Do you have the IELTS Speaking Exam coming up? Do you want to get a great score? Remember these five tips for a successful exam!
1: RELAX. The examiner wants you to do well! Yes, the examiner is scoring your language, but they also want you to be comfortable and to enjoy the test. Don't think of the test as a regular exam! Instead, view the IELTS speaking test as a nice conversation with a friendly stranger and you’ll do great! 2: GIVE A REAL ANSWER, NOT A MEMORIZED ANSWER. Of course you can - and should!- practice for your speaking test, but memorizing answers is a bad idea. Why? Because the examiner is trained to recognize when a student’s answer sounds memorized. There's no official penalty for memorizing answers - but candidates whose answers sound memorized get lower scores than candidates who speak naturally.
3. WHEN ANSWERING A QUESTION, GIVE AS MUCH DETAIL AS YOU CAN Try to say as much as you can when answering each question and do not worry if the examiner stops you and asks you a new question. In fact, be happy! This usually means your answer was OK, and it’s time to move on to the next one. 4. IT’S OK TO ASK THE EXAMINER FOR HELP IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND There is no penalty for misunderstanding on the speaking test! If you missed something, just ask the examiner to repeat it. If you don’t understand a word, ask the examiner, “What does <X> mean?” The examiner can’t help you pass the test, but they can repeat questions or give a very quick definition of a word. There is NO penalty to students who ask for this help - so why not use it? 5. FOCUS ON EXPRESSING YOURSELF AND DON’T WORRY ABOUT MAKING MISTAKES
The examiner IS listening to hear if you make mistakes but they are also listening to how MUCH you can say: how many vocabulary words do you know, and what grammar structures can you use. For example, if you say “I been living in London since last June,” this is wrong, but using the present perfect tense is right. The examiner will credit you for choosing an appropriate grammar structure, even if you didn't use it correctly. Those are our tips! Thank you for reading! Do you have any suggestions for the IELTS speaking exam! Please let us know in the comments below!
