How many times can I do IELTS to get what I need?
This is a question that came from a member of our Facebook group IELTS writing and speaking support and one of the examiners answered it.
You can take IELTS as many times as you like until you get the score you need. However, as Einstein said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. Why would you plan to do the exam again and again? Instead of spending 150 US dollars doing the exam multiple times, save yourself a lot of time and money and prepare properly.
If you do a practice listening and reading test then you will get an accurate reading of your level. This book is a good one to use for the Genera exam https://amzn.to/3hP9eyN and this one is for the Academic exam https://amzn.to/2St2MCZ
So, let’s say you need Band 7.0 and you get Band 6.0 in listening. This means that you have quite a lot of work to do. To go up one full Band is generally a minimum of 1 year’s full-time study. It is a big jump but it means that you shouldn’t do the exam yet as your English is not good enough.
You will also need to have your writing and speaking evaluated. The only people that can help you here are IELTS (ex) examiners and they charge for their services. You can book a speaking exam and do a full IELTS General writing exam with examiners here Shop – Upmyielts
Now, once you have done this, you have a full overview of your English level. So let’s say, for example, you need Band 7 in all 4 skills and you get Reading 7, Listening 6, Speaking 7, Writing 6. Now you know that you need to work on your listening and writing. For listening, you can start listening to podcasts, watching TV/films in English etc. For writing, it depends on what the examiners have said about the full exam you did with upmyielts.com. It may be grammar, or it may be that you need to approach the writing tasks in a different way. You may just need more practice. If it is speaking, then you need to get yourself a teacher (I can introduce you if you don’t know anyone).
So, instead of doing IELTS 4/5 times and getting the same score again and again spending 7/800 US dollars and not improving, if you prepare properly, you will have spent maybe half that, done the exam once and improved your English.
I know which I would prefer to do.
You can order all you need for IELTS writing and speaking here in our shop and if you need IELTS books then ieltsbooks.org is the place to go.
Comments (4)
I did IELTS 2 times, and have 6 in writing every time. I don’t know what to do. Can you help?
Hello Leyne. You need to find out why you are getting Band 6 in writing. Don’t book another exam until you find out exactly what is stopping you from getting higher scores. You can do a full IELTS writing with us here and IELTS examiners will tell you exactly what the problem is and what you need to do to get higher marks.
https://upmyielts.com/product/full-ielts-writing-exam/
Hi Team,
Could you please let me know the difference between compound and collocation? How can I identify if its a compound or a collocation? specific trait?
Hello. Do you mean compound nouns? Well, compound nouns are usually two or more words put together to create a new noun. Examples are sunflower, blackboard etc. Where as collocations are words or phrases which are commonly used together like have a party, highlight the difference etc. As collocation in different lanaguages is different, it is a problem for lots of English students.