Free consultation with IELTS & TOEFL Specialist

Need to take IELTS, TOEFL, or TOEIC? Start here! This video is like a free consultation with an experienced exam advisor. I have over 30 years of English training experience and have helped thousands of students pass their exams, so I know what you need to focus on, and I know what can hold you back. In this video, I'll ask you questions that will help you:
• decide WHICH English proficiency test is best for you
• plan HOW MUCH TIME you need to prepare
• budget for the COSTS of the exams
I'll also share my secrets to succeeding on these English proficiency tests, and let you know what resources I recommend to start studying. By the end of this video, you'll know what to expect and be able to create your own plan for success.
http://www.goodluckielts.com
http://www.goodlucktoefl.com
http://www.goodlucktoeic.com
http://www.goodluckexams.com
http://www.studyingstyle.com

TRANSCRIPT

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. Have you just been told that you need to do an English proficiency exam, such as the IELTS or the TOEFL or the TOEIC, or are you in the middle of preparing for one of these exams or some other English proficiency exam? If so, please watch this lesson because I think it can really help you. What I'm going to do here is I'm going to go over some of the very important questions that you need to be asking yourself in order to prepare very well and very effectively for this exam. And it's much more than just studying English. All right?

So, what am I going to cover here? I'm going to cover four different areas. First the basics of: What are the things you need to know about the test? The logistics, or the planning that you're going to have to do in order to be very successful. The progress, how to measure it, how to tell, how to actually make progress towards your goal. And last of all, what can you do, what else can you do to really achieve great success? And that is a lot more than just doing English or just studying English, or improving your English.

Now, a lot of this knowledge has come to me because besides being a trainer on engVid, I have also owned and managed a language school for many years and I had a lot of students come into my office and sit down, and tell me that they had been told that they needed to do the IELTS, or the TOEFL, or that they needed to do an exam and they weren't sure which one, and their friends said do this, and another friend said do that. And they were really confused and they didn't know what are the various things that they had to think about. And so, through the years I've developed a lot of experience in advising and counselling students to prepare very well for this task, which is not an easy task but it's also a really important task because these... These exams matter a lot to your life. Okay? So let's get started.

So let's start with the basics. Number one: Which exam do you need to do? Now, sometimes you have a choice and sometimes you don't have a choice, but if you do have a choice, please check because there are so many different exams; the IELTS, the TOEFL, the TOEIC, and so many others today. And sometimes students have heard of, let's say the IELTS, but they haven't heard of another exam, but perhaps that is one of the options and that's an important, very important question for you to answer. I had a student, for example, in our school who was preparing for the IELTS and he was having a tough time with it, and he didn't do really well because he was starting at a lower level. And so later it came out that he could have actually prepared for the TOEIC exam, which is much easier. And so I told him, like: "Why don't you just switch to that exam?" and then he passed right away because that's where he was and he had a limited amount of time to prepare. So, it is really important to check: What are the possible exams you could do to satisfy the requirement of your university or your professional certification, body, or whatever reason it is that you're doing this exam? Okay? So make sure you know that.

Now, the second point then becomes let's suppose that you do have to do the IELTS exam. So the IELTS, for example, has different versions; it has an academic version and a general version. Usually the academic one is if you're trying to get into university because they need you to have higher level English. And the general one is for, for example, immigration to a country. So make sure you know and make sure you don't waste time studying for the wrong exam because each one is quite different.

Now, which area does your exam cover? So, for example, with IELTS academic, obviously it's going to be more academic subjects. If it's general, what kind of topics do they have there? If it's the TOEIC exam, that area is going to be business because TOEIC is an exam that covers business English, not really general English.