IELTS Articles | IELTS Learning Tips

IELTS Reading – the 1-minute rule to manage your time

You have 60 minutes to complete the IELTS Reading Test. There are 40 questions to do, so it’s logical that you have to work quickly to complete all the questions. The passages become trickier as you go through and some types of question take a little longer than others so balancing all these things, it […]

How to tackle Headings in IELTS Reading

Headings can take time. By not looking for a single answer but accepting any that are possible you can cut down your time. This also makes sure that you won’t get them wrong by choosing an incorrect answer for the first 1 or 2 choices. Here is a Heading question: The passage is about Tea, there are […]

Why watching YouTube videos may not be the best way to prepare for IELTS

Recently quite a few students have complained to me about the fact that they don’t like to read lots of text (blogs, articles even, lessons) about IELTS study and preparation as they find lots of reading boring. While I find their honesty very refreshing, I really wonder if they have the right approach to the […]

A Strategy for MCQ questions in IELTS Listening

MCQ in Listening is a topic that keeps rearing its ugly head over and over. I have said much on this topic and I keep, nevertheless, getting questions almost every day about how to manage these questions. So here again is the step by step way of dealing with MCQ.Focus on the stem of the […]

Valuable ‘tricks’ for IELTS Reading

Recently I was asked by a student for some ‘valuable tricks’ for reading. In all honesty, there are NO tricks for reading. Just strong language skills, good technique and suitable strategies for answering the question well. ‘Tricks’ suggest short cuts and sadly there are no ‘short-cuts’ in IELTS. Remember IELTS tests your English language level […]

IELTS Listening – Write down your answers correctly

I am sure that you have experienced the problem of hearing the correct answers in IELTS Listening just to find out that your recording of them on the answer sheet is not exactly the same as the key and frustratingly your overall score is much lower than it should be! This is indeed a tragedy […]

Why using common sense in IELTS Reading can be your best strategy

Common sense can be your greatest ally in IELTS. So many IELTS students get bogged down in rules and strategies that they forget to use a common-sense approach and end up tying themselves in knots making it impossible to get to the heart of the question. Ask yourself how many times you have chosen an […]

3 things you should know about mastering IELTS Speaking

For many, the speaking part of IELTS is easy and they do not need to do a lot of practice. This is most likely because they use English every day in their work and are quite comfortable speaking English. For others it can be quite worrying and they are afraid of this part of the […]

6 Easy ways to write complex sentences in IELTS Task 2

Complex sentences are a must for Band 7 and 8. They appear in the Band descriptors and you require more for Band 8 than Band 7. If you do not include these in your writing then you cannot achieve these high bands. What is a complex sentence? A complex sentence consists of 2 or 3 clauses joined […]

3 Secrets to writing a great General Training Task 1

As promised I also want to look at the letter which forms task 1 for General Training students. There are things regarding the letter that also need to be taken into account, very important amongst these is the ability to use different tenses and organise a series of events logically and clearly. However, if you […]