Are you one of those aspirants who appeared for the IELTS Test with full confidence with a hope to achieve Band 8.0 or more but ended up scoring a mere 6, 6.5 or just a 7.0?
There are more than 80,000 candidates who appear for the IELTS Exam every year but only a handful of them are able to achieve 8.0 or more in their IELTS Tests. As the time is progressing, it is becoming more and more difficult to score a high band in the IELTS and the number of repeat test takers is rising alarmingly high.
Objectives of this post:
- To understand the reasons behind the low IELTS Scores and the inability of your generation to procure high bands in their IELTS Test (Academic or General)
- Help you identify the key areas of concern that you never thought of and just blamed on the external factors for your low band scores.
Why were you unable to score more than 7.0 in the IELTS Test?
There is not a single reason responsible for your broken heart and shattered dreams. The desire of a high band score – Band 7.0 or above is everyone’s dream and all the candidates prepare very hard to achieve this. There are myriads of reasons which collectively affect your preparations and are responsible for your low IELTS Score.
4 reasons behind low IELTS Score.
1. Will Issues - Attitude is everything!
- Careless attitude
- English is easy!
- Just an English exam
- Close minded approach
- Result oriented approach rather than learning
- Easily Bored!
- Just being lazy
This is directly related to your perception towards the language and how you look at it whilst you are preparing for your IELTS Test.
The Problem: You must have been speaking English for almost 10 years and may have also secured good marks in your school exams too, but, IELTS is a different ball game altogether. Just because it is an English exam, doesn’t mean that you will not pay heed to it and do not bother to solve the questions yourself to check your proficiency in answering the questions.
Students think English is easy! And then get a Band 5.5 in their IELTS. Are you sure it’s that easy?
Also, most of the candidates try to learn the statements, sentences, words and even expressions – which they believe are the key to score high in IELTS. No, it is not. A language is not just about collection of letters, words or phrases, it is about learning how to express yourself and how to communicate with others.
The Solution: Start to learn English, and not memorize it.
2. Skill Issues – Dedication is the Key!
- Lack of practice
- Time management
- Limited vocabulary
- Backtracking mistakes
- Improve on shortcomings
The Problem: It has been observed over the past few years that the candidates are always in a hurry to prepare for the IELTS Test and are mostly aspiring for a Band 7.0 or more. Since they want quick results, they end up either skipping a practice exercise or do multiple things at the same time.
This is where you went wrong!
Think about this – when you were learning how to drive, what were you thinking? Dance, Party or The Road? If you do not keep your eyes on the road while driving a vehicle, you are destined for an accident. Similarly, while developing skills such as reading, listening, writing and speaking, you shouldn’t deviate from your primary goal. Furthermore, you should work closely with your tutor to know your mistakes and how you can overcome those is a short span of time. Learning from your mistakes and improvement on your shortcomings is the only way you can improve and develop your skills.
The Solution: Have patience. Manage your time well and practice a lot. But, always be under the guidance of your Tutor who can pin point your grey areas and help you overcome those and score 7.0 in your IELTS Test
3. Social factors
- Too much content
- Fake gurus and their magic recipe
- University of Internet
- Social Media
The Problem: When you are preparing for any exam, it is quite normal to go online and look for content. But, this where problem begins – there is too much content related to IELTS and most of the content has no credibility and is written by a non-expert. This is further fueled by a number of fake gurus who proclaim to be the IELTS Experts and always have some special recipe with which they claim an easy Band 8. Stay away!
Everything that you see and read on the internet is true and authentic. Online articles use the freedom of speech to earn themselves but jeopardize your IELTS Test Scores by providing misleading information and hollow claims.
The Solution: Keep internet for entertainment purposes only and leave the actual teaching to the professionals. The teacher who is tutoring you needs to be accredited with relevant certifications and must be authorized to train you for IELTS Test. The same can be said about the physical institutes who may hire economical faculty to teach you, but end up doing no good since their own teaching came from the internet articles and online videos.
4. Psychological Factors
- Exam Fear
- Nervousness
- Last minute panic
- Overconfidence
The Problem: As a student, you have been giving exams throughout your school life and this is no different. The inner feelings do play a very important role both during the IELTS preparation and when you are writing the IELTS Test.
The fear is good till the time it pushes you to overcome your shortcomings and enables you to take a strive ahead towards a better score. But, combined with nervousness, excess fear can cause some damaging effects and will definitely reflect in your lower IELTS Bands.
Plus, a number of youngsters have developed a habit of last minute panic outside the examination centre where they plunge themselves into darkness of not knowing anything and pretend to have forgotten everything that they have learnt. NO! your brain is not a volatile memory storage and the learning that you have acquired during your IELTS preparation won’t just vanish off of it overnight.
The Solution: To begin with, trust yourself and the hard work you’ve put in during your IELTS Training Sessions. The only way you can succeed in the IELTS Test is by keeping yourself relaxed and not making last minute changes to your strategies, just because you a silly you-tuber said so. Do not get involved in any kind of activity which can make you upset and disturb your focus. In case you want to, just go with reading questions from any practice book and check if you are able to understand the IELTS Questions or not. You can also go through the notes you made during your sessions and learn from the mistakes done in the past. That’s it! No need to try something new, or watch tons of videos to get a magic recipe to crack the IELTS Test. Stay calm, Stay cool!
Feeling Confused ?
Since there is a lot of information to absorb, the information on IELTS can be confusing sometimes. But, you do not need to worry, we're there to answer all your queries.