How I passed IELTS in 2023 and confirmed my Advanced level
Dear Habr, I am writing to share my experience… oh, it seems I have retrained on the variants of the Writing part. In general, I am writing this short article to share my personal experience of passing the international English language exam, talk about preparation, motivation and costs. Now I understand that in some moments it could have been done better.
Disclaimer
Yes, my scores are not uniquely high, and this article is not so much a success story as a personal experience that may be useful to someone. However, in most foreign universities the required score does not exceed 7.0 overall / 6.5 for each part.
What is this IELTS of yours?
So, according to Wikipedia, IELTS stands for International English Language Testing System and is an international system for assessing English proficiency language. It is important to note that this test is designed to determine the language skills of non-native speakers.
On the Internet you can find statements like “even a native speaker only passes a 7, this is a bad exam,” and yes, this is quite possible (along with the existence of people who pass the same Unified State Exam in Russian with low scores). Any such test has a certain fairly fixed format, for which you can and should prepare separately, but it is difficult to argue with the fact that IELTS scores correlate well with skills.
The exam consists of four parts – Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking, which in total take about 4 consecutive hours. Each part is scored on a scale from 0 (not done well) to 9 (expert user, perfect or nearly perfect), and then averaged and rounded arithmetically to the nearest half point.
Motivation
Why might you need a language exam now?
admission to a foreign university – as a rule, IELTS (usually in Europe) or TOEFL (usually in the USA) is required, Cambridge exams (FCE, CAE, CPE) are also rated, but simpler and cheaper options like Duolingo Englist Test ( which is rented from the house)
moving abroad – for example IELTS counts for immigration to Canada
just a nice line for a resume or a personal achievement that you can be proud of (but without other reasons the costs are too high)
At the time of autumn 2022 – winter 2023, I was seriously considering options for continuing my studies somewhere abroad, and I thought that it would be almost impossible to pass the exam urgently, if it was urgently needed. So far, a year has passed, and with my certificate I only got rid of the foreign language exam when entering graduate school at the Moscow Higher School of Economics (shtosh).
Organizational aspects
Along with many other products and companies, IELTS left Russia in the spring of 2022, and now you need to go to other countries to take it. At the beginning of 2023, Uzbekistan seemed to me an interesting option, since a quick search on the Internet revealed a training center, which is initially located in St. Petersburg, but takes the exam itself in Tashkent. Accordingly, I was promised no problems with registering for the exam and a big discount when purchasing a preparation course, as well as receiving a certificate in Russia (this turned out to be a significant plus due to the delay in verification).
IELTS is almost always held on Saturdays, Academic almost every week, General – once every two weeks. The type of exam must be selected immediately when registering, so it is important to understand where you will use it (preparation is also slightly different). You also need to choose a paper or computer type of exam; the second may be more expensive, but I recommend it because of its convenience (many people have lost the habit of writing by hand, and in the Writing part it is often necessary to make edits during the process) and faster verification.
On the eve of the exam, I flew to Tashkent, checked into a hotel near the exam center and tried to get some sleep. In the morning, I came a little early to register and take a breath; the oral part was the first to pass, and when everyone (about 10 people, mostly all came from Russia) passed it, the written part was coming up. Afterwards we were photographed for certificates, and this was the end of the obligatory part of the trip, all that was left was Uzbek pilaf and the beauty of Samarkand 🙂
Expenses
Of course, this is individual and depends on many factors, but here is an example of travel costs to take an exam in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan:
At the time of writing this article (March 25, 2024), I see offers to take the exam for 24,000 rubles in Kazakhstan with payment in rubles, or for 2,210,000 UZS (16,305 rubles) in Uzbekistan
Air tickets from Moscow to Tashkent for dates in 3-5 weeks cost approximately 25,000 rubles round-trip, and from Moscow to Almaty without transfers – about 30,000 rubles round-trip. Costs for 1-2 nights in a hotel are individual, but you can save money here
My results and recheck
My scores in parts were: Listening – 8.5, Reading – 9.0, Writing – 6.5, Speaking – 6.5, overall score, respectively, 7.5. As I jokingly call this, “the result of an introvert,” but in fact it’s just a very typical case for people who use the language rather passively for Youtube and reading articles.
I have a good background (I studied English at school and at university for 12 years, I would characterize my level as Upper Intermediate/Advanced), but the last time I purposefully attended any English classes was 5 years ago in my first year. I started planning to take the exam with the thought “well, I’ll definitely train for 7 in a month”, I left the exam with the thought “Listening and Reading are suspiciously just gone, now I’m waiting for 8”, but still somewhere I made an extra mistake in listening (with 9 for Listening it would be 8.0 overall).
An unexpected consequence of these results was that they were sent for re-checking. It turns out that if the scores between parts differ by 2 or more (and I even have 2.5), then this is considered suspicious, and then the work is examined additionally to exclude cheating or assessment errors. Fortunately, in my case it did not take too much time, but here it turned out to be very useful to receive a certificate in Russia, because otherwise I would have to stay in the country of delivery, and you cannot simply print out an electronic certificate yourself.
The lessons I've learned & some lifehacks
Think in advance about where IELTS will be needed. Perhaps, if there are no specific plans yet, your choice is Cambridge CAE. I regret a little that there was such a false start with IELTS, and it’s already been one of the two years when the certificate is valid, but it hasn’t been of much use to me.
In Listening there is almost always a task where you need to spell a last name or some unfamiliar name; it’s worth practicing in advance. Also, the recording is played only once, and if you don’t hear something, you need to move on.
For Reading, it is important to prepare for the True/False/Not given section, watch the video about it and pay attention during training. As for other formats of reading tasks, there are no special life hacks; it all depends on your level of language in general and attentiveness in the exam. I came across some tasks with signs, for example, where I had to compare the main idea and a paragraph, everything had to be filled out very carefully, but this in itself is not difficult. If an unfamiliar word appears in the text, there is no need to be scared and fixated on it; it is quite possible that it will become clearer from the context or will not be needed to answer the questions.
Do not underestimate any of the parts, nor, on the contrary, be afraid. It is better to prepare evenly for everything, devoting a little more time to the area that is most difficult for you.
Keep track of time (especially critical for Writing). Allocate 15 and 25 minutes for two parts, respectively, and do not spend more, let 20 remain for double-checking and polishing the texts.
If it is not possible to study intensively with a teacher in person, then for Speaking your friend is a voice recorder, so you can accustom yourself to timing and speak as much as you need, and you can also ask someone knowledgeable to parse your “podcasts” according to the criteria.
In addition, over the past year, the One skill retake service has become available, which allows you to retake one part of the IELTS without the other three within two months of the initial test. But, of course, this is only advisable if you live or have a long vacation in the country where the exam is being held.
Preparation Resources (Free and Not)
Obviously, the best option would be to hire an IELTS teacher for individual lessons, but you can prepare for less if the level is already Upper Intermediate or you need a basic score.
IELTS Band 7 Complete Prep Course on Udemy. This resource does not currently accept payments from Russia; I purchased it for $18 using a foreign card (there are often discounts). There are hundreds of videos in the course for a total of 93 hours, I watched them selectively, I especially remember the Speaking examples from students from different countries (with different accents) with a description of what assessment these speeches correspond to, and exercises on the “pitfalls” I mentioned above in the form True/False/Not given tasks and spelling by letters in listening. By the way, I still receive announcements of some Live Classes by email, that is, a course with a live teacher and is still being updated.
Website with many IELTS options being added all the time. There are complaints that there is not always an even level of difficulty, but this may not be bad if you do not focus on specific results in points from there, but just practice.
And of course IELTS official websitewhere there is also a practice test and all the necessary information about the scale for converting points for parts into the final grade.
I also recommend the format of 15-minute speaking classes. It is presented in several online schools (I don’t want to advertise specifically, I had Yandex.Practice, I definitely saw it in Skyeng), maybe even in the form of a conditionally unlimited subscription for a month, one call is “for the price of a cup of coffee” (200- 400 rubles). Not all teachers there are ready to evaluate using IELTS criteria, but I have come across some, and in any case it is useful to talk with a person with a different accent and evaluate how much they understand you, and what needs to be improved. In addition, it is mentally much easier to set aside 15 minutes at the end of the workday or during your lunch break than to schedule classes according to a fixed schedule.
We should not forget that despite the very specific format of the tasks, any test ultimately tests knowledge of the language. That is, everything you do (from watching TV series and TED Talks without translation to reading documentation for working tools in English) adds to your English level, and therefore increases your expected score. But if there are only a few weeks left before the exam, then, of course, you can work primarily based on the exam options.
Proof
Thank you for your attention!
I will be glad to receive additions and questions, which I will happily answer 🙂 Have a nice day!
