Naveed from Bangladesh, was on Band 6.5 in the writing. He had taken the test a few times before already ($$$). He’d gotten his essays corrected before but was infuriated with the feedback he was sent. So he tried the IELTSPodcast essay correction service and was ECSTATIC.
He had just gotten married in Bangladesh, applying for PR in Australia, working as an accountant in Melbourne, and had his test in 14 days! Rather hectic to say the least! Before the IELTSPodcast essay corrections he had no idea where his mistakes were. After Daphney gave feedback on two essays, improving was obvious and in the next IELTS test he jumps to Band 7!
Naveed was absolutely confident that if he had taken the online course (Jump to Band 7 or it’s Free), he would have easily surpassed Band 7. Interesting 😉
You can download or listen to the audio version here:
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YOU MAY READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Naveed: I start listening for quite a while. I’m like wait a minute. This is actually really good information. I should write it down.
| INTRODUCTION |
Female Voice: You are now listening to the IELTS podcast. Learn from tutors and ex-examiners who are masters of IELTS preparation. Your host, Ben Worthington.
[Music]
Ben: Hello there, IELTS students. In this tutorial, we’re going to be speaking with Naveed who is based in Australia. So, Naveed, could you please tell us why you were taking the IELTS, where you’re from and how you ended up in Australia?
Naveed: Right. Hi, my name is Naveed. I’m originally from Bangladesh and I came to Australia as a student and I studied three years here as an accounting student and I booked the IELTS exam again for my permanent residency in Australia. So, I needed really good grades to get the Australian PR–
Ben: Got you. What grades–
Naveed: –which is permanent resident.
Ben: Yes. What grades do they request in the PR?
Naveed: So, for different candidates, it’s a bit different. If you have experience and the education a triple 7 and an 8 would be good for you. If you have low experience then maybe a higher mark would be needed. For me, I needed the 8 triple 7.
Ben: Right.
Naveed: Which is 8 in listening and 7 in everything else.
Ben: Interesting and by experience you mean working experience.
Naveed: Yes, working experience, yes.
Ben: I see.
Naveed: And you need to graduate from Australia. So, they calculate so many points [unintelligible 00:01:58.26].
Ben: I see. So, you’ve been working in an accountancy in Melbourne.
Naveed: Yes.
Ben: Okay. How was that?
Naveed: It’s good. I’m still working. It’s going good so far, but I really needed the grades for a longer-term stay in Australia. So, I really needed that.
Ben: I see. I see. All right and before we started recording you were jumping– you almost started telling me about everything that you had done before joining the course. Could you just take up where I interrupted you from?
Naveed: Yes, sure. So, basically, I gave IELTS total three times. The first time I gave it was for the Australian student visa and in that time, I had 7.5 in everything, but reading 6.5 or somewhere like that, but I know I had reading– sorry, not reading, writing 6.5 and then I gave it again for my sort of like a work visa after you graduate and I had 7.5 in everything again and writing I had 6.5 again and I’m thinking why am I getting 6.5 in this? Okay, maybe because– I know last time I got 6.5 and the next time I gave it, the second time, I went to some classes, I went to my friends, I went everywhere to see okay, what’s going on? I gave him a mock exam. Everyone is saying it’s very good. It’s not bad. Yes, it should be a 7, but I still keep getting 6.5.
Ben: I see.
Naveed: By the third time, I didn’t want to risk it and I know I have been listening to your podcasts for quite long and your podcasts are really, really amazing because I’ve been hearing like okay, I didn’t hear this before [unintelligible 00:03:59.18] and I wrote notes to myself. It’s not about let’s say– what should I say? Not just about the structure, not just about– it’s not that simple to make okay a nice essay needs this, this, this. Everyone’s case is different, right?
Ben: Yes.
Naveed: I might have this issue. Someone else might have this issue. Whatever issue it is, we don’t– we can’t see it. Do you know what I mean?
Ben: Yes. Totally.
Naveed: Yes. So, I had very short time. So, I went for your trial essay because my exam was within two weeks and I just came from holiday. Yes, I just came from holiday because I got married.
Ben: Well, congratulations.
Naveed: Thank you. So, I got married. So, I came back and your course I think was two months, right?
Ben: You’ve got up to 90 days to complete it.
Naveed: Yes, to take full advantage of it because I know you have a lot of stuff in there, but to take full advantage of it, I think you need at least a month maybe like what I saw. I’m working full time. I’m like okay, I’ll just do one essay. Let me see. I paid for one essay and the response I got I never got again. I never got this response from anyone else again.
Just to give you context, I paid for someone else from Canada and they charged me 20 bucks or something. Okay, fine. No, no. Forget that one. I’ll give you the worst one. From the IELTS website, they have something called IELTS assist, right? I paid 40 bucks for that. They sent me my paper with like word– you know how like word document has okay this is wrong, this vocabulary is wrong? They just sent me this.
Ben: Oh, gosh.
Naveed: Spelling issue, grammar issue, that’s it. I’m just told oh, fix your grammar, please. What the hell? I could have done that by copying and pasting to a word document. I’m like what the hell! I was really, really angry, but when whoever who gave me the feedback– I think Daphne gave me the feedback. She gave it on a YouTube video and she highlighted, she read it. Hey, this sentence could have been better. This could have been arranged different. That could have been arranged different and it really helped me. She used real-life examples and that’s [unintelligible 00:06:42.01] life changer for me because that type of service you can’t get it anywhere else really.
Ben: That’s interesting.
Naveed: Yes, that’s the biggest thing for me.
Ben: Yes. Daphne is an absolute star along with the other essay correctors we’ve got, Ellen. Both of them are native English speakers like myself and both of them have been trained to an extremely high level. I can’t say exactly how high for other reasons, but just to summarize, you tried a few different services; the one in Canada, you tried the official one and you weren’t impressed. In fact, you were kind of offended. It sounds like infuriated maybe even. Then you decided to do the trial essay correction. Is that right?
Naveed: Yes.
Ben: Got you. Got you. And then from that trial, you were quite impressed and you joined us on the online course. Is that right?
Naveed: Well, I didn’t get the chance to join, but I would have definitely joined if I had the time.
Ben: Oh, okay.
Naveed: That’s what I emailed Daphne like thank you so much and if I had time, I know because for me personally, I could have had a way better score, a lot better score if I actually– I know I got a good score, but I know with your course, it would have been a lot better, but the thing is it just gives some time because I only took essay correction with her, but within those two, I learned more than anything I’ve ever learned before with my two years of studying IELTS because I always write the same and nobody tells me what’s wrong with it. Do you know what I mean?
Ben: Right. Right. So, it’s like the feedback that really sort of like guided you and sped up your improvement.
Naveed: Yes. It’s just one of those things like you’ve never noticed until someone points it out. Do you know what I mean?
Ben: Yes, yes.
Naveed: It’s really crazy. I was like wow! I wish I knew about this before studying IELTS, but you don’t and I never knew, too and it was really sad for me. People are charging so much money for IELTS. Like in Melbourne also, people are charging so much money to study IELTS, but yes. I don’t know, but I’ve already suggested it to a few of my friends. I don’t know if they went for it. I highly recommend it.
Ben: Thank you. Thank you. Do you remember what exactly it was that Daphne helped you with that made such a difference?
Naveed: Okay. I might have some notes. I have a book in front of me. What was it? Let me see if I can find it. Okay. Anyway, I’ve printed it out somewhere. Anyways, okay. So, the best thing about the review is the YouTube video because it’s easy to access, right? The access is easy, right? She highlights you wrote this sentence. It’s grammatically correct, but the points you’re going to receive is not going to be good enough for you to get that higher mark.
So, because you might do let’s say– She says spelling is a huge deal, so don’t lose points on spelling. If you don’t know it, don’t spell it, right?
Ben: Yes.
Naveed: Because you might get 8 in everything else, but you get 6 on something, your mark just goes– it plummets to the ground.
Ben: Yes.
Naveed: So, it’s better to be consistent in every part instead of being– trying to be really high in vocab, but then losing points in spelling. So, she pointed out things like you have to remember these four points. I think it was vocab, cohesion and coherence and I forgot what was the other one. It’s been quite long since I [unintelligible 00:10:45.00].
Ben: Okay, no worries. No worries.
Naveed: Yes, yes. There was–
Ben: I’ll just mention something for the listeners. Naveed has touched on a very important point and we cover this in detail in the online course with– about spelling. It’s absolutely ludicrous, it’s an absolute crime if you’re losing points in spelling because this is something that you can remedy yourself by writing out essays, putting them through a word processor, Word, Google Docs, whatever and then just checking which words you are writing incorrectly and then learn them, master them. It’s straight forward.
So, it’s absolutely– when I did the corrections, it used to drive me crazy when I would see bad corrections. I would be like there are zero excuses. Grammar, we don’t have the software. You need a native English speaker to look at it and tell you that it’s an error and you can’t see the error, but spelling, zero excuses. So, good point there, Naveed. Sorry, carry on, Naveed. Did you have anything else to say?
Naveed: Another thing is so with the spelling, I was having advice you can download like a spelling app. Basically, what you do is you store the ones– like for me if I wrote an essay, everything that I spelled wrong I put it in this app and then I test myself every day. So, it’s not a test. It’s like most commonly adjectives I use or– do you know what I mean?
Ben: Yes, yes. Definitely.
Naveed: Because it’s always going to be the same type of topic and you really talk about these are the topics that are coming up even in your website. These are the topics that are coming up and it’s very similar; climate, education, healthcare and you also talk about being very precise with the vocabulary like climate change or healthcare, elderly; don’t use older people, use elderly and stuff like that gives you a lot of marks [unintelligible 00:12:55.17] using good words but like spelling it also– That’s it. That’s what I have.
Ben: Got you. Got you. About the app, that’s a very, very good point and I’ve seen a lot of students use these apps and testing yourself daily is the best way forward or even a few times daily. Just one other thing, Naveed, when you were reviewing your essay corrections sent to you by Naveed– sorry, sent to you by Daphne, where were you? Were you on a train, on the metro or something like that or at home?
Naveed: Well, I used to come back home and just watch it.
Ben: Okay. Got you.
Naveed: Yes, because she sends me in the morning which is my night time because it’s a 12-hour time difference.
Ben: Right, right. Okay.
Naveed: But I’m 100% sure if anyone is listening, give it a try at least with 100% get something that you didn’t know before. 100%. I’ve been to so many people and nobody told me like just don’t write like this. Write like that. Do you know what I mean? People can say hey, don’t write this. Okay, fine. Then what should I write? They’ll give you examples that’s not better than yours.
Ben: Got you.
Naveed: She actually gives examples that’s better than yours. So, you’re like hey, I never thought about that.
Ben: That is awesome. I know exactly what you mean. I’ve seen some of these corrections where it’s like this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. You are useless. Why bother? You know and it’s like what! Obviously, they don’t say it as [unintelligible 00:14:35.11]. It’s cruel.
Naveed: They need our money so they’re not going to say it.
Ben: But I have, Naveed, I have seen corrections where the teacher wrote this is a primary school level, yes? And I was like how can they get away with that? This student is struggling. They want to improve their lives. They want to get to Australia, get PR, join a uni in England or whatever. They’re trying their best to improve their lives and the teacher is just slapping them around the face with a super demotivating correction. It’s absolutely criminal. So, yes.
Naveed: I think another thing a big part of it is that because an examiner is marking it, she knows exactly what she’s talking about. Like I have some credit. She’s credible definitely.
Ben: Oh, for sure.
Naveed: When someone else who’s not an examiner says that, I take it with a grain of salt. Do you know what I mean?
Ben: Exactly. Yes. Exactly.
Naveed: Yes, yes.
Ben: And also you’ve got the benefit and you know confidently that what she’s saying is completely legitimate because you can hear that it’s a native English speaker. With the document that you get sent back, then it’s– anybody could have written that text and I’ve seen corrections which are very questionable and I’m like there’s no way a native English speaker would have encouraged the student to write like that. So, yes. This is another good point.
Naveed: Even though– like to add on it, even if you are a native English speaker, for me I grew up a bit in the UK when I was young–
Ben: Yes, in London I think. I can hear. I thought so.
Naveed: I was in Cardiff, a bit of London, a bit of Cardiff.
Ben: Okay, okay
Naveed: Even me as a native– I consider myself– I’m actually [unintelligible 00:16:36.18] I have a good grasp in the English level, but the problem is with IELTS it’s not really about the English. It’s about– what should I say? Response; how can you respond? How can you communicate your ideas to people, right?
Ben: Exactly, yes. Yes.
Naveed: This is not taught like hey, this is how you actually communicate with someone. It actually really helped me with my work, too. In my emails, I’m more considerate on how I write things. Even when I’m talking to someone, I’m more considerate on how I talk about things. So, it’s really a communication exam rather than an English exam. How well can you communicate?
Ben: Exactly. Exactly. You’ve just mentioned a few good points there that I want to expound on. The first one is as you said, not any native English speaker can sort of do the correction. Maybe you send your essay to a native English speaker, but just because they are native English speaker, they’ve got an extremely high level doesn’t really mean that they’re going to help you with your writing that you need for the IELTS exam. That’s like a whole other skill and then the second thing, I honestly believe that once you get better at writing, it sharpens your thought process in communication, not only in texts when you’re writing, but also when speaking and also sharpens the clarity of your thought. I think. Would you agree with that?
Naveed: I 100% agree because you get to think what’s concise, what’s to the point.
Ben: Exactly.
Naveed: No filler episode or something. No filler, it’s just straight to the point. Only necessary information and it’s just like always oh my God. Like now I think I’m stupid when I was [unintelligible 00:18:39.06]. Before I used to write so many– I used to add so many things that didn’t need to be there.
Ben: Yes, yes. I was the same, Naveed. I was the same really before I got into this and I look back at some of my university texts and I was like oh my word! I used to write so fluffy, it’s so unclear and so, unconcise. It would take me about 20 words to say what can be expressed– what I can express now in five words or in seven words. You just go through it and you can start cutting the fat, as I like to say– cutting the fat from the sentence. Yes, just getting it as concentrated and as clear as possible. So, you said that you’ve seen some improvements in your day-to-day writing and the day-to-day working environment.
Naveed: Yes, of which I’m really happy about because I’m like oh man, I want to get this over with. I don’t want to study English anymore. Why am I studying again? But then I’m like hey, actually this is improving my thought behavior. It’s actually a beneficial thing. It’s not like– you actually gain a skill. It’s not just oh, you got a score. You actually gain a good skill. So yes, I never knew about that until I actually went very serious on it.
Ben: That’s awesome. That’s awesome, Naveed. It’s like a real– it’s like an unexpected present; a very pleasant surprise.
Naveed: Yes, yes.
Ben: Okay. You said that you were going to– did you go to a language academy as well while you were in Melbourne?
Naveed: Well, I went to one just for– they had a promotion. I went for a few classes. It wasn’t really helping because it’s sad to say, but they don’t know what they’re talking about because the thing is, okay, listening it’s just practice. You practice every day. That’s it. Reading you practice– okay, there’s like some skills also on loopholes.
Ben: Strategies.
Naveed: Yes, right. I always had a good mark, right? I always had a good mark, so I didn’t study that. I’m like I don’t care. I [unintelligible 00:21:03.14]. Speaking is like– you had really good advice. If I remember correctly, you always used to say that in your podcast. If you are stuck, say if I remember correctly then you get some points while you remember. That is the advice you gave, but yes. I didn’t have any good experience with them because it’s just when they talk you know they are not experts. They’re like oh, maybe this is not right. Okay, this is not right, but they never say write this instead. That’s my biggest issue. At least tell me what to write instead of what I actually wrote.
Ben: Got you. Got you. I’ve been there. When I was–
Naveed: That’s my experience.
Ben: Yes, I totally understand you, Naveed. I’ve seen teachers being hired just because they looked right. In one academy, they hired these beautiful blond girls because they looked right.
Naveed: Another thing is if someone has got all four 8s that doesn’t mean they can teach all four 8s.
Ben: Yes, yes. Totally. Exactly.
Naveed: Yes, because it’s like some people score behavior and some people understand it differently. You have to– when you teach someone, you got to go– because I was a private tutor for mathematics for two years. When you teach someone, you’ve got to go all the way from the foundation on the base level. Start from the beginning and all the way to the top. They were like this is wrong. Get to it.
Ben: This is it. This is it. As you just said, being at a 7 level does not automatically qualify you and second, as I was just saying before, some of these academies especially the language academies if they’re desperate for a teacher, they’ll just take anybody, throw a textbook at them, throw an IELTS grammar textbook at them and say okay, there you go. Teach them IELTS. And it’s a joke. It’s a joke really. It’s kind of sad as well I think.
Naveed: Yes.
Ben: Because a lot of students they end up getting ripped off.
Naveed: Another thing is– sorry, go on. Go on.
Ben: No, I was just saying like a lot of students end up getting ripped off.
Naveed: Another thing is I think a lot of people have the misconception of– like when I went to the– I know you [unintelligible 00:23:39.13] I don’t know if you said it or someone else said it. If you know you’re going to do good in the exam you’re not going to be that nervous, right? When you finish writing, you know what you wrote and you’re not going to be nervous. And so the first time, I wasn’t nervous after I left because I know I covered the four points and I covered it a minimum I’m getting the one live one. That was my [unintelligible 00:24:02.27] right?
So, it’s basically cover what the necessary IELTS points, what they require and you’ll be– before I didn’t think about this. Before I thought I’m going to write this amazing essay and it’s got to be really good, but I said no. Just go back to everything is going to be good and you’re going to get the marks you’re going to need. Don’t try to excel at one thing and then lose marks in another thing. I think this was the biggest problem for me. I was trying to excel too much. I was trying to be like this has got to be the best essay of my life and when you try to do that, you lose your calm and collectiveness. Daphne really suggested me take five minutes to actually plan your essay. Take five minutes. It doesn’t matter. Don’t think about anything else. Just plan and have a thought process.
Ben: Yes, yes. That is a really good point, Naveed, and I’m just going to highlight it for the students. Instead of going in there and writing some amazing essay like Naveed said, go in there, plan, but also be aware of the marking criteria that you’re going to have to fulfill. Be aware of the structure you’re going to write and how you’re going to write it, but I think the most important thing there is, as Daphne correctly taught you, spend some time on planning an amazing essay. I think this is the 80/20 of it. If you can plan a decent one and you’ve got a good structure to follow and you’ve got some strong language skills, I think it’s relatively straightforward. I think.
Naveed: It was really straightforward when you said always have the same sort of template for your essays, right? You just got to fill in your other details, right? So, you automatically know what you’re going to write. You don’t go to the exam and think about what to write. You know what you’re going to write. You just fill in small details and it’s like whoa! I never thought about this. I should have already had a template in mind and words I should definitely use; my go-to words. So, I don’t have a thing about how do I increase points for my vocabulary? This is super important.
Ben: Absolutely, yes. And if you’ve got the framework in mind, you can use that framework, if it’s a good framework, you can use it for an essay about climate change, for an essay about education, for an essay about crime. It’s very, very– it gives you an unfair advantage I think.
Naveed: Yes, yes because you’re racing against the time anyway, right?
Ben: Exactly.
Naveed: It’s already a short time. You don’t have time to think about what should I write about? How should I write it? What structure should I use? You do not have that time.
Ben: Yes, this is so true.
Naveed: You got to come prepared. You got to come prepared.
Ben: Yes, yes. You’ve got to come with a battle plan. You just can’t walk in there and it’s like–
Naveed: Yes, a full plan. It was really helpful. Your podcast really saved me because if I didn’t come because I saw a lot of– there’s a YouTube I don’t want to name the names. I don’t want to put anyone down, but there’s a lot of YouTubers with millions of followers, right? And they say do this, do this and then you’re telling me don’t do this. I’m like wait, what! I’m like wait. There was one with what you call– if I found it in the– I wrote it somewhere, but this YouTuber told me use this type of sentence, use that type of sentence, use this complex sentence, but then you’re telling me don’t use sentences– don’t use complex sentences where it doesn’t belong. You can’t start like a beginning sentence and you can’t make it too complicated because it’s going to be– the essay will lose focus of the topic.
Ben: Yes, it’s going to trip you up. Yes.
Naveed: Yes, it’s going to trip you off and then you might go in a tangent somewhere else. My biggest flaw was I was going away from the topic. That was my– Daphne highlighted it. That was my biggest flaw. She said plan your essay. Know what you’re talking about. Focus really on the question. Go back to the question. You do one paragraph, go back to the question. You do another paragraph, go back to the question. Never lose sight of the topic. You lose sight of the topic, it doesn’t matter how amazing you write. You’re going to lose marks.
Ben: Exactly. This is another point that we mention on the online course. You could write the most beautiful essay on the world, but if you’ve gone off-topic, you are just going to get hammered by the examiner. You can’t get any points and likewise, even if you’re on topic, but you’ve written it in a grammatical mess that nobody on this earth could understand, then also you’re not going to get any points. So, it’s a very, very– these two factors are insanely, insanely important. So, just before we move on, you got married then you came back. You got the essay– you got the trial essay correction and then you did a full essay correction and then you went straight into the exam. There was like two weeks in between it?
Naveed: Just two days or three days later, but I was so happy. I was like oh, thank God. At least I know I’m okay. I’m okay. The thing is– another thing is on the exam day, also we talked about writing. We talked a lot about it. With speaking, I had such a horrid experience because– I had such a horrible experience. I went there. I had found a couple of questions on the internet; what’s likely to come up. I never thought in my head I would get a question tell me about an experience you had with your dad in a public– what do you think about the public transport with your dad or something like that. I’m like public transport in Bangladesh? It doesn’t exist. I’m thinking oh my god. I have to create another world for myself.
Ben: What did you do?
Naveed: I’m like okay. There are trains, but it’s really bad over there. It’s just horrible. It’s just very horrible. Bangladesh is a very poor country. There’s no way of getting around it. So, it’s a very poor country. So, we have no public transport basically except some trains but which are crazy because you don’t want to get in the trains because it’s filled and packed with other people. Anyway, back to the topic. This is me. I just go somewhere else. Anyway, the main thing is– so, this is why IELTS is helping me. Okay, I come back. Anyway, I come back.
So, he said tell me an experience with public transport. What do you think about your public transport? And this was a big problem. I know I messed up when I said it. I start talking about yes, our public transport isn’t good blah, blah, blah. Oh, Japan has a really good public transport. I’m like oh God, why am I talking about Japan? And then I kept talking about Japan because I know a lot about Japan’s public transport for some weird reason. So, I start talking about Japan a lot and then she’s like okay– then I’m like okay and then she’s talking about– but then the examiner was really nice because I stopped. I stopped, right? And she did with her hand like talk more with her hand.
Ben: She encouraged you, yes.
Naveed: Yes. She said talk a little bit more you have to fill the one minute and a half or something. Then I started talking all type of nonsense and then she’s like tell me an experience with your dad in the public transport. I’m like what the! What is this? Can we talk about anything other than public transport right now? Even I started saying.
Ben: Just to interrupt, she asks you about public transport with your dad, how did you transition into talking about Japan? Do you remember what you said?
Naveed: First she said what do you think about the current state of public transport in your country, right? Now, with my skin complexion, I can’t say I’m from Japan. I’ve got to say I’m from Bangladesh. I have to say that. If I could have said that, that would have been awesome, but I couldn’t. So, I said okay this is our public transport. It’s not great. However, I know another country where it’s very amazing. So, that’s how I went there.
Ben: Well done.
Naveed: That’s good, but then she said tell me an experience that you had in– so specific I got so throw off. Tell me an experience that you’re with your dad in a public transport. I’m like okay. It’s very unlikely I’m in a public transport with my dad and then there to be an accident. So, the problem of the question was I had to use my imagination a lot and for me, I panicked. I panicked a bit. I was like and I was like I should be all right, but I thought oh man, what if I don’t get this 7 I need. I was so– I was like what if I don’t get the 7 because I was so ill-prepared and maybe I should have prepared for more. I was overconfident really. I was like it doesn’t matter. I know how to speak English, but I should have practiced maybe a bit more with someone. Do you know what I mean? That would have helped. I was overconfident.
Ben: How did you recover from this nervousness that suddenly sprung up?
Naveed: I didn’t. I didn’t.
Ben: Oh. Oh, no.
Naveed: I just winged it. I just winged it. I’m okay talking so I know I’m not that bad so I should get something.
Ben: Let me just highlight a point for the students. Even though these nerves they jumped up and they came to surprise you about– what do you call it– about I should get a band 7, you sort of like corrected course and you reaffirmed to yourself during the exam.
Naveed: Right, right, right.
Ben: I’m good.
Naveed: Which is really hard.
Ben: You did it. You did it and you said I’m good at speaking. I can do this more or less. Is that right?
Naveed: More or less.
Ben: You don’t sound so convincing there.
Naveed: I felt so disappointed. I was so thrown off the question. For me, I highly recommend practicing with someone else at least before you go to the exam. I didn’t practice. I didn’t touch it. I just heard like three of your speaking podcasts that you give advice on and I always use if I remember correctly and I used the keywords and I’m like I’ll be all right.
Ben: Okay then.
Naveed: But I believe you should practice. I believe you should definitely practice. Who knows? You might get a question that’s very– that you’ve never heard of. You have to go back to your preparation and it’s so sad.
Ben: That’s good advice. So, just before we finish, you were getting 7.5s. Is that right? In everything except the writing.
Naveed: Except writing, yes.
Ben: Okay, as in you got married, you got a few essay corrections and then you did the test again and what happened? What were your latest results? What did you get this time?
Naveed: I got listening 8, which is fantastic because I needed listening 8 and I got 7 in everything else, which is exactly what I need, but I know I could have done a lot better if I went with your course. A lot better because that was just me– this is me with two essay corrections. If I went with the course, it has 16 essay corrections that’s like you’re improving 16 times. You’re not improving two times. You’re like in a [unintelligible 00:37:12.10] reference. You’re like 16 times super saying and I was at the [unintelligible 00:37:17.09] for the same magic.
Ben: Awesome. So now, you’ve got the grades that you need, you’re going to be applying for PR.
Naveed: And another thing is thank you so much for your hard work and service and podcast design. It’s completely free and it’s just really amazing and thank you so much for the free information. I would like to highlight the free things because no one would give this information for free, but you’re giving it, which is amazing.
Ben: Thank you very much, Naveed. That’s very kind. It’s very thoughtful. I’ll pass on your thanks and your praises on to Daphne. She’ll be over the moon. Daphne loves it when she gets success stories, when she hears of the students. So, thank you very much. So, now, you’re applying for PR and how long will it be until you can get this PR sorted?
Naveed: I think maybe 6-8 months. It’s a long time, but I can wait. I’m happy now. I got this thing out of the way. Now, I don’t have to use my brain which I’m happy about. I just have to do physical work and go with it.
Ben: I don’t know if your boss would be so happy about that. I don’t have to use my brain now. I’m just going to walk in to work, sit down and have a sandwich.
Naveed: It’s like seriously I’ve never– my brain was on 100. I was using my brain so much I was like I gave the exams two times and I couldn’t get it. It’s expensive. In Australia, it’s $390, which is not cheap and I had to take a day off from work. So, it’s not a cheap thing.
Ben: Not at all.
Naveed: Yes. It’s not cheap. It’s very expensive. So, I was like okay and I don’t want to get that feeling of if I did bad first time, then the second time I might do bad and a lot of my friends spend thousands and thousands of dollars and one of my friend spent like $10,000 already. I’m like oh my God. I don’t want to be that guy.
Ben: Horror story yes. Horror story. Wow!
Naveed: There’re these horror stories everywhere.
Ben: Yes, yes and a lot of students think– what is it now– IELTS IDP– a lot of people believe they just want to get my money and all of these and they get so frustrated. They get so frustrated.
Naveed: You wouldn’t believe I was checking the reviews online. There are different centers. Oh, this center actually gives better marks. I’m like wait a minute.
Ben: Wow! Oh, my word.
Naveed: People in the review are like go to this center, this center, but one thing I would recommend, go to a small test center. It’s more nicer.
Ben: This is a really good tip. I can just totally see the logic.
Naveed: Yes, because I went to– my first one in Australia, I want to [unintelligible 00:40:30.06] IT University test center. There were hundreds of students. It was hectic, right? Oh, where to go? Where to go? You’re thinking other than the IELTS, right? But when I gave this test, there’s– what’s it called? It’s called Australia Institute of Language in Melbourne and there were only five students giving the whole exam. Right, and it was so quiet.
Ben: That’s a genius tip. Yes, yes, rather than just a chaotic center with hundreds of students, with burned-out examiners who are tired of asking the same questions.
Naveed: Everyone is nervous and you get nervous.
Ben: Yes, of course. Of course.
Naveed: And so much noise also and there super quiet you can really focus. I highly recommend it.
Ben: Genius. Any more tips before we finish, Naveed? Anything else you’d like to mention?
Naveed: I have got so many I could do a podcast on them.
Ben: Let’s do it. Naveed and Daphne.
Naveed: It was a great journey though. It was great. It was a horrible experience, but a great journey.
Ben: Awesome. Awesome. Okay, we’ll finish there. So, just before we finish for the listeners, if you want your essay corrected, come to– just type into google IELTS podcast essay correction service– IELTS essay correction service. If you want to join me on my course, it’s the Jump to Band 7 or It’s Free and also, remember to sign up for the emailing list. We give out lots of tips and the trial essay correction that Naveed was talking about. You can only get that if you sign up for the email list as well.
Yes, that’s everything and if you’ve got– if you’re struggling, send us an email. We can help you. We’d love to help you and all the best. From Naveed and us, I think that’s everything. So, goodbye and good luck.
Naveed: All right.
Ben: All right. Good work, Naveed. Absolute stuff. Thank you so much.
[music]
Female Voice: Thanks for listening to ieltspodcast.com
Ben: All right.
Naveed: It’s great that we are talking to you now because I listen to you so, so long. That’s why [unintelligible 00:42:55.04]. You’re actually responding to me so I was like oh, this is good.