From Band 5.5 to 7.5 Using One Simple Strategy

Marvelous had dreams of working in the UK as a doctor, but after failing IELTS 13 times, understandably [music] she was ready to give up. But with our help, she jumped from a band six to a band 7.5 in writing, [music] and all we did was identify four key problems that led to so many failures. And then we taught [music] her one simple strategy that helped her get the score that she needed. It's something that you can learn, too, to dramatically increase your chances of getting the IELTS score that you need. So, let's talk about the first problem. Like many of you, because you're doing it right now, she first started learning all about IELTS on YouTube. So, YouTube is great because it's free and there's so much content. And what happened to Marvelous is as she watched more videos, her confidence got higher and higher, and she felt that she was ready to do the test. [music] Now, interestingly, many of her friends who are also doctors who are going through the same process told her to be wary of YouTube. They told her that it might cause some problems. When we speak to students, they often say things like they feel overwhelmed. Why do they feel overwhelmed? Well, there's so much information there. It's like trying [music] to drink from a firehose. And they felt confused. Why did they feel confused? Well, as you know, one YouTube channel says to do it this way, another YouTube channel says to do it that way, a third YouTube channel says to do something completely different. So, overwhelmed and confused. And then, to make it even worse, that leads to uncertainty. [music] And what you don't want to do is to go into the IELTS test with that feeling of uncertainty, because that leads to hesitation. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know how to answer the question, which leads to a lot of stress. All of these are bad things. So, after that initial boost of confidence, [music] she started to feel less confident, uncertain, and confused, and overwhelmed. >> [music] >> So, even though she had these feelings, she told herself something that many of you tell yourselves that my English is good. It's an English test. I will be fine. So, she booked the test even though she didn't feel 100% ready, [music] and the result was she failed. And her confidence fell through the floor. Lots of YouTube videos did not work for her. >> My mistake was watching too many YouTube videos. There's so many errors, so many, you know, they tell you to write a sophisticated English. Those things don't matter, you know. >> Her strategy now was to look at lots of [music] textbooks and practice papers. So, she started looking at lots of books and doing lots of practice tests, and her confidence grew [music] even more. She thought that her English was good enough, so she went and booked the test. And the result? Her score was even lower than before. >> I found out that after written so like very good essay, and I come back seeing like 5.5, 6. I'm like, well, I wrote very well. I had really great points, ideas, and I even gave examples and results. >> [music] >> But then when I see my score, I'm like, why? >> So, textbooks and practice didn't work either. So, can you figure out why? Why [music] did textbooks and just doing lots of practice tests not actually help her? What was missing? So, there's nothing wrong with YouTube videos and textbooks per se. These are all input. So, for learning anything, we do need a certain amount of input. The better that input is and the higher quality that input is, the better. [music] But you do need that to start off. Then, we need to actually practice that thing. So, you can't watch a video on how to get better on something, and then [music] like The Matrix, where Neo is learning jujitsu, and they, you know, they put that a probe into the back of his head, and then he wakes up and like, "I know jujitsu." That is not how skill acquisition or education actually works. You [music] need to get some input and then practice that input. In the first try, she tried this and it didn't work. Then she tried this and it didn't [music] work. But why? Because she was missing the next step, which is, you probably have guessed it, feedback. These books are great. [music] They are the best books for you to practice from. A lot of YouTube videos and a lot of textbooks [music] are great as well. Some not so great. Practice is important, but you [music] are probably making lots and lots of errors that you are completely unaware of. >> Completely unaware that I was making those mistakes. [music] I didn't really see any source online to tell me where exactly my fault was coming from. [music] >> Unless you have feedback, you are not going to be able to spot them. [music] And think about the reason why she didn't get feedback. Because she kept thinking, [music] "My English is good enough." So, you know, what is the strategy here? Have any of you figured it out yet? So, after, you know, a little bit of disappointment [music] and taking some time away from IELTS to kind of get her confidence back, she decided that what she would do next was hire a one-on-one teacher to give her feedback. Like many of you, after you use the cheap methods or the free methods, and after multiple failures, >> [music] >> you start to take the test seriously. So, you start to think like, "I'm going to actually invest some time and money in this and then, you know, get the [music] score that I need." So, did she actually get the score that she needed? So, we talked about, you know, you need input, you need [music] practice, and you need feedback. But all three of these things must be [music] quality. For example, if you're using fake practice tests, they're going to be highly misleading. Or if you get [music] a textbook that has been published by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, it is going to actually make you worse, not better. And [music] if you get feedback from someone who maybe doesn't know what they're doing, again, [music] you are going backwards, not forwards. So, the one-on-one teacher that she hired claimed to be an ex-examiner. So, she had a lot of confidence that he was going to really, really help her. So, her confidence started to grow again. So, you have this person saying, you know, they've marked thousands of tests, they know exactly how to help you get a high IELTS score. Let's see what he actually taught her. So, we have here a question. And one of the first things that you need to do is you need to paraphrase the question. You normally do this in the introduction. This proves to the examiner that you've understood the question and you have good grammar and vocabulary. But what he taught her was, you have to change every word and you must change them in order. And if you use synonyms, they need to be high-level. Now, to a student, this sounds like great advice. But practically, what does this actually do? Well, it makes your task impossible. So, in her real test, she spent around 20 minutes of the 40 minutes, half her time, just trying to paraphrase this. And because she couldn't change every word, because she couldn't change them in order, because she couldn't think of high-level synonyms to use, she started to panic, she started to stress, and the result, her score got even lower. I can't follow that system. I can't paraphrase in that way. It's impossible for me as a native English speaker and an IELTS teacher to do that. So, how would a student be able to do that? And you might also be thinking, like, obviously when he taught her to do that, she would be messing it up in front of him and the essays she was producing would have been at a very, very low level. Well, he made a mistake that lots of teachers make, not every teacher, but it's also something that AI does as well. AI is famous for doing this when giving feedback to students. I want you to watch this short clip and tell me what you think it is. >> So, imagine if Jones had just said, "Well, that's okay, Charlie. I That was all right. Good job." And then Charlie thinks to himself, "Well, I did do a pretty good job." End of story. That to me is an absolute tragedy. But that's just what the world wants now. There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job. >> It is very difficult, and I know this as a teacher, to tell someone they're not ready for the test, they're not good enough, and they're making lots of mistakes. Instead, what many teachers do is just tell students, "Good job. You're doing well." That [music] is being nice at the time, but it is setting someone up for failure. [music] And this was her 10th failure. At this point, she's just real full of despair. She's ready to give up. >> I was really stressed. At the point, I really wanted to give up. Like, it was after the 12th time, I said, "I'm just going to find somewhere else." And that was when I went online to browse and I found out about IELTS Advantage. I looked at the scores from other students, and they were very encouraging. So, that's why I decided to register for the VIP course. When I saw the price, I was like, "Oh, okay. This is different from what I've been seeing online. But then, I have to choose. It's either you quit now or you pay the money." >> When students come to us for the first time and they say, "Oh, your course is is quite expensive." The thing that we always say, "Yes, it is, but it's not as expensive as failing your test two or three times, but definitely not 13 times." >> [laughter] >> Yeah, definitely. I was hesitant at first because of the money, but obviously now it paid out, so yeah. >> So, at this point in the video you're expecting me to say, you know, she magically got the score that she needed. No, we still needed to help [music] her fix certain problems. So, we helped her identify this missing piece. So, this is a whole system. You need high-quality input, high-quality [music] practice, high-quality feedback, but then you must do one important thing. So, when we started looking at her essays, we identified two problems and they were connected. So, the first problem was she spent so long trying to think of ideas that [music] it led to a lot of wasted time. And then she would explain these ideas in an overly complex way, which again took more time. And that led to her biggest problem, which was actually grammar. >> Grammar [music] was a disadvantage for me because it's not something that I can do at the same time writing. Like, so I have to finish and then go back to look at the grammar, because I spent so much time trying to explain [music] my ideas, I run out of time and then I just submit. >> And the interesting thing about her grammar, and this is the case with the vast majority of of people that we work with, is she only had >> [music] >> two areas of grammar that she needed to work on. She didn't need to relearn the whole grammar book. She just needed to fix two >> [music] >> errors. But these two errors occurred in around 80% of her sentences. So, the way that an IELTS examiner will look at your writing is they will look [music] at each sentence and they will count how many sentences are error-free. And if you want a band seven, eight, or nine, the vast majority of your sentences need to be error-free. Shinai understood what the actual problems were. Before she was guessing. Now, because she had the truth, because we were being honest with her, she knew knew the problems were and she was able to then deal with those problems. >> After I found out that the grammar was the main issue and I started getting the points that I wanted, it felt so much better. I know, I felt relieved that okay, this was my mistake and I was able to work on it and now I'm seeing the results. >> So, what we did was we taught her our idea generation techniques, our idea generation strategies, that allowed her to think of relevant ideas pretty much instantly. That eliminated the problem of wasting a lot of time. And we also showed her how to simplify all of her essay, all of her explanations and examples, and actually pick the ideas that were easiest for her to explain, not the most complex, which again solved the time issue. Then she was able to fix this issue and this issue, which reduced the number of grammar mistakes that she was making dramatically. This [music] helped her grammar, but also improve the rest of her essay. Because if you're making grammatical errors in 80% of your sentences, it's more difficult to read, which lowers your coherence and cohesion score. It can also cause problems for vocabulary and how you answer the question as well. So, by just focusing on simplifying her ideas and focusing on grammar, she was able to identify exactly what was wrong and work on that. So, that's the next crucial step, which is work on weaknesses. So, the feedback just identifies [music] the weaknesses, but then you need to go away and work on those weaknesses. How do you do that? Well, you learn how to improve those areas of grammar or those ideas, you practice that using high-quality materials, you get feedback from people who know what they're talking about, and then you just keep doing that until you have no weaknesses, and we tell our VIP students, you are ready to do the test or you're not ready to do the test and you just [music] continue on this cycle until you are ready. So, that means that she went into the test with full confidence because she had been told by experts, you are ready to get the score that she needed and she did. She went from 5.5 to 7.5, two bands, which is absolutely huge. >> I finally got the 7.5. So, yes, my whole family amazed with they were very happy. I've always wanted to be a doctor, right? Just coming here not doing that just made me ask myself questions. Is this really what I should be doing? Should I find a different career? So, yeah, we're all very happy when we found my results. >> The strategy that fixes all of these is one word. Have any of you guessed it? Well, you probably noticed the pattern here. She thought, my English is good enough. I just need to watch some videos and then my English is good enough. I just need to look at some practice tests and some textbooks and then I just need to hire a one-on-one [music] teacher, but let's not break the bank on the one-on-one teacher. Let's hire the cheapest teacher I can find because, you know, [music] my English is good enough and I'll probably get the score that that I need. And then once we showed her, here are the exact problems that you have, it was actually difficult for her to accept that because again she believes that she is good enough. She had to >> [music] >> accept that we knew more than her and then take action, which is all about being humble. You need humility. What does humility actually mean in this context? It is accepting that you are not good enough yet and you need to take action to improve to the level that you need. And until you accept that, you are not going to get the score that you need. >> Just be humble. That's what I'm going to say. Humble yourself and learn. Yeah. >> This is just one of the systems that we teach on our VIP course because of the level of feedback and the level of help that we give students. We have a limited number of places. If [music] you want in, there is a 10% discount in the description. Just click on the link and if we have places available, you can get in for 10% off if you'd like us to use this system and many other systems to help you. If you don't want that, >> [music] >> totally fine. I know 99% of you will never buy anything from us. If you just want more free help, here are two more success stories that will help you because of how you exactly what they did to be successful.