International English Language Testing System (IELTS): A Strategic Viewpoint

When I was young, a student at junior high (or seventh grade, however you may put it), my whole class once asked a general knowledge question. The questions was, “How many countries speak English as their mother tongue?” At that moment, I was one of the only few them who knew that there are only five (05) countries that use English as their mother tongue; which are: USA, UK, Canada, Australia ans Newzealand. Three of these countries still considers Queen Elizabeth their queen and pledges undying loyalty to her. Those three countries with “LOYALTY-TO-ROYALTY” (UK, Australia and Newzealand) along with Canada happens to be the countries that recognized IELTS the most. USA also recognized IELTS, however, being a sponsor country of both ETS and College-board, this country prefers TOEFL more (which is another very much interesting test to study and discuss about later on). Today, almost all the countries who will accept an immigrant or let students acquire higher studies in their land, accepts IELTS with open arms. Today I will discuss IELTS from a strategic point of view.

What is IELTS; from a strategic point of view:

From the name itself, it is quite obvious that IELTS is a linguistic process to prove yourself worthy to getting acclimated with the life-style that may lead to immigration or a higher studies or even a job. However, though it is not important to know all about IELTS, and only the exam matters, there are something we learn about the origin about this test which may be important to judge the test in a strategic point of view.

The test is based on linguistic capabilities. And every language requires four skills to master: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. If someone has these four skills, that person will do great in IELTS. But the question is, how exactly will I measure if my skills in these topics are actually up to the mark of sitting for IELTS? Is there any bar or standard or parameter to measure my level of skill or a way to know how farther should I develop my skill?

The answer is “yes”. We can easily measure all of these skills. I will discuss further in details on skill development in my next articles regarding IELTS. But today I am going to discuss a little more about IELTS and how exactly should we analyze it.

Those who wants to sit for IELTS must have heard a rumor that “IELTS is easy and high scores are piece of cake”. I have heard that many times from many of my students that a high-score in IELTS is guaranteed. In this article, I am going to focus on this very dilemma, which is responsible for low score of many bright individuals. Let me break it to you this way: 

Based on this exam, a government of a “first world” and/or “English speaking” country is granting you visa or migration. What makes you think that this exam is going to be easy? May be it is easy for you for some unknown reason, or may be you are genuinely good at English and you don’t even know about it. That does not make IELTS easy, but spreading rumor that this test is easy makes you look like a complete moron. No matter which test you sit for; IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, PTE – none of them are easy. However, if you are prepared for this exam in a tremendous way, or if you are a high scorer in tests like GRE/GMAT/SAT/others equivalent, in that case IELTS may be easy for you, because you have faced much harder challenges than that. But that does not make this test easy.

Thinking something easy make it less important to you. And this way, sometimes a week opponent can become a threat for you; whereas IELTS is NOT so week of an opponent. So, there is no score for thinking that IELTS should be easy. We must remember that no matter what test we sit for, easy or not, that test must get the full priority. Now it’s your test, your score, your life and definitely your money; and you are the one responsible for your own action. And there is always a thing called “next time”.

So, for today’s strategic point of view, I would like to tell you that IELTS is no joke. It is easy to achieve 6.00 or even 6.5 band score. However, to see the face of 7.00+, you have to be smart and careful about your test and preparation. That being said, in my upcoming articles, I am going to mention some strategies by which a high score is possible with a regular and smart preparation, not a hard preparation.

That’s it for today. In my next article, I will discuss farther on strategy development that will benefit our preparation is a tremendous way. 

Till then, happy reading.