IELTS, IELTS
It’s been a long time since I last posted on the blog. Many reasons, mainly that I’ve been preparing for the IELTS exam. Three full years into my career, it’s time to pursue further studies. So after Chinese New Year, I’ve been preparing for IELTS. I just finished the exam yesterday. Score unknown, nothing much to write.
After the third day of Chinese New Year, I joined New Oriental’s crash course. Classes ran from day 3 to day 13 of the new year without a break. Cost me 1400 yuan. Halfway through I realized the class was too naive. Maybe IELTS test-takers really are getting younger. 60 people in the class, plenty of high school students, plenty of freshmen and sophomores. I was the old man of the class. The teacher’s content was too juvenile, with lots of so-called “inspirational” stories that didn’t suit someone my age. The essay correction sessions covered common mistakes in elementary and middle school English compositions — nearly useless for me. Maybe I should’ve signed up for a more advanced class aiming for bands 7-8?
Then came preparation. Materials were, of course, Cambridge IELTS 3-7. Half a month turned out to be too short, especially for someone like me who’s working and has a baby. Daytime at work, only evenings for practice. Finishing all the Cambridge tests was tough enough. Doing practice tests is really about finding techniques. Foreigners are pretty straightforward — once you find the technique, the questions are manageable. Basically no preparation for speaking, just relying on my old foundation. Writing: kept to one essay per day. Half a month flew by, covered about 2/3 of the Cambridge materials. Timed practice is important — every practice test needs a stopwatch…
Then the written exam on March 6, at the Caijing University Guoding Road campus. Poor me living in the countryside — had to go there a day early and stay overnight. Next morning, entered the exam hall. Let me criticize the IELTS organization: couldn’t they have hired someone like Sister Feng? They got a young, hot, bespectacled girl as the examiner. The room was overheated — pouring rain outside but scorching inside. The girl kept taking off layers, one by one, strutting around the exam hall like a catwalk. I bet every male test-taker’s score dropped 0.5-1 band below normal. I got screwed too. The listening map section I spaced out on, missed the first one, guessed the rest. Section 4 I even missed two blanks… Probably 10 wrong answers in listening, completely below my normal level. When New Oriental teachers said “watching pretty girls causes distraction,” I thought they were joking. But it really happened to me. Learn from my mistake! Reading went okay, except the last blank I ran out of time. Writing was another tragedy. The essay question was a report type, making the argumentation template from New Oriental useless. Luckily I’m not bad at English anyway, so probably normal performance. Most absurd was the girl coming over to talk to me when there were only 5 minutes left, directly preventing me from checking my essay. If there are any stupid spelling mistakes, blame her.
Speaking was the next day. Don’t know why I was scheduled last. When I went in, only 3 people were left in the exam hall. Many had likely given up after the first day’s beating. The examiner was a middle-aged man who spoke very clearly. Part 1 asked if I lived in an apartment or house, whether Chinese people grow flowers, when flowers are given as gifts, whether I like sports, and what benefits kids get from doing sports. Part 2 asked me to describe a city I’ve visited. Part 3 compared countryside and city living, why people prefer the countryside, and the difference in sounds between city and country. I must say, the questions were too easy. I stumbled a bit at first but then got better. Score should be decent.
Exam’s over. Meeting the requirements for European schools shouldn’t be a problem. The only regret is no outstanding score. I estimate around 7. Too bad the several perfect scores I got in listening and reading practice didn’t happen in the actual exam. In the exam I had a tragedy. Beauty truly is trouble. If I’d scored high, New Oriental, Global Education, Langge, and New Channel would all be lining up to have me write promotional articles, and I could’ve recouped my training and exam fees…