Many would argue that IELTS preparation in Bangladesh is a myth as many course providers promise a higher score and then did not take responsibility to assist the students properly to prepare them for the exam.
A news article on ‘The Daily Star’ recently story-lined about some sufferers who went to some coaching centers where they were promised to make a high band score. But they ended up scoring less than 6.
The frustration level they had is an indication for many who would really like to seat for their IELTS but not well prepared and would rush into some of those coaching centers where only a big chunk of money is being spent and the candidate does not see any end result.
Today’s article we are developing is about how you can prepare yourself for the IELTS exam. This guideline is to outline your preparation for the IELTS test, understanding the test format, take the right course with the right training institution, and practice with official IELTS test materials, and so on.
Your preparation should have an impact on you that you can see the differences on the go; you can feel that you have inched to improvement yourself. Do not waste your time and money with someone who promises high and lets you down at the end. So from today get yourself ready for your IELTS preparation.
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How to Prepare for IELTS?
While you are making your preparation you are open to many opportunities ahead of you. You are flexible to make progress on your English skills, and that will make an impact on your result. How do you make an impact preparation?
A survey in the year 2015 states that around 3 million test-takers attempted IELTS across 1000 centers in the 48 dates available in the year.
So how do you think they did well in their exam? By doing Pre-planned homework, enough practice, and not just practice, impact practice had enabled these many candidates to prepare for their tests.
So how we begin? This article will try to walk you through how you can impact train yourself for your IELTS test.
Understanding the Test Format
A simple way to take a smart preparation is to look back at past years’ IELTS questions and familiarize with the test format. At this stage, you are not attempting any mock or practicing either. You are doing a skim through the questions and getting yourself use to the test.
It is very important before actually starting to answer the test. Because many have over the years made complaints that they are making errors as they try to solve the question and lose marks. Making such mistakes discourages many candidates to re appear in the IELTS exam and they get nothing at all.
Few Suggestions to Help you Impact Train
- To begin with reading do not just wonder off reading the whole passage, first look at the questions and try to solve them.
- Passage reading will not help you answering the questions but reading the questions and getting familiar with them will.
- Same goes to IELTS listening, as British Council says candidates have to listen to different forms of accents before they can attempt to answer.
- Getting use to different types of accents like British, American or Australian and practicing them for sometimes will ease off all difficulties in listening.
- Become an active listener. An active listener is neutral, non-judgmental, engaged throughout.
- Also familiarize with both writing and speaking sections just to build up awareness of the type of questions usually asked in the tests.
- This will give you enough time to build up enough confidence in yourself and improve your potentiality to do well in the test.
Practice with Sample Questions
The best IELTS preparation would be following the Cambridge IELTS book 1-14. Students are encouraged to attempt to solve those books. As most of the IELTS format is done by Cambridge, and the test result will be evaluated by their appointed experienced examiner.
Candidates wisely advised to download all the Cambridge IELTS books online or collect them from IDP test centers. How to practice even if you had those all books? The saying goes ‘Practice makes a man perfect. If you want to live up to the saying you have to follow few steps:
- Practice and analyze each question in the books, try and find out all the keywords, and underline them. Be simple in your answering approach, take notes, and stay focused.
- Always go back and check with your mentors and asking them for feedbacks in your progress and where you are lacking get assistance to ease up with that.
- Maintaining the time during the test is very crucial. You need to take at least some amount of mock tests so that you will know your timing and you will have room for improvement.
- Try the IELTS mock test from the Cambridge books or you can find several online sources, e.g. ielts.org, British Council website, and IDP Australia, etc.
Official IELTS Practice Materials
You can find and attempt from many of the IELTS test materials available online. Some of them are free, and in most cases, they really help when you get yourself engaged in them. There are some sample materials that may need payment and once you attempted them one practice examiner will check your paper and generate the result for you.
Some of the benefits you will definitely have from these are:
- You will get to know the IELTS test format closely.
- These online practice tests will revamp your timing to the real test timing.
- The many practice tests you will attempt the more you will be familiar with the test tasks.
- And you get a chance to review your answers and improve on the next one.
- Trims down your unforeseen mistakes and improves your understanding of each part.
Where to find all these online test materials, the best answer is we Google it and find it. But which will help needs expert advice. You cannot just shoot off and practice random materials. It has to have some sort of relevancy, quality materials, easy-to-find answers, etc.
The best material would be the Cambridge IELTS books 1-14. Although there are well-known institutes and universities or colleges which provide IELTS training all over the country, and everyone follows the CAMBRIDGE style books.
Again some of the institutes like the British Council, Pie, BARC, Saifurs, Mentors, etc. they have their own practice material available to the students at their campus.
Considering a Preparation Course
Once you have a settled mind for the next step of your life and you know that you are going to have some sort of preparation, it is wise to choose that preparation path effectively. Making the most out of it would be the outmost priority.
IELTS is more or like a skill-building process. It does not give you high ambition at the very beginning because it has a clustered way of developing your skill.
A preparation course may sometimes is monotonous as candidates lose their confidence on the road to IELTS preparation. But the truth is, IELTS does not eat up your confidence but it improvises your skills at a very shortest of time if you are very attentive to every single detail taught in the preparation course.
But which center is best for IELTS preparation in Bangladesh?
Best IELTS Coaching Center in Dhaka
So here is the list of 10 best IELTS coaching centers in Dhaka:
- British Council
- PIE international
- St. John’s
- British American Resource Center (BARC)
- FutureEd English Bangladesh
- WINGS Learning Centre
- Mentors’
- SALT Lab
- Saifur’s IELTS Coaching Center
- IELTS Spirit
Online IELTS Course in Bangladesh
If you want to join IELTS online course, there are several top-notch courses available these days. Let’s have a look:
IELTS Online Courses by Bohubrihi
About Bohubrihi: Bohubrihi is one of the best online educational platforms in Bangladesh. Their online courses have been designed in collaboration with the best industry experts in Bangladesh. Their advanced online courses and professional training will help you to develop your professional skills and career.
1. Mastering IELTS Writing: Academic & General
Regular Price: BDT 2000/-
Discount Price: BDT 1000/-
2. IELTS Academic Test: Complete Preparation
Regular Price: BDT 4500/-
Discount Price: BDT 2250/-
3. IELTS General Test: Complete Preparation
Regular Price: BDT 5000/-
Discount Price: BDT 2500/-
4. Mastering IELTS Speaking & Listening Sections
Regular Price: BDT 2000/-
Discount Price: BDT 1000/-
5. Mastering IELTS Reading: Academic & General
Regular Price: BDT 2000/-
Discount Price: BDT 1000/-
6. IELTS Complete Preparation: Academic & General (Editor’s Choice)
Regular Price: BDT 6000/-
Discount Price: BDT 3000/-
7. GRE Verbal & Analytical Writing Preparation
Regular Price: BDT 3000/-
Discount Price: BDT 2100/-
Spoken English Course by Robi 10 Minute School
Register as soon as Possible
Why delay when you have made up your mind and determined to take on the IELTS exam. While you are taking on the preparation course and learning the bits and pieces of IELTS, register yourself for the IELTS exam. Few things should be considered before you are ready to book for the IELTS exam:
- Determine and evaluate yourself with the practice you have done so far and how adequate is that.
- Knowing the test formats and how you are approaching them in practice.
- How much time you would like to spare for the main exam before you can even get registered.
- As soon as you are registered check back your progress every day.
- Practice adequately not covertly. Always open to an improvement.
- Make a schedule of your practice and it should have an impact on your preparation.
- Impact training is necessary to do well in the exam.
An adequate practice will enhance your chances to score a Band score around 7.0-8.0. Therefore practice is the principle route to be successful in the IELTS test.
Make A Plan Which Works for You
As we have discussed before, making a plan for your IELTS exam is essentially important even before you plan to sit for the exam itself.
This plan includes a clustered study schedule which may consist of a particular time slot for each IELTS part. That means you are working in a time frame in order to improve your skills.
The majority of the candidates often stressed out while in their preparation and do not score the desired marks. It is because they could not schedule their preparation plan-wise and had lacked in either of the parts.
Mostly we came to see that students do not complete their reading and listening answer sheets. It is because they were not able to familiarize themselves with the test adequately.
So again, understanding the format well is very much important for how you prepare for your IELTS exam. As soon as you understand the format you can make an outline that works for you. And you feel comfortable.
There is No Need for Study 24/7
Often the IELTS candidates become too much stressed about studying almost every possible moment they can. It isn’t wise to do so.
A study carried out by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Economic Development in 2014 shows that, whether the school children spent enough time for academic studies or how they have scheduled instructional activities at the same time.
The study went on to debate if there could be a distribution of time where instructional and academic learning could be arranged in a manner to optimal learning.
We all know a proverb says, ‘practice makes perfect. But it is obvious that in order to optimal learning time management plays a pivotal role.
The question now is what is the solution? Ebbinghaus an American researcher from the Colombia University published his research about space study or distributed learning in other words.
This phenomenon leads to superior learning by distributing space allocations between academic learning and subsequent learning. Later that century many other researchers have discussed even more about the benefits of the spacing effect rather than a continual succession of studies.
The insight of the research is distributing study time will help to extract more information rather than having to study overnight before the exam. This research also indicates that studying in different places has more impact on learning than having to study in one place for a long time. This is also called effective methods of learning.
You are Not ‘Too Prepared’
Are you too busy with your job, family life, or something else? And you are a week away or so from the IELTS exam. That means you are wasting time and will not have enough time to prepare yourself. I
IELTS preparation generally needs a scheduled distribution of time allocation and also includes space distribution to optimize the preparation.
Many candidates often seen that they are getting prepared a week before the exam and ended up either failing the exam or not getting good marks.
In some cases, people with adequate knowledge of IELTS may do very well as last-minute preparation may also be helpful to them. But it is obvious IELTS exam preparation needs detailed scheduling, clustered planning, and adequate practice before the actual event.
Engage Your Surroundings with English
Once you have registered for the IELTS exam, you should live and breathe in English. There are more ways to achieve a high score in the IELTS exam than textbooks. Textbooks are part of your structured preparation but to have a good grasp of the language you need to focus on few more aspects of IELTS.
- Listen to ranges of native accents such as British, American, Canadian, Australian, etc. In order to do so you may watch television news or the radio news from the BBC, ABC, CBC, PBS, and other news channels available.
- This will enable you to listen to ranges of topics and different accents.
- In order to do well in the reading section, build up a habit of reading English newspapers, articles, feature posts, news blogs, and academic blogs from the websites. This practice will definitely boost your reading skills.
- Your exam preparation can be enjoyable at this point. Building up more focused skills on listening you can follow English speakers on Youtube channels and English podcasts and can watch English movies.
- Even you can invite one of your family members, or friends to sit with you and have a conversation with you in English.
Do lot’s of Practice
IELTS exam candidates are usually asked to attempt to contents that they were not known to before, therefore it is wise to practice properly and prepare you for any outcome there might be.
Practicing more on the IELTS test papers can help you with this. But there are other ways you can practice.
Strengthening your English language skills can be more useful by practicing general English writing. You can start doing that by writing something about yourself daily.
You can also write on online blog sites. You can set up blogs, using WordPress and posting blogs regularly to sites. You can also write to your friends and your family and post to social media sites regularly.
Getting use to do multitasking will also help as you need to listen to the recordings and at the same time underline the keyword for your listening section. Time management is also a very important part of your exam.
Therefore you have to make sure that you are adequate enough while attempting the exam and have better time management skills.
IELTS Online Material and Resources
IELTS test materials are a good investment if you are willing to score good marks in the IELTS exam. Your preparation builds up energy inside you to achieve a band score you desire and you work hard for it.
Not all the IELTS books are equal and every IELTS materials yet not are enough to benefit one from the other person. Let’s have look at some of the materials which might be useful for your IELTS preparation.
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The ability to paraphrase your words, using correct forms of synonyms will enhance your chances to do well in your writing exam. All the spelling mistakes counts and you have to be extra careful about it.
IELTS Self-preparation Books
Getting yourself IELTS ready you need some good books to study from. We are going to talk about some books that will help you to achieve a good band score.
The Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS
This book is labeled beneficial for students who are preparing themselves for the IELTS test. Published by the makers of IELTS the Cambridge University and it is a must have book for those who wants to achieve a higher band score in their exam. Some of the key features of this book as follows:
- This book is the production of the research and analysis made by the original IELTS exam takers from the Cambridge University.
- The main objective of this book is to prepare the candidates from the experience of the authors and the exam takers who have already taken the exam.
- This book is highly informative and rated with five-star ratings by the authors from their lucrative reviews.
- You want to impact train yourself! Get this book as it has effective tips and simple practice sets to train a candidate effectively.
- It also consists of the answers and the question reviews so that you make a better understanding.
- Comes with a DVD version.
Barron’s IELTS Super Pack
This book also has a higher rating amongst authors and candidates for IELTS preparation. The practice book has three manuals with two practice CDs and also has a separate answer set with an mp3 set. Few features of the book:
- A complete overview and effective tips are given in this book for the students for better preparation.
- Most of the users of this book rated this book top-ranked as it has proper guidance and effective tips for preparation.
- What makes this book more effective is, it has separate listening, reading, writing, and speaking sample practice and exercise sheets.
- It contains all the significant practice materials to prepare for the IELTS exam.
Some other books you might want to look into:
- Target Band 7: IELTS Academic.
- Cambridge IELTS 11 Self-Study pack.
- IELTS practice test plus 2.
- Ace the IELTS: IELTS General- How to maximize your score.
These books are also reviewed as the top IELTS preparation books.
Preparing yourself for the IELTS does not have to be complex. If you follow the few steps we described in this article and the test materials we mentioned you should be well able to understand the test format thoroughly, observe the test formats, attempt and try yourself at home, make an arrangement for the sample practice questions, you can plan ahead how to cope with the preparation process and make study materials available to you.
Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item. I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. All opinions remain my own.