15 Days Practice for IELTS writing

Days’ Practice

fo r IELTS

Writing

Wang Hong Xia

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kinh nghiệm của nhân loại được tích lựỹ

trong nhiều thế kỷ (Cơ-Rúp-SKai-a)

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FOREWORD

You have certainly practised a great deal to prepare for your actual exam. You have also

been exposed to a variety of materials, and have familiarised yourself with the format of the

IELTS test. This book, therefore, does not aim at loading you with more practice materials on

IELTS, but it will sum up the main points so as to enable you to work out an effective plan

to finally achieve your desired band score in the actual test you are taking.

I. Six features of the IELTS test

1. Communicative Testing

The first feature of the IELTS test is communicative testing. The purpose of this test is,

indeed, designed to assess the language ability of candidates who need to study or work where

English is the language of communication. It aims at testing candidates’ language use, not

language knowledge.

Compare the items in the table below:

j Focus of communicative testing Focus of non-communicative testing

• Use of verbal and non-verbal communication • Knowledge of vocabulary and grammar

• Understanding meanings of lexical items in • Understanding literal meanings of lexical

contexts items

• Applying understanding into real-life tasks such as • Testing individual skills

role-play in speaking, completing a table in reading • Focussing only on receptive skills

• Integrating receptive with productive skills

2. The Third Generation Testing

As far as testing is concerned, the format of tests has resulted from the way language is

taught and learnt. In reality, English language testing has so far gone through three stages: the

first stage lasted from the beginning of the 20th century to prior W orld W ar II when the tests

of this period focussed mainly on translating from and into the target language. Then, the

second stage started from post W orld W ar II and continues up to the present time. The gen￾eral trend of testing in this period concentrated on objective tests (typically the TOEFL test

which is primarily popular in the US). Next came the third stage with the IELTS test which

was introduced in 1989 (mainly popular in the UK and Australia) and was, in fact, the fruit

of the Communicative Language Teaching that came into existence in the 1970s. Nowadays,

the Communicative Language Teaching and its test format have widely been recognised by

the majority of language instructors and candidates. This kind of test is, generally, becoming

more and more popular.

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