How to prepare for IELTS Writing: from time management practices to mock exam

According to statistics, it is in the Writing IELTS block in which subjects make the greatest number of mistakes. Everyone has their own reasons of why it was not possible to score the right number of points on the exam: not enough time, knowledge, practice. And if you are not sure that you are fully ready to write an essay on a given topic in English, in this article you will find a lot of useful tips, techniques and references to tools for self-preparation.

Learn how to allocate time wisely

IELTS Writing consists of two essay writing assignments. In the first, the minimum amount of evaluated work is 150 words, in the second - 250 words. The second essay affects the final grade more than the first, and the examinees are given 60 minutes for everything about everything. This is the necessary minimum that you need to understand at the first stage of preparation for the written block, and from it to build the process of training in a limited time interval.

Remember writing tests in school? The bell rang, you hand over the notebooks or papers, and no indulgences. At IELTS, everything happens exactly the same way in Paper Based and Computer Based formats. Those who do not have time to finish the work, may not even count on high scores. And given that each attempt to pass IELTS is paid and is not cheap, in order to save money, time and nerves, it is more profitable to allocate a few hours a week for the practice of fast writing or typing in English, depending on the format in which you will take the exam, than to go through several retakes.

The first step to a competent allocation of time is to understand that stress reduces concentration and constantly looking at the clock is obviously a bad idea. To do this, there is a good exercise for beginners: set the alarm for 15 minutes and sit down to write an essay on an arbitrary topic in English. When the alarm clock rings, evaluate the result. Set the alarm again and continue. After the second estimate how much you managed to do for each period of time and in general - this is the very start from which you will count the progress in the next stages of preparation. As a rule, the result is not as bad as it seems before the test, and awareness of one's own abilities usually reduces the degree of anxiety.

On Writing IELTS, it is desirable to keep to within 50 minutes for the writing of both essays and leave 10 minutes for the final proofreading and correction of typos. Accordingly, for the first, usually easier task for which you need to write only 150 words, it is advantageous to allocate up to 20 minutes (the less, the better), and upon completion, go to the second. But there is a nuance: for the second task, more points are awarded. Therefore, if having received the task, you still can not cope with thoughts of limited time, then it is more expedient to start with the second essay of 250 words - a difficult task will distract minutes from counting and, other things being equal, will give you a chance to earn a higher grade.

On the automatic system, you can practice keeping to time and test both approaches at once in two ways: with a pen, a paper and a timer, or on a computer in the UltraFluent simulator. The first option is preferable for those who have a lot of free time and the goal is to pass the written exam Paper Based. The second is for everyone else, because the simulator is designed in such a way that the skills of time control for IELTS Writing are developed literally in 15-30 minutes of practice per day.

The logic of the IELTS Writing simulator from UltraFluent is built around the idea that having worked out the routine stages of the written block to automatism, you can free up the maximum amount of time for the creative part of the process and the final proofreading of the work before delivery. In addition, it is much more useful to conduct daily short practical classes, within the framework of which, for example, writing an introduction for several topics or the main block is practiced separately, than once a week to allocate 2-3 hours for a full-fledged "rehearsal" of IELTS Writing.

Work on vocabulary expansion

The range of vocabulary is one of the criteria for assessing written work, because it is partly through this that one can determine the depth of knowledge of English by a non-native speaker. Hence the importance of constantly expanding one’s vocabulary: because unlike the speed of writing an essay of a certain volume, this skill will be useful not only on the exam.

The only effective way to significantly expand vocabulary in a relatively short time is to consume content and communicate in English. The school approach of memorizing vocabulary groups in real life generally does not work by itself, is tiring and takes a lot of time. Other resources include TV series, press, blogs, and YouTube -preferably without subtitles- because without them it is more likely to be useful for listening.

In the personal account of UltraFluent users there is a free keyboard simulator for vocabulary development. We all know how hard it is sometimes to force yourself to spend even 10 minutes a day on an application for learning English words, but this simulator is quite another. Up to a quarter of an hour of practice in it per day accelerates progress in preparation for IELTS Writing at times due to the fact that you simultaneously train three skills: touch typing, typing speed and memorizing words in writing. For a busy person, this is the most valuable tool for preparing for passing a written exam with a high score.

Practice

It is better to move on to serious practice - writing full-fledged essays on examples of topics taken from IELTS Writing tests, gradually and when the habit of spending at least 15-20 minutes a day on preparation is already firmly entrenched in your schedule.

Again, for independent practice without a tutor, there are two ways: to become your own examiner or to master the ultraFluent essay simulator. The option to evaluate yourself is initially a disastrous thing, because when the examiner and the examinee have the same level of knowledge, then there can be no real sobriety in the assessment. In addition, it will take a lot of time to work and to check it with word counting and other nuances. The simulator eliminates all these problems due to the fact that it is a full-fledged copy of the real computer interface IELTS Computer Based: it gives the theme, counts the words, and has a built-in timer.

Regarding the timer, at first, until you learn to cope with the excitement and haven’t practiced the writing process to automatism, it is better to do it without time constraints when working with a test essay. Mentioned in the chapter on time management, for beginners, training on writing individual blocks of essays for a while will be quite enough for at least the first 2-3 weeks of preparation.

Specialists in preparing students for Academic IELTS advise approaching the practice as if you are already on the exam. You do not need to give yourself indulgences, such as access to a dictionary, cheat sheets, or automatic translators. Otherwise, progress will slow down greatly, and the result of self-testing "with indulgences" will be very far from your real level of language proficiency.

Write and pass for test work, and preferably several

Passing the IELTS test is a popular service that involves almost a full rehearsal of the exam with the final control assessment. But, to pass such a test every week is costly both in price and in time, it is much more effective to train only the main thing - Writing. The fact is that it is writing that activates all the centers in the brain at once, and by writing test essays or practicing in a keyboard simulator, you pump both reading and vocabulary at the same time - an important part of the Speaking block.

In UltraFluent you can take trial tests on the Writing IELTS block as often as you like and independently choose who will be your reviewer. Our service employs many teachers, all professional teachers and native speakers, each of whom will be able to give you high-quality feedback on your essays for IELTS. The interface of the site allows you to send the work in the form which you find most convenient: in the form of a typed document or a photo of handwritten text.

And importantly, the verification takes us less time, in comparison with competing services and schools of preparation for IELTS. You don't have to wait a week or two for you to get comments and weaker points. It takes reviewers a maximum of a day to proofread, and the next day you see feedback, and on its basis, you can plan work on specific weaknesses. It is better than studying general academic writing, as IELTS has a high number of specific requirements. After all, now your goal is a high score on IELTS, and you can work on improving your written English in general after receiving a certificate.