Meeting with Vanessa, former IETLS examiner and the author of numerous IELTS books published by Cambridge

The meeting was hosted by Cambridge publishing and was attended by the staff members of Learning Education Center and one other IELTS oriented school.

Following are some points of interested that surfaced during the meeting

The British Council who is the monitoring body for the IELTS examination will not allow any current IELTS examiners to teach at any school, nor participate in ANY IELTS oriented activity. They may not come in contact with any future IELTS examinees.

Having a “database” of IELTS questions is helpful for the students, but due to the generality of the questions a “how to methodology” is preferred. We at LEC train our students in this methodology. We utilize a test based system where by the students access formerly asked questions, improve useful vocabulary and are instructed in how to structure their answers. This enables the student to answer any question they are asked with less difficulty than trying to memorize the answers for every question in a database.

A sample question may be: Tell me about your wedding. Well if you are NOT married what do you say? I am not married. AND that is it. Certainly NOT. It would be better to say “I am not married, but let me tell you about a wedding I attended…. Or I would like me future wedding to be like….” Remember, asking the “wedding” question is merely asking the examinee to describe an “event”. The examiner is listening to HOW the question is answered, not the content of the answer.

The IELTS exam in NOT a knowledge based test. It evaluates English communication skills. Therefore content of the answer has no relevance to your speaking score. The ability to answer with proper grammar, fluency and vocabulary are the determining factors.