirements are usually clearly indicated in the instructions.

Speaking checks the candidate's ability to operate with various grammatical structures and evaluates the lexical component. To facilitate your task I advise you to watch the video of the oral part of IELTS on the Internet. It is also worth practicing to speak on completely different topics for 1.5-2 minutes; for example, I had to describe problems with home appliances. Practice with friends, teachers, parents, train answering the most unexpected questions. It is a good idea to watch high-quality British TV shows (there is less slang in them) in order to have an idea of ​​what sounds natural and what does not.

As often as possible encounter English in the process of preparation: read books, articles and blogs, listen to podcasts, watch movies or TV shows in original and with subtitles. The most important thing is to show that you are free to express your thoughts, adequately assess your language capabilities, understand what has been said and, in turn, will be understood.

P.S. Be sure to pay attention to the time limit, try to use drafts as little as possible, do not be afraid to dream if you do not remember the details and do not panic!”

Many thanks to the participants of the interview and the interviewer - Alexandra Zinovieva!