Increase your IELTS score
Aug 11, 2023
Audio: 4 min. 20 sec.
Getting a high score in IELTS seems like something that can be out of reach.
You study, you watch tutorials and you do practice tests but you just don’t get the result you want.
You might be surprised to learn, then, that there are some common habits and activities that can raise your score by up to an entire point.
It can be hard work, but if you follow these suggestions and work them into your English study, you will definitely see results.
Expand your sources
The IELTS exam is a GENERAL exam and doesn’t have a specific topic focus.
What this means is that you need to be prepared for a variety of topics across the reading, writing, listening and speaking papers.
Daily Netflix in English is not nearly enough to give you the broad understanding necessary, which means you must DIVERSIFY your English resources.
Newspapers, radio, podcasts and non-fiction books and magazines are all inroads to an improved vocabulary. Speaking of which…
Vocabulary notebook
Whenever you decide to write down some new vocabulary, make sure you think about the following:
- In what situations can I use this word?
- What topics are connected to this word?
- What are words that have a similar/opposite meaning to this one?
- Is this word part of any set expressions or idioms?
Making a vocabulary record in this manner is time consuming but vital.
If you take this approach, you’ll find the language actually stays with you, ready to be drawn out when necessary.
Isolate your weaknesses
The IELTS exam has 4 papers and numerous task types so it is likely that one or two of these parts will be holding your score back.
Rather than just doing practice tests over and over, you will find that focussing on one part of the exam at a time (For example Reading Part 2 or Listening Part 4) can help you discover WHAT is lowering your score.
Once you’ve pinpointed which part of the exam is a struggle, you can PRORITISE rather than spending extra time on entire exams.
A good plan of attack is to collect a number of practice exams and simply do the prioritised parts over the course of a few days.
Consider the importance of structure
In the IELTS exam there are two criteria that revolve around this: COHERENCE AND COHESION (WRITING) and FLUENCY AND COHERENCE (SPEAKING). However, many students struggle to organise their ideas effectively during the exam even though they have no difficulties doing so in day-to-day life. To score well in the above criteria and thus raise your overall score, I recommend the following for improving your structure
- KEEP A DIARY. Making a record of your daily life is a simple but effective way to create a visual reference for sentence and paragraph structure. Writing two to three entries a week and then reviewing them at the end can help you evaluate other small production mistakes you might make such as spelling or capitalisation.
- TALK TO YOURSELF. This might sound a bit strange but verbalising what is on your mind forces you to consider the best way to say something. Take a recent opinion or future event and have a small conversation with yourself. For example:
“Tonight, I need to wash the dishes because it’s my turn. If I don’t do it, my roommates will get mad at me and I don’t want that to happen. After doing that, I think I’ll watch some Netflix.”
Saying this out loud will help you organise your thoughts and refine your skills for organising ideas during the exam.
The road to high IELTS scores is a difficult one but if you shift your routine to include the above tips, you can begin the climb to the next desired band score.
