Common Fallacies about the IELTS Speaking test

There are a lot of things said about the IELTS test, and much of it is wrong. This article will sort out some of this wrongness, and hopefully will guide teachers and students in helping them prepare for their IELTS test, without wasting anyone’s time and money!

 

1 – IELTS IS HARD

Probably the worst of the fallacies, this one needs to be corrected straight away.

IELTS is not hard. IELTS simply measures a person’s ability to effectively communicate (both received and produced – Reading and Listening, and Speaking and Writing) using the English language. It’s a rating from between 1-9 (although, in reality, in China, those scores are closer to 2.5 – 8.0… it’s extremely rare for someone to get 1 or 9).

The scores that you are trying to attain are set by the universities, schools and colleges that you want to attend. And they set that score in order for you to have a good chance of passing their courses. If you are unable to achieve that score, you’re going to find studying overseas quite hard – and you might end up failing the course purely because of the language – not the subject!

So, instead of saying “IELTS is hard”, you need to just accept that your English level isn’t yet good enough to get a high score – keep practicing, and you’ll get there.

 

2 – “MY ENGLISH IS POOR”
So many studentsthink that getting a 5.5 is ‘poor’. IT’S NOT! 5.5 is good enough to be able to have a long conversation with people, on a lot of different topics.

They look at the highest mark (9.0) and think 5.5 must be low, and they need to get much higher. Well, DON’T! Many native speakers will never get a 9.0 in speaking, and most would find it difficult to get 9.0 in the other three tests as well!

Trust me, 7.0 is a GOOD speaker of English! At 7.0, speakers have the fluency to talk at near native speeds (but occasionally have to think a bit longer for some basic words), they have the lexical resource (vocabulary) to give precise meanings to what they say (and a lot of idiomatic language – they understand language-based jokes), their grammar is good and they can express complex ideas, and they sound good (they have the right intonations and stresses). What 7.0 is doing that stops higher scores is – they take a bit longer to think of particular words or phrases, they make mistakes in some words or phrases (in particular, collocations), they make grammatical mistakes (but can still be understood), and they might have an accent that sometimes makes what they say a little unclear, or their stress and intonation causes confusion (“is that a question or a statement?”).

7.0 is a GOOD score to aim for in the Speaking and Writing. And remember – to get 6.5, you NEED to score 7 in at least two criteria!!! So, 6.5 is also a GOOD score to seek!

(You also need to know – even those who can get an 8 in Listening still have difficulties hearing a ‘normal’ conversation, with different accents).

 

3 – PART 3 ISN’T IMPORTANT IN THE SPEAKING TEST – IT’S ONLY FOR HIGHER LEVELS

This rumour is so very VERY wrong!

The Part 3 in the Speaking test is what will finally decide your final score. After all, all the examiners know that you’ve rehearsed all your answers for Part 1 & 2, and so Part 3 will determine whether you actually understand what you’ve been saying, and whether you’re actually capable of having a real conversation.

Part 3 can send your score UP… and it can send your score DOWN (especially if you’ve memorised all your Part  & 2 answers!)

In Part 3, examiners can ask what they want (related to the topic), how they want – using any vocabulary, and any grammar! That’s the TRUE test of your speaking ability…

 

4 – THERE ARE ‘TRICKS’ THAT WILL FOOL THE EXAMINERS

Schools and teachers who teach you this (that rely) on this are wasting your time and money!!!!

You need to understand this:

EVERY single IELTS examiner in China KNOWS that the questions (for Part 1 & 2) are on the internet.

EVERY single IELTS examiner in China KNOWS that there are ‘model answers’ for those questions on the internet.

EVERY single IELTS examiner in China KNOWS that you have memorised those answers.

EVERY single IELTS examiner in China KNOWS that you have memorised ONE answer that can be used for FIVE different questions in Part 2.

They know it because of the number of students who give exactly the same answer for all of those questions!

They know it because they’ve read 1000 papers that all start off the same way – “With the development of science and technology/society..”. They know that your 3^rd paragraph is going to start with “On the other hand” or “Every coin has two sides”.

Examiners are trained to see through your ‘tricks’, and look for your REAL English language ability. If you’re trying to ‘trick’ the examiner, don’t expect a good score.

 

5 – IF I MEMORISE ALL THOSE PHRASES, I CAN GET 6.0 OR HIGHER

NO!

A 6.0 person does NOT need to memorise! Their English ability is good enough not to need formulaic responses. Again, examiners are trained to look through memorised responses. Therefore, the more often you use memorised, formulaic responses, the less likely you can score above 5. (see #4 above)

 

6 – IF I DO MY TEST IN A SMALLER CITY, I WILL GET A HIGHER SCORE

NO!

Firstly, the IELTS examiners are very stringently monitored by more experienced and trained examiners. So, ALL examiners are trained to the same levels to give the score you deserve. There are no ‘pity points’ for smaller cities. Similarly, the bigger cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing) are not graded harder than smaller cities. Examiners are trained to rate ALL people EQUALLY!

Secondly, with the change in hiring policy that British Council introduced recently, ALL examiners are required to travel to different cities. Thus, an examiner may live in Beijing, but will be travelling to examine in Tianjin. Examiners who live in Shanghai can travel to Ningbo to examine. And, therefore, you’re getting the same examiners!!! The examiners in the small cities are the same examiners as those in the bigger cities! So, of course you’re not going to get a higher score just because of where you do your test!

 

7 – IF I …, I WILL GET A HIGHER SCORE

There are these ideas that if you say or do certain things (not directly related to English), you’ll get a higher score. The best example of this is the attractive female who gets disappointed when she gets a female examiner, because she thinks she can get a higher score with a male examiner. Sorry to tell you, but no… Same with looking or acting sexy.

Similarly, being friendly or smiling a lot will not affect your score.

And lastly, telling the examiner the score that you ‘need’ to go overseas, or that it’s your last test and you really need that score – is NOT going to help you get you that score!

You will get the score you deserve based SOLELY on your English performance!

 

8 – I NEED TO USE LOTS OF ‘BIG’ WORDS TO GET A HIGH SCORE IN THE SPEAKING TEST

I’ve seen the vocabulary lists that many students study, thinking that it will help them get a high score, especially in the speaking test.

Well, there’s a certain fact that most people haven’t realised… the speaking test is NOT an academic test!

The speaking test is test of your ability to communicate effectively across a range of different topics. ALL of the topics are normal, day to day topics, that you will have some experience of in your life. You personally may not have done some of them (eg, you may not have driven a car), but you certainly know about these things (you’ve all seen cars, and you know about traffic and roads, etc).

The vocabulary to talk about those different topics is not ‘academic’. Nor is it very specialised, although they may be ‘low frequency’. For example, if the topic is ‘cars’, you should be able to talk about starting and stopping, accelerating and braking. You should know vocabulary such as ‘engine’, ‘bumper’, ‘boot/trunk’, ‘exhaust’, ‘traffic lights’, ‘roads, lanes, highways’ etc, etc.. Using the word ‘automobile’ instead of ‘car’ is not really helping you. You certainly don’t need to know words that mechanics would be using.

I find it somewhat disappointing that students focus on specialised academic and technical words, and yet can’t effectively talk about basic things in life such as colours, weather or sports (what do we call the thing you play in in sports like football? Or basketball? Or tennis?)

There’s a simple fact about languages… you can use simple language without being able to use academic and technical language. You can NOT use academic and technical language unless you can use simple language.

What this means for your speaking and writing tests in IELTS is – you’re not going to get a 7 or higher for using that technical or academic language, unless you’re capable of getting a 5 by using the simpler language!

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