Why I took the IETLS exam
Exams are a normal part of a student’s life but for working professionals they are rare, especially the academic sort of tests. In jobs you work on projects with longer time horizons and a specified goal. The results are neither immediate nor obvious as they are spread across a long period of time with varying impact. So, taking up a globally recognized exam, IETLS (International English Language Testing System) out of the blue was always going to be challenging.
IELTS is an English proficiency test used by universities and employers to consider international candidates for admissions and working visa respectively. Lately, many of my near and dear ones were insisting I give the exam and see if I can apply for a PR (Permanent Residency) to countries in Canada. I was apprehensive because as per my research, my age and work experience were not adding up to a very high score and scoring high in the exam would not make much of a difference. But I still decided to give it a try.
IELTS exam consists of mainly four sections namely Speaking, Reading, Listening and Writing. The whole exam is around 2 hours 45 minutes conducted in a single day chosen by the candidate. I was fortunate enough to have studied in one of the best English medium schools in the country, Loyola, Jamshedpur and I wanted to see if I was really any good in English after 23 years of passing out. It was more about testing my mettle than any hopes of getting a high score for PR.
What is the IELTS test about
Most people who have not given the test think that the test is a very easy. Everybody showed confidence that I would comfortably sail through and needn’t worry too much. I believed them too, at the beginning, and started my preparation. I went through the official website and took a few sample tests and realized it certainly wasn’t THAT easy. It was definitely going to take some organized effort.
Reading Test: 40 Questions in 1 hour. Band Score out of 10.
I love to read and I spend my whole day at office reading emails, blogs, content pieces written by me or somebody else. In the spare time, I read news articles or books either in hard copy or on my kindle and herein lies the catch. I don’t get tested (at least formally) on what I read. In this test you must do the following as fast and accurately as possible.
- Pace yourself so that you answer the easier sections in less time and are left with enough time for more difficult sections.
- Read five to six 1000-word articles. Some may be information heavy and others may be abstract.
- Read long questions and find the answers hidden somewhere in the article. If you are taking the computer-based test then you have the option to highlight.
- Answer the questions keeping in mind that there could be distractors in the form of synonyms or not given information.
- Not make any spelling or plural mistakes and so on.
Listening Test: 40 Questions in 30 minutes. Band Score out of 10.
Everybody listens to something or somebody throughout the day but are we good listeners? I was soon going to get an answer for myself. The biggest challenge of this section was that the audio will be played only ONCE which means that even if the answer is simple, like a number or a name, but you can’t answer if you didn’t hear it properly or cannot recall.
Listening test will test the following skills for a high score.
- Listening once and recalling the information accurately
- Listen, retain the information, read the question and possible answers (in some cases), decide the answer, type the answer and review the answer, all to be done within limited time.
- Adapting to different types of questions which means it could be multiple choice, fill in the blanks, table, or map completion etc.
- Listen and understand different accents at varying speech tempo. This makes the section extremely tough because there are many people speaking to each other and it is difficult to distinguish one from the other
- Spot distractors like the speaker correcting themselves, similar sounding words (like fourteen vs forty)
- Ensure that the answers are grammatically correct and make sense
Writing Test: 1 Letter (150-200 words) and 1 Article (300-350 words) in 1 hour. Band Score out of 10.
Again, I love to write and hence this blog but this section was different. Although I have a good typing speed and the number of words expected was not very high, the quality of content expected was not easy. You don’t have to be too fancy but you are tested on the following criteria
- Task Achievement: Whether you could answer as per the question
- Coherence and Cohesion: Letter / Article has a clear structure and ideas are developed logically
- Tone / Style: Consistent throughout the article
- Lexical Resource (Vocabulary / Spelling / Set expressions)
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Speaking Test: 15 min Interview. Band Score out of 10.
This was the one section I was least prepared for. Getting a real-life interviewer was a challenge so I depended mostly on the Youtube Videos. Speaking section is like the writing section and tests you on the following.
- Task Achievement and fluency: Whether you could answer as per the question
- Coherence and Cohesion: Letter / Article has a clear structure and ideas are developed logically
- Tone / Style: Consistent throughout the conversation
- Lexical Resource (Vocabulary / Spelling / Set expressions)
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Preparation and the early struggle
When I started with the sample test, I realized the test was not just testing your English but also your analytical prowess and memory capabilities. Most people when given several chances and enough time will get most of the answers right but that is not the case with this exam. You are time constrained for all sections. The test can be retaken but it is expensive and costs about Rs 16,000/- (INR) or about $200.
The first thing I realized was that I will require a professional help. I signed up of IELTS preparation course which had weekend classes and several online practice test for each section. I discontinued the 4-hour weekend classes as I didn’t find it valuable. The Youtube was giving me better content with tips and tricks. On the other hand, I took the computer -based practice test very seriously.
The initial results were embarrassing if not terrifying. I couldn’t accept that my English was “only this good”. My English Medium School pedigree was coming into serious question. No matter how many tests I took the results weren’t improving. In fact, they declined a few times and further confused my mind about whether I was improving or worsening.
Final stage of the preparation
I was totally relying on Youtube videos and internal motivation “things will likely worsen before improving, so stick to it.” My last score in Reading section was a poor 6 out of 10. Listening section was improving but sometimes I was zapped out of nowhere in one of the tests. I didn’t take too many writing tests as the results were pretty stable and I didn’t have much time left. I was not expecting much to change in the limited time frame I was working in.
things will likely worsen before improving, so stick to it….
Internal talk to myself
Thankfully, I realized early on that doing more tests was not going to give better results. You must understand the mistakes you are making and try not to repeat them in your next test. The number of tests you could take after a full day at office or during the weekend was limited. I had to make each test count.
D Day
Finally, the D Day arrived. It was a cold smoggy Delhi morning which also happened to be the last day of 2023. I didn’t want to carry the ordeal to the next year and wanted to have a relaxing drink on the New Year’s Eve.
The registration was quite formal and full of security checks. There were multiple scans, signatures, and finger print identification. I didn’t know whether so much paraphernalia was a result of recent news highlighting capture of illegal immigrants in France, the Shah Rukh Khan movie “Dunki” on the same topic or it was business as usual.
I had mentally prepared myself that I will accept whatever is the result. I had done my best. I had dedicated after office hours, put on hold my side projects and even took a few days leave to give my best shot. I had finally left the result in God’s hand.
Learnings from the experience
I was pretending to be casual about checking the results. These are usually shared on registered email within a couple of days. In my case 3-4 days had passed and I hadn’t checked. But finally, I gave in and checked. I couldn’t contain my excitement. I was enthralled because I had scored higher than my best scores in the practice tests. This was a dream result. The speaking score was below my expectation but I had taken no practice test for it and hadn’t put in much effort either.
The average score globally is around 6.22 and in India is 6.04. I researched this because I wanted to be sure what I was competing with. I scored 7.5.
The one-month preparation was a great learning experience. The only time I was this methodical in my preparation for my exam was when I was preparing for my engineering and may be even in that exam I was lacking in many ways. My biggest takeaway from this whole journey are as follows.
- Understand the requirements of the test / exam. Does it test only your English or other skills as well?
- More doesn’t mean better. Taking more tests will not improve your score. You should attempt the next test only when you have learnt significantly from the current test mistakes and are confident of getting a better result in the next one
- Setbacks are expected throughout the process even to your exam day and that should not distract you from your goal of achieving a high score by practicing more.
- Record everything like in my case I recorded every test result details including the mistakes I was making in each one of them. I had a better dashboard than my practice test application.
- Enjoy the process irrespective of the result.
Have you given or IELTS or prepared for a similar exam then share your experience below.
