IELTS Focus Week 7 Academic

 

This programme comprises the following weekly components:

4 (3 plus word of the day) set exercises each day (Mon to Fri) on Gapfillers (these are in the Gapfillers latest panel and dated – in the middle of the home page) This should take you around 30 minutes to 1 hour to complete, depending on the type of exercise.

Two supplementary reading and listening exercises from Gapfillers plus 2 each of IELTS reading and listening exercises which I’ll send to you.
Both a task one and task two writing exercise. I will send you the questions for task 1 and task 2 which you can complete and return via email.

Finally, a weekly Skype lesson for checking the week’s work and practising the speaking part of the test

 

Doing the exercises

– Make sure you make a note of your scores (this is part of monitoring your progress)
– Try the exercises more than once if you need to
– Make a note of anything that you don’t understand or is confusing

 

Schedule – week 7

This week we will try to improve scores in reading and listening – don’t be too ambitious getting one extra point consistently is good. Know roughly how many points you need to get the band you want and then move slowly towards that score. Identify from your scores where you make the most mistakes and work on these exercises particularly to gain an extra point or two. Try this week to gain 1 point in listening and reading. This is now our target for the next week.

 

Day 1

– Complete the daily exercises on Gapfillers – grammar, writing and news bulletin.
– Complete this extra reading exercise on Gapfillers
– Complete the IELTS listening exercise take special care over the question types that you find challenging try to get that extra point! You can repeat it if you like (make a note of how many times you need to listen to find all the answers
– Prepare a plan for Task one

 

Day 2

– Complete the daily exercises on Gapfillers – grammar, reading and news bulletin.
– Complete the extra listening exercise on Gapfillers
– Complete the IELTS reading exercise Focus on the types of exercise that you find challenging and try to get that extra point.
– Write Task one and send it to me (send me your plan too)

 

Day 3

– Complete the daily exercises on Gapfillers – grammar, listening and news bulletin.
– Complete an extra reading exercise on Gapfillers
– Complete the IELTS listening exercise – just try and find the right answers (make a note of how long it takes and your score) – you can repeat it if you like (make a note of how many times you need to listen to find all the answers
– Prepare a plan for Task two

 

Day 4

– Complete the daily exercises on Gapfillers – grammar, reading and news bulletin.
– Complete a writing exercise on Gapfillers
– Complete the IELTS reading exercise- try to get all the answers correct – don’t worry about the speed but make a note of how long it takes if it’s over the time so you know how much you will need to speed up.
– Write Task two and send it to me (send me your plan too)

Day 5

– Complete the daily exercises on Gapfillers – grammar, listening and news bulletin.
– Complete an extra listening exercise on Gapfillers
– Here are two grammar exercises that might be helpful
– Conjunctions
– Comparatives for describing trends

 

Check:

– Did you complete all the daily exercises (3 per day plus word of the day)
– Did you make a note of all your scores and timings?
– Did you make a note of any problems or things you didn’t understand?
– Did you send me your writing exercises via email and did you plan these first?

 

Now we on the home straight and you should have seen some progress and also know which areas are still problematic.

 

– Keep building your vocabulary for IELTS topics – BUT – don’t just write the words down or you won’t remember them you have to practice using them – have an imaginary speaking test – imagine questions that the examiner might ask you and then give your answers

– Read your writing out loud to check – usually when you stumble it indicates a problem

– Remember that you should improve incrementally – a point or two each week and when you have reached those scores add another point for the next week.

– Don’t forget to try and meet your targets – we will have spoken about these (the score you are aiming for in reading and listening) this will be achieved by focusing on the question types where you make the most errors.

– It won’t be plain sailing – you’ll experience ups and downs – don’t worry take a break and come back the next day or the day after & things may have settled down. If not email me.