Such a great score. Very well done to you!! And thank you for sharing your tips and experience of preparing for IELTS. I know many people will really appreciate your advice. Wishing you all the best for your future 🙂

I’m a medical doctor hoping to migrate soon, God-willing. A friend of mine referred me to your page a month ago. I subsequently wrote the IELTS academic test at the end of June and did really well;
Overall – 8.5
S – 9.0
R – 8.5
L – 8.5
W – 7.5
I just wanted to say how grateful I am for the material you’ve freely provide. I can honestly say I couldn’t have gotten through the test without your help. Many people downplay the test and say “oh it’s just English” but your techniques and approaches to each section and question type proved invaluable! I’ve just written a few tips below to help other potential candidates.
Lastly and most importantly, I would like to wish you well on your journey to recovery. I pray that God would give you the strength and renewal that you need to keep going, not only for the work you do but in your personal life as well 🙏🏽

*General tips*
• Practise as much as possible! And don’t only practise, use the right material as well. I used Liz’s lessons and practise material, in conjunction with the “Road to IELTS” material given by the British Council upon registration. I also used the Cambridge books.
• The decision to write the CBT vs the paper-based test is paramount. Personally, while I’m competent around computers, I opted for the written test because I felt that I would be more comfortable with that. So take time to compare the pros and cons for both then make a decision. The only downside for the paper-based for me was the waiting time for the results but other than that, I don’t regret my choice

*Reading*
I was pleasantly surprised with my reading mark. This was probably the section that gave me the most anxiety 😄
Time management is key! More than any other section, I found it most important to practise under exam conditions for the reading part. The hour goes by super quick so I can’t stress enough how important it is to do mock practises for the three sections. Spend the least amount of time on section 1 as far as possible. There are usually less questions there anyway. Practise the types of questions according to Liz’s advice. There are only a few types that need a deeper understanding of the text such as the “match the heading/paragraph” type of questions. I found these most challenging. The rest of them, which usually account for the bulk of the test can be tackled by skimming through the text.

*Speaking*
Relax and speak to the examiner as you would to a friend. Be polite, smile and interact as you normally would. As much as you can practise, and that’s definitely necessary, there’s no need to memorise your answers. Read up on common topics that you may not have enough knowledge about in order to familiarise yourself for example space travel, environmental issues etc

*Writing*
For this section, I’ll highlight the importance of planning, especially with task 2. Having a general idea of what your points are and where to put them, i.e the paragraph structure, will really help you to write a cohesive piece. Liz’s material really helps with this. The time restrictions are also important. The 20-40 guideline, for task 1 and 2 respectively, really helps. For the exam I think my time split was 25-35 and I still had time at the end to read my essays. Don’t neglect the diagram/flow charts for academic test practise! I focused a lot more on graphs only to get a diagram in the test 😅 Lastly, I did the paper based test so I didn’t have the benefit of a word count as is the case with the CBT. I found that practising a few essays gave me an idea of how long it would take me to write the specified range of words as advised by Liz. Therefore when I got to the exam, I didn’t pay too much attention to the number of words.

I have an Ideas for Topics E-book which you can buy in my online store: https://elizabethferguson.podia.com/. It contains over 150 essay topics with vocabulary exercises for each topic to help you learn and remember the ideas. The vocabulary is not all advanced, but rather it is vocabulary that is connected to topics. You can find a link to a sample chapter on this page: https://ieltsliz.com/ideas-for-ielts-essays-e-book/

Well done with your results 🙂

I got an overall band of 7.5 with following bands in each module –
L – 8, R-8.5, S -6.5, W-6.5
And I am satisfied with the results as I have achieved my target of above 7 overall. Thanks to your tips and practice lessons, especially the listening and reading parts. I believe that you continue to assist the students in getting a high band score as long as you can and also I hope you will have a good future ahead, the way you wished .

Once again thanks a lot

Well done to you 🙂

No, it means you can choose which certificate you use if two are valid.