From 6.5 to a Perfect 9.0 Using One Simple Strategy

Ever wondered how someone with band 9 vocabulary and grammar can get band 5 in IELTS writing, a band 6.5 in IELTS reading? This exact thing [music] happened to our student, Harshdeep. She was taking the test for the third time. When she started working with us, she only had 3 weeks before her test. We not only helped her improve, but boosted her score from band 5 [music] to 7.5 in writing and 6.5 to a perfect 9 in reading, all in just [music] 3 weeks. So, today what we're going to do is share the simple techniques we taught her so you can boost your score, too, especially if [music] you're running out of time before the test. So, normally when somebody contacts us just 3 weeks before their test, we refuse to work with them. We don't want to take their money if we don't think that we can help them. But, after speaking to Harshdeep, it was clear that English wasn't her problem at all. And it's normally much easier to help someone who doesn't have an English problem. It's much easier to help them if they have IELTS problems, which Harshdeep did. >> Even if [music] my English grammar, vocabulary was excellent, I would still, even from the test that I submitted to you guys, >> [music] >> I even received a five. Even though my vocabulary's fine, grammar, I understand everything. How did I even get five? That's ridiculous. >> And she also explained that she was going to have to leave Canada in 3 weeks if she didn't get this score. So, we decided to help her. So, like all students, when we start working with a new student, we try to figure out what they did before. Because if we can figure out that, we can normally understand what the real problem is and then fix it. I want to first talk about her first attempt. And I'm going to explain it by giving you an example. So, I want you to imagine you go to a restaurant. It's your favorite restaurant. I want you to imagine the exact dish that you want to order at your favorite restaurant. You go in there and you order it. And the waiter brings you just random food. And you complain and the waiter says, "You said you were hungry. You said you wanted food. This is food, right?" How angry would you be? You would be absolutely furious. But, this is something that IELTS students do all the time to examiners, including Harshdeep. Can you figure out what it is? So, let's look at an example here. So, some people believe that professionals, such as doctors and engineers, should be required to work in the country where they did their training. Others believe they should be free to work in another country if they wish. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. So, what Harshdeep was doing was she was going in and reading a question like this, and she would just write everything that she knew about the general topic. >> I was [music] just writing about general things that I didn't need to write just to complete the word limit. >> She would talk about professionals training in their own country. She would talk about moving to other countries. She would talk about visas. She would talk about immigration. All of these things have to do with the general topic, but none of them actually do what the examiners are asking you to do, which is to specifically answer [music] the question. And the reason for this was very clear after we were talking to her. She was way overconfident. >> It's going to be easy. Nothing. It's just English. I live in an English-speaking country. I engage with English all the time, but it's not. >> She was just saying like, "My English is great. It's an English test. All I have to do is just go in and write lots of English, and I will get a high score." And that's why the first time she failed. It's because it's like going to a restaurant and ordering a specific meal, and the waiter just saying, "Here's a bowl of rice." Why is the waiter a bad person? No, it's just that they completely misunderstand their job, their role. The role of the waiter is to give you what you order from the menu, not to make you less hungry. A lot of students believe that it's just an English test. I'll just go in and show how great my English is, and throw in lots of high-level vocabulary and complex sentences and things like that and the examiner is going to be wowed by how great my English is. Well, that's not what they're actually testing. They're testing can you clearly communicate in English and how they test that is by giving you these types of questions and seeing if you can respond appropriately. So, now we knew why she failed the first test, we had to figure out why she failed the second test. So, before we look at what she did for the second attempt, I want you to think of this example. I want you to picture one of the best Formula 1 drivers in the world. But, imagine you take them out and you give them some beers and then you get in the car with them with screaming kids. And then you give them a map where all the directions are wrong and then they crash the car. Did they crash the car because they don't know how to drive? No, they're one of the best drivers in the world. You made it difficult for them by giving them all of these distractions and not allowing them to show how great a driver they really are. So, can you guess what strategy she used for the second attempt? Well, what she decided to do was to use YouTube and binge watch as many channels and as many videos as she could. >> I would put a 6-hour long [music] video and I would just practice the things that I already know and I just didn't know what I was doing wrong. >> So, to show you the problem with YouTube, I want you to imagine this is her and she's currently, let's say this is a band six and she needs to get to, say this line represents a band seven. So, she starts watching one video and they tell her to use fancy vocabulary and then another video tells her to use simple vocabulary and then another video says you need to use templates and then another video says you shouldn't use templates, you should use structures and you are making this amount of progress over and over again and really getting nowhere. And to make it even worse, she started to think, am I doing the right thing? >> I was just stressed all the time cuz I wasn't sure. >> So when she went in and sat that second test, she was overwhelmed, full of doubt, very nervous, very very stressed, and even with band nine level vocabulary and grammar, she failed that test. So when we started working with her, we stopped her doing all of these things, and instead just got her to focus on one thing, which got her to her destination. So instead of going in 10 different directions, we got her to go in one focused direction, and she was able to get that score. But practically, how did she do that, and how can you learn from that? I want you to imagine this is her. Here is, let's say a band six, and we want her to get to the next band, which is a band seven. So she has to go from here to here. Unfortunately, to get from one side to the other, there are landmines. So if she steps on them, she's going to blow up, and she's going to have to go back and start all over again. So what we need to do is show her how to avoid these landmines, and then she can get to the other side. So with this type of student who doesn't really need any extra grammar or vocabulary, it's not about teaching her new things, it is about teaching her to stop doing things that lower her score. So let's look at each of these things >> [music] >> that we got her to stop doing, and then you'll be able to understand, too. So the first thing we call it the sniper versus shotgun. So why in the Olympics do they have sniper competitions, but they don't have shotgun competitions? If you think of the difference between a shotgun and a sniper, a shotgun is a spray and pray [music] that you hit something. This was the exact approach she was using before, where she was just writing everything that she knew about the topic, and hoping that she hit something, and hoping that she impressed the examiner. So we got her to put down the shotgun and pick up a sniper. Think about what a sniper does. It's just one shot and they hit the target. So we taught her the techniques that we teach our VIP students, which is to first [music] understand the question, then identify the specific things they want you to do, and then give the examiners exactly what they want. And then [music] structure that in a way that shows the examiner that you've done all of those things. That makes it easy for you on test day and easy for the examiner to understand what you've done. The second one was our most common advice, which is keep it simple. So if we think about the marking criteria, let's just simplify it. We have did you answer the question? That's 25%. Did you structure and organize your writing? That's another 25%. And then we have grammar by 25%. And then we have vocab, to always use grammar and vocabulary that was above her level, even though she was at a band nine. And this is the same for everybody. If you're a band seven and you're told use fancy vocabulary, you'll try and use vocabulary above your level. So you're always stretching and always trying to use vocabulary and grammar you don't really know how to use. And that leads to lots of mistakes, which lowers your grammar and vocabulary score. But it not only lowers your grammar and vocabulary score, coherence and cohesion is just a fancy way of saying how you structure and how you organize it. Coherence means is it easy to understand? If you look at as many essays as we do with the number of grammar and vocabulary errors that we see every single day, does that make an essay easier to read or more difficult to read? Far more difficult if someone is making lots of grammar and vocabulary mistakes. And it can even lower your task response and task achievement score because it makes it really be for the examiner to understand if you have answered the question if you have so many grammatical and vocabulary errors in there. So, in order to improve, we didn't teach her extra grammar. We didn't teach her vocabulary. We just said, "Keep it simple." And what does this actually mean? It means use the words you know how to use. The words and phrases and structures and grammatical structures that you are comfortable using, use those. And if you disagree with that, what you are saying is use the words and phrases and structures you are uncomfortable using, which will lead to errors, which will lead to fewer marks. So, as soon as we told her that, her grammar and vocabulary score improved, but also everything else improved. So, we sorted out alarm my number one, alarm my number two. But remember, IELTS tests [music] listening, reading, writing, and speaking. If one of them is too low, you have to repeat the test. And for this student, she would have to leave Canada. And remember, [music] reading was a challenge for her. >> With reading, I was not looking for the answer. [music] I was looking for tips and tricks all the time when I was doing it. >> So, let me explain what she was doing in the reading test. So, she was opening up a reading test just like this. And instead of looking at the questions and reading the text, she had watched so many YouTube videos and learned so many tricks and strategies and techniques that she would immediately start using all of these tricks and techniques. And she would start to run out of time. And she would look at the clock and and start to panic, [music] which made it even worse. So, she was like, "I need to use the time management tricks that they taught me on YouTube." And then she would start to run out of even more time and get more stressed. I'm sure many of you have experienced this on test day or when you're practicing [music] these tests. So, remember this student's level of English is extremely high. She didn't need tricks. All she needed to do was treat the reading test [music] for what it was. It was testing her reading skills. It was testing her knowledge of vocabulary. It was testing her ability to use different reading skills. So, all we did was just show her what those things were, and she just read and find the correct answer. Now, that sounds extremely simple, [music] because it is. It is a reading test. It is testing your reading. So, all we needed to do was to get her out of her own way. And when she started to deploy that, she find that she had way more time than she ever thought possible on the reading test [music] on the whole test. >> I can't believe that I was running out of time before. [music] I can't believe that. It was so simple to do certain things with the time limits that you've given, and it was just so easy. I had time in my reading, too. I checked everything in my writing, too. It was just so amazing. >> You see, for writing and reading, time was her enemy, but she turned this into her ally. So, the real key for her was to understand the purpose of the writing test and the purpose of the reading test. And once you do what the test is actually testing, time doesn't matter. And with only 3 weeks to go, she [music] was able to just understand exactly what the test was about, and then she was able to go in, had time to spare, and massively increased [music] her score by really just understanding what to do and what not to do. >> I can't even believe that [music] I scored 7.5. I was like I could score seven in writing. I wouldn't score more than that. It was just unbelievable. I even scored [music] nine for reading, and I was like, "Whoa." And I scored 6.5 the previous time, and I was like, "That is insane." >> So, if you feel that you are good at English, that English isn't your problem, and you failed the test multiple times, or >> [music] >> the test is coming up, and you're very nervous about it, and you're panicking, get in contact with us, or go to the link in the description to see if there any places on the VIP course [music] available. To make it a bit easier for you, and to thank you for watching this video, I've added 10% off. >> I know that it's so [music] easy to give money that is It's hard earned money at the end of the day, and I know everyone's looking for like cheaper options, but I think [music] it's it's so much worth it to give it at the right place. >> Or if you don't want to give us any money, and you don't want our help, we totally understand. We know 99% of you will never give us any money. 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