Caroline and I are currently applying for a skilled independent visa in order for us to live and work in Australia. You have to comply with lots of items in order to qualify. One of those items is that I have to prove my English skills by taking an English test as a non-native speaker as I am Dutch. And the way to proof this is through IELTS.
IELTS is the International English Language Testing System. It measures ability to communicate in English across all four language skills – listening, reading, writing and speaking – for people who intend to study or work where English is the language of communication.
I didn't think much of the test as I have accumulated a lot of time in English speaking countries. It counts up to 4 years now where the main language I used was English. I spent approximately a total of 1 1/2 year in the United States (including a year as an exchange student attending the 11th grade at Richland High School) another 10 months in Australia a month in New Zealand and finally I have been living and working here in the UK for the last 18 months.
I found the test to be quite hard in the end. On a Friday I had the speaking test which took about 1/2 an hour. And I was asked various questions. Most of them concerning sports. A subject matter I don't know anything about and therefore probably the right subject for my examiner to choose from to test my English on. My favorite question the examiner asked me was: Do you think there is too much sports on TV? My reply: Not when I am holding the remote.
So far so good I thought..... Then on Saturday I had to get up at 8.00 to be at the school in Oxford by 8.45. I have recently developed severe symptoms of Asthma (mainly coughing). This morning my coughing was to such an extend it made me nausea for the rest of that morning.
After registering etc etc. the tests finally started at 10.00. From 10 o'clock until 13.00 we had the listening, reading and writing all back to back. No breaks in between. I found it quite hard concentrating on the tasks and questions in front of me for that duration.
Also I had doubts with some questions as to how they would have liked to see them answered as I had no training for or experience taking the test. For example we had to read this article about demography. A statement made in the article was the birthrate in Britain in the 60's was higher than the 70's. The question that they had for it was: Were there more babies born in the 60's than in the 70's? Yes, No , Not Given.
The answer I had in my head was, not given as they hadn't put down any exact figures. In the end I did choose Yes because reading the above that may be the logical answer they were looking for.
Anyway overall I thought I did pretty well, but you never know ....... There is always something in the back of your head that says you could have blown it by saying this, giving that answer and so on.
Too my delight I am pleased to announce the following score:
(Initially I thought scores were 1-10 , 10 being the highest they are actualy 1-9, 9 being the highest)
Listening: 8.5 hard to believe for Caroline; just kidding
Reading: 8.0
Speaking: 8.0
Writing: 7.0
Overall Score: 8.0
And I am even more pleased to know this is way above average for most candidates.
2 comments:
That is a great logics question, but since a huge number of fluent native speakers would answer yes as opposed to not given I think it is a horrible question on a fluency exam, btw was this the academic module you were taking?
I must say though that I have a lot more respect for the ielts now though.
I took the General Training Test. Tomorrow 11/11/06 I will receive my results through the post. I hope they will elaborate as how they came to my score. And if they shed any light on as what the correct answers were.
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