IELTS Articles | IELTS Learning Tips

Why you should throw away your IELTS test books and buy a grammar book

I know this may sound harsh but I do have a good reason for suggesting this and that is that at the end of the day getting the answer right or wrong often comes down to grammar. Many IELTS students do things upside-down; they start by practising IELTS test papers. They do hundreds of these, […]

The Ultimate Strategy for Moving your IELTS Writing from Band 6.5 to Band 7

So here is my IELTS 10-step Writing Strategy. The Ultimate Strategy for Moving your IELTS Writing from Band 6.5 to Band 7 One – make sure that you practise writing regularly. This doesn’t mean that you have to write lots of complete tasks every day. You could just begin by working on your introductions – […]

Don’t confuse quantity with quality in IELTS practice

I have a course called IELTS Writing Bootcamp which helps you to improve your writing to band 7 and it lasts for 4 weeks. People often ask me how many tasks they will have to write – the answer is 15 but that is not the point. Your writing needs to develop into a style […]

The Truth about Skimming and Scanning

Question: Do I need to skim and scan in IELTS reading? Answer: Yes you do. These are important reading skills which will help you to extract information quickly from a large body of text; this is exactly the skill that is being tested in IELTS reading. It’s important to understand the difference between them and […]

IELTS Speaking Made Easy

With the vast majority of band 7 and 8 IELTS students, speaking is generally at a good level. However, what can happen is that the general good level of speaking is not always reflected in the exam result and students who are fluent and confident can sometimes score 6.5 and then have to re-take the […]

How to practise IELTS Listening to get band 8+

When you focus on things they improve – this is a fact and for anybody who needs an overall score of say band 7 or 7.5 or an overall score with a minimum of 7 in each part (which is commonly asked for from medical professionals) then the listening part is probably your best bet […]

Warning: Don’t ignore grammar errors in writing

There seem to be lots of IELTS myths going around about IELTS writing. Let me tell you that in my experience (and I’ve been teaching IELTS at bands 7 and 8 for well over 20 years) there are no short cuts, tricks or quick solutions to writing. The best way to improve your IELTS writing […]

The Facts you should know about Keywords

Fact 1 You’ll find these in the question NOT the text. Sometimes when I start to work with IELTS students I see them going through the passages and underlining lots of ‘keywords’ – ‘Why are you doing that?‘ I usually ask them, ‘You don’t even know what the questions are yet so how will that […]

IELTS Vocabulary Strategies

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In this article I want to give you 3 vocabulary strategies that you can use really easily to improve your vocabulary for IELTS. Random Words This first strategy will work better if you are living in an English-speaking country however with globalisation there will be chances even in your own country to take advantage of […]

7 secrets to IELTS Band 8 Reading

To be honest there are no real secrets or ‘tricks’ to IELTS reading just good skill and common sense. However under the pressure of the exam (and in practice too) common sense seems to go out of the window and panic takes over. People look for short cuts or quick fixes to get it done […]