Tips for band 8.5

(Pune)

IELTS band 8.5 (Academic) :)

I wrote the test on March 12 and below are the scores:

Overall Band 8.5

Listening 8.5
Reading 9.0
Writing 7.5
Speaking 8.0

You must already have gone through all tips like I did, still I would like to share few points -

Speaking:

Practice-

1. You can start practicing with your friends or in front of mirror.

2. They ask very basic questions based on personal experiences, so you can make a list of things beforehand. Don't go much into details just the points like your favorite teacher, favorite book and anything you can think of. Try to keep the entities as real as possible.

Test Day-

1. Don't get nervous and if you do, you can let them know. They are very friendly so you will surely get to normal state :)

2. Try not to make any virtual story unless you are very good at it. This is because when they ask in detail you won't have to think much. Keep the facts real and answer very calmly. Think of it as a conversation with a friend and not as an interview :)

Listening/Reading/Writing:

Practice as much you can because that is the key.

I printed out the sample answer sheets for each of them and used to practice to get the feel of test day.

For writing part, sample answer sheets really help as you get familiar about word count and its coverage on sheet. It saves a lot of time on test day.

While practicing the reading section, do evaluate your answers and try to find why it went wrong or why it is correct.

Do read the instructions and answer accordingly. I made a very silly mistake of writing True/False in place of Yes/No in mock test. It doesn't get evaluated at all. So be careful about it.

Finally, believe in yourself and give your best shot :)

All the best!