IELTS Key to Success # 1

Secret Key #1 – Time is your greatest enemy.

To succeed on the IELTS, you must use your time wisely. Many students do not

finish at least one module. The table below shows the time challenge you are

faced with:

Module                  Total amount           Number of       Time to answer

                               of time allotted          questions          each question

Listening                        30 min                    40                   .75 min

Reading                          60 min                    40                   .67 min

Writing                           60 min                     2                     30 min

Speaking                        11-14 min              N/A                   N/A

As you can see, the time constraints are brutal. To succeed, you must ration

your time properly. The reason that time is so critical is that every question

counts the same toward your final score. If you run out of time on any passage,

the questions that you do not answer will hurt your score far more than earlier

questions that you spent extra time on and feel certain are correct.

On the Reading Module, the test is separated into passages. The reason that

time is so critical is that 1) every question counts the same toward your final

score, and 2) the passages are not in order of difficulty. If you have to rush

during the last passage, then you will miss out on answering easier questions

correctly. It is natural to want to pause and figure out the hardest questions, but

you must resist the temptation and move quickly.

Success Strategy #1

Pace Yourself

Wear a watch to the IELTS Test. At the beginning of the test, check the time (or

start a chronometer on your watch to count the minutes), and check the time

after each passage or every few questions to make sure you are “on schedule.”

Remember that on the Listening and Reading Modules you have a little over half

a minute for each question. If you can work quickly, you can pace yourself at half

a minute per question, which makes it easy to keep track of your time.

If you find that you are falling behind time during the test, you must speed up.

Even though a rushed answer is more likely to be incorrect, it is better to miss a

couple of questions by being rushed, than to completely miss later questions by

not having enough time. It is better to end with more time than you need than to

run out of time.

If you are forced to speed up, do it efficiently. Usually one or more answer

choices can be eliminated without too much difficulty. Above all, don’t panic.

Don’t speed up and just begin guessing at random choices. By pacing yourself,

and continually monitoring your progress against the clock or your watch, you will

always know exactly how far ahead or behind you are with your available time. If

you find that you are a few minutes behind on a module, don’t skip questions

without spending any time on it, just to catch back up. Spend perhaps a little less

than half a minute per question and after a few questions, you will have caught

back up more gradually. Once you catch back up, you can continue working each

problem at your normal pace. If you have time at the end, go back then and finish

the questions that you left behind.

Furthermore, don’t dwell on the problems that you were rushed on. If a problem

was taking up too much time and you made a hurried guess, it must have been difficult. The difficult questions are the ones you are most likely to miss anyway,

so it isn’t a big loss. If you have time left over, as you review the skipped

questions, start at the earliest skipped question, spend at most another half a

minute, and then move on to the next skipped question.

Lastly, sometimes it is beneficial to slow down if you are constantly getting ahead

of time. You are always more likely to catch a careless mistake by working more

slowly than quickly, and among very high-scoring test takers (those who are

likely to have lots of time left over), careless errors affect the score more than

mastery of material.

Scanning

For Reading passages, don’t waste time reading, enjoying, and completely

understanding the passage. Simply scan the passage to get a rough idea of

what it is about. You will return to the passage for each question, so there is no

need to memorize it. Only spend as much time scanning as is necessary to get a

vague impression of its overall subject content.