IELTS

Good afternoon :)

Oggi faccio una pausa dai racconti sulla mia vacanza per parlarvi dell'IELTS* che ho fatto oggi!

Anyway, it's divided in four parts (one less than the FCE** and the CAE*** -  the IELTS doesn't have the "Use of English" part): listening, reading, writing and speaking, nell'ordine in cui ve le ho dette.

1) The listening task is a lot easier than the one in the CAE, in my opinion! The speakers didn't have particular accents and they didn't speak too quickly :) The hardest thing is the fact that you hear the recording only once, whereas in the other Cambridge exams you hear everything twice.
The first task was about a student going abroad for a work experience, the second about two Australian (!!) students talking about Uni, task four was about a homeswap-holiday agency and finally number four was about a research about people conform to their group's behaviour.

2) The reading, again, is far easier than the CAE's one but there are some parts in which you have to think for a while, for example the tasks when you have to choose a title for various paragraphs among a list of given titles!
Task 1 was about a geothermal project on an island, task 2 about herbs and plants' methods to defend themselves and task 3 about textile crafts in New Zealand.

3) The writing was just like in any other exam, very similar to what was in the CAE but a bit more technical.
In the first task you have to analyse, describe and compare the data of a (or more) table/graph. In our case it was about the percentage of adult Australians not doing any physical activity which varies with the increase of age and the sex difference.
The second task asked us to write an essay about the development of large out-of-town stores making small in-town shops disappear with disadvantages for people who don't have a car and for everybody because of the presence of more traffic. So the question was something like: do the disadvantages outstand the advantages in your opinion? Why?

4) The speaking was the part I was more nervous about because I hate talking to strangers... However, my examiner was very nice so I was more at ease than I expected :) At the beginning she asked me what I do in life and when I told her I'm still in high school she looked at me all surprised (the other candidates were all either at Unoversity or working people). Then she asked me some questions about gifts (among the others... "what was the best gift you received in your life?" and I was like "Definitely the plane ticket for Australia this summer!"); then in task 2 I had to talk for about a minute about a given topic (in my case a trip on a bus/metro) but I stopped after only 40 seconds as I didn't know what else to say... But she told me what else I could talk about so it was good anyway! And in the end she asked me more questions about public transports and car usage :)

Over all, I think I did well :) I'll get the results in 13 days and I hope everything will be fine... IELTS is scored with marks ranging from 1 to 9 and I need an overall score of 7.5 (with a minimum of 7 in each task) for Cambridge or 6.5 (with a minimum of 6 for each) for all the other Universities I'm applying for... LET'S SEE WHAT HAPPENS :D

Byeeee

*IELTS = International English Language Testing System
**FCE = First Certificate of English (ovvero il cosiddetto First)
***CAE = Certificate in Advanced English (anche semplicemente detto Advanced)