Recent exam questions 2

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[kasia]

task 1 (7th July),sorry the above link to task 1 doesn't exist

http://ebookbrowse.com/ielts-writing-sample-response-for-cinema-attendance-line-graph-pdf-d106877316

[HM]

I took IELTS academic on 07.07.2012 in Hamburg.
all questions were exactly same as YK apart from speaking questions.
speaking part:
task 1:
where do you usually go for holiday?
what do you prefer to do in holidays?
Does your name have a speacial meaning?
Do you like your name?
task 2:
tell me a device that you use often (mobile phone,mp3 player,etc)
task 3:
the examiner asked some questions about technology and education.

my speaking questions were quite easy but i was so excited that I couldnt talk so good!

good luck everybody!!!

[Elle]

I will have Ielts 12-13 July.Good luck for me and for other people!Finger crossed!!!

[Mohammad]

No more than Three words and/or a number- Actually what does it mean? How many words and number can i use? Is it 3 words plus 1 number= total 4?

[Tejas]

Task 2 12/7/12
IDP IELTS Center Melbourne.

not having money lead to unhappiness but having money does not mean that you are happy

write your opinion

[Simon]

Hi Mohammad,

Yes, it means you can have 3 words plus 1 number = total 4.

[Kiran]

Hi Tejas
What did you get in task 1 writing

[Lolo]

Dear Simon,
I have appeared for my exam today in Hyderabad, India. Listening section was really easy and i believe i did well. For reading section the third topic was horrible based on El Niño effect and various scientific theories. I went short of time and missed 5 question and i am really upset with my reading test. I am not sure about my performance on the section 3 of reading test.

For writing- Para 1-
Short essay on the figures for public employment in 5 different work fields in Australia in 1980 and 2001.

1 employment job rates were highest followed by three which were almost similar and quite confusing to compare with the last one with least figures.

Para-2- Horrible question-
Some scientist believes that the study of behavior in a three year old child could help them to stop children becoming a criminal.

What do you think about this scientific study and what are the other measures to reduct criminal behavior in children.

Again! I could not write a well organized essay due to the first question.. and somehow managed to complete my essay at the last second..

I am really upset with these two question :( Fingers crossed!!!

[Elle]

I took Ielts today in the UK.Questions were similar which Lolo just shared.Im also confused with this topics in writing.Finger crossed!!!

[YK]

Dear Simon,

I have question. Tejas took IELTS in Melbourne and Lolo took in India, but task 2 question different. How is it possible?

How IELTS creaters choose question for Task 2?

Thank you.

[Layla]

I had this test too

[Saya]

What questions were at speaking part on 12.07.2012?Who can share?

[Terminal21]

Hi Simon,

My result just came online and I had mixed feeling about it.

L - 8.5
R - 9.0
W - 6.5
S - 6.5
Overall - 7.5

I got only 30.5 in overall. I need just another 0.5 to be Band 8.

I'm considering to remark my writing and speaking score since I strongly believe that I deserve more than 6.5 each. Could you share your experience in these issues?

- What is a chance of getting higher mark when asking for the remark?
- After brief research with google, I found that some people said that people who get the score in each section differed more than 2 (like mine) will automatically get the recheck before they publish official scores. Therefore, the chance of getting higher mark is low. Is that true?

Even though overall Band 7.5 is higher than my dream schools' criteria, I still get stuck by laid me between "Competent" and "Good" user. This might be an adverse effect because I'm going to apply to dynamic courses which require extreme class participation.

Thanks for your response in advance.

[Jen]

Hi simon! I just took my exam yesterday. My question in Writing Task 2 is about: It is better to study in university living alone than living with parents while studying. To what extent do you agree or disagree.

The task 1 is a Bar Chart.

I'm just worried because I wasn't able to finish my conclusion. The last call for our time was 5 mins. I thought they will remind us for the last 2 minutes but they didn't so I wasn't aware of the time. Then, the invigilator got immediately my paper because I'm on the First seat.

What will be the highest possible grade I will get if I have no conclusion?
Please answer me. Thanks.

[reham]

Hi simon
My result is as followed
7.5 listening
7 reading
6 writing
8 in speaking
I was quite shocked as i thought that i have done better this time around in he writing section ,my question is you think that i should retake the exam soon o spend more time practising

[Simon]

Good luck Lolo. Thanks for sharing your questions.

...

Hi YK,

As far as I know, different questions are used in different time zones. Otherwise, someone in Australia could put the answers on the Internet and people in other countries would have time to prepare some ideas.

There are many IELTS question writers, and all questions are checked and trialled before being used.

...

Hi Terminal21,

They usually double check your tests when there is a difference of 2 bands between speaking and writing. In your case, they probably didn't double check, so a re-mark might be a good idea. There are no guarantees, but good luck if you decide to go for it.

...

Hi Jen,

The conclusion isn't very important, so don't worry.

...

Hi Reham,

They have probably already double-checked your writing score because you got 2 bands higher in speaking. I'm afraid a re-mark probably won't help. Keep practising, and take the exam again. Good luck!

[Jen]

Thanks simon! I hope to get 7 in all bands. Thanks for all your tips, It really helped me in my exam. God bless. :))

[Qerem]

I got each one of the modules 6.0 and overall 6.0

With a tough work, I think 7-8 points can be done.

Thank you so much Simon.

[Terminal21]

Thanks Simon. I'm waiting for the official report to proceed with the re-mark.

[Sa]

Hi,

I took my IELTS exam on June 30, i also got the same questions as Qerem and Lolitha, that is Writing, Reading and Listening. I can not say they were hard, i got 7.5,8and 7.5 respectively on them.
On the speaking part of the exam i had to talk about my relatives who live close to me, and second part was to talk about my favourite book and way would I recomend it to somebody, which I had not have prepared before, so it was a surprise for me, i got all confused and it definetely lowered my score to just 7. The third part was about how the new IT technology would affect print medias, and communication between people.
I got overall band of 7.5, i do not know whether it will be enough to get accepted for master course in England but i will try.
Thank you Simon very much, the blog is very helpful and best of luck to everybody.

[Lolo]

Lolo here singing in once again!
I had my speaking module today! I was asked about advertisement and brands.. Their importance and some disadvantages.How they influence people and similar questions!

Some people were asked about politeness and situation of being polite by other examiner and related questions!

I guess there were 3-4 examiners taking the speaking module in different hotel rooms as more then 300 students appeared for the Academic and General Training on 12th.

I will get back soon!

Waiting for my result! :X Fingers crossed!
- Lolo Dsouza

[Ernesto M-A]

I sat the exam on June 30th and got the results yesterday, July 13th. I got 8 in Listening, 8.5 in Reading, 6.5 in Writing and 7.5 in Speaking, what accounts for an overall note of 7.5.
This was my first try but I am disappointed because I know that I am capable of achieving an 8.

I am 29 and I had English lessons since I attended elementary school. Yet, I only learnt English after taking private lessons for two years, back when I was 11. By the time I entered high school, I no longer took "normal" English lessons but only conversation classes; and in college, I could choose a third language and take classes "in" English.
This was great because I did not rely on the pathetic English lessons at my school. The bad was that, being a kid, my demands and expectations for complex structures or vocabulary were very low. Today, it has been more than ten years since I had my last lesson "of" English.

By coincidence, I got a decent English level at the same time that Internet became popular, and I cannot describe how much this broadened my horizons. I could read the "original" papers instead of their translations and had access to more recent, more complete and more diverse sources. I could also interact with way more people (back when chat rooms and ICQ were all over the place).
About 80% of the things that I read and write everyday are in English. And it has been this way for the last twelve years or so.
I guess that this made up for my lack of English lessons.

Back to the IELTS, I was very afraid of the listening part because I had heard many tricky questions while training. Fortunately, the test was not complicated. It did involve more look-for-the-synonym exercises that I thought, though. At the end, I knew that I would have two errors, but that was still within the reach of my band-8-goal.
Note that the dialogue used British and Australian accents, and there was at least one non-native English speaker.

Reading and grammar are my best assets, thus I have very few problems with the reading part. Luckily, there were no title-the-paragraph exercises.
My advice: Read the instructions, more than once. Other applicants missed the part that stated that the same element could be used more than once, what lowered their notes. For example, in one exercise the same paragraph was the correct choice for three out of five questions.

[Ernesto M-A]

I was also worried about the writing module because I am a slow writer (I was not taught how to write in cursive). Literally, I am always the last one to finish an exam.

The first part of the writing module included a diagram that described the different phases in the processing of cocoa beans. Some focused on the final products (cocoa powder, chocolate and sweets) instead of the cocoa beans themselves. But the diagram had divisions precisely to note the many products that one can make out of cocoa beans. It did not describe "the different steps in the production of chocolate", but "the different phases in the processing of cocoa beans to produce three different edibles".
If you have not practised how to describe a process, do it now. It seems easier but it actually requires a different approach than describing a graph.

The second part of the writing module was about your point of view on teaching and advising how to raise a child, and how this should be addressed by the society as a whole.
I was completely in favour of the idea. I stated the importance of the family (traditional or modern) as one of the pillars of the society, because of its role in the establishment of values and its passing from one generation to another. Then I said that professionals like doctors, psychiatrists, pedagogues, nutritionists, and even chefs, economists and plumbers could explain and de-mystify diverse phenomena and procedures to new parents, and provide objective points of view to everyday tasks. On the other hand, experienced parents could provide advice and first-hand experience on time-management, product reviews and, most importantly, the infinite issues of dealing with your sons day after day.

Why did I get a "low" 6.5 note then? I probably had only a couple of orthographic or grammatical mistakes, but I could not manage the time and did not finish the second part. I only wrote about 220 words and had already found better ways to connect the elements after the first proof-reading. I was very angry after finishing this exercise and thought that I would get a 5.
Yes, you should think about the topic and structure your ideas, but do it fast! Write, write, write... Just write!

The speaking part was actually easy. "Happiness" was the leading theme.
The interview started with a description about the changes of my birthplace in the last ten years, followed by some questions about names (how my name was chosen and how important names were in my country). The started the "Happy Hour": How children and adults feel/embrace happiness, a two-minutes talk describing the happiest person I knew and how he/she expressed this feeling, and, at the end, how the environment influenced our perception of happiness and what I did to be/feel happier.

Nervousness betrayed me at the start and I hesitated in the second question (mainly because I wanted to use the word "authentic", but could not remember it in English, Spanish or German). The rest went OK and I was pretty fluent by the end of the interview.

This is the only part were I discovered that I was not as good as I thought. I honestly thought that I would not obtain less than 8, and I was proved wrong. I guess that I need to practice my pronunciation, specially because I speak fast.

[praveen]

Hi Simon,I was lucky to have accidentally bumped into your website less than 48 hours into my IELTS test. I took my IELTS test on 30/06/2012 and only discovered your website on 28th night.I printed off your tips and took them with me on train journey on 29th June and I must thank you for your tips especially with reading

here are my IELTS scores

Listening 7.5

Reading 8.0

Writing 8.0

Speaking 8.5

Overall score 8.0

I used to practice listening through headphones before the test and I used to get atleast 8.5 in listening as an average during practise sessions but I was shocked on the test day that there were no headphones provided and I was deeply disappointed with the poor sound quality after the test progressed mid way through section 1.I spoke to the invigilator about the sound quality as I was in the very end of the room and the only speaker was in the middle of the room.They said as the test has already started there is nothing they can do about it so I was disappointed on the test day and was thinking about listening section throughout the other sections of the test.One advise I can give to your website users is to practise listening without headphones in your website practise sessions and I must be honest with you that yours is the best website on the internet with regards to IELTS.Unfortunately I was not lucky enough to have discovered your website till just before my test and therefore wasted my money on IELTS Higher whose test material was far far below my expectations worst practice with listening.I wish I had a chance to have practised through your website which was a lot more useful in my opinion.So everyone out here please dont waste anytime on any other websites when preparing for IELTS just follow ielts-simon.com and I am sure you will ace the IELTS.I wish I was lucky to have known your website in advance but anyways I atleast had a chance to read your tips in the last minute.Thanks for your brilliant work simon and I am glad with my IELTS scores although I am deeply disappointed with listening score as it is the worst score I had through my practice seesions but still I am happy.Thanks again for your tips

[Ernesto M-A]

Oh! I forgot to end my comment stating how useful this website was for me, Simon. Sincerely, regardless of my English level, the actual task is to prepare the exam and not to learn the language, and you have been giving very useful lessons about it.

I wish that I had found your website earlier, instead of paying for an month-long "preparation course" that was a complete waste of time. I took the test one month later, precisely because I did not feel prepared enough (I wanted to sit a band-8 exam).

Thanks again, Simon. Honestly, you helped me a lot.

[vivek]

Hey praveen. Thats the great score you got. How did you get the great score on reading? Please feel free to give your tips.

[Simon]

Thanks for sharing your questions and insights Ernesto and Praveen. You both got great scores, and it's nice to know that my advice helped!

[Kiran]

Kasia, the link for the graph you have posted is from IELTS Masterclass Students' Book. Did exactly the same graph came in the IELTS exam?

[Ernesto M-A]

Simon,

Another applicant obtained the following notes: L-7.5, R-7, W-7 and S-5.5, for an overall score of 6.5.
Right after the interview, she told me that she had had some tiny mistakes and hesitations. But when she got the certificate and saw a 5.5 in Speaking, she was very surprised (and upset).

We took the same, useless "preparation course" and studied together a couple of afternoons. If I was a band-8 candidate, she was surely a 7.5 one. I may have a broader vocabulary and speak faster, but she only makes sparse mistakes (if any) and her pronunciation is, hands down, better than mine.

Do you recommend that she ask for a revision of her interview? I read in the comments that if there is a two-band difference among modules, the exam is automatically revised, is this always the case?

Unless she had passed out during the interview, I do not understand how she could have performed so poorly.

[Tahir]

Hi Ernesto,
IELTS is difficult game.My scored improved after Simon's two lessons,before that I was scoring 6 in each compartments.have a look at my few results
oct-2011 L-9 R-7 W-8 S-6.5 (applied for re-mark but no luck)
mar-2012 L-7 R-6.5 W-7.5 S-7
May-2012 L-7.5 R-7 W-6.5 S-7
afte two week I took it again and that was my last attempt
L-7.5 R-7 W-5.5 S-7

What would you say now.this is game of pure luck.no one knows whats going there in the centre.I need 7 in each.If you send your written essay to five different teachers it will comeback with different score.
you just have to keep trying and thats what I do.there will be day when you will not complain about IELTS.I mean when you will get your desired score.Have you noticed I was band 8 student 9month ago now I am band 5.5 student for writing.
good luck to you and your friend.

[Simon]

Hi Ernesto,

As your friend only had a 1.5 band difference between writing and speaking, it might be worth getting a re-mark. Best of luck!

[Tahir]

Hi Simon,

Hope you are fine.I haven't clear IELTS yet,you might have noticed in my last post.
I think I have to practice writing part little bit more.
Anyway lots of people seek your advise including myself about re-mark.But many students do not say what happened with their re-mark.Some times they do say but then its under writing section or reading etc.
If you can creat option like 're-mark feedbak' then students will be able to share their experiece about their re-mark result,and that will help other students to make decision.And,also you can write at the begining in that section when it is best to apply for re-mark.

I hope you like my idea.

Thanks
with regards
Tahir

[Raj, Poole]

hi everybody, Simon's work does not need any letter of approval, still i woud like to add something,,i got my result and got all 7 nd above 7(unfortunately 6.5 reading}
FOR WRITING i wrote 2 main paragraphs, first in firstly,secondly nd finally format,and second in TOPIC sentence,idea and example from my own life format ,it ws so easy to write nd was very simple with no big sentences nd vocabulary ,,
IN GRAPH also, first wrote overall view,started second paragraph with FIGURS,described the graph in the beginning ,middle nd the last part,,was too simple ,, for SPEAKING used all Simon's tricks ,, So FOLLOW HIM and WORK HARD,,

[Simon]

Hi Tahir,

You're right. It would be nice to hear whether re-marks were successful or not. I'll have a think about the best way to promote this kind of sharing.

...

Thanks Raj!

[Aminu Nass]

I was just back from My speaking test
Part 1: Ask me about either i was a student or working, which course i was studying and why i choose the course.
secondly, do i like flower,have u ever gives flower as a gift to someone,have u ever buy a plastic flower, do u prefer flower inside or outside ur home.
Part 2: He give me a question Describe a group of singer,mucisian in ur country.
who are they
who listing to them
Thanks Simon am taking my Listing,Reading, writing On Saturday 21th July

[layla]

my test tomorrow
who will with me

[iii]

hi everyone
could anyone please help me??
i took my exam last 30th of june..(academic)
can anyone still remember the writing and also the speaking as well as the listening and reading.. please help me!!

[iii]

hi jay
do you still remember the task 1 and task two
pleas reply when you take you ielts exam? last June 30 ( academic)
thank you!!

[ernest]

hi my name is ernest
am weitting doing my speaking test on thuirsdady then my listening,writtening and reading on saturday 20th oct here in nigeria,and its my first time.pls i need help or information to gard me on how to do my writting,reading and listing task pls what shuld i do becouse the lecturer we have here are not too good pls what shuld i do......expeccting your reply.........