IELTS 1442: How This IELTS Energy Listener Got an 8.5!
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1442. How this IELTS Energy listener got an 8.5.

Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 22 million times with former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated value of 22 million times.

band score now with our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash my score. Today, we talk about an email from a listener sharing his exam experience and how he got an amazing 8.5. Listen up to learn incredible vocabulary and vital tips for test day.

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Aubrey, I am so excited about this email we got from an IELTS Energy listener. I know it really made my day. So we're excited to share it with you guys, not only to celebrate the student's success, but because it was chock full of amazing high scoring vocabulary that you want to be able to use on IELTS. Yes.

Yes, so we're going to go through his email about his recent IELTS experience. And he does also share some tips about how he reached an 8.5. All right, so we're not going to say the students

name today even though they did leave a rating in review which we thanked them very much for guys as we're going through today's advice we're going to recommend some older aisles energy episodes to get you to the same scores that this student got but also to remind you guys is that this student got an 8.5 just from listening to this podcast of course he also did a lot of preparation on his own for sure but guys

Subscribe, like, whatever you got to do to hear this podcast every week. And please share this show with anyone who is preparing for IELTS. Yes, share it with anyone you know who's taking the test. And also when you rate review, this shows other people that this is a quality podcast that can help them study for IELTS. So every time you do that, you're sharing it with strangers as well, which is a huge help to us. We really appreciate it. Huge.

- Huge. All right guys, let's get into this. So Aubrey, do you wanna start with the first paragraph from this amazing email? - Yes, and as we go through, we'll do a paragraph and then we're gonna highlight this amazing vocab as well. So they said, "Hi there, I wanted to reach out to y'all to express a huge ginormous thank you for the work you do getting invaluable IELTS practice tips out into the world through your podcast." As you guys can see, this student has a very impressive vocabulary.

Oh my gosh, I love it so much. So the word to learn from this paragraph is the adjective ginormous. It is very informal. It is slang. I love this word. I use this word. Guys, you should use this to mean very,

very big. Anywhere you want to say very big, say ginormous, especially in speaking part one and part two. Yes, too often we hear students say very big. That's band five, band six. There are so many higher scoring ways to say that, and ginormous is a great one. Boost those vocab scores with these more interesting adjectives.

Yes, guys, you definitely want to take notes today, not only from this vocab we're going to teach you, but also from the testing tips that he'll share. Okay, so the next paragraph is...

For my big move from Switzerland to Canada, I needed a good IELTS score to get as many express entry immigration points as possible. And guys, we know a lot of you are in the same situation. So continued, I'm a language nerd and don't cope well with bad grades. So I studied hard even though I speak English every day. So a couple things to note from this paragraph.

Even though this person has a high level of English, obviously, they still needed to study hard, right? So I just want to remind you guys that it's not just an English test. You also need test strategies, which is what this podcast is for. All right, so the vocab to learn here, I don't cope well with bad grades. That means I don't handle that well. I don't cope well when people change plans at the last minute.

- Nice. - And this is impressive. I don't know that I've ever heard a student use the verb cope. It's very, a little more rare and therefore high scoring. So anytime on IELTS part one, for example, if you're asked about anything, friends, restaurant, what you do on the weekend, say what you like, and then also share what you don't cope well. If the restaurant closes early, if friends bail on you at the last minute, say, "I don't cope well with that."

And the most common way we use this actually is when we're talking about how we help ourselves be mentally healthy, right? So like coping skills, coping mechanisms. And there are questions in speaking part one about like your mood and your attitude about things, right? So you could say, you know, even questions about working out, like,

As long as I hit the gym at least three times a week, I feel like I'm better at coping with life in general. Yes, right. Exercise helps me cope with my anxiety. It helps me handle, helps me manage it. Nice. All right. Next paragraph, Aubrey.

All right. On my study journey, I stumbled upon your podcast. With only two weeks to prepare for IELTS, I dove right in and listened to 55 episodes on my commutes to work and even at the gym. Language immersion, baby. And let me tell you, it worked.

There's so much good vocab in this paragraph. Okay, there are three phrases guys and then we'll get to his amazing scores. All right. Aubrey, what is the first phrase to share? First is stumbled upon, which means to come across something accidentally. So maybe just searching for podcasts and you happen to find ours. What luck.

I know. So let's see. StumbleUpon is great for any answers on IELTS about, you know, travel, exploring, walking around your city, describing places, right? The last, I think we taught StumbledUpon actually in a recent episode. And like came across because it is so useful on IELTS to talk about things that happen accidentally. Exactly. All right. So you can listen to that episode.

episode for more examples. All right. So the next phrase, dove right in, means like, I was interested immediately and I spent a lot of time on this. To dive into something is to go deep into something, right? To spend your time and attention on something.

Exactly. Such a great way to say it instead of just, I got started. This is a little more intense, right? Not only did I get started, but I really spent time and I worked hard and I dove right in. And then I love this phrase, language immersion, baby. I think you could use this on IELTS too, right? Anytime you're sharing something you're excited about, very informal, best for part one, but this would be fun to be like,

You know, maybe you're talking about wine restaurants and you talk about wine that you love and you're like Cabernet Sauvignon, baby. It's like you're saying what you like the most. So fun. No, for sure. You could put this into any speaking part one answer and the examiner would

Love it. You will get a grin, if not a chuckle out of the examiner, guys. I mean, even, you know, describing your workplace or describing, you know, your hometown. There's just you could use this anywhere. Like maybe you want to say, well, you know, honestly, where I live now, the city is beautiful.

and it's tiny and I really want to expand my horizons and move to Canada baby nice yes we're moving to Canada baby that's really good well I'm excited now to dive into these scores the next thing you said was I am so so so proud to report that I scored an overall band 8.5 so first of all I'm excited to publicly congratulate the student that is amazing those scores are fantastic

And thank you so much for letting us know, right? I know everyone on the team like emailed you and thanked you personally. We want to give you a shout out here too. I know. So great to hear. So happy for you.

All right.

So let's get into each of these scores, guys. Here, you could take some notes because we're going to recommend some episodes that we think helped this person. So this person got a nine on listening. I think, you know, first of all, listening to 55 podcast episodes from us definitely helped. But what is episode...

what is one of the episodes that is specific about skills? Yeah, this was very recent. Episode 1406 was how to predict for a seven or higher on IELTS reading and listening. This is huge. You need strategies. You need to be making predictions, paying attention to the questions before you ever hear the audio so that you don't get lost once you start listening. Yeah, 100%. And then next, this person got an eight on reading. That's incredible.

But he also noted, I'm so annoyed. I was least confident with this format while studying and on test day, but still. So yeah, the reading test is hard, right? Obviously. And you do need strategies because you cannot read every word. So it is kind of annoying. Like, I don't disagree. So get prepared, guys. There's a great episode you should listen to. Scroll up and find IELTS Energy 1412.

Nervous about IELTS reading? Worry no more. In that episode, we do a great job, if I do say so, of summarizing the most important reading skills and strategies you need for the exam. Yes, awesome. This is an amazing score, an eight, but all of you out there, I know if you're taking practice tests,

And you're getting every question right. And then on test day, you miss quite a few. This can still be really frustrating, right? You're wanting that score to pull you up. But if you use strategies, you won't fall as much for the tricks and traps that the test writers put in this exam. So yes, excited for you guys to boost those scores. And then writing.

Got an 8.5 on writing. This is amazing. We have a lot of students who get amazing reading listing scores, but it's tough for anyone to get seven or higher on writing. It's very difficult. So an 8.5 is extremely impressive.

It's so incredible. So some tips here, how this student got an 8.5. He said, I planned both parts on paper. So as we said, right, you need to plan, you need to brainstorm your writing guys. If you didn't believe us before, believe us now, because I got this student at 8.5. So

he spent a lot of time with the planning, which we do recommend, right? And then he wrote quickly. So he only took 10 minutes to write task one and 15 minutes for task two. And then he had a lot of time to go back and fine tune, right? That means proofread, make better. So these strategies work. And he did point out

That strategy works, like leaving time to proofread and improve your essays. Absolutely. I think the real key takeaway here is you cannot skip the brainstorming and the proofreading, right? And then carefully write with very neat handwriting. That's a huge mistake. The brainstorming and the proofreading are the most important things that you'll do when writing your essays.

100%. All right. Now, speaking nine. So awesome. So Aubrey, this student had some difficulties, right? With the tech on the speaking exam. So guys, we

We know a lot of you out there are using this new option that IELTS has. You can, in some countries at least, do the speaking test on Zoom. So what happened to this student? Yeah, so he said, this surprised me. The speaking was quite difficult, especially because my examiner's Zoom call was interrupted once.

and staggered and lagged multiple times. That did throw me off, but I still did my very best. And the examiner even giggled a few times, which I know you guys said they shouldn't, but it's a great sign. This is really interesting because yes, the examiners are not supposed to react, but I do sometimes too, right? If you are funny and clever and using amazing vocabulary, it's going to be very difficult for the examiner to keep that in and not react.

And here's something that comes up in a lot of success stories is that, guys, if you're having fun, if you're enjoying the speaking test, if you're saying some funny stuff, right, the examiner is also enjoying that experience. And it's not that we say examiners shouldn't do that, right? We say they're not supposed to, you know, like I don't.

says they're not supposed to giggle. But guys, if you can make the examiner crack a smile, let alone giggle, that is gold. That's great for your score. Yes, that's a great sign. It almost means they've like forgotten for just a second that they're an examiner and they're like actually really getting into your answer. You're drawing them in. It's very interesting. So you're definitely doing something right if that happens.

Totally. So guys, two more episodes to recommend to write this down for writing IELTS Energy 1414, perfectly prove your opinion for task two. That's a very important episode because we talk about how to support your opinions. And that is something that holds a lot of students back. So definitely listen there. And then for speaking,

As you've heard us say before, pronunciation is one of the easiest parts of your score to improve quickly. So go back and listen to IELTS Energy 1415. Connect to Band 9 Pronunciation for IELTS. Amazing. I'm excited for you to check out all of these episodes if you missed any of them. Definitely hit follow if you're missing episodes because there's a lot of great content. Just the IELTS Energy podcast helped this student score an 8.5.

Amazing. He finished up by saying, anyway, thank you again for your positive, uplifting, fun and helpful podcast. Please keep doing what you're doing. It truly makes a difference. Thank you again for writing into us. It really did make our day. I'm grateful that we're able to help all of you out there and that you are learning the strategies you need to get your scores.

100%. So guys, we love bringing you these podcasts and we would love for you to rate and review this show wherever you listen. Like Aubrey said at the beginning, it does help us so ginormously. It helps other people

find us and then we can help more students. So guys, please rate and review this show wherever you listen. And if you know anyone preparing for IELTS, go ahead and share this episode with them. Yes. Awesome. We're excited for you guys to share it with your friends. Thanks for listening. And thanks again to this listener for writing it. Yes. I love it. All right. All right, guys. Have a wonderful weekend and we'll see you next week. Awesome. See you next week. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.

Hi, I'm Melanie, a tech lead at Capital One where we use serverless at scale. Recently, my team used serverless to build an API that lets you generate a pass you can add to your digital wallet for a faster check-in at Capital One airport lounges. And we made it reusable so other Capital One dev teams can also implement digital pass services.

Our serverless first approach allows engineers like me to focus on the fun part, building impactful solutions for our business and our customers. That's technology at Capital One. Learn more at CapitalOne.com slash tech slash serverless.