IELTS Energy 1459: IELTS FAQ’s and Insider Answers
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1459, IELTS FAQs and Insider Answers.

Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 22 million times with former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com

forward slash my score. We've collected the most common student questions we've seen about each part of the exam to share with you today. So whether you're just starting your IELTS preparation or you've been preparing for months, these are questions that you need the answer to.

I love podcasting here on IELTS Energy, but do you know where else I podcast sometimes? Over on All Ears English. That is the place to get four new fun fluency episodes every single week. We give you tons of vocabulary to ace your speaking or writing, plus amazing role plays, and it's all with a focus on connection, not competition.

perfection. Come join me, Lindsay and Michelle every single Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Open your search bar and type All Ears English and then hit the follow button.

Hello, Aubrey. We are going to test your knowledge, Aubrey, of the IELTS exam today. We've collected four very common, very useful IELTS questions from students, one for each part of the exam. And Aubrey's going to share her amazing IELTS knowledge. How does that sound? You can play the role of the student. We get these questions a lot.

And all of them have a pretty brief answer. So we're going to share four today, one for each test.

Nice, nice, awesome. All right, Aubrey. I feel like I'm hosting a game show. Here is question one. So it is, "Hello, you are great." Oh, thank you. That's awesome to hear. I always listen to your podcasts. I am Juan from Peru. My question is, do you recommend reading eBooks instead of physical books?

So I chose this for our listening question today because you don't want to just be listening to podcasts, listening to news reports. A great way to prep for listening audio and build your listening fluency is to listen to podcasts.

audiobooks, right? So yes, ebooks, physical books, all of the above. Like however you enjoy reading a book, read that. But we also highly recommend audiobooks actually. Yes. So it shouldn't be one or the other. It should be all of these. You need to be able to like read, you know, for the reading exam. You need to be hearing an audiobook for the listening exam. So we would say not either or, but yes and, both and. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. I know that I mentioned this maybe a month ago on the show, but depending on where you're listening to this podcast right now, there could be free audio books just a tab away. So I

I use Spotify to listen to all my podcasts and there are free audio books on there. Like so many audio books. If you, if you have like the premium Spotify or whatever, Aubrey, where do you get your audio books?

I use the library app. Mine's called Libby. So if you have a local library, there are free audiobooks there too. And they usually there's an app you need to download and then you just check them out. So I listen to audiobooks that way. But Audible is another good option. And they also will give you a lot of free options.

So the point is just be listening to an audio book. You're going to listen to it longer because you'll likely get into the story. There's going to be interesting vocabulary and you're just building listening fluency.

Yes, 100%. Awesome. All right, Aubrey. So you got that first question correct. Good job. Thank you. Let's go to the next one about reading. So the student said, is it okay to write yes or no instead of true or false by mistake, of course, from Mohammed?

Great question. And unfortunately, it is not okay. This is one thing where IELTS is kind of really mean. If you write yes or no when the question is asking for true or false, it will be marked incorrect. Unfortunately, these are not interchangeable. You really have to pay attention to the instructions and the questions and then double check after to make sure that you wrote the correct word.

Yes, totally. And you're totally right. IELTS is mean sometimes. Like that's mean, like kind of unreasonable. I see true. I know you mean yes. Right? Like it should be the same. But unfortunately, IELTS is mean.

IELTS, there's no leeway on IELTS. Yeah. And this happens with some things on the listening exam too, where they're just pickier than you would expect, right? Punctuation, spelling, capitalization. You might think, oh, I'm sure they won't mark it correct for such a small mistake. No, they will, unfortunately. So you do have to pay attention to those details, double check your answers so you don't make a small error that ends up getting the question wrong.

Exactly.

And you also got number two correct. Aubrey, you are acing today's exam. Two for two. I'm on a roll. Two for two. Okay. Let's see if we could keep this roll going. All right. Here's the next question about speaking. Can we use you know as a filler in the speaking section? And this question came from Rayana. Thank you, Rayana. Aubrey, what do you think?

So you certainly can say, you know, or like, like. These are acceptable. Natives use these as fillers. Absolutely. However, you cannot use them over and over. You can't repeat them. If you were to say, you know, several times during a speaking exam, that is where your score will start coming down because we need to see variety of vocabulary, a variety of fillers.

We can't see repetition of vocab or fillers. This will pull down your fluency score.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. When we repeat filler words too often, that's called a crutch. And that means like you're relying on this word or phrase or sound even. You're relying on this to keep talking. And that pulls down your fluency score. Right? Yeah. And this often happens that students don't even realize they're doing it. Right? I've had students that will say maybe like, um, crutch.

A hundred times in a mock speaking exam. And then when I pointed out, they're shocked. They don't even notice they're doing it. They don't realize it. So it's not that you're intentionally using it to fill the space. It's a habit that you might not even notice you're doing. So you're going to need to be pretty proactive and intentionable, intentional, intentionable.

about your recording yourself, listening for fillers, listening for repeated words, get a mock speaking test so that someone can point out to you these fillers or things that you're doing to repeat because you might not notice. And then you go on test day and get a low score and have no idea why.

Yeah, no, totally. Great advice. Three for three. We're doing great. Rolling along. All right. Today's last question that guys is about the writing exam. Here it is. Can we use idioms in writing task two? And this was sent in by Shaza. Thank you, Shaza. So Aubrey, what do you think?

This is a really good question and a lot of students struggle with this. The tricky thing about idioms is that they have a range of formality. Some of them are extremely informal and those you absolutely will want to reserve for the speaking exam, probably part one, maybe part two of the speaking exam because they're so formal. But a lot of idioms are much more formal and are used in more formal conversations and

even would be appropriate on task two essays. So whenever we teach an idiom, we try to share like, would this be, you know, how formal is this? Should it be reserved for speaking? Could it possibly be used on essays? And also keep in mind that writing task two depends on the topic, right? What exactly are you writing about? But most idioms will be too informal for task two.

Exactly, exactly. But like Aubrey said, we always tell you when we teach idioms if they are appropriate for task two or not. So definitely guys, just scroll up in this feed for IELTS Energy. Listen to

any of our vocabulary episodes because we will always teach you whether it's formal or informal so you know where to use it on the exam. We've done so many fantastic vocabulary episodes. Guys, if you have missed anything, that means you're not following us, which...

Tsk, tsk, tsk. You should not do that. So hit follow right now or subscribe if you're on YouTube. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening today and we'll see you next time. Awesome. See you next time. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.

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