IELTS 8 band is all about planning and great execution of the plan. The following plan can be a good start if you are aiming at Band 8.

Mark out dedicated 2 hours every day.

Since IELTS is an exam that judges your skill, no amount of last moment marathon sessions can help you score Band 8. Consistency is the key to a good score in IELTS.

 Master your reading first (10days)

It is good to start with reading because nowadays a maximum number of students lacks the habit of reading. Reading every day can boost your listening, speaking and writing skills. You will also get an exposure to the genres that IELTS focus on. Reading will naturally enrich your vocabulary and give you enough foods for your thoughts.

Give maximum time to writing (15 days minimum)

Writing is perhaps the most challenging of all the sections in IELTS. It is quite difficult to get more than 7 in IELTS writing. The key to success in writing is developing a cyclic process: writing-getting feedback-and improving. You are judged on your grammatical range, vocabulary, ideation, and clarity; these skills need to be developed and only by proper feedback and adequate practice, can you hone these skills.

Get a Trainer for Speaking practice and essay evaluation

As mentioned earlier, IELTS is all about testing your skills. Practicing alone will not take you anywhere. A personal trainer will provide you with proper feedback in every step so that you can work on your drawbacks. Speaking, like writing needs constant attention because otherwise, you will continue doing the same mistake over and over. It must be remembered that unlike Maths or Science, there is no one correct answer in Speaking and Writing. It is all about how skilfully you perform the tasks. That is why your practice should be constantly monitored by a trainer.

Practice is important but not the end of it; IELTS is a skill exam, not a math exam

Practice does make a man perfect. However, in IELTS practice does not mean repetition. You must evolve in your language skills to get that Band 8. You cannot achieve Band 8 by mindlessly practicing past papers. Your practices must be thoroughly monitored and at each difficulty, you must stop and fix it. Preparing to get Band 8.0 in IELTS is a continuous process until you reach the level, where your language skills are absolutely impeccable.

Conclusion

Getting a Band 8 in IELTS is all about reaching perfection in listening, reading, speaking and writing. A feat, that can only be achieved by dedicating a good amount of time in identifying your linguistic weaknesses and working hard to overcome those. It is important to engage a personal mentor, who can supply you with quality resources and create a support program, according to your needs. You can join TOEFL Training Kurali to get free tips and facts on the English Language.

IELTS Reading test is all about variety. You will find a myriad of questions assessing different skills. Now, you must be thinking about how to prepare for an exam, that is so greatly variegated. Fear not. We are here with everything you need to know about the IELTS Reading test.

IELTS Reading Format

The Reading section consists of 40 questions, designed to test a wide range of reading skills. These include reading for gist, reading for main ideas, reading for detail, skimming, understanding logical argument and recognising writers’ opinions, attitudes and purpose.

You will find extracts from books, magazines, newspapers, notices, advertisements, company handbooks and guidelines. These are materials you are likely to encounter on a daily basis in an English-speaking environment.

There are three sections:

• Section 1 may contain two or three short texts or several shorter texts. This is called ‘social survival’ and contains texts relevant to basic linguistic survival in English with tasks mainly about retrieving and providing general factual information, for example, notices, advertisements and timetables.
• Section 2 comprises two texts and is about ‘Workplace survival’. This focuses on the workplace context, for example, job descriptions, contracts and staff development and training materials.
• In Section 3, there is one long text. This is the ‘general reading’ section that involves reading more extended prose with a more complex structure. Here, the emphasis is on descriptive and instructive rather than argumentative texts, in a general context relevant to the wide range of test takers involved, for example, newspapers, magazines and fictional and non-fictional book extracts.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

When you are learning, it is natural that you will be committing mistakes. But it is necessary that you work on your mistakes so that they are never repeated. By “mistakes” we do not only mean spelling or grammar error, there are also methods and tactics which are wrong and you must remember to avoid them. Let us have a look at the mistakes you must avoid:

1. Reading the entire passage

The IELTS reading test consists of three passages of approximately 500-700 words and 13-14 questions each, all in a span of 60 minutes! Now, if you were to read each of these passages, word for word, you’d spend nearly 30 minutes. So how much time are you left with to answer 40 questions in all? Do the math.

Therefore it is better to skim through the passage. Here’s how to do that: 

• Read the title and the first paragraph. 
• Then, start reading the first sentence of subsequent paragraphs to understand.
• Finally read the last two sentences of the concluding paragraph of the passage. 

This should give you an idea of what is being spoken about, in the entire passage, without you having to actually read it!

2. Starting with the questions

Some students, in order to save time, start answering questions directly. Well, this is as bad as reading the entire passage. Of course you might save time, but, quite possibly your answers could be wrong! Especially answers to questions like the ones shown below.

3. Ignoring the instructions

If the question reads: “Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS”, you would rather do just that. Any more than two words and you defeat the very purpose of the question which is to test your vocabulary and paraphrasing ability.

4. Not being familiar with the question types

If you’re not familiar with the types of questions asked in the reading test of IELTS, you might spend a few valuable minutes of your test duration, just to understand them well. If you wish to save those minutes, you must go through the practice papers available online.

5. Not managing time

Completing your reading test within 60 minutes is fairly difficult. If you do not manage your time well, you make it simply impossible. Answer the questions that require less brainstorming before the complex ones. Eliminate options from multiple choice questions before you actually search for the answer. For example: A question about the sun, has options like “Hot”, “Blue”, “Cold”, and “Yellow”; you know the sun is neither “Blue”, nor “Cold”. The answer could be either “Hot” or “Yellow” based on the information provided.

Challenging Question Types:

IELTS reading section comprises of eleven types of questions. Each of them, assess a particular skill set. While some questions are fairly straight forward, others may seem rather challenging. We think the following types of questions require special attention while you prepare:

• Identifying Writer’s Claims/Views

       These check your ability to identify the ideas and opinions of the writer

• Matching Information.

        Questions like these are used to see how well you can scan a text to find specific information.

• Matching Headings.

These check how skilfully you can recognise the main idea or theme of a particular paragraph.

• Matching Features.

       These assess your ability to determine relationships and connections between facts.

• Sentence Completion.

Here you are assessed for your ability to locate specific information from the passage and the ability to paraphrase.

• Summary, Note, Table, Flowchart Completion

 This type of question checks your ability to identify the main idea of the passage and the type of words that fits into the gap.

• Diagram Label Completion

They check your skill to relate the information in the text to the labels in the diagram

• Short-Answer Questions

This type of questions assesses how well you understand and locate the information given in the passage.

Study Guide for IELTS Reading

It must be evident by now that IELTS is a very detailed and technical system. Therefore in order to achieve a good score you must have a proper study plan. Look at ours to have an idea:

1. Know your weaknesses

It will be impossible for you to progress if you do not know what your weaknesses are, in the first place. Take help from a personal mentor who can give you regular feedback son your progress.

2. Practice reading fast.

Remember it is a 60 minutes test and you have to read the text and answer 40 questions. If you are a slow reader, speed up. 

3. Develop the skills of each type of question.

Eleven types of questions assess eleven types of skills. While you practice make sure you develop all the skills that are necessary to answer those questions.

4. Focus on developing your vocabulary.

In many ways, the reading test is more of a vocabulary test than a reading test. They will use synonyms and paraphrase sentences to test how wide your vocabulary is. To prepare for this you must read, note, and review.

5. Develop a reading routine. 

Reading routine is a technique where you read in moderation, about 2000 words every day. Time them and make a 30 days Reading plan. 

6. Comprehension is as important as speed.

When you read articles as part of daily reading, write or narrate a summary of the article with your study partner. Evaluate whether you are comprehend the information correctly.

7. Read relevant articles for practice, not everything you get your hand at.

You must take relevant articles from TOEFL Institute Kurali. Reading Indian newspapers or a random book won’t help.

The advantage -disadvantage type essay is a very common type in the IELTS writing task 2. It involves a situation that you are asked to comment on, emphasising the advantages and the disadvantages.

We are here with some common topics on this category of essay questions.

Topics for Advantage-Disadvantage Essay

The topics on this area are widely varied. As it is a kind of an analytical essay, it can be understood that social issues are the most common for topics. Here is a rough list:

Advertisement: Advantages and disadvantages of celebrity endorsements, graphic advertisements, foreign products, etc.

Transportation: Advantages and disadvantages of public transports, various aspects of commuting etc.

Tourism: Advantages and disadvantages of development of tourism industry, travel agencies etc.

Education: Advantages and disadvantages of public schools, any particular curriculum, vocational courses etc.

Economy: Advantages and disadvantages of different taxes, government expenditure etc.

Business: Advantages and disadvantages of e commerce, recruitment from within a company etc.

Food/Health: Advantages and disadvantages of growing fast food joints, veganism etc.

Social Media: Advantages and disadvantages of social media, online news etc.

Family/Parenting: Advantages and disadvantages of joint family, nuclear family, religious upbringing etc.

Sample Questions

Let us now see what the advantage-disadvantage essay questions look like:

• Small businesses are disappearing and being replaced by large multinational companies.

Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

• Many products that we buy are made in other countries.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this and give your own opinion.

• Increasing numbers of students are going to university instead of working after high school.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who do this.

• School children are using computers in school more than ever.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this and give your own opinion.

• As countries become more developed, many fast food outlets move into the country giving local people greater access to fast food..

Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

• Many businesses choose to recruit from within their own company rather that sourcing staff from overseas.

Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

• With the advent of social media, more people are getting their news online instead of from print media.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for people who read news online.

Model Answers

1. Nowadays, more people would rather purchase food than cook at home. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this trend? 

Give ideas about which is better way according to you and why?

Due to the busy lifestyle, people are consuming more of the processed food in spite of cooking food for themselves. There could be several merits and demerits of this uprising trend. In my opinion, homemade food is far more beneficial as compared to the readymade food.

To commence with the benefits, packaged products such as pasta, noodles, etcetera are easily available in the market. They are instant food products and just need boiling or reheating which in turn save our time. Also, people get so tired after their hectic routine that they lack the energy to prepare meals. Therefore, they find useful to buy readymade food products. In addition, this type of processed foods is easy to carry everywhere, even while travelling. In fact, due to additives and taste enhancers, individuals, especially children, love their taste and their salivary buds are stimulated by these sort of meals.

Despite these benefits, there are ample drawbacks. Firstly, these products are processed and lack their natural nutrition. What is more, many preservatives are added to increase their shelf life which has several health hazards to consumers. For example, sodium benzoate is one of the popular compound used for preservation of packed foods which occasionally can be life-threatening. Secondly, although they are vacuum packed, they can get contaminated by various microbes and cause an abdominal disturbance sometimes causing other lethal diseases like food poisoning, botulinum and many more. Additionally, these products can also be expensive for the consumers to afford.

To recapitulate, I believe that the use of readymade foods has a plethora of detrimental effects and home-cooked food can provide plenty of nutrients to stay healthy and develop immunity.

1. In some countries young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing high school and starting university studies.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decided to do this.

Before embarking on college many young people are advised that a year working or travelling may be a good option. This essay will suggest that saving money is the biggest advantage of this and a reduced motivation to study is the primary disadvantage.

Third level education is very expensive and lots of students decide to work for 12 months and save up money before they begin their studies. This allows them to pay for their living costs, tuition fees and accommodation and focus on their studies, rather than struggle financially or have to get a part time job on top of their academic work. The Times recently reported that the average student at a UK university requires over $12,000 per annum just to survive and many drop out because they cannot afford to stay.

Despite these advantages, many students often get used to working or travelling and don’t want to return to a life of study after a year off. This short term view can cause some to bypass university altogether and go straight into a job that is beneath their capabilities or may not offer the same prospects their future career might have done. For instance, a recent survey by the British Government found that 26% of students who take a gap-year never enter tertiary education.

In conclusion, taking a break from studies can be advantageous if it allows people to gather up savings, however, they should also be careful that it does not lead to disillusionment with education altogether.

Conclusion

Topics of the advantage disadvantage type essay questions are usually social issues that have both positive and negative sides. You will be clearly asked to point out the both sides of a particular issue. This type of question is very straightforward and requires an organised preparation to achieve a high score. IELTS Coaching Kurali provides you with the Immense IELTS Test series, which is definitely worth Enough.

IELTS writing task 2 consists of a wide variety of essays. While you are preparing, it is important that you familiarise yourself with the different types and understand how to approach them. One of the most popular choices of the IELTS examiners is the advantage-disadvantage essay. 

For this you are given a topic and asked to discuss its advantages and disadvantages. Although it is a fairly straightforward essay, you still need to have a proper understanding of how to structure this kind of essays. Let us look at this in details.

Skills tested in IELTS Writing Task 2

This task is about assessing your ability to follow English discursive writing conventions (i.e. what order to put information in, what style to use, how to start and finish discursive writing, how to paragraph), to organise and link information coherently and cohesively and to use language accurately and appropriately. 

It requires you to formulate and develop a position in relation to a question or statement. Your ideas should be supported by evidence, and examples may be drawn from your own experience. The essay should be at least 250 words in length and the ones under the required minimum word limit will be penalised.

Strategies for Advantage-Disadvantage Essays

The first strategy to write a Band 9 advantage-disadvantage essay is to know what the question asks of you. When you have this type of essay it is important to distinguish between the one that asks for your opinion and one that asks you to discuss advantages and disadvantages but does not ask your opinion.

If you are asked “What are the advantages and disadvantages of…..” you are not being asked your opinion. You simply have to discuss the benefits and drawbacks.

You could do this in two body paragraphs as mentioned above. However, if you have the word “outweigh” or “Will this trend have more positive or negative effects?” then you are being asked for your opinion and you must say whether there mostly positive impact or mostly negative impact.

• The following structure illustrates how you should structure the essay that specifically asked you to write about the advantage and disadvantage of a particular situation. For Example:

People now have the freedom to work and live anywhere in the world due to the development of communication technology and transportation. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this trend?

This advantage disadvantage essay is not asking for your opinion. You could simply write one paragraph on the advantages and another on the disadvantages.

Introduction

Sentence 1- Paraphrase question

Sentence 2- Outline sentence

Main Body Paragraph 1 (Advantages)

Sentence 3- Topic sentence (Advantage 1)

Sentence 4- Explain how this is an advantage

Sentence 5- Example

Main Body Paragraph 2 (Disadvantages)

Sentence 6- Topic sentence (Disadvantage 1)

Sentence 7- Explain how this is a disadvantage

Sentence 8- Example

Conclusion

Sentence 9- Summary of main points

• On the other hand, the following question asks about what your opinion is:

People now have the freedom to work and live anywhere in the world due to the development of communication technology and transportation. Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?

OR

Will this have more positive or negative impacts?

For this kind of questions, the structure will be as follows:

Introduction

Sentence 1- Paraphrase question

Sentence 2- Thesis statement (state which one outweighs the other)

Sentence 3- Outline sentence

Main Body Paragraph 1 (Stronger Side)

Sentence 4- Topic Sentence

Sentence 5- Explain why it is strong

Sentence 6- Example

Sentence 7- Topic Sentence

Sentence 8- Explain why it is strong

Sentence 9- Example

Main Body Paragraph 2 (Weaker Side)

Sentence 10- Topic Sentence

Sentence 11- Explain why it is not strong

Sentence 12- Example

Conclusion

Sentence 13- Summary of main points and restate position.

Additionally, it will also help if you look at several past papers and try to determine the language that are used to ask a particular type of question.

Understanding the question and having a proper structure for your essay, along with a range of contextual vocabulary is all that you need to achieve a high band.

Tips for Advantage-Disadvantage Essays

Here are some practical tips that will help you consolidating your ideas:

• Before you start writing your essay, you should always spend 1-2 minutes on producing ideas for your answer. This way, you’ll know what to write about and your answer will be more coherent and well-structured. 
• In case of advantages & disadvantages essay, you need to think of 2-3 advantages and 2-3 disadvantages of the given issue.
• In case of the essays asking for your opinion, you must decide what you think, before starting to write your essay.
• Always time yourself while you practice.
• Remember you will have to write slightly more than 250 words, so make sure you keep a tab of the word count.
• Familiarise yourself with vocabulary that is particular to a specific topic.

Conclusion

The most important thing about an advantage-disadvantage type essay is, understanding the question; Whether you are asked to write about your own opinion or just point out the established advantages and disadvantages. If you figure this out all that is left for you to do is, arrange your points in a proper structure and use a range of grammatical structures and relevant vocabulary to establish your point. ASIC provides best PTE Training Kurali, if you have any query please contact us.