Improve your listening skills in 5 minutes
Many candidates have difficulty finding the time to sit down and spend several hours studying for the OET exam. Fortunately, employing a consistent approach that involves shorter periods of study on a regular basis can be just as useful.
For the listening part of the test, one such approach involves taking advantage of the ABC’s 1-minute podcasts. Follow the steps below, at least twice a week, and you should find that you can improve your listening and note-taking skills significantly.
- Listen to the audio of a 1-minute podcast on a health topic from http://www.abc.net.au/health/minutes/ while reading the transcript.
- Replay the video, this time writing down the main points in note form (as you would in the exam).
- Use the transcript to check the accuracy of your notes.
- If you wrote down anything incorrectly, revise the vocabulary used to communicate that point in the video (look up the definition of each word, and write down the words and their definitions in your personal vocabulary list).
- Repeat!
This short exercise will allow you to improve your performance in the listening test by:
- Practicing accurate note-taking,
- Practicing listening for key words and main points,
- Learning new vocabulary as you study, and
- Building up your experience in listening to spoken English on a variety of cialico.com health topics.
Good luck!
Anna Brzeska, OET Teacher
IELTS: Unlocking the Five Secrets in IELTS Writing Criteria
So how much do you understand the IELTS Writing criteria? Get to know them and make sure you satisfy them to get your desired score.
1. Task response / achievement.
Good brainstorming for ideas is a must here. Make sure you write at least 10% more than the minimum word limit. You need 2-3 main points thoroughly developed into respective 2-3 full body paragraphs with concrete examples. Plus, be consistent too and do not stray off topic!
2. Coherence and Cohesion.
Your essays need to be properly paragraph (with purpose in mind) and sentences and paragraphs are connected using a combination of eight types of connecting and cohesive devices appropriately punctuated to promote seamless flow and avoid word repetition.
3. Vocabulary.
You have to use precise and flexible correctly spelled words and expressions naturally used in English, including collocations, appropriate phrasal verbs and word forms.
4. Grammatical accuracy and range.
Use compound and complex sentences correctly and make sure count nouns are in plural forms, among other things. To score a 7 here, most of your sentences must be correct, and to score an 8, errors must be rare and hard to spot.
5. Your writing score.
Your final writing score will almost always be good if you can improve on brainstorming and minimise and fix grammatical mistakes while using good natural vocabulary.
We’’ll train you to work on all these criteria. See you at next month’s blog on IELTS Writing!
30 May 2017
Telaga
PTE: Five Tips to decode the Reading locks!
While PTE Reading passages are shorter and seem ‘easier’ than in IELTS, you need to know what each test type tests you and adapt your strategies accordingly. Here’s how:
- Fill in the Blanks (Reading)
This item tests you grammar, collocation and word forms. Reading ahead before filling out is highly recommended.
2. Fill in the Blanks (Reading with 4 options)
This item tests you grammar, collocation and linking words. Again reading ahead and knowing how much time you should spend will ensure you’ll still have time for tougher item types.
3. MCQ Single Answer
This type tests seven (7) skills in reading: Gist, purpose, details, organisation, inference, critical reasoning and tone. Recognising what skill each question asks you will give you a clue how and where to look.
4. MCQ Multiple Answer
This type tests you to match the options with the facts in the passage. Knowing which paragraph the facts lie (and what to do if there’s only one single paragraph) and how many options to pick will certainly maximise your reading score.
5. Reorder Paragraphs
This type tests your skill in singling out the topic sentence, pair up the remaining sentences and in deciding which pair follows the theme. This is the strategy to save you valuable time and still award you the marks you badly need.
Use these keys and you’ll go through the gate, and keep good time too, before the time is up!
30 May 2017
Telaga
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