This quiz is over general knowledge of the exam that may include information from the previous lectures and any other basic exam knowledge not stated in the introductory lectures you should or would be expected to know before taking the exam. This quiz asks about information from previous lectures and quizzing on the knowledge you should know before taking the exam and that you may have encountered during your overall research and exam prep process before taking this course. Any quiz information you were unaware of in this quiz will be explained in lectures later in the course. Make a note of anything you did not know about, and feel free to ask questions if you want more information about an item in the quiz.

Thanks and Good Luck!

Academic and General Syllabi

If you are interested in accelerating through the course at a faster pace, you will find the Accelerated Syllabus for the Academic and General Tests. Some students are already familiar with the exam, and they want to go faster than those who want to take the entire course.

For those who know exactly what they need from a course, you can go directly to the course sections that cover your needs. For example, if you want to study Reading first, look at the curriculum and go directly to the Academic or General Reading Section(s).

How to excel in your courses

Do you know how to learn? Many students don’t. Specifically, they don’t know how to look inward to examine how they learn and judge what’s effective.

About metacognition

• Metacognition is often referred to as “thinking about thinking.” Metacognitive strategies are techniques that help students become more successful learners.

• Metacognition allows you to take charge of your learning.

• Learners often show an increase in self-confidence when they build metacognitive skills. Self-confidence improves motivation as well as learning success.

• Metacognitive knowledge is crucial for efficient independent learning for all age groups because it fosters forethought and self-reflection.

We use the following books in this course.

7. Cambridge IELTS 7 PDF book +

8. Cambridge IELTS 8 PDF book + CD

9. Cambridge IELTS 9 PDF book + CD

10. Cambridge IELTS 10 PDF book + CD

11. Cambridge IELTS 11 PDF book + CD

12. Cambridge IELTS 12 PDF book + C

13. Cambridge IELTS 13 PDF book + CD

14. Cambridge IELTS 14 PDF book + CD

15. Cambridge IELTS 15 PDF Book + Audio

16. The 2014 (8 tests) Official Cambridge Guide To Ielts Student's Book With Answers With Dvd Rom

Book by Amanda French, Pauline Cullen, and Vanessa Jakeman

17. IELTS Trainer Books 1 and 2

18. 15. Cambridge IELTS 16 PDF Book + Audio

18. 15. Cambridge IELTS 17 PDF Book + Audio

Look in the resources and you can see the images of the BOOK COVERS. This will help you know if you are getting the correct book when you obtain your own copies.

As we state in the course description, we CANNOT give you these books. This is because this material is protected by copyright and trademark laws. Our students find these books on Amazon. Cambridge, Facebook, and Google search for the versions they are seeking and in the format that they need.  They also find them much cheaper than we would have to charge if we included that fee. This course is priced to maximize your economic budget.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is an international standard for describing language ability. This will determine your English level. The greater your English level, the better you can apply the strategies you learn in this course.

The Listening section is the same for the Academic and General exams

Make sure that you also read over the Fill the Blank Strategy1

At the end of the video, we say that coming up next are the listening strategy application lectures, which actually now begin in the next Section with what is currently Lecture 28. We recently reorganized some lectures because it would be better for students to receive that information before approaching the strategy application lectures. We are constantly trying to re-work the course to give students the best experience.

This is an Article that gives you advice and suggestions about how to improve your overall listening ability. Very often, students struggle to apply the course strategies and tactics they learn because of insufficient low English skills. You can completely understand how to apply a strategy, but without English skills, achieving what you want becomes more and more likely as a result. So, outside of what you learn in this course, you need to independently work on improving your English level, and this article gives advice on how to improve Listening.

1. Make sure that you have paper and pencil ready.

2. After you complete the spelling test, download the Answer Key and check your results.

Good Luck!

Before you get started learning and applying our practical listening exam strategies, go ahead and take a 4 part diagnostic test to determine your current strengths and weaknesses. Make a note of question types and question sections that gave you the most problems. This way, you can better tailor your learning from the upcoming lectures.

Go to the following link and complete the 4 Sections of the Free Online Listening Test 1. DO NOT COMPLETE TEST 2 as it is reserved as the Post-Diagnostic TEST:

https://takeielts.britishcouncil.org/take-ielts/prepare/free-ielts-practice-tests/listening

Band Score Calculator: Use the following Band Score Calculator to determine your current level.

http://ielts.calculator.free.fr/

This is from Book 13 Test 1 Section 1

This will review the application of strategy and point out the tricks and traps used by the test makers. The purpose of this is for teaching!

This is from Book 9, Test 4

This is from book 14 Test 4 Section 1

This is from Test 3 Section 1 (Book 11)

This was a live listening class where we did a practice together using Cambridge Book 14 Test 3 Sections 2-4. THe students wre required to have their own copy of the book as we cannot provide copies of the material. Not allowed. In these lectures, you can see how we apply strategy and tactics.

This was a live listening class where we did a practice together using Cambridge Book 14 Test 3 Sections 2-4. THe students wre required to have their own copy of the book as we cannot provide copies of the material. Not allowed. In these lectures, you can see how we apply strategy and tactics.

This is from Cambridge Book 14 Test 4 Section 3

This is from Cambridge Book 9 Test 4 Section 3

This is from Cambridge Book 7 Test 3 Section 3

This is from Cambridge Book 13 Test 1 Section 3

This was a live listening class where we did a practice together using Cambridge Book 14 Test 3 Sections 2-4. THe students wre required to have their own copy of the book as we cannot provide copies of the material. Not allowed. In these lectures, you can see how we apply strategy and tactics.

This was a live listening class where we did a practice together using Cambridge Book 14 Test 3 Sections 2-4. THe students wre required to have their own copy of the book as we cannot provide copies of the material. Not allowed. In these lectures, you can see how we apply strategy and tactics.

This is from Cambridge Book 13, Test 4, Section 4.

This is from the 2014 Cambridge Official Practice Book (8 practice tests).  This is from Test 6 Section 4 of this book. The cover image of the book is attached, so that you can be sure to purchase the correct copy on your own.

This is from Cambridge Book 8, Test 2, Section 4

This is from Cambridge Book 7 Test 2, Section 4

This was a live listening class where we did a practice together using Cambridge Book 14 Test 3 Sections 2-4. THe students wre required to have their own copy of the book as we cannot provide copies of the material. Not allowed. In these lectures, you can see how we apply strategy and tactics.

This is Part 2 of our directional map challenge. Follow along and work on following Map Terminology.

This is from book 12 Test 8. There is a Map question analysis

Note:

1. The Live Listening MCQ class was a 2.5-hour live class, that has to be broken into segments less than 20 minutes because that is the UDEMY restriction. I cannot upload it into one long lecture. I AM REQUIRED to break it into parts, which do not evenly break into 20-minute segments.

2.  If you want to go directly to where I go through the questions, and skip by all the tactics, strategy, and how-to parts which is what this entire course is about, then skip to Part 6.  If you decide to skip past the strategy and tactics, then take responsibility for that when you take your exam.

Now that you have gone through the Listening Section completely, it is time to take a Listening Section Exit Test 2. There are, of course, 4 Parts/Sections. We give the answers immediately after a section is completed, and we review the answers before moving on to the next Section.

Note: To skip immediately to the start of the Exit Test, go to the 8:30 Mark,

Discover what's on deck for you to learn from our Academic Reading course.

Did you know that as a IELTS Academic student that you could GREATLY benefit from watching the General Exam Reading Lectures?  The General and Academic exams use the same Reading question answering strategies. By watching the General Exam reading lectures you can actually develop a strong foundation in the question strategy you need for the Academic Exam. The General Reading lectures will allow you to focus on learning the application of the strategy and then work on applying the strategy with the Academic passages.

You can decide to watch the General Reading Lectures before you start the Academic Reading lectures OR you can watch them after you finish the Academic Reading lectures. Just use them to your benefit.

We teach the same strategies in the lectures in the Academic section. Therefore, it is not necessary to watch the General videos. However, I really think the General lectures develop a strategy foundation that will help you when you are learning these same strategies in the Academic section of our course.

The Academic lectures are at a higher level of English than the Academic and very often students get so hung up on the English level that they really hurt themselves in terms of learning how to apply strategy. Learning from the General Reading section first allows you to somewhat remove general English difficulties out of the way and purely focus on strategy.

Learn how to get better at scanning on the Reading section. Scanning is the key to locating the keyword sentence and having the language that directly connects to the answer.

In this article, I am giving you assistance in creating a Prompt to give to the AI tool ChatGpt that will enable it to create a Scanning exercise for you so that you can get better a the skill of scanning for keywords. Students often struggle with this skill because they do not practice it enough. Becoming better at scanning is key to scoring better in the Reading section of the exam since the test designer embedded the use of this skill in every aspect of the exam.

Before you learn the specific strategies of each reading questions, please take the time and learn how to scan for the specific information that leads to the answers.

CORRECTION NOTE:

On the matching question for the language that says "could travel between Britain and China faster than clippers" from book 13 Test 4, the more accurate matching language sentence is the last sentence of that paragraph.

 Actually that last sentence in the paragraph and the question are an even more clear synonym match than the one I gave in the lecture.

Question Language: "steam ships could travel faster between B and C faster than clipper"

Passage language: "steam ships reduced the journey time between B and C by approximately two months"

could travel faster = reduced journey time by 2 months