What materials should I prepare for the IELTS test?

IELTS reading (written by IELTS examiner, very good; )、

IELTS High Score Composition was written by Hu Min, IELTS Listening.

Analysis of IELTS Test Questions in Cambridge (Latest Edition)

Cambridge IELTS Test 1 Analysis of All Real Questions

An analysis of the complete true questions of Cambridge IELTS 2

These are also equipped with tapes.

How to Prepare for IELTS+Cambridge 3, written by the British Council, one of the IELTS test institutions, is written by Ray De Witt, a senior examiner and IELTS training expert. Train the language skills and test-taking skills needed for IELTS test. This book is suitable for both self-study and classroom teaching. It is a classic textbook for IELTS candidates.

No. 1 (Listening):

* Before listening *: Get familiar with the requirements of the topic as soon as possible, and circle the key words and answers with a pen (these words can generally limit the scope of the question), such as: Who will he go to the airport with tomorrow afternoon? The key word is "tomorrow afternoon" instead of morning or today, "airport" instead of other places. The answer qualifier is "who", that is, the question requires you to answer a person's name or a noun related to the person and the speaker. Maybe you will find it easy to distinguish, but the score you want but it is difficult to get must be confused in one way or another, so you should not be careless. In addition, the table questions are difficult to read because of poor vision, so it is best to circle the questions.

* Listening time *: No matter how much you can understand at first, you must do it according to the exam status and write as much as you can. And listen to it two or three times at first, and supplement it with pens of different colors. Finally, get different scores. The difference between these scores is the score you can increase through practice. It can inspire you, let you see the gap and the speed of progress. Another problem is words that can't be spelled. This requires mastering some spelling rules and spelling by pronunciation as much as possible.

* After listening *: After answering the answers, find out the corresponding sentences in the listening article and reflect on whether their expressions are special, especially if there is no direct explanation. If you don't know the vocabulary, can you find words that have appeared in the text instead? Finally, classify the lost points. For example, it can be divided into numbers, addresses, tables, questions and answers, choices and so on. Do individual special training according to this.

No.2 (reading):

* Before reading *: Also highlight the key points. Especially capitalized words (such as names and places), numbers (including Arabic numerals in time) and unfamiliar words (we will be sensitive to these words and have a subconscious short memory), because these words are clear in the text, we can complete them first.

* When reading *: Don't read the article. However, if there is a paragraph that matches the meaning of the paragraph, you need to browse it. You can't skip it carelessly, because one mistake makes another. You can combine words with the same meaning with words with similar meanings. In addition, to see the topic clearly, it is required to be a paragraph or a combination of these information. The true and false questions should be word for word. He didn't bring his bag yesterday. You have to ask yourself if it was him or someone else, yesterday or the day before yesterday, do you have a bag or something? Pay attention to tense and adverbs of degree, all and all 99% are wrong. You don't have to fill in the blanks from scratch. Fill in the blanks whenever you see one of them in the text, and then climb up or down the vine. It's not easy. Climb up first. Oh, also, the questions listed in one sentence (such as true or false) can group some words with obvious characteristics, so that you can find the answers within a fixed range in the text.

* After reading *: Basically, just like listening, you need to think about words that can replace words that you don't understand.

No.3 (oral): This is because I usually have a good foundation and like to talk to myself (not teaching, it's purely natural! )。 But people are skilled in exams. The most important things are eyes (be strong, try to be bigger, and don't show fear), expressions (change more to show your relaxed nature, not reciting), and styles (look at the teacher's style. If he is particularly kind, you should be more kind and humorous and show your perceptual charm; If he is serious and rational, you should show the rational beauty of wisdom and knowledge. For the content, we should try our best to show ourselves, and dialectically do not be extreme but maintain the enthusiasm and vitality of youth. For example, my topic is describing my neighbors. I didn't say her name, but I spoke fluently and enthusiastically, with vague memories in my eyes. Then I asked the examiner if he knew who she was. He said no, so I told him that I lived in 1 building two years ago and now I have moved to the fourth floor (totally random! ) So she is me and my neighbor. He laughed for a long time. So I'm still introducing myself, just the old one. In this way, what you say is what you are most familiar with, natural and smooth, full of emotion. Of course, choosing to tell him the answer is risky. If you do well, he will appreciate your cleverness. If you don't do well, he may think you are speculative. But if it is better to play it after recording, the good impression will remain in his mind, and the bad will not be heard by other off-site judges.

No.4 (Writing): Order comes first. Then the most important thing is the sufficiency, persuasiveness, comprehensiveness and particularity of the reason. To do this, it is absolutely enough to add some common opening and closing.

No.5. In addition, I want to emphasize that the preparation of the four items is very important and must be taken seriously. It is best to classify the marks, such as using a horizontal line for numbers and two vertical lines for capitalized words.

How, whether to give you some inspiration, in fact, the key lies in "management." Just like our high-tech society, management is needed to improve efficiency. Time and practice have proved that the improvement of management efficiency is far superior to the improvement of technology. Today's large enterprises have similar technologies, but they have lost in the management competition. The method is the essence of management, so I hope those friends who are too lazy to recite and want to produce results as soon as possible can learn something from it, whether it is learning or recreating methods.

Basic preparation for IELTS test

(1) English grammar

Many books about IELTS will introduce "IELTS does not test grammar". However, from my personal experience, IELTS not only tests grammar, but also goes beyond the traditional test.

In traditional exams, we can often guess what the questions want to test us from the questions themselves. As long as we are prepared, we are sure to do it well.

Just give an example: the traditional exam topic may be: "I"

I am interested in.

As soon as we saw the preposition "in", we knew that this question might be to test the usage of our gerund after the preposition. IELTS will not be like this, let alone writing (if you want to use "be")

There is no hint at all, even in short.

When answering, be sure to make your answer form conform to the question prompt (it is a "prompt" and won't tell you a clear answer form at all). If the question implies that you need to answer with gerund, then if you answer in other forms, you are at great risk.

Therefore, it can be said that IELTS not only tests grammar, but also tests everywhere, and it is particularly detailed (it can be said that it has been described as "insidious")! In this respect, if you are not familiar with grammatical phenomena, it is easy to be seen through, and it is often "I don't know how to die when I die."

Fortunately, unless you actively use some advanced grammar knowledge in your writing to get high marks, generally speaking, IELTS is not too profound in grammar requirements. Generally speaking, the basic grammatical requirements are "subject-predicate (nature and quantity) agreement" and "fixed phrases collocation", and subjunctive mood and inverted sentences are rarely used to test you. Another point is that the IELTS scoring standard is more flexible. Unless the test site is grammar, grammar mistakes in some unimportant places often do not affect the overall score (which also reflects the scientific nature of the IELTS test from one side: don't chew words. After all, even when using one's mother tongue, one often makes some harmless grammatical mistakes, doesn't he? )

Therefore, my experience and suggestion is that in the early stage of preparing for the exam, it is best to find a good grammar book and review it from beginning to end, without abstinence, but with proficiency; And when doing IELTS questions, consciously link grammar with questions, and constantly consolidate and strengthen.

(2) Vocabulary requirements for IELTS test.

According to many data, the IELTS test does not require high vocabulary, but my actual experience is different.

There are three characteristics of IELTS vocabulary requirements:

The first feature is that the vocabulary range is very large. This is determined by the scope of IELTS content. Because the content of IELTS test (especially reading) is usually drawn from mainstream newspapers and magazines in Britain and America, which involves all aspects of people's daily life, study and entertainment, and all words in human activities may be involved! This is why some people say that it is impossible to review IELTS words.

The second feature is that some words still appear quite frequently. This is also determined by the content of the IELTS test (especially listening and speaking). In the listening and speaking test, judging from the current situation, the topics of the test content still have a certain range. For example, in the oral test, the oral preparation materials on the market basically cover the test topics, so the vocabulary related to the topics appears frequently. Another example is the listening test, which often examines students' study and life on campus, so vocabulary such as accommodation, library, lecturer, etc. Must master. In this sense, some oral vocabulary and listening vocabulary listed on the internet or in books really help us prepare for the exam.

The third feature is derived from the above two features, that is, the hierarchy of vocabulary is very obvious. Basically, the vocabulary involved in the IELTS test can be divided into three levels. First, primary vocabulary, mainly some so-called low-level vocabulary, that is, reach, hardly, book and other basic vocabulary to describe life and learning content. This kind of vocabulary often constitutes the main vocabulary of listening, and mastering this kind of vocabulary is very important to improve listening; Moreover, such words also constitute the main vocabulary of our writing. My personal experience is to master this kind of vocabulary as skillfully as possible, mainly to find a set of four-level vocabulary (even high school vocabulary) and master the pronunciation, polysemy, usage, common collocation and so on of nouns/verbs in detail. I think: if you really master these 2000 basic words, you should be able to meet the requirements of listening and writing exams. The second is intermediate vocabulary, mainly words appearing in college textbooks, such as beautiful advanced synonym pretty. Third, advanced vocabulary, mainly some common professional vocabulary, and some words that we don't often see but are widely used in British and American newspapers, such as photocopying.

carbon dioxide emission

Intermediate and advanced words such as Dioxide mainly appear in the second half of reading and listening. I guess these two words are used to widen the gap between candidates' scores. Therefore, if you expect high marks, these words (at least intermediate words) are what you must know (you don't need to master them skillfully, just know the basic meaning and usage). Of course, if you want to use it in writing, that's another matter.

As for the vocabulary of IELTS test, my experience and suggestions are to master the vocabulary of high school or university (must be able to listen, use and write), buy some IELTS vocabulary sets on the market, and be familiar with some unfamiliar vocabulary used in British and American newspapers. In short, if you have time and energy, you can't recite too many words!

2. About preparing for the IELTS test.

(1) Listen

(1) My feelings about the listening test.

IELTS listening is really difficult for candidates of my level! It is not the speed of speech and the use of words in listening, but the test of the ability to extract and distinguish useful information from a large amount of information in listening. Most people with college English level can basically hear (hear, don't understand! ) vocabulary of listening content. This has caused difficulties: there is a lot of information input, but we don't know (or have no time to react) which information is useful and which information to fill in; Or even if you know it, it is often too late to write the corresponding content (which is why I mentioned above to master the primary vocabulary skillfully). What is more difficult is that there are some examination questions (mainly short)

Answer type) The answer needs to be extracted from the received information, that is, the answer may be the agreed words of the vocabulary heard in the listening content or the deformation of tense, sex and quantity.

Based on the above reasons, I personally think that the improvement of listening can never be achieved overnight, but the result of long-term unremitting efforts, more listening and more practice.

② My listening preparation.

From the beginning, I knew that I had a problem with my hearing, so listening was the focus of preparing for the exam. The materials I use are listening materials distributed by the global IELTS training class, IELTS listening reference books purchased by World Press, and Steps published by East China Normal University.

Step by step "volume 3 and volume 4.

The information distributed in the training course (I participated in the IELTS Global Course, but I don't think it will be much different from other courses such as New Oriental) helps us to be familiar with the general direction of IELTS listening test (especially the questions, listening vocabulary, listening topics, etc.). ), so I studied and practiced these materials in great detail.

The IELTS reference books I bought are mainly used to increase the number of questions. But if you have time, it is good to study it in detail. It's a pity that the information I bought and the information sent by the training class are repetitive in content, and full of the voices of China people (it's especially awkward to listen to authentic English and the information recorded by China people! ), so it doesn't help me much personally. It is recommended to know clearly before purchasing materials before making a decision.

"step!

pass by

Step ",I personally think it is a good set of materials. Because this set of materials is divided into specialized exercises (such as date, place, direction, name, subject, etc. ), it is very helpful for us to carry out targeted training; Moreover, this set of materials has different pronunciations and different themes (such as environmental protection, school education, communication, etc. ), which can not only make us familiar with different listening topics and local pronunciations, but also enlarge some commonly used listening vocabulary in IELTS, which is of great benefit to writing (for example, environmental protection is a common topic in IELTS). However, this set of articles is short in length, long in publication time and outdated in content, which requires users' listening skills. So unless it is used for a long time, it is only suitable for use as a useful auxiliary material.

Basically, my listening preparation is based on the above materials, mainly from training courses, supplemented by others. Study for 4 hours every day, and review the listening time continuously for about 200 to 250 hours.

(3) Some useful experiences.

* When doing listening questions, listen and answer in strict accordance with the time requirements for the first time (no pause, no rewind, no answer); Then listen to it two or three times to see how much more you can listen to; After answering; Then read the original text aloud several times until it is fluent; Pick out listening vocabulary (such as name, place, common words in listening topics, etc.). ) and concentrate on listening and writing until you are familiar with it. Listen to it again and again when you have time. This method is not only conducive to the improvement of listening, but also conducive to writing, which will be discussed later.

* Be sure to keep your time pressure, or you will lose your level in the actual exam!

* Listen to BBC news programs extensively (mainly to deepen the phonological familiarity with British English).

* Listen to TV English programs extensively (if possible, watch more TV programs such as the Pearl of Hong Kong, including ABC news in Australia, but unfortunately they are broadcast after midnight 1).

* Find 1 ~ 2 English soundtrack and watch it repeatedly (the movie is interesting, the text is simple, the pronunciation is clear, and the dialogue is vivid. I personally recommend Shrek).

* For the so-called monitoring on the Internet

Version, I personally haven't seen it, because I have some doubts about the usefulness of these things. On the one hand, I don't know the accuracy of the answer, on the other hand, I don't have time to react when I actually do the problem. Besides, I don't really believe I have the luck to meet it. But in any case, it doesn't hurt for interested people to know about it, just don't hold out too much hope.

* seize every opportunity to listen to English-related content (such as airport and railway station broadcasts, etc.). ).

At present, I only think so much about the preparation for listening. If there is an increase, I will add it in the last part.

Step 2 read

(1) My reading test feeling.

I took the G reading test and felt dizzy on the spot! But the final result is quite good.

When I usually do simulation questions, my correct rate is very high (G questions are always kept between 34 and 40, and A questions can also be kept between 30 and 36). Among the four items, I am most sure of reading before the exam; And after carefully studying the four single exams, I have always regarded reading as an overall improvement.

The focus of the band. It should be said that my preparation for reading is the most adequate, but I never thought about it and felt very bad on the spot.

During my exam, part of it

One is a relatively simple information search, and it is not difficult to understand the requirements (but there are individual "traps", such as the difference between "part" and "whole"). The other three parts completely confused me. This is not because the article is difficult to read, but because of the way it is written: most of them are questions that need to be understood before they can be answered, such as T/F/NG, HEADING.

Matching, etc., and this kind of questions takes time to distinguish the similarities and differences between individual information keywords and topic keywords [especially judging the similarities and differences between "inferability" (T) and "sentence is correct, but can't be inferred from the text" (NG), not only need to find relevant information quickly, but also need to judge and compare information, which is very time-consuming]; What's more, I don't know if my judgment is correct!

In fact, I did the problem quickly, and I finished all the problems in less than 50 minutes, but I was in a bad mood. Reading has always been the focus of my grading (I plan to get 7 points before the exam). Because the way of writing questions is really cunning, there are many traps and the answers are very uncertain, so I have no idea about the "correct answer rate". Originally, I felt that I didn't do well in the listening part (I planned to get 6 points before the exam, but I felt that I couldn't get it after the exam), so I was not sure about the scheduled score and was not practical.

It is worth noting that according to the reaction analysis of the participants after the recent exam, the thinking of the IELTS test organizers has changed: although the difficulty of the article may not increase, the types of questions have improved the requirements for reading comprehension. So scanning alone is not enough to meet the inspection requirements.

② My reading preparation.

In addition to increasing vocabulary [please refer to "Some Thoughts on IELTS Test (1)" for IELTS vocabulary, my reading preparation method is to learn IELTS reading problem-solving skills in the global IELTS training class; On the basis of the materials distributed in the training class, I purchased the IELTS materials from World Knowledge Publishing House to increase the number of questions. I bought the 200 1 annual bound edition of English Digest to increase my reading and get familiar with the genre, words and writing methods of foreign articles.

③ The overall thinking and countermeasures of IELTS reading.

Strangely, the best thing I did in the exam was reading, but the most difficult thing to sum up was reading: after thinking about it, I still have to go back to those three experiences that have become somewhat "excessive", that is, expanding my vocabulary, reading more books and doing more problems.

I believe that many people who have passed IELTS will have similar feelings: when it comes to reading, especially

From the second quarter, the whole person is in an automatic reaction state, relying entirely on the subconscious mind to do the problem.

There are three main reasons for this phenomenon: first, not to mention the complicated identification and waiting procedures before the exam (usually more than 1 hour), that is, after 30 minutes of high-intensity listening test, candidates' energy has been exhausted; If you add the psychological influence of the feeling of "failing" in the listening test (which is a common feeling), I believe that most people's thinking ability has been greatly reduced, which can't be compared with your thinking ability when you usually do reading training by yourself (this can also explain why it is not more difficult to read articles in IELTS objectively than usual, but many candidates find the content of articles more difficult); Second, except for the bar.

One (possibility) is a relatively simple information search, and other test contents are related to the "search-understanding-induction" process of information, which requires analysis and judgment of a large amount of information. Therefore, in the process of reading, the thinking ability of the brain is very demanding; Third, the time pressure under the test-taking psychology is particularly great. Generally speaking, do 40 questions in 60 minutes, turn pages, and write the answers on the answer sheet (the handwriting should be clear, be careful to write the wrong box! ) Wait, my feeling is that it takes about 1 minute to process the 1 question. It can be seen that taking the IELTS reading test, your brain is not good, but the reading task is heavy and you have to bear great psychological pressure. In this case, not many people (admittedly, there are some people with particularly strong will and good psychological quality, who can often achieve quite good results) can consciously use "skills"; Moreover, it is not only not feasible, but also impossible to review and judge the way of doing each question, or to make a "top-down guess" on a large number of "new words", which will inevitably consume a lot of precious time. So it is predictable and understandable that you are dizzy and upset in the exam.

Therefore, it is very important to enlarge vocabulary (purpose: to reduce the occurrence rate of "new words" in the preparation process, save the time of "guessing" and maintain the continuity of reading), increase reading volume (purpose: to enhance the sense of language and strive for the fastest reading comprehension speed) and do more questions (purpose: to be familiar with the types of questions and improve the thinking ability of the brain to automatically use various reading skills). My feeling is that when the three independent processes of memorizing vocabulary, reading articles and doing exercises accumulate to a certain extent, there will be an integration: vocabulary is no longer an isolated word, and vocabulary will automatically increase when reading, and the ability to understand articles will also be enhanced. This integration will eventually greatly improve automation.

Response speed and quality.

Applying the scene of martial arts novels to describe it is to practice according to the moves in the secrets of martial arts first, then forget the specific move and style, realize the unity of man and martial arts, and finally reach the highest martial arts realm of "seeing the move and dismantling the move"

So my experience and advice are: recite more, read more and practice more. When the equivalent is accumulated to a certain extent, you will become a "roast duck warrior" or a "roast duck witch" who reads (-)!

(4) Some fragmentary tips.

* Don't read the reading materials (especially "passports") issued by the IELTS reading training class before attending it.

arrive

Ielts). My experience is that listening to the teacher's technical guidance in class is particularly shocking and impressive. (I still clearly remember that once in class, Gao, a teacher from Global IELTS, asked me to do a passport problem quickly under pressure: choose the best one from several words with similar parts of speech. As a result, due to the great pressure, I didn't pay attention to the "an" in front of me, so I chose a noun that didn't start with a vowel. In the high teacher's proud ha ha laugh, I suddenly understood why I should "pay attention to English grammar" when doing this kind of questions.

By the way, I'd like to express my respect for Mr. Gao (without boasting or advertising at all): In addition to the above example, there is also an example that illustrates the function and significance of English notional words with simple declarative sentence structure and fictitious noun collocation. I admire Mr. Gao's guiding method very much. Although some skills didn't benefit me from this IELTS test, these "epiphany" really deepened my understanding of English and improved my ability to learn and use English. Thank you very much, Miss Gao.

There are not many opportunities to answer questions directly by scanning now, but scanning plays an important role in locating reading content, especially when numbers and proper nouns are involved. Therefore, mastering scanning skills can save us a lot of reading time. As for how to practice this skill, every teacher has his own experience and the effect is different.

* After learning reading skills, you must do a lot of questions and consciously use these skills when doing them. The more you practice, the easier it is for you to use these skills subconsciously in the actual exam.

In fact, reading is the single item that China candidates are most likely to get good grades (generally it can be higher than 6, and I even found that I once got a 9 in the global IELTS test! )。 Although there are many changes in IELTS reading questions, it is nothing more than testing vocabulary, speed and understanding ability. These are what we learned from school, and the accumulation over the years will never be bad. As long as you practice more, it is really amazing to get a score of 7 or 8; In addition, it is said that in the IELTS test, the high score of one single item may have some good effects on the scores and total scores of other single items. Don't give up the chance to get high marks in reading!

(3) Writing

(1) My feelings about the writing test.

Comparatively speaking, writing is better than listening and reading

Like most of my classmates, I seldom write in English, so I felt very mysterious and uncertain about the writing part before the exam. In retrospect, writing is not only better than the other three IELTS items, but also a sub-item that can get good grades without too much preparation. This is because:

First, the genre of articles involved in writing is limited and there are not many changes. Take the writing requirements of Class G as an example. There are six types of letters coming and going (tasks, such as inquiry letters, complaint letters and apology letters).

1) and argumentation, discussion and other two types (tasks

2) We don't need much time to understand, master and use typical sentences (such as "I'm complaining") for this genre of articles less than 10.

..... "is a typical sentence in a complaint letter). Because the style of the complaint letter itself is fixed, just as we write "I want to complain ……" in Chinese, if you use typical sentences in your article, you will get the effect of deducting points immediately, and no one can say that you are suspected of plagiarism (at most, it is "rigid" and "cliche", but this will not deduct points);

Secondly, the logical structure and level of the article have the greatest influence on the writing score, and these logical structures and levels can also be mastered skillfully before the exam. My understanding is that the IELTS writing examiner didn't expect us non-English speaking candidates to write anything really amazing in just 60 minutes (if you pay attention, this was published in the Passport published by the IELTS test organizer).

arrive

IELTS "has a hint). After being buried in our "garbage" day after day, the criteria of these judges have long been standardized: is the structure complete? If it is complete, it can be considered that the basic requirements have been met. If a few flickering sentences occasionally appear in your masterpiece, which can make these sleepy judges feel a little fresh, then you can easily get an exciting result. This phenomenon is just like when you go to a remote and poor town as a housing investigator, and your eyes are full of simple mud houses. At this time, all you can notice is to judge whether the object you see has the basic elements of a "house": structure, that is, whether there are beams, walls, doors and windows. Suppose there is a "house" with an extra layer of mosaic or two-story structure, you will probably judge that it is a local "mansion".

Third, writing reviews has a greater degree of fault tolerance. The evaluation of our article is based on the overall judgment. Accuracy of content; Individual grammar and spelling mistakes have little effect on the total score. This gives us more expression space and freedom in writing.

So my experience and advice is: master the task.

One of the typical genre sentences and tasks

Second, the logical structure and hierarchical arrangement, and then freely and boldly express their ideas. A complete article structure, typical sentences with deduction and not too outrageous ideas, such an "eight-part essay" is enough for us to get 5 to 6 points.