Source: enjoyEnglish (Special English Club in Hanoi)
There is an important thing to get high scores in any exam is: understand what is examiner waiting for in your test. I remember there was a test required candidates to calculate a lot of simple operations in limited time. Everyone tried to calculate as much as possible because they thought result was base on number of right answers. But finally, the test didn’t evaluate capability of calculating but ability working under pressure so the winner was who wrote down the answers on paper most clearly and the wrong answers was acceptable. This example isn’t same our situation because all English exams don’t “play tricks”, lucky for us they don’t require us do something and evaluate something else that we can’t guess. Anyway, this story shows us how much important to understand what a test requires. You know, many English learners set goal to get an popular English certificate like: 500 TOEIC, 800 TOEIC, over 90 TOEFL iBT, 7 IELTS… Then they will try to take a class, learn grammar, practice speaking and listening and so on to improve their English. Here we don’t discuss what are the best ways to improve English but I am saying about what are you focus on during your progress in learning English. Assume, you hope someday your level will reach 5 score for IELTS soon and you always think 7 score are so amazing but do you know what can your friend and you do at those level. Maybe simple you only know that your friend’s English level is better than you 2 scores according to IELTS standard? In the other hand, as I know not everyone need an international English certificate but a lot of people want to improve their English. Is it funny if you only want to be good at English and really don’t need any certificate but then you have to follow a course and pay a big amount of money to attend an exam to know what is your level? I’m sure have a lot of point of views to answer this question, we can open another topic to discuss about this on enjoyEnglish forum.
A diploma certifies that you have ability to do something. Have you ever focused on achieving a certificate and tried to learn both knowledge and tricks to get the level you want? As you know, a person who is very good at English need to spend not short time for preparing for the test, a native speaker might not get absolutely score. I don't intend to against taking an class for exam, you can attend an exam even you don't need third party certifies your ability, that's your choice. Whatever you choose, your aim is improving your English level (not improve your IELTS score - this is only a tool) and the most important things is to know where are you, what you need to do.
Now we back to how a test is marked topic. If you have read information about some English exams you may know description of each level. This description help you more understand what can a learner do at each level. But to get a very high scores you really need to fully understand how is that exam is graded! Example you can’t get high score at speaking part only with speaking fastly, good pronunciation or right answer.
For more information please watch for English Skills subject or Experience Box.
In summary, you need to know how a test is marked because:
- You will understand your current level.
- You will understand what skills you need to get the level you want.
- To get very high score