IELTS 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.
You probably know that
guessing is a good idea on the IELTS- unlike other
standardized tests, there
is no penalty for getting a wrong answer. Even if you
have no idea about a
question, you still have a 20-25% chance of getting it right.
Most students do not
understand the impact that proper guessing can have on
their score. Unless you
score extremely high, guessing will significantly
contribute to your final score.
Monkeys Take the IELTS
What most students don’t
realize is that to insure that 20-25% chance, you have
to guess randomly. If you
put 20 monkeys in a room to take the IELTS,
assuming they answered
once per question and behaved themselves, on
average they would get
20-25% of the questions correct on a five choice multiple
choice problem. Put 20
students in the room, and the average will be much
lower among guessed
questions. Why?
1. IELTS intentionally
writes deceptive answer choices that “look” right. A
student has no idea about
a question, so picks the “best looking” answer,
which is often wrong. The
monkey has no idea what looks good and what
doesn’t, so will
consistently be lucky about 20-25% of the time.
2. Students will eliminate
answer choices from the guessing pool based on a
hunch or intuition. Simple
but correct answers often get excluded, leaving a
0% chance of being
correct. The monkey has no clue, and often gets lucky
with the best choice.
This is why the process of
elimination endorsed by most test courses is flawed
and detrimental to your
performance- students don’t guess, they make an
ignorant stab in the dark
that is usually worse than random.
Success Strategy #2
Let me introduce one of
the most valuable ideas of this course- the $5 challenge:
You only mark your “best guess” if you are willing
to bet $5 on it.
You only eliminate choices from guessing if you
are willing to bet $5 on it.
Why $5? Five dollars is an
amount of money that is small yet not insignificant,
and can really add up fast
(20 questions could cost you $100). Likewise, each
answer choice on one
question of the IELTS will have a small impact on your
overall score, but it can
really add up to a lot of points in the end.
The process of elimination
IS valuable. The following shows your chance of
guessing it right:
If you eliminate this many
choices on a 3 choice multiple choice problem:
0 1 2 Chance of getting it
correct 33% 50% 100%
However, if you
accidentally eliminate the right answer or go on a hunch for an
incorrect answer, your
chances drop dramatically: to 0%. By guessing among all
the answer choices, you
are GUARANTEED to have a shot at the right answer.
That’s why the $5 test is
so valuable- if you give up the advantage and safety of
a pure guess, it had
better be worth the risk.
What we still haven’t
covered is how to be sure that whatever guess you make is
truly random. Here’s the
easiest way:
Always pick the first answer choice among those
remaining.
Such a technique means
that you have decided, before
you see a single test
question, exactly how you are going to
guess- and since the order of choices
tells you nothing about
which one is correct, this guessing technique is perfectly
random.
Let’s try an example-
A student encounters the following
problem on the Listening Module in a
conversation about the
chemical term “amine,” a derivative of ammonia:
In the reaction, the amine
will be?
A. neutralized
B. protonated
C. deprotonated
The student has a small
idea about this question- he is pretty sure that the amine
will be deprotonated, but
he wouldn’t bet $5 on it. He knows that the amine is
either protonated or
deprotoned, so he is willing to bet $5 on choice A not being
correct. Now he is down to
B and C. At this point, he guesses B, since B is the
first choice remaining.
The student is correct by
choosing B, since the amine will be protonated. He
only eliminated those
choices he was willing to bet money on, AND he did not let
his stale memories (often
things not known definitely will get mixed up in the
exact opposite arrangement
in one’s head) about protonation and deprotonation
influence his guess. He
blindly chose the first remaining choice, and was
rewarded with the fruits
of a random guess.
This section is not meant
to scare you away from making educated guesses or
eliminating choices- you
just need to define when a choice is worth eliminating.
The $5 test, along with a
pre-defined random guessing strategy, is the best way
to make sure you reap all
of the benefits of guessing.
Specific Guessing Techniques
Slang
Scientific sounding
answers are better than slang ones. In the answer choices
below, choice B is much
less scientific and is incorrect, while choice A is a
scientific analytical
choice and is correct.
Example:
A.) To compare the
outcomes of the two different kinds of treatment.
B.) Because some subjects
insisted on getting one or the other of the treatments.
Extreme Statements
Avoid wild answers that
throw out highly controversial ideas that are proclaimed
as established fact.
Choice A is a radical idea and is incorrect. Choice B is a
calm rational statement.
Notice that Choice B does not make a definitive,
uncompromising stance,
using a hedge word “if” to provide wiggle room.
Example:
A.) Bypass surgery should
be discontinued completely.
B.) Medication should be
used instead of surgery for patients who have not had a
heart attack if they
suffer from mild chest pain and mild coronary artery blockage.
Similar Answer Choices
When you have two answer
choices that are direct opposites, one of them is
usually the correct
answer.
Example:
A.) described the author’s
reasoning about the influence of his childhood on his
adult life.
B.) described the author’s
reasoning about the influence of his parents on his
adult life.
These two answer choices
are very similar and fall into the same family of
answer choices. A family
of answer choices is when two or three answer choices
are very similar. Often
two will be opposites and one may show an equality.
Example:
A.) Plan I or Plan II can
be conducted at equal cost
B.) Plan I would be less
expensive than Plan II
C.) Plan II would be less
expensive than Plan I
D.) Neither Plan I nor
Plan II would be effective
Note how the first three
choices are all related. They all ask about a cost
comparison. Beware of
immediately recognizing choices B and C as opposites
and choosing one of those
two. Choice A is in the same family of questions and
should be considered as
well. However, choice D is not in the same family of
questions. It has nothing
to do with cost and can be discounted in most cases.
Hedging
When asked for a
conclusion that may be drawn, look for critical “hedge”
phrases, such as likely,
may, can, will often, sometimes, etc, often, almost,
mostly, usually,
generally, rarely, sometimes. Question writers insert these
hedge phrases to cover
every possibility. Often an answer will be wrong simply
because it leaves no room
for exception. Avoid answer choices that have
definitive words like
“exactly,” and “always”.
Summary of Guessing Techniques
1. Eliminate as many
choices as you can by using the $5 test. Use the common
guessing strategies to
help in the elimination process, but only eliminate
choices that pass the $5
test.
2. Among the remaining
choices, only pick your “best guess” if it passes the $5
test.
3. Otherwise, guess
randomly by picking the first remaining choice.
