Speaking of any exam or test, time management comes to the forefront of priorities. Comprehensive planning of exam preparation as a whole becomes almost the most important factor for successful passing and obtaining the coveted certificate.
Did you know that a significant number of candidates for the IELTS test are “fighting” to achieve the desired result in the written part of the exam (Writing), and the reading (Reading).
Some of the applicants say that this happens due to a lack of knowledge, but to be honest, we saw many students whose English was really good, but still they could not impress the examiner with their essays, and the tasks of the three parts of the Reading section brought them to the dead corner and didn’t leave any chances for timely completion of all tasks.
.jpg)
Why it happens?
There are many factors that can affect your results:
Students who already had experience in passing international exams consider the lack of time to be the most stressful aspect on an exam.
We have repeatedly mentioned at master-classes and in our articles that when conducting an audit of readiness and current knowledge for a particular international exam (whether IELTS or Cambridge Certificate), planning the time for preparation is taken into account - this is not only the foundation of the strategy of the preparation, but also basic psychological comfort namely at the time of the exam.
Everything is extremely simple! Ordinary numbers in months-weeks-days-hours-minutes. Yes, in exactly this order.
- One missing level of language proficiency (for example, you need to confirm B2, and placement tests “say” that you are now at B1) will absorb one year of hard work and about 10 hours a week.
- Training skills for performing different types of tasks, whether IELTS, CAE or TOEFL, will absorb another 2-3 months in the same mode.
- It will take another 10-20 hours to pump over the performance of separate tasks for a while (and, yes, it is critically important) in various sections of the exam.
- Mock Tests, these are tests simulating an exam in real time. You need to go through at least 2 of these, it is they who perfectly diagnose your readiness, knowledge, stress tolerance, and time management. Such verification tests allow the teacher to most accurately adjust and set you up for the exam.
Of course, these numbers are average, but give a general idea of the timeline.
If you plan ahead, your preparation, the strategy for completing tasks, topics, calculating time slots, then you will most likely have a good margin in minutes to double-check dubious moments, polish an essay, and make the final correct options in the answer form in a beautiful hand-writing .
Remember that each section of the exam can earn you relatively the same number of points, so by managing your “timer” you can maximize your chances of a high score.
In the article ‘IELTS Time Management: Time me!’ you will find detailed time management instructions for the exam and invaluable life hacks to save you valuable time.
This article was prepared by Elena Kupriyanova, an English tutor at Red Arrow English Studio, specifically for StudySo.
