If you’re really stuck with a question in the IELTS Reading test, it’s important that you don’t spend too long thinking about your answer and that you take a guess instead. If you have to guess the answer to a TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN question, here are two quick tips to give you a better chance of guessing right.

Tip 1: Don’t guess the answer based on your own knowledge

If you think you know that an answer is true or false because you have read it somewhere else, you shouldn’t use this knowledge to answer the question.

To show you what I mean, here are two TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN questions taken from a test in the book Cambridge IELTS 8:

Do the following statements agree with the information in the text?

Write:

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information given

29. Most New Zealanders believe it is good to teach children a second language
30. Chinese is the most common foreign language in New Zealand

If I had to guess the answers to these questions based on my own knowledge, I would answer TRUE for both. The answers in the test, however, are NOT GIVEN because the information isn’t stated directly in the text.

Tip 2: Guess the answer based on the answers in previous IELTS Reading tests

In all of the published versions of official IELTS Reading tests that I’ve looked at (both Academic and General Training), there’s almost always at least one answer that is true, one that is false and one that is not given in any set of TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN questions.

What this means is that if you are confident with all of your answers except one, you should choose the answer that you haven’t used yet. If there are four questions, for example, and you are confident that the first three answers are TRUE, TRUE and FALSE, then it would be a good idea to choose NOT GIVEN for the fourth answer.

Of course, whether your guess is right or not depends on whether the answers that you are confident with are actually correct.

Have a good weekend,

Pete

See our IELTS tutor profiles to find out more about our qualified and experienced English language teachers.

More posts you may like:

1. Is it true, false or not given? (2)
2. Is it true, false or not given?

As you probably know, in IELTS General Training Writing Task 1 you may have to write a letter of complaint about a product or service.

Here’s an example of this kind of writing task (taken from my post ‘IELTS General Training letter writing topics‘) and the letter of complaint that I wrote as a sample answer.

You recently bought a large expensive item but when it was delivered to your home you found some problems with it.

Write a letter to the manager of the shop. In your letter

• give details of what you bought
• describe the problems with your item
• say what you want the shop to do

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to complain about a sofa that I ordered from your store on the 1st of May and which has just been delivered.

The sofa I bought is a red two-seater in your latest range and at first glance it looked to be in perfect condition. On closer inspection, however, I found that one of the cushions has a dark stain on the corner and one of the front legs is chipped. It would be okay if the stain was on the back of the cushion or the chip was on one of the rear legs, but unfortunately they are both noticeable and as such I feel that the sofa is not in an acceptable condition.

I would like, therefore, to arrange for the sofa to be picked up and for a replacement to be delivered as soon as possible. You can contact me on the number below at anytime.

Yours faithfully,

Mr P. Jones

Word count: 154

I think that writing an IELTS letter of complaint is easier (and quicker) if you use ideas from a real situation. When I wrote the letter above, I thought of a product that I’d had delivered before and then thought about what could have been wrong with it. There wasn’t actually anything wrong with my sofa, but it did help me write the letter by thinking of a product that I’d actually bought.

Have a good weekend,

Pete

See our IELTS tutor profiles to find out more about our qualified and experienced English language teachers.

More posts you may like:

1. IELTS General Training letter writing topics

For those of you preparing for the IELTS General Training test, it would be a good idea to become more familiar with the letter writing topics that you could get in IELTS Writing Task 1.

Looking at examples from published IELTS tests and from what our students have told us about their writing tests, two common IELTS letter writing topics are a letter of complaint about a product or service and a letter of invitation to a friend.

A letter of complaint

Here’s a sample task asking you to write a letter of complaint (taken from the Official IELTS Practice Materials):

You recently bought a large expensive item but when it was delivered to your home you found some problems with it.

Write a letter to the manager of the shop. In your letter

• give details of what you bought
• describe the problems with your item
• say what you want the shop to do

If you get this kind of topic in your test, you may find it easier (and quicker) to write your letter if you use ideas from a real situation, i.e. if you write about a product that you (or somebody you know) actually bought and had problems with. When I wrote a sample answer for this task, I found it easier to base my letter on a real experience.

A letter of invitation to a friend

Here’s a sample task asking you to write a letter of invitation to a friend (taken from the book Cambridge IELTS 8):

You have recently moved to a different house.

Write a letter to an English-speaking friend. In your letter

• explain why you have moved house
• describe the new house
• invite your friend to come and visit

As with the previous task, you may find it easier if you base your letter on a real situation. You may never have written a letter inviting a friend to your house, of course, but you may have called a friend to invite them to your new house/apartment and you could base your letter on this experience.

I’ll post a sample answer to the first task later today.

Pete

See our IELTS tutor profiles to find out more about our qualified and experienced English language teachers.

More posts you may like:

1. Some advice for IELTS General Training writing task 1
2. Sample IELTS letter of complaint
3. I’m writing to say thank you for…

As you may know, Section 2 of the IELTS Listening test is often a recording of someone talking about a tourist attraction like a museum or a park. For this reason, I’d like to recommend you listen to a description of England’s newest tourist attraction as part of your IELTS preparation.

In the recording, you’ll hear about a new coach trip around one of Europe’s busiest roads: the M25 motorway.

England’s newest tourist attraction

To make the recording easier to understand, check you understand the following vocabulary related to the topic of transport before you listen:

• a motorway, a junction, a road sign, a traffic jam, a tunnel, a toll, rush hour

If you find the listening difficult, there’s a transcript of the recording that you can read at the link above.

While this recording wasn’t produced specifically for IELTS, it is an example of the kind of topic that’s often used in Section 2 of the IELTS Listening test and is therefore useful IELTS listening practice. If you find the recording interesting, check out the other podcasts on the Listen to English – learn English website.

Pete

PS The photo above is of the M25 motorway and is the copyright of Ben Gamble and licensed for reuse.

See our IELTS tutor profiles to find out more about our qualified and experienced English language teachers.

More posts you may like:

1. Listening to lectures: a useful resource
2. 60-second listening practice
3. Listening to British, American, Australian and other accents

We’ve reorganised the posts on our IELTS preparation blog to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for.

For those of you looking for IELTS tips, check out our new blog categories ‘IELTS listening tips‘, ‘IELTS reading tips‘, ‘IELTS writing tips‘ and ‘IELTS speaking tips‘.

For some examples of topics you may have to write or talk about in your IELTS test, have a look at our blog categories ‘IELTS writing topics‘ or ‘IELTS speaking topics‘.

You can now find examples of IELTS Writing in our new blog category ‘IELTS writing samples‘, and you can find videos of candidates answering IELTS Speaking questions in ‘IELTS speaking samples‘.

Best wishes,

The e-englishteacher.com team

See our IELTS tutor profiles to find out more about our qualified and experienced English language teachers.

More posts you may like:

No related posts.