Academic IELTS 7.5 analysed

First of all quite glad to achieve overall band of 7.5 for most part i thought I will end up scoring between 6.5 to 7 band

Listening- I was expecting to score high on this section because I had grown up watching American siticoms and webseries from teens, you name the show and I have probably watched it therefore scoring anything below 7.5 would have been a huge bumer

Reading- scored 30+ from my first practice test, therefore confidence was quite high that I should atleast get 7 on the test, unfortunately on the test day the third paragraph in reading section was going over my head and hardly any time was left. I thought I have screwed it up and will end scoring below 7, thankfully most of the guesses landed right.

Note- I practiced atleast 25-30 paragraphs so that I can build the speed and can scan through the whole thing quickly and doing that was definitely handy

Speaking- being a non native speaker certainly does not help and I am from Hindi belt state of India where even English teacher end up speaking in Hindi therefore fluency was non existent. I could formulate the sentence in mind but it will just not come out of my mouth because my whole life I had not spoken in English apart from giving few speeches in school

Therefore I made it the habit of speaking only in English as soon as I booked the test For last 5 days before the speaking test date, i used to speak to myself in English for hours while roaming in my room so that I could build the fluency and it certainly helped. I did not fumbled once during the speaking test apart from repeating few sentences here n there

Note- just speak fluently and yep it will certainly overshadow your limited vocab. It certainly worked for me.

Writing- the section that I was was most worried about because I needed atleast 6.5 in every section for my target universities and chances were quite high that I would end up scoring 6 band in writing because I lacked good hand writing. Also my vocabulary and grammar were quite rusty.

It would have been very nice if I was able to score 7 in writing because both parts were quite straightforward but seriously can't complain especially considering amount of spelling mistakes that I make.

Note- Try to read as my sample answers as you can because it certainly helps in understanding how IELTS wants you to approach the question. Although I am surely not the best person to give advice when it comes to writing section... lol

Overall pleasantly surprised by the results. Happy to help out anyone because I lurked through the forum a lot during my prep and it was fairly informative

First of all quite glad to achieve overall band of 7.5 for most part i thought I will end up scoring between 6.5 to 7 band

Listening- I was expecting to score high on this section because I had grown up watching American siticoms and webseries from teens, you name the show and I have probably watched it therefore scoring anything below 7.5 would have been a huge bumer

Reading- scored 30+ from my first practice test, therefore confidence was quite high that I should atleast get 7 on the test, unfortunately on the test day the third paragraph in reading section was going over my head and hardly any time was left. I thought I have screwed it up and will end scoring below 7, thankfully most of the guesses landed right.

Note- I practiced atleast 25-30 paragraphs so that I can build the speed and can scan through the whole thing quickly and doing that was definitely handy

Speaking- being a non native speaker certainly does not help and I am from Hindi belt state of India where even English teacher end up speaking in Hindi therefore fluency was non existent. I could formulate the sentence in mind but it will just not come out of my mouth because my whole life I had not spoken in English apart from giving few speeches in school

Therefore I made it the habit of speaking only in English as soon as I booked the test For last 5 days before the speaking test date, i used to speak to myself in English for hours while roaming in my room so that I could build the fluency and it certainly helped. I did not fumbled once during the speaking test apart from repeating few sentences here n there

Note- just speak fluently and yep it will certainly overshadow your limited vocab. It certainly worked for me.

Writing- the section that I was was most worried about because I needed atleast 6.5 in every section for my target universities and chances were quite high that I would end up scoring 6 band in writing because I lacked good hand writing. Also my vocabulary and grammar were quite rusty.

It would have been very nice if I was able to score 7 in writing because both parts were quite straightforward but seriously can't complain especially considering amount of spelling mistakes that I make.

Note- Try to read as my sample answers as you can because it certainly helps in understanding how IELTS wants you to approach the question. Although I am surely not the best person to give advice when it comes to writing section... lol

Overall pleasantly surprised by the results. Happy to help out anyone because I lurked through the forum a lot during my prep and it was fairly informative