Students who plan to study abroad and get admitted to their favourite college must go through the IELTS (The International English Language Testing System), the English Assessment Test in the world that is widely recognized by more than 8,000 institutionsand organizations. The candidates must be well prepared for the tests in order to obtain a desirable admission requirements. In the recently completed “16th Hong Kong International Education Exhibition”, Monita, the Examination Services Manager of British Council (official examination centre of IELTS in Hong Kong) explained that the test format of and preparation tips of IELTS, she reminded students of some highlights they should pay attention in order to go over this test.

IELTS in Hong Kong has a number of official exam centers, the British Council organizes three examinations each month.  The “academic version” of IELTS for those planning to study overseas for a bachelor, master and postgraduate degree or professional qualifications has 4 parts: Listening, Academic Reading, Academic Writing and Speaking.  To prepare for the tests, Monita suggested students browse the site at http://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/choose-ielts/who-accepts-ielts  to find out the IELTS scores for overseas institutes and curriculum admission requirements.

Taking the IELTS exam, Monita considered that the candidates should get themselves familiar with the IELTS Test format, and most importantly, focusing on the practice of reading, writing, speaking and listening techniques.  According to the statistics of 2012 IELTS results, the weakest parts of Hong Kong candidates are academic writing and speaking.  The main reason of candidates losing points in academic writing was because they didn’t read clearly the questions, said Monita.  For instance, some questions simply require quoting the data information and the candidates do not need to give their personal opinion.  As there is not much time in answering the question, if the candidates fail to read the questions clearly before answering, they will not able to complete the test on time.

In addition, Monita pointed out that the speaking session aimed to test the communication capability of the candidates in  English.  In the one-to-one conversation with the examiner, the most important thing is communication.  There is no need to use profound words but using word properly is sufficient. She reminded the candidates, “Relax and speak more, express your views based on your knowledge and experiences. There’s no need to worry about deviate from the subject as the examiner will guide you back to the main topic.”

　Monita suggested if candidates want to improve the IELTS score, besides taking the courses about examination skills, doing more IELTS official exercises and mock tests, they can do the exercises from the free resources provided by British Council, for example, “Road to IELTS”, a free online preparation course (http://www.britishcouncil.hk/road-to-ielts) which  provides 10 hours free e-books and exercises for upgrading the candidates overall Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing techniques. Candidatesmay refer the scores of other users in the world in order to assess their level and ability in different area.  There are even test focusprovided by tutors to help candidates to master the requirements and prohibitions.

　        Apart from this, Monita also recommended the mobile app “IELTS Word Power “, as a handy preparation tool.  Candidates can browse at https://play.google.com/store (only applicable to Android model) to search for “IELTS Word Power “and download.  It provides more than 100 exercises to helpthe candidates to expand their vocabulary, and it is very useful to prepare for IELTS.