In my years of teaching OET, I have marked many referral letters and I have found two key features that distinguishes the truly excellent writers from the not so excellent writers. The two features are 1. CLARITY and 2. ORDER.

When students write legibly, use correct spelling, punctuation, syntax, letter format, paragraphing, grammar and expression of their ideas there is CLARITY. I can not emphasis enough, though these aspects may seem minor and therefore unimportant, they are not. This is what differentiates between a winning writer and a non-A grade. Furthermore, for a marker with hundreds of papers to grade, anything to make it easier for the examiner to read is CONSIDERATE. This in turn will ultimately win the favour of your examiner over the hundreds of candidates who do not take these things into consideration.

Secondly, when students are able to organise the list of patient file information into clear paragraphs, that contain only the most relevant and grouped information, it is ORDERED. Think of it like cleaning. When you clean, you sort the socks into one pile, the shirts in another etc. In the same way, even though there maybe a whole list of medical history or presenting complaints, consider,

– if it is a lengthy chronic disease history, to place the most significant turn of events into each paragraph chronologically,

– if it is multiple disease states, to group their progression, treatment and outcomes in each paragraph per disease.

There are many other ways of ordering the body of the letter, which we teach you at OET because each patient file is so different. All in all, the most sophisticated writings are the ones where there is a logical order in which the patient’s case is depicted.

My last tip for today is that as with anything in life, begin every act with love for the other person in mind. In the case of OET, mindfulness of the circumstances and desires of the examiner. They want to read through a letter quickly and smoothly without having to stop here and there because they can not understand something. So make sure, if you have time at the end, to proof read and check that all the above mentioned is done. Clear understanding, isn’t that the core of communication?

 

1)       In OET test reading section, skim and indentify key words are essential skill students should master. There is no need to read and understand every single word in the reading texts. By applying these methods, you can quickly find the answers for the questions without wasting time read through the whole passage.

2)       In the actual OET test, before each section of the listening test, there will be a 1 minute for you to skim to all the questions and answer in your test booklet. As for a smart exam taker, you should make the most of this precious time. Students usually easily fall behind when they try to look at the questions, answer tables and listen to the conversation CD at the same time. The CD is only played one time, so there is no chance for you to listen again in any circumstance. Different kind of tests underline different strategies and trick, students who can understand the test well definitely can earn higher mark.

3)       As a saying goes “Practise make perfect”, the more English you speak, the better you will become. Learning how to speak is a long journey as it is not your native language. You may find difficulty in pronouncing certain words and fully express your thought in a professional-specific conversation. Keep in mind that English is classified as a stressed language rather than syllabic. English pronunciation spotlight the specific stressed words while rapidly gliding over non-stressed words in the sentence. You will certainly be surprised at how smooth your speaking skill is by focusing on stressed words and lastly be confident as you always should be!!!

Do you find the Part A OET reading task too hard? You probably don’t have a good system for approaching the test.

This task can seem impossible. You have 15 minutes to read four texts and then answer more than 20 questions. And you have to get the grammar correct too!

I once had a student who had below than average spoken English, and she had a lot of trouble with the writing task too. However, unlike the rest of the class, she found Part A to be naturally easy. Even though English was her second language, she could finish any Part A task I threw at her with minutes to spare. Why was she so good at it?

This was because she had a systematic approach to handling the test – and to do well in the test, you will need to internalize this approach so that it becomes automatic. How do you do this?

Step 1:

Do not read the entire texts! You need to rapidlyscan and skim for certain details that will help you characterize each of the four texts so that you know where to find you answer.

These details include things like:

• Headings
• Author
• Year
• Location

Now you need to quickly give a unique personality to each of the texts so that you can remember which one is which. For example: “Text 1: Spanish study from 1999; Text 2: Statistics from 2005; Text 3: Study by O’Neill et al.; Text 4: Australian Guidelines for approaching asthma”.

Step 2:

Now keywords in the gap-fill will tell you immediately which text you need to find your answer from. The first sentence might read: “Asthma is a common condition. In Spain, ­­_____________ of people suffer from asthma.”Which text are you going to get your answer from?

For more tips on how to develop your systematic approach, feel free to contact any of the teachers at SLS – and don’t forget, practice makes perfect!

Jaime

The reading section of the OET exam is for some the trickiest part of the whole exam. Part A in particular can be quite intimidating because of its very short time limit. To get through this part, the key strategy is to always be very conscious of time. The very first thing to do is of course to skim through the texts and read the titles in order to get an idea of which text is talking about what. The headlines often contain information on whom/what the text is about, where the information is from and how it might be relevant to the general topic. Also, it is a good way to see what type of information each text might contain. Sometimes, the texts are about a person’s personal experience with a disease or issue. Other times, it could be just a table containing statistics or other types of data. It could also be a health professional’s professional opinion, the description of an illness or disease, or even how to treat or manage a particular condition.

Once you have identified the subject of each text, you are ready to start answering some of the questions. Each time that a blank space comes up in the summary and answer sheet, you already know where the information that you are looking for is most likely going to be. You can then go straight to that text and skim through it quickly to get the information that you are looking for. Be careful when looking at data however! There can be some traps laid out for you. Really pay attention to the way that the questions are worded. “Adult men under 70” might be labelled as “males 18-69” in a text. You must make sure to understand what is being asked of you as well as what the text is actually telling you.

As always, you have been keeping a steady eye on your watch during this whole time. You notice that you have about one minute left and unfortunately, you know that there are still too many blanks on your paper for you to realistically hope to finish everything in time. Do not despair! It is now time to realize that the last points that you are going to scrape up are not going to come from finding the answers directly from the text. Read through the final questions and try to answer them either using your memory of the texts that you have just read or just common knowledge. Sometimes, all that the sentence is missing is just a preposition or an adjective which is an easy way to score an extra point or two. Fill in everything that you can and place your pencil down when they call the time, and be happy that you have accomplished all that you could.

5 minutes may seem like a short time, but if you encounter a topic or situation that is unfamiliar, the 5 minutes can feel like an eternity.
OET speaking session is a dialogue between you (the health professional) and the interviewer (the patient). However, the majority of time is devoted to you to show off your speaking skills. The interviewer will be advised to speak minimally unless prompted by you with questions.

TIP 1

After the interviewer introduces the scenario, ask questions to clarify or establish the situation/concern more fully. e.g. So how long have you had this pain for? What is exactly is it about the drug that you are concerned about?

TIP 2

If you need more time to think about your response but you don’t want a big gap of silence, mirror or reflect the concerns or questions the interviewer raises. This is not only good for you to buy time but also a great way of expressing empathy and demonstrating that you comprehend fully what they are saying. e.g. So from what I can understand Mr/s …., you are worried about your son’s lack of concentration at school. I can see that it must have been so serious that you considered the possibility of an underlying medical complication. I am sure that coming up with a diagnosis would clear a lot of things up for you. 

TIP 3

Don’t ever assume that the patient knows everything about the medical concern that they are coming to you with. That is why they are consulting with you. Describe and define every basic aspect of Ambien pro their health condition. e.g. Hypotension -> define it/ ask the patient if they fully understand what it is. Particularly if they have concerns with compliance, going into a bit more detail scientifically may be more persuasive for the patient.

TIP 4

If you need to explain to the patient about a certain procedure or therapy, ~remember!~ although the interviewer can see you, the examiner can’t as the role-play is voice recorded. Therefore, make a concerted effort to describe every little detail in words, however obvious it may sound. It is not the knowledge that they are grading you on but your speaking fluency. e.g. using a walking frame: be descriptive right down to which hand/foot goes where and when.

TIP 5

If you have no idea about the disease condition/treatment, hypothesise. e.g. That sounds like a respiratory condition which the doctor will be able to clarify to you about. However, from my understanding of respiratory conditions in general, it is important that you are supplied with sufficient oxygen and make sure that your airways are cleared of mucus or any foreign particles etc.

TIP 6

Remember to speak slowly ad clearly. This will not only stretch out the time and minimise the amount of mistakes that you may say but also dilute out any thick accents.