Online IELTS coaching – The role of study materials

The key role that study materials provided to the test candidates cannot be overstated.

This is because even a person quite fluent in English may find it a bit challenging if they take the IELTS test without any preparation.

Online IELTS coaching helps to fill this need, as most institutes currently involved in providing coaching provide sufficient materials to students who join their courses.

It should be kept in mind that IELTS is a test of your skills in English in four key areas – listening, reading, writing, and speaking. And the tests are not that easy.

Even people with a reasonable level of proficiency in the language need to familiarise themselves with the test format before the test.

Candidates who take online IELTS coaching must, therefore, ensure that they get a sufficient amount of materials to practice.

The IELTS test starts with the listening test.

(Since June 2022 IDP has changed this. Please visit their site for further info.) The listening test is for 30 minutes, and you will listen to audio and write answers.

Candidates who are preparing through online IELTS coaching or otherwise should do at least 25 tests before they take the actual test.

That is if you are aiming to get a high score. The test has 40 questions in total and four sections.

And the questions in the section vary. You will hear a conversation between two people or a monologue like a lecture, or it can be three people doing a discussion.

You will hear the audio only once and that means, you need to note the answers as you listen.

Candidates taking online IELTS coaching can do the listening practice at home any number of times. And repeating the test several times improves their skills.

The reading test is the second test in IELTS and for most candidates, this is the toughest of the four.

Here again, whether you are taking online IELTS coaching or attending in-person Coaching, practice is the key.

In the test, as in the listening test, you will get forty questions and the test time is one hour.

That means you get one minute and thirty seconds for each question, approximately.

Again, practice makes you perfect, as the old adage goes.

Online IELTS coaching – The role of study materials

There will be different types of questions like Yes, No, Not Given, or choosing the correct headings for paragraphs.

Sometimes you will be required to fill in the gaps in a summary paragraph with one word or two words.

Institutes providing online IELTS coaching always should ensure that candidates do at least 25 tests before the actual IELTS test.

The writing test which is third in the order is also, like the reading test, one hour in duration.

There will be two tasks to do here. Task 1 is a graph for the academic IELTS module, while it is a letter for the General training module.

In both cases, task 2 is an essay. Needless to say, here also, practice is the key.

Write at least 25 essays and task 1 so that the candidate gets familiar with the tasks.

The last test is the speaking test, which is an interview with an examiner.

In all these tests, practising with the right material is important.

Coaching centres providing online IELTS coaching must make sure that candidates get adequate materials and that too authorised materials.

This is because there is a great amount of material available online which are not up to scratch.

The best option for candidates is to practise with past IELTS papers published by Cambridge University.