scribe123

Hi All,

Thankfully both my wife and I passed and have good enough scores to claim maximum language points. I know only the principal applicant need take the test, but by the time we realised that it was too late to cancel and get a refund.

Our intended NOC quota is full for this year, but the certificates are valid for 2 years so we can still use them.

I just thought I'd add a note about the book we bought to study for the tests: IELTS Practice Tests Plus 2 with Key and CD Pack - Amazon Link.

I can't really recommend this book to be honest. It is okay, and gets you on your way in the end, but the bad thing about it (and this wasted a lot of our time) is that the book just jumps straight into example tests without any guidance or explanation (well to be fair there is a *small* amount of poor guidance). Essentially you have to spend time working out how to use the book and which tests are relevant as it only distinguished between the academic and general tests towards the end of the book.

If you have plenty of time on your hands then it's probably okay, but if you have 3 kids and a job, free time to study comes in small amounts. I would advise searching for another book before you try this one.

Cheers

Chris

Geordie Lass

Hi

Congrats on passing the test... great feedback for those wanting to buy extra study materials.

My hubby did it a couple of months back and he didn't use any study guides. He passed with good marks.

Do you think it's actually worth buying any guide at all? Sitting the test is expensive enough.

His opinion was that if English wasn't your first language it would have been a very hard test. Saying that there was over 100 people in his test and he reckoned most of them had English as a second language.

scribe123

Agreed, if English isn't you first language it would be hard.

I thought of taking the French version to see how far my limited French got me, but if it's anything like the IELTS test I can forget that as an idea

The study guide was useful to see and practice the format of the test, but I don't think I needed it to pass. That said, knowing what to expect put me at ease somewhat. I could imagine some people being quite nervous walking in without a clue of what to expect.

Geordie Lass

Lol to the French test!

They stopped my hubby's test for a candidate to go and be sick she was so nervous (I thought they would just have carried on). Saying that we'd actually spoken to her at a traffic light as she was lost and looking for the test centre and her English was very broken (and that's being kind).

Saying that I would have expected someone like hubby (as in someone born and raised in England) to get a 9 or a 10 in every section - he didn't... got a couple of 9s and a 7.5 in one!

scribe123

I must admit that I get quite worried as the person running the test emphasised that spelling was important on a number of occasions.

It has officially been recognised for years that I can't spell to save my life. Spell checkers are my Gods!

Geordie Lass

Yeah that was my worry because while I am married to an IT whizz his spelling is a bit hit and miss as is his grammar! I actually gave him lessons in apostrophes, commas, colons, semi colons etc before the test!