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 HACKS
TO PREPARE FOR

IELTS
T H E S M A RT WAY
11 Hacks to prepare for IELTS the Smart Way
IELTS is a Skill

• Like any other skill, you can prepare for IELTS in a smart way. It can be
deconstructed and learned very quickly if you only focus on the
critical elements.

• I know the feeling when you open any IELTS guide book and it tells
you that you are scored on Lexical Resource, Cohesion, and whatnot.

• What do these terms even mean?

The secret is: You don't need to know

• You also don't need to have a high vocabulary, or understanding of

adjectives, pronouns, verbs, etc.

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There is a smarter way to prepare for IELTS.

• The same way I got 8.5/9 Band in my IELTS, in the first attempt, and
all these other readers of AustraliaYours got similar or even higher
scores.

• In this guide, I am going to share with you 11 Hacks to get you

started on your way to smart prep for IELTS and score 8+ in all 4
modules.
4 Modules - 11 Hacks

01 Writing

02 Listening

03 Reading

04 Speaking

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MODULE 1 - WRITING TIPS
2 Hacks For IELTS Writing:
Tips To Get 8+ Band

Hack 1: The Structure

• If your IELTS exam is tomorrow & you are reading this section today,
I want you to take only one thing to prepare for IELTS out of this:
Writing is all about Structure.

• Your examiner is your audience. When your audience reads anything

that you've written, it experiences one of the two states: pleasure,
because of a smooth reading experience, – or headache, because of a
messy reading experience.

• If you read any blog post on AustraliaYours, it's written in a way to

make it a pleasurable experience for you. Each of my blog posts is an
8+ in the IELTS Writing Test.
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How to create a solid structure in your Writing Test?

1) You will always have 5 paragraphs. Each paragraph will be

focusing on just one thing

• A paragraph can be as short as two lines. It doesn't have to be a big

block of text.

• There will always be one introduction paragraph, 3 body paragraphs,

and one closing paragraph.

2) You will use simple English

• This is counter-intuitive to what you are taught elsewhere. Everybody

else tells you to focus on learning new words to increase your
vocabulary.

• There are two reasons I will not tell you to do this:

a) The amount of time you will waste in learning new vocabulary will
not have any significant impact on your IELTS score. Instead, if you
focus on learning smart hacks and techniques, you will see a
disproportionate increase in your score.

b) Wrong use of a difficult word in your writing will get you negative
marks, but the use of the simple correct word will not affect it
negatively. If anything, it will add to an overall flow of writing and
help you score more.

Hack 2: The Planning

There's a famous quote by Abraham Lincoln,
If I had 6 hours to chop down a tree,
I'd spend the first 4 hours sharpening the axe.

• I can completely understand that when you are already faced with
the challenge of time constraint, if I tell you to spend first 3-5
minutes just planning your letter or essay, you will not agree with
me.
• Even if you agree now, on the test day you will already be nervous,
and under the pressure situation, you will dive straight into writing
to make the most use of every single minute you have.

• But if I tell you that an essay that will take you 40 minutes to
write, can be written in 20 minutes if you spend 5 minutes to plan
first – making it a total 25 minutes task – would you?

• This is exactly what the difference is between writing without

planning and after having a structured chain of thoughts.

In Writing Task 1: Letter

Your planning will include answering all 3 bullet points given in the topic
with just 1 line.

For example,

If the topic says Write a letter to the hospital. In your letter:

• Explain why you would like to do unpaid work at the hospital

• Say what type of unpaid work you would be able to do

• Give details of when you would be available for work

You will first use 3-5 minutes to answer each of these questions in 1 line.

• Explain why you would like to do unpaid work at the hospital

1 line: I'm passionate about helping other people because it makes
me feel good about myself

• Say what type of unpaid work you would be able to do

1 line: I can take care of wounds by providing antiseptic & bandage

• Give details of when you would be available for work

1 line: I can start working from next month.

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Once you have this planning completed, you will just expand on your 1-
line answer by inventing details (numbers, dates, places, examples, etc)
around it.

You will expand your 1 line into 2-3 lines by adding context to it,
and you will have your 150 words crossed with a very well-structured,
well-planned letter.

Here's an example of adding details to the first bullet point's 1-line

answer:

• Explain why you would like to do unpaid work at the hospital?

1 line: I'm passionate about helping other people because it makes
me feel good about myself

Since childhood, I have been extremely passionate about helping people

around me. Whenever I used to play in the streets with other kids and if
someone used to get hurt, I used to be the first one to rush towards him
for assistance. As I grew up, I realised that helping other people gives me
the most satisfaction in life.

That's already 57 words!

06
MODULE 2 - LISTENING TIPS
3 Hacks For IELTS Listening:
Tips To Get 8+ Band

Hack 1: Never Make Notes

A common approach many people take is that they start taking notes as
the audio is being played. They do it out of fear because they think they
won't be able to remember what is being said.

You might be thinking that the Listening Test is the test of your memory.
How well you can remember the information. That is totally not true!
Instead, the Listening Test is your ability to listen for only the thing
you want to listen to.

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For example, if I ask you a question

“How much did Virat Kohli score in the last match?”

• Then I turn the volume on and you hear commenter speaking,

“India has won the match with a splendid 3rd wicket partnership
between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Together they put on 159 runs
in just under 20 overs. Kohli was unbeaten at 89, while Sharma
contributed 70 runs to the partnership before being caught at the
boundary”.

• If you were making notes of this entire commentary, you would jot
down a lot of entirely useless technical information. And because
you were busy writing, you might even end up confusing the scores
of both the batsmen.

• Instead, if you had just read the question and known exactly what
you were listening for, you would have patiently listened until the
commenter announced Kohli's score. You would have listened and
answered, “89”.

You will train yourself to only listen for the answer.

• Remember in the pressure situation, your memory will be very less. By

the time the audio has reached the third sentence, you will have
forgotten what the first sentence was about.

Hack 2: Tone Gives It Away

• The tone of the speakers helps you figure out the answer.
Answers are spoken loud and clear so everyone can understand
them.

• If the speaker in the audio speaks something very fast or swallows his
words, that you find it difficult to understand or keep up, the answer
is never there.

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For example
If you have a question:
___________ will form the jury for the competition.

• You will hear in the recording, “the writing competition will be

judged by the famous authors from the literary club”.

• The words famous authors will be emphasised in a way that they

stand out in the entire sentence for your mind to process.

Hack 3: Write-and-Scrap Strategy

The number one trick IELTS uses to confuse listeners is giving wrong
information… and then correcting it.

For example,

• If you ask me about my mobile number, I will say “0123 456789“.

• But in the IELTS recording, very often the speaker will say, “0123
768954. Oh sorry, I've changed my number recently. It's actually 0123
456789”.

The speaker will intentionally give you wrong information, and

then the correct one.

How do you answer such questions? The strategy you are going to use
is called Write-And-Scrap Strategy.

• At no point, you should be waiting for the correct answer and only
write when you have that. That's because you would not know if the
first answer being given is correct or incorrect.

• The moment you hear the first answer, you will write it at the same
time. But as the narration goes on, and the speaker changes the
answer, you will write the new answer and then scrap the
previous one.

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• If you wait for the correct answer without writing the first one, you
will have forgotten the first sentence by the time recording reaches
the second or third sentence.

10
MODULE 3 - READING TIPS
3 Hacks For IELTS Reading:
Tips To Get 8+ Band

Hack 1: Not All Questions Are Created Equal

• There are only 5 different types of questions in the Reading Test. Only
1 type of question requires you to have a full understanding of the
passage.

• All the other 4 types of questions require you to locate information.

• For these 4 types, you can pretty much answer all questions by
understanding as less as 20% of the passage only.

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• That's why for each section, you will first flip over the passage to
skim the questions and find out whether you need to understand
the passage at all.

• Note that I'm not asking you to read each question in detail to
understand it's meaning. Just skim through questions to understand
what type of questions they are.

• Also, once you skim through the questions even before looking at
the passage, you will develop a general idea of what the passage
might be talking about. With that idea at the back of your mind,
when you read through the passage, it will just make much more
sense than it would have otherwise.

Hack 2:
Heading + First Sentence = Full Passage
• In reading passages, a common mistake that most people make is
that they try to skim through the entire passage quickly to get an
idea of what's written in this passage. That's a terrific waste of time!

You will instead read the heading first, and then the first sentence of
each paragraph.

If the first sentence is very short,

For Example,

• Less than one line of your sheet, then you will read the first two
sentences.

• Also, instead of reading them fast, you will read them slowly and
absorb them. This will take just 10-15 seconds per paragraph, but you
will get a very good idea of what this entire passage is talking about.

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• Remember from Hack#1 – you do not need to understand the
meaning of the full passage for 4 out of 5 types of questions. Reading
the first sentence only will save you up to 80% of the time that you
would otherwise waste in reading full passages.

• After some practice, you will discover that you will end up reading
only 40-60% of the total passages when answering the questions. So
why should you waste time trying to understand the full passages?!

Hack 3: The Ultimate Match Making

• Each question has keywords to tell you exactly where to look for the
answer. So even before you look for the answer, just look for the
keyword.

For example,

If the question is, “A trunk shot shows a group of people facing camera” –
True, False, or Not Given?

• You will first identify that the keywords are trunk shot. How do you
know that? Because all the other words, such as group, people,
camera, are just common words that will appear several times in the
passage.

• You will quickly go back up to the passage and find the words trunk
shot, and underline them.

• Because of Hack#2, 8 out of 10 times, you will know exactly which

paragraph the keyword might be in.

Some of the useful keywords to note are names, dates, numbers, and
places. These are easy to locate.

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• Once you have the keywords underlined, read the question again to
understand what the question is asking.

• Then read one sentence before the keyword, the sentence in which
the keyword is, and one sentence after the keyword. More than 90%
of the time, you will find the answer within 3 lines of the keyword.
Usually, in the same line as the keyword.

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MODULE 4 - SPEAKING TIPS
3 Hacks For IELTS Speaking:
Tips To Get 8+ Band

Hack 1: Simple Wins Over Complex

• If you are like most people, your biggest concern is walking in the
interview and trying to impress the interviewer. This is the wrong
mindset for IELTS!

• IELTS Speaking test is different from job interviews because in job

interviews, your intellect matters. Your ideas, facts, and opinions
should be right.

15
• In the Speaking Test, you can be totally lying, making up stories, and
saying things that are unpopular, and still score high. How you say it
matters, not what you say.

• You don't have to impress the examiner with your knowledge and
intelligence. You are just scored on your fluency in English.

And what's the best way to be fluent? By being simple.

• Don't try to use difficult words to show your range of vocabulary, or

try to construct complicated sentences. These will take a lot of your
time in preparation and won't contribute highly towards your score.

• Instead, if you can answer each question in simple words using short
sentences, you will score very high.

Hack 2: Fluency Doesn't Mean Fast

Do me a favour and search 'Obama Out' on YouTube. This is Barack
Obama's last speech at White House dinner. This is a masterclass in
speaking.

Is he speaking fast?

• Not at all. Instead, he is speaking the slowest you might have ever
heard anyone speak. And yet, he is the best public speaker in the
world.

Fluency is all about first thinking, then speaking without hesitation.

This is a game-changer mindset.

• Speaking Test demands a structure more than anything. You need not
speak fast, but you should be clear and precise. Take your time to
gather your thoughts and then choose the right words.

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• One more thing, your accent does not matter. South Asians generally
have this inferiority complex that our accent is not at par with the
western accent. Well, that might be true when you are trying to score
a date with a westerner. But for IELTS, there are no superior or inferior
accents.

Hack 3: Tonality Is The Secret Key

The use of tonality is the number 1 difference between a good speaker
and a great speaker. No one tells you this!

It will take a bit of practice, but would you have practiced if you weren't
even aware of it?

Tonality is the way we modify our emphasis on certain words to

create a better mental visual in the listener's mind.

Let's take a sentence, “I live in a large house on the far end of the town”.

• Emphasise LARGE and FAAAAAR, and you will change the entire
image of this sentence.

• In the normal way, the listener has to process the words to make
sense of what you are saying. But by adding tonality, the listener's
mind will automatically create an image of your house and its
location.

• As a result, the listener's mind will believe that you are a good
speaker, and you are going to get a high score.

-----

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