What do you guys think of IELTS?
I'm temporarily an ESL teacher to support my studies abroad and as part of my job regularly prepare students for IELTS. Before I start any prep with my students I talk about how bullshit the exam is, how little it correlates to English proficiency, and how opaque IELTS the organization is. I like to think it removes some of the mystique and makes the exam more approachable, but it's mainly for my own selfishness and desire to vent. Performance on IELTS is determined by how well you can memorize long lists of advanced phrases and piece them together to create a narrative.
In my experience, the people who do best on exams of this category are those who have the least need for it; they are chatty and charismatic, able to sustain a conversation about any topic without much help. The people who do need a good grade because they're trying to go abroad are often STEM students/professionals with great analytical skills. This demographic uniformly struggles.
>>7715735
I concur with teach anon
I haven't participated in an IELTS examination, but a CAE(Certificate of Advanced English)
and from my point of view, it's the same old gibberish - a tonne of phrases and vocab to be memorized so that you can state your opinion or defend a point in a convo or in essay.
In the end, everything is owned to chance. The exam will surely have vocab/grammar that is, not unknown, but uncharted by you and you will end up guessing the thing.I got a B on my exam (that's,what, 7, 8 in IELTS grading?), yet I pretty much devoted more than the required time for study to get an A.
Pretty pissed off about it.
My advice, don't take yourself too seriously. You will end up burning yourself out.
>>7715699
>IELTS
>NOT Cambridge Advanced English Exam for Speakers of Other Languages
