Originally Posted by tiger222

NJA -

Glad to "meet" you. I don't think I've run into any other US citizens on this site. I agree with you that the Florida housing Market is very soft. I have a friend that tried to sell her house in Florida. She ended up leasing it to a person that wanted to do a lease to purchase option. She used an agent for this but ended up finding the buyer/leaser on Craigslist.

You could wait to do the meds and PCCs because once they are done, you'll need to validate your visa before 12 months on the date of the earliest. (does that make sense). You also won't get a CO assigned very quickly as the file will have all that is necessary for Visa to be issued. Pro - you'll receive the Visa sooner. I read a thread where it takes about 5 weeks from the time the CO asks for PCCS and Meds to receive Visa. Does the ACS "expire"? Where were you previously that the dates were "reversed" from the US?

We're hoping to be in QLD in September 2008. We really don't want to go through another winter here. If we rent the house, we'll have to use the University's dates - and the tenant will want to begin the lease in August. So we have our work cut out for us either way.

OH will sit IELTS this saturday. He's confident he'll pass on the first try. We need 5 of those 10 points.

Originally Posted by benlast

I'm hoping so... been doing practice tests to reduce the unknowns. I reckon that being a native speaker (and brought up by a father who was a bit of a grammar-and-correct-English pedant) helps a lot, but when 33% of the marks of the second writing tasks are dependent on how you can structure an argument, it's still easy to lose marks


Thanks - let's hope neither of us need it!

Cheers
Ben

Originally Posted by De Mange

The hardest bit is the listening cos it is easy to miss something in the conversation....especially when you are trying to answer the previous question.

Originally Posted by benlast

Yeah, you end up practising writing one answer down whilst listening for the next. Though I have to say that so far, in my practise passages, I haven't heard the answers to two questions come so close together that you'd risk missing the second whilst writing down the answer to the first. I mean, that'd be damn sneaky of them...

Cheers
Ben

Originally Posted by De Mange

I probably guessed the answer to 5 of the 40 questions and still managed an overall score of 9. Think you need a 7 for proficiency so even if you get 25% of the questions wrong you will be fine.

Overall I dont think there is an easier bonus 10 points than a good old English test.

Originally Posted by benlast

Hmm... if the top score is 9, which one would achieve if one got all 40 questions right, then each question must be worth 0.225 of a mark. So if you got all 5of your guesses wrong, you would have dropped 1.125 marks and probably been awarded 8 or so. Getting 25% wrong would be dropping 10 questions, or 2.25 marks, which would put you just under 7. So if the marks are weighted in a linear fashion, you can get away with dropping 2 marks' worth, which is 8 questions Which is quite reassuring, really.

I think I might be obsessing a bit here...

Cheers
b

Originally Posted by benlast

I'm sitting the IELTS this Saturday, the 19th: as long as I can pass it within two or three attempts I'll have time to provide the results as part of the application. Whilst I'm not a million years away from the age limit (I'm 43) it was more a case of "let's get the damn thing lodged and the clock ticking" than anything else!

Cheers
Ben

Originally Posted by chasmw

Ben (or anyone),
How does it work then with the lodging of documents?... Is there a grace period before you have to get the docs on the system?

Originally Posted by chasmw

Ben (or anyone),
How does it work then with the lodging of documents? I'm half-way through completing my Visa application online, but I had it in mind that I wouldn't be able to hit "submit" until I got the 2 docs we're still waiting for -- i.e. IELTS result and a copy of a birth certificate we've requested. Is there a grace period before you have to get the docs on the system?
Thanks.
Chris.

Originally Posted by chasmw

Ben (or anyone),
How does it work then with the lodging of documents? I'm half-way through completing my Visa application online, but I had it in mind that I wouldn't be able to hit "submit" until I got the 2 docs we're still waiting for -- i.e. IELTS result and a copy of a birth certificate we've requested. Is there a grace period before you have to get the docs on the system?
Thanks.
Chris.

Originally Posted by benlast

Being one of those lazy people who has an agent to do it for them... I can't say for sure how one lodges the docs. However, in my case, I know that I can still submit the visa application prior to receiving the IELTS results. I've met the "threshold requirements" of having competent English by holding a UK passport. This is also worth 15 points, which leaves me 5 points short of the passmark at the time I applied. I can then "upgrade" this to 25 points with a Proficient IELTS score anytime prior to the Case Officer making a decision on my visa (which on current timescales will be several months down the road. I just have to submit the IELTS score once I get a suitable one, and inform DIAC that I want to claim 25 points with that IELTS score.

So right now my application has 115 points, and when I stick the IELTS on, I get 125. And again: this is being done through an agent, who seems to know what he's doing (he has a damn good track record!).

Cheers
Ben

Originally Posted by tiger222

LODGE! LODGE! LODGE! Just wanted to encourage you to elodge the Visa sooner rather then later

Originally Posted by chasmw

LODGED!
Although just after we'd done so, I spotted a mistake on my ACS letter. See my tale of woe on the ACS Acknowledgement Time thread.
Chris.