Cambridge IELTS practice |Official™

2022-03-29 12:07:25 #writing_task_1
Cambridge IELTS 6, Test 4

The charts below give information about USA marriage and divorce rates between 1970 and 2000, and the marital status of adult Americans in two of the years.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-03-25 07:49:48 There are so many accents of the English language; well, here are nine of them in the audio above.
Listen to how English is usually spoken in:
Northern Ireland
Japan
Switzerland
Spain
France
England
Italy
Sudan
USA

@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-03-25 07:46:54 IELTS LISTENING: UNDERSTANDING THE ACCENT

The problem

IELTS is an international test, so you might hear a range of different accents, including Australian, British, New Zealand and North American. Remember that you only hear the audio once in the Listening test so you need to be absolutely confident that you can pick out every detail first time. An unfamiliar accent can get in the way of that. While there will not be any extreme accents, you should at least be familiar with a range of ‘standard’ accents.

The solution

Start by reading this extract from a report from the US Library of Medicine:

‘It is well known that there is a processing cost when listening to speech in an accent other than one’s own, but recent work has suggested that this cost is reduced when listening to a familiar accent widely represented in the media, and/or when short amounts of exposure to an accent are provided.’

This means that ‘short amounts of exposure’ to an unfamiliar accent really can help you to understand it. So it’s sensible to spend some time listening to the most common dialects when you are preparing for the test. It’s not difficult to find radio stations online that enable you to do this.

Here are some examples:
ABC Radio from Australia
CBC Radio from Canada
BBC Radio 4 from the UK

It’s easy to find others, and you may even find it interesting to listen to some more unusual accents such as Louisiana or Caribbean. In fact, you can have lots of fun finding radio stations worldwide on tunein.com!

Another approach is to listen to some TED talks. TED speakers come from many different countries, and often the talks have transcripts, so you can check the accuracy of your listening. Here are three examples from the Top 20 TED talks:
Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity British accent
Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are North American accent
Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology Indian accent

@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-03-22 18:07:09 But aren't words like 'Firstly, secondly, in addition' just unnecessary fillers or clichés?

When I have suggested ways to connect ideas more clearly, some people have replied, 'Sure, but isn't it a bit of a cliché to use words like 'the latter' or 'Firstly' etc?' Again, this resistance to do what is needed to improve coherence and cohesion may help to explain why this problem is so persistent. The answer is, no, it is not a cliché to clearly show how your ideas are connected. In fact, many of the academics I follow on Twitter, who supervise PhD students and edit journals, often bemoan the fact that so many of the academic papers they see lack the signposting needed to make the connections between ideas clearer, so the problems this causes go beyond the IELTS test.

The belief that words and phrases like this should be avoided may come from following bad advice. I was recently sent an image of a list of words and phrases that a website had declared were 'unnecessary language fillers.' The list is a confusing mix of phrases that should indeed be avoided, because they are either inaccurate or too informal (From my perception: in recent days, I guess), while other phrases on the list are useful cohesive devices: First of all; Nowadays; On the one hand; Some people believe. This is a very good reminder that you must always look for reliable sources of information.

Key idea: The language that you learn forms an essential toolkit for your writing. Deciding that some of these tools should be avoided is like a master builder declaring, 'I'd never use a hammer to hit a nail, everyone does that, it's such a cliché. A master builder would always use the right tool for the job. In IELTS, you must do the same to show that you have mastered the skill of writing.

Pauline Cullen. The Key to IELTS Writing
@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-03-07 10:12:40 #official
IELTS Writing Key Facts by the British Council

P.S. IELTS is jointly owned by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations.

@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-03-07 10:12:40 #official
IELTS Speaking advice by the British Council

P.S. IELTS is jointly owned by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations.

@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-03-07 10:12:40 #official
IELTS Speaking Key Facts by the British Council

P.S. IELTS is jointly owned by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations.

@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-03-03 19:14:29 #IELTSReading: how should you practise?
Here's a useful question that a student asked me:

Many students complain that they don’t get a high enough score in IELTS reading, and many teachers respond that you need more practice. Dear Simon, could you describe how to practise for reading correctly? I do practise with the Cambridge books and spend time reading newspapers, but with no results.

Here's my answer:

Good question. First, testing yourself is not the best form of practice. You should test yourself from time to time (e.g. once a week), but spend much more time studying rather than testing. 'Studying' means that your aim is to learn something from what you read. For example, when reading newspaper articles, you might learn a new word or phrase, or you might learn how to use a word correctly in a new context. Don't forget to check things in a dictionary or by searching online, and write new language in a notebook.

The Cambridge IELTS books are a great resource for studying (as well as testing). Try doing some reading tests without a time limit. Allow yourself to use a dictionary to check words, and aim to get all of the answers right. Analyse your mistakes carefully, and make
KEYWORD TABLES

Above all, remember that IELTS reading is a vocabulary test. Ask yourself what new vocabulary you have learnt this week. Can you point to a page of your notebook and say "I've learnt these 10 or 20 new words and phrases this week"? If you can, you are improving. SimonC

@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-03-03 13:48:49 How is the writing test assessed?

The writing test consists of two separate tasks. Your writing task 2 answer is more important than your writing task 1 answer, in fact it is worth double the marks. To understand how this works, double your writing task 2 score, add it to your writing task 1 score and then divide the total by 3. So, if your task 1 answer is band 7.5 and your task 2 answer is band 6, your score would be 6.5 (7.5 + 6 + 6 = 19.5/3 = 6.5).

Pauline Cullen - The Key to IELTS Success
@cambridgematerials Open / Comment

2022-02-27 12:09:36 #sample_answer
IELTS Writing Task 1:

Cambridge IELTS 6, Test 2

The chart shows average distances that people in England travelled using different forms of transport in the years 1985 and 2000.

It is clear that the total number of miles travelled by English people using all modes of transport increased significantly between 1985 and 2000. The car was by far the most used form of transport in both years.

In 1985, the average person travelled 3,199 miles by car, and this rose to 4,806 miles in the year 2000. The figures for miles travelled by train, long distance bus, taxi and other modes also increased from 1985 to 2000. Travel by taxi saw the most significant change, with more than a threefold increase from 13 miles per person per year in 1985 to 42 miles in 2000.

There was a fall in the average distances for three forms of transport, namely walking, bicycle and local bus. In 1985, English people walked an average of 255 miles, but this figure fell by 18 miles in 2000. Bicycle use fell from 51 to 41 miles over the period shown, while the biggest downward change was in the use of local buses, with average miles per person falling from 429 to 274 over the 15-year period.

@cambridgematerials Open / Comment