In our last post, we detailed how to prepare for the IELTS Exams if you have greater than 3 months to prepare. In this post, we will look at how to prepare for the exams in you only have about 3 months.

Remember, if you need careful, experienced teaching attention, please consider enrolling in our IELTS Exam Preparation course.

Month 1

The theme of this month is building a solid foundation. The goal of this month is to improve your English to a level that is strong enough for you to achieve a university admissions standard on the IELTS exam. In the first two weeks, the main things to do are as follows:

Memorize words

The object of memorizing words is not to master the usage of all words, but to know the meaning of each word when you see it. If you don’t remember the meaning of a word, you can reinforce your memory and review the definition again before going to bed. Review all of the definitions every three days. After three to four repetitions, you will basically have memorized the meanings of all words. This work should not only be done now, but also throughout the preparation phase.

Practice Listening

Listen from half-an-hour to an hour each day. Half an hour is the minimum time you should allow; below this length there is no lasting effect. Forget about the difference between general listening and intensive listening: all intensive listening is practice for the test of intensive listening, and what we exercise is the skill of listening itself. The requirement of listening is to try to understand every word on the basis of mastering the general idea of the sentence. IELTS listening passages often test detail questions, it is important to listen to every word.

Do Grammar Exercises

Maybe this task puzzles some people, but many people fail to comprehend the importance of grammar on the IELTS exam. IELTS reading requires that the student study grammar in order to comprehend the rules of writing in English. Writing requires grammar as a skeleton, and speaking also needs grammar to flow smoothly.

Read a sample article aloud

The length of each practice article is based on the length of the typical IELTS article. Although you may read shorter articles at the beginning and over the first week, you should gradually increase the length of the articles after you get used to reading such articles.

If you succeed in doing the above exercises every day, continue to do this in the rest of month.

Month 2

The theme of this month is moving towards writing the IELTS. After a month of basic practice, you should see that you have improved considerably. The next step is to directly face our goal: the IELTS exam. In the first two weeks, we are going to do the following:

1. Focus on completing regular tasks, memorizing words, listening to listening passages, and reading long articles aloud.
2. Devote time to targeted IELTS special training, using a day each week training for a particular subject, including correction, summary of the time in about three hours. For listening practice, listen repeatedly to the places in passages that you don’t understand, and try to understand without reading the listening script.
3. Do a set of exercises once a week, perhaps on the last day. We recommend that you start training with real questions rather than mock questions at this time. Practice in strict accordance with the test times allocated, starting at 9:00 AM and ending in two-and-a-half hours. Pay attention to the amount of time you need to complete each part.
4. Pay attention to the vocabulary accumulated during practice, especially during reading practice, and record and digest all the raw words.

Time to enter the second half of the month. The plan for this period of time is basically the same as the first half of the month, except for the following changes:

1. The daily one-hour listening material will be replaced by English material. This conversion will be very difficult, but for the IELTS listening section achieving a high score is very important. Continue to insist on imitating and reading along with the same.
2. Change the reading material from a more familiar to more original reading material.

Month 3

The theme of this month is completing the final sprint in your preparation. After two months of challenges, we have gradually prepared for writing the IELTS exam. The details are as follows:

1. Stop one hour listening practice, memorizing words and reading aloud training.
2. Use special training and set training in conjunction with each other, every other day. For example, on Monday read special texts, then on Tuesday practice sets of questions; and so on. It is important to note that this phase of special training is based on working on the weakest items, or even arranging them with for the weakest items coming first. The set training still strictly follows the test times allocated to each section.
3. In the last week, resume one hour of listening practice. At the same time, review the words that you have memorized before, but still cannot recognize at a glance.
4. On the last day, stop all training. Don’t think about anything about the exam either. If you feel nervous, take out an English-language newspaper and read it, or listen to songs with English lyrics.

Thanks for reading our articles about preparing for the IELTS exams. Contact us to learn more about your own English journey!