Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. Have you just been told that you need to do an
English proficiency exam, such as the IELTS or the TOEFL or the TOEIC, or are you in the
middle of preparing for one of these exams or some other English
proficiency exam? If so, please watch this lesson because
I think it can really help you. What I'm going to do here is I'm going to go
over some of the very important questions that you need to be asking yourself in order
to prepare very well and very effectively for this exam. And it's much more than
just studying English. All right? So, what am I going
to cover here? I'm going to cover
four different areas. First the basics of: What are the
things you need to know about the test? The logistics, or the planning that you're going
to have to do in order to be very successful. The progress, how to measure it, how to tell, how
to actually make progress towards your goal. And last of all, what can you do, what else
can you do to really achieve great success? And that is a lot more than just doing English or
just studying English, or improving your English. Now, a lot of this knowledge has come to me
because besides being a trainer on engVid, I have also owned and managed a language school
for many years and I had a lot of students come into my office and sit down, and tell
me that they had been told that they needed to do the IELTS, or the TOEFL, or that they
needed to do an exam and they weren't sure which one, and their friends said do
this, and another friend said do that. And they were really confused and they didn't
know what are the various things that they had to think about. And so, through the years I've developed a lot
of experience in advising and counselling students to prepare very well for this task,
which is not an easy task but it's also a really important task
because these... These exams matter a
lot to your life. Okay? So let's get started. So let's start with the basics. Number one: Which exam
do you need to do? Now, sometimes you have a choice and sometimes
you don't have a choice, but if you do have a choice, please check because
there are so many different exams; the IELTS, the TOEFL, the TOEIC,
and so many others today. And sometimes students have heard of, let's say
the IELTS, but they haven't heard of another exam, but perhaps that is one of the options and
that's an important, very important question for you to answer. I had a student, for example, in our school
who was preparing for the IELTS and he was having a tough time with it, and he didn't
do really well because he was starting at a lower level. And so later it came out that he could have
actually prepared for the TOEIC exam, which is much easier. And so I told him, like: "Why don't
you just switch to that exam?" and then he passed right away because that's where he was and he had
a limited amount of time to prepare. So, it is really important to check: What are
the possible exams you could do to satisfy the requirement of your university or your
professional certification, body, or whatever reason it is that you're
doing this exam? Okay? So make sure you know that. Now, the second point then becomes let's
suppose that you do have to do the IELTS exam. So the IELTS, for example, has different versions;
it has an academic version and a general version. Usually the academic one is if you're trying
to get into university because they need you to have higher level English. And the general one is for, for
example, immigration to a country. So make sure you know and make sure you don't
waste time studying for the wrong exam because each one is quite different. Now, which area does
your exam cover? So, for example, with IELTS academic, obviously
it's going to be more academic subjects. If it's general, what kind of
topics do they have there? If it's the TOEIC exam, that area is going
to be business because TOEIC is an exam that covers business English, not
really general English. And if it's the TOEFL it's
more also academic English. All right? So you also have to find out what area your
exam focuses on so you can learn the right vocabulary and... And all the other
associated study. What date do you
need to do the exam? Now, to figure that out you kind of
have to work backwards, and find out: Why are you doing this exam? If you're trying to get into university in
September, for example, in North America, then admission require dates might end in
the summer, like May or June, or something like that. There may be deadlines, so you need to do
your exam maybe a little bit before then, you have to find out how long it takes for
the testing body, like IELTS or TOEFL to get your exam results
to the university. You have to allow
time for all that. And, of course, you have to allow
time for you to prepare for the exam. So work it backwards from whatever your goal
is, and that will help you to determine when you need to start studying or
how much time you need to... To keep in order to prepare
and complete this exam. Okay? Now, you also might
want to look into... If you have a choice of exams, you might want to
check and think about how those exams are tested. For example, the IELTS
for the speaking test... Part of the test you have
to talk to a live examiner. Are you the kind of person who feels
comfortable with a real person? Do you speak better English as a result of
speaking with a real person, or do you feel more nervous when you're
talking to a live examiner? Well, if you feel
more nervous then... And if you have a choice, then maybe you should
do the TOEFL exam because in the TOEFL you don't meet a live examiner; you
just have the exam on the computer. And so maybe that's
easier for you. In the IELTS, for example, you have to write
the answer in the essay section, but in the TOEFL you type everything. So you need to know how it's tested because
maybe you are better at writing by hand or writing... Or typing
on the computer. And all of these things do make a difference,
because finally you have a limited amount of time in which to show
how well you know English. Okay? So all of these little
points become big points. Now, what skills are covered? So you need to find out that in that
particular exam that you are thinking about: What are the different
skills that they cover? And they ask about: In what
sections are in the exam? Now, usually the most common ones are reading,
and writing, and listening, and speaking. Okay? There are four, but not always. Find out in advance
what you need to do. Maybe the reason you've been asked to do this
exam is they just want a writing and speaking score, maybe they just need the reading and
listening score, and maybe there are certain exams that only test that. So make sure you check that. And another very important piece of advice:
If you're working with a budget... Okay? And most people are working with a budget,
certain limited amount of money that they can put towards this purpose, then for example,
reading and listening I recommend you can study by yourself. Okay? Of course, if you can study for the whole
thing with someone, with a teacher, or in a class, in a school, that's better, but if your
funds are limited, if your money's limited, perhaps you can do the reading and the listening
by yourself by getting hold of the right books and working through the book. But the two sections I really don't recommend
that you study by yourself are speaking and writing, because with speaking and writing
you need the feedback of a teacher. Even if you write an essay every day for a
year, but nobody checks it and gives you the feedback, you might
not get any better. And the same with the speaking. Experienced teachers know
what your mistake... Can find your mistakes and can guide
you out of those mistakes-okay?- and put you on the right track. So, make sure you get a teacher
at least for those sections. Okay? Now, what content is involved
or included in your exam? Does it talk about business, does it talk
about academic subjects, does it talk about the environment, does
it talk about history? Find out in advance because maybe you need
to start already studying that vocabulary. If your vocabulary of the environment is very
limited, maybe you can start working on that already. Okay? So check what kind of subject areas and
topics are talked about in your particular exam. Also, the last thing is: How
long is your exam? Okay? Some exams are
shorter than others. The IELTS is shorter in terms of the
length of time, the TOEFL is longer. Do you...? For whatever reasons, physical reasons or health
reasons, do you have any issues with that? Is it very hard for you to stay for a three
and a half hour exam compared to something that's shorter? Maybe that's a factor. And again, that's if you can choose, these are
some of the questions you should be asking yourself. Now let's move on to
the next section. Okay, so before we start the second section on
logistics or planning, I just want to mention to you that, of course, I am giving you a lot
of questions, but I'm also going to answer some of these questions later by giving you
the names of various resources that you can trust and that you can turn to, to help
you to answer some of these questions. Okay? All right. So, let's go to the logistics or: How
are you going to plan for your exam? So, number nine: How much money or what is
your budget for this exercise, for this goal of passing your exam? So when you're considering how much money
it's going to cost you, you have to think: How much does the exam cost? Some of these exams cost hundreds of dollars
or whatever it is in your currency, and maybe that is an important
factor for you or not. You have to consider how much it will cost
you to do the training, whether you decide to train online, whether you're going to go
to a school, whether you're going to hire a private teacher, whether you're going to
study by yourself, or whatever you're doing to do. And also how much it will cost you,
if anything, for the materials. Can you get them from somewhere? Are they available online? Do you have to buy them? How many books do you buy? Which books do you buy? All this kind of stuff. Okay? So: How much money are you going to
require for these various purposes? Because you want to make sure that you plan
sensibly when it comes to the money part of it. All right? Secondly: How much time? How much time do you
have for this...? For achieving this goal? Perhaps you're working,
perhaps you have a family. Maybe you've got a part-time job, maybe you're
in university, maybe you're juggling lots of different responsibilities in your life
besides this new one that you have to pass an English proficiency exam. So that will also affect how much
time you have available to study. And it's important to look realistically at
your time commitments so you can make a plan of study that you can follow, and
not kind of go crazy at the end. This is not an
exam of knowledge. This is an exam of language, so
you need to build up your skills. Right? You cannot cram at the end. It will help you
only a little bit. You really have to try to do everything you
can step by step each day so that you can do well. All right? Now, how are you going to
prepare for this exam? Are you going to prepare by
yourself, as I mentioned earlier? Are you going to
prepare with a friend? Do you have someone else who's planning
to do this exam or needs to do this exam? Or do you have a group of friends
who are planning to study together? Are you going to hire a private teacher to help you
or work privately, or semi-privately with you? A live teacher or
an online teacher? Okay? Today there's all
kinds of possibilities. And especially if you're in a
remote place where maybe they... You don't have access to good teachers, you
can perhaps find someone very experienced online. So that's something to consider. Are you going to join a school? Are you going to join an
exam preparation class? They usually have experience, but not everybody's
good, so you have to try to judge that. And also, as I said, online there are
lots and lots of possibilities. Okay? Number 12: What materials do you
need to prepare for this exam? Are you going to buy
these materials? Do you live in a...? In a country, or in a city, or in a place
where they have a very good local library? For example, in Toronto we
have an amazing library system and we can borrow up
to 50 books at a time. So, obviously, if you were here you could
borrow all the books you wanted to prepare for an exam, but this is not the case
everywhere, so you have to check that. Are there friends who have completed the
exam that you could borrow these books from? All right? Think about that. Now, if you're not sure which books to buy,
I'll tell you later how you can know that, but one of the things you could do locally
if you're not sure is to ask the school... Ask a school that has an exam preparation
class, even if you're not planning to join the school. All right? You could just call them, sort of act as if
you're interested or thinking about joining the school, and ask them if there are any
required textbooks that are part of that exam preparation course, and that way you'll get
a reference to one, or two, or three very good texts that will help you
prepare for the exam. Okay? And later I'll also tell you a website that
I've written which will help you to know some of the better materials
that you can use to prepare for the IELTS,
or the TOEFL, or the TOEIC. All right? Let's continue. Okay, so now let's look at some of the questions
you need to ask yourself to make good progress in your exam preparation. All right, so number
13: What level? What level are you at now when
you're starting or along the way? How do you know that? The only way you'll know that is
by actually taking a sample test. I don't mean one
that you pay for. I mean from a book, or from some software,
or online there are sample tests available which represent that exam. Now, the IELTS actually has a book
which has their previous exams. So, for example, you could do that
and then you would know exactly: "All right, so if I did this
exam today, this is my score." Or this is... I mean, you can't judge everything, you can't
judge the writing, but on the other sections. All right? So you must know where you are because that
will determine either which materials you choose to start studying from or which class
you join, because all of these exams have materials that start at kind of a lower level and
then intermediate level, and then an advanced level. And then eventually you want to be able to
do the most advanced preparation before you go for your exam. All right? Next: What questions? While you're preparing, what kind of
questions do you usually get wrong? Try to keep track of that, because otherwise
you'll just keep studying everything, you'll go around and round, and you'll
get a little bit frustrated. The way to break through is to identify
exactly what your mistakes are. Do you always get the true
and false questions wrong? All right, well if you do, then maybe you need
to understand about that type of question. And maybe you always get multiple choice
questions right, so you're okay there. Maybe you get fill-in-the-blank right,
so maybe that's not your issue. Identify: Which are your issues? And it's not the same as your friend
and it's not the same as anybody else. Okay? So, always keep track
of your mistakes. Your mistakes are wonderful, they
are like the doors to your success. And by identifying what they are, you
will be able to get a much higher score. Okay? Next: What schedule are you going to
follow in order to prepare for this exam? What are you going to do on a daily basis,
what are you going to do on a weekly basis, and what are you
going to do monthly? So you're asking me: "Why? I have to do something
every day?" Yes, there are little things you
could probably do every day. You could learn a word a day, you
could learn an idiom a day or more. You could write an essay
every day, if you... Depends on how much
time you have. If you're very weak at writing,
perhaps that's what you need to do. And the earlier you start,
the more days you will have. Okay? What could you do weekly? Well, in our school every week on Friday the
students used to have a practice test because, all right, you studied all through the week:
Did you do any better than last week? If not, why? Where are you weak? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? That way people focus on what they really
need to do to improve, and don't just keep going round and round in circles.
All right? And monthly, what are you going
to do on a monthly basis? If you have a few months,
take a broader view. Look at what's
happening everywhere. Look at the four different areas:
Reading, writing, listening, speaking. Which are your weakest, where
you need to put more focus? That kind of thing. Get the big picture. Okay? Next: What corrections? Again, I mentioned to you earlier mistakes
are so important, but they'll only help you if you keep track of them. So make sure you have an error log, a sort
of a list of your mistakes-it could be in grammar, in vocabulary, in spelling, in pronunciation-so
that you will know eventually how to solve them and eventually
they'll go away. All right. Next: Even though there are usually four skills
tested on most of the English proficiency exams, like reading, writing, listening, and
speaking - sometimes students don't realize there's actually many other
skills being tested. So I'm just going to mention
some of those to you. They include skimming. Skimming means reading fast, because in the
reading section you really don't have too much time so you have to learn
how to read very quickly. Scanning, which is also reading quickly,
but looking for specific information for an answer, for example. Paraphrasing, when you're writing you can't
copy the words that are in the essay question, but you can write them
in your own words. That's called paraphrasing. Grammar, a lot of the exams today don't have
a formal section of grammar, but grammar is tested indirectly-right?-in
your essay, in your speaking. So grammar's important, too. Vocabulary, of
course, will help... Will be tested indirectly or sometimes directly
in the reading section, in the listening section, and also when you
speak and write. Capitalization is important when you're writing,
punctuation is important when you're writing. Spelling, of course. In the IELTS exam, for example, even in the
listening section if you make a spelling error you'll get the answer wrong. I know, it's tough. It's not easy. Even if you heard the right word and you put the
right word, but you made one little spelling error, you'll get it wrong. So spelling can matter a lot. And pronunciation: Do you have any serious
pronunciation problems that you need to correct so that your speaking
score can be higher? These are some of the many questions
that you want to ask yourself. And, as I said, I'm going to give you some
resources that will help you to answer some of these questions soon. Okay? Keep watching. Okay, so now we talk about how you're going
to achieve out-of-the-ballpark success, amazing success, and it's about doing much
more than only improving your English. So here are some of the important questions you
can ask yourself to get outstanding success. Okay? Here we go. So, number 18: What academic resources should
you consult while you're preparing for one of your English
proficiency exams? Well, the most important thing I want to tell
you is to make sure that you're consulting authentic, trustworthy sites
if you're looking online. Now, for example, at engVid all of our teachers are
native English-speaking teachers and they have... We all have lots of experience teaching in
front of the classroom, teaching in schools, teaching thousands of
students to pass these exams. So... And we have also on our website, like more
than a thousand lessons, and many hundreds of them are about passing
the IELTS, or the TOEFL, improving your writing, listening,
speaking, pronunciation. And this advice is coming from teachers
who have been in the trenches. We have actually helped thousands of students
to pass these exams, so the advice we're giving you comes from not just knowledge, but also
experience-all right?-in helping students to get the highest
grades possible. So make sure you're watching the right teachers
with the right accents and with the right English. All right? Very, very important. And I'm not saying that only because of us,
but because it's really important for you. Also, go to the actual sites of these
exams, the official websites of the exams. Don't forget to go to them. There's so much information available that
sometimes students forget to read what the people who actually made these exams have
to say, but it's important, so don't forget to visit the actual official website of IELTS,
or TOEFL, or TOEIC, or whichever other exam you're planning to take. And very often you will also find there lots
of material which is useful, lots of sample questions, model tests,
and things like that. So do that. Okay? In addition, I want to recommend to you
I've written a study guide for the IELTS, for the TOEFL, and
for the TOEIC. It's called www.GoodLuckIELTS.com, or
www.GoodLuckTOEFL.com, or www.GoodLuckTOEIC.com, and it's a guide that it gives you all kinds of information,
and tips, and knowledge about how you can do your best on these exams. There are also model essays which are written
there, sample questions, and so on and so forth. Okay? So lots and lots of information,
which I think can help you. All right. Now, besides the academic preparation, there
is so much more that we need to do as human beings when we go into a challenging
situation, like an exam. We need to prepare ourselves mentally, and
we need to prepare ourselves physically, and we need to prepare
ourselves emotionally. So I've written another website which is a
general website called www.GoodLuckExams.com, and in that one I've tackled
all of these issues. How do we really do everything
possible to do well? Okay? So, for example, for mentally preparing yourself,
what kind of study skills do you need? How can you improve
your study skills? Where do you study? When do you study? These are some of the questions that
I've talked about on this site. Also memory techniques:
How do you remember? Are you using memory techniques? There are amazing memory techniques that can
make you feel like a genius and act like a genius, but if you don't learn
them then you won't use them. Okay? Also, learning styles. What's your learning style? Is there an easier way
for you to learn? We should know that and we
should have that information. Specifically for that, in fact for learning
styles, today some of the experts think that learning styles are not important and other
people don't agree, and many, many schools today do teach learning styles. I have another website called www.StudyingStyle.com
where you could do a little quiz to see if you prefer to learn in a certain way, and if
you do, then follow that, follow the advice there and make your
life much easier. Okay. Also, what can you
do physically to prepare? "What do you mean by
that?" you're asking me. Well, do you think that what you eat in the
morning before an exam makes a difference to how well you do on your test? Well, I hope you're saying
yes because it really does. We are also physical bodies,
not only brains. Right? And our brain is fueled by
what we put into our bodies. So, on this site I also talk... Have a section there about what to eat before
an exam, nutrition tips, what to eat the night before the exam, what
to eat in the morning. These are really important things
that help keep your brain sharp. Okay? Also, what kind of
exercises can you do? They have proven... Research has shown that if you do physical
activity just before a test or exam, at least for the first half an hour you're going to
score higher than you would have otherwise. Like I think that's amazing. I'm fascinated by this
kind of research. I've made a lifetime of trying to help people
to learn in the fastest, best, most effective way as possible, and that's one of the pieces
of information that's fascinating, that you have to keep moving to
keep your brain grooving. All right. There's also something, which if you haven't
checked you really should check, it's called Brain Gym, and these are exercises which you
can do which help both sides of your brain work together more effectively. For example, if you put your hands out and
then go like this, and then keep your hands like this, while you're waiting for your exam
to start, if you make this kind of movement it's better for your brain. It's like you're
massaging your brain. This is a brain gym exercise where we try
to use cross lateral movements to improve the functioning of the brain. Okay? That's one. You could also do
something like this. Okay? Again, you're crossing over-all right?-and
connecting both sides of your brain so both sides of your brain
work more effectively. And you could also do a whole
bunch of other things. For example, you could
take your ear lobe... Ears, your ear here and
just open them up. Okay? Massage them like this. This also helps to
increase your... Your brain capacity. All right? And your ability to
work more effectively. So there's lots of exercises. Look up Brain Gym,
really fascinating. Okay, and last of all
but really not... Very important is what
emotional preparation. A lot of our success is
based on our psychology. What is your psychology? Do you tend to put yourself
down, or do you tell to...? Tend to strengthen yourself
in different ways? Whatever happens, do you look for the good
in it or do you look for the bad in it? Look for the good. Most of all, look for
the good in yourself. Right? So what you want to do before any exam is to
reduce your negatives, like test anxiety, or nervousness, or frustration,
and there's ways to do that. There are exercises, breathing,
meditation, so many things. And do everything you can
to increase your positives. You can use affirmation. You can say things, like: "I will do well. I will succeed. I
can do it. I'm good in English", things like that. Or motivation. Motivation pushes
you to do well. Inspiration pulls
you to do well. All right? You're inspired by somebody. You're like: "I want to do... I want to do what that person's doing.
That's amazing. I can do that." You can visual... Use visualization,
very important. Before you go for your exam, the night before
or any time you're thinking about your exam, only visualize good things. Imagine that you're sitting there and all
the answers are coming to you, and you're doing the best possible
job you can do. Never visualize the
negative things, because otherwise your brain
will store that memory. Don't do that. Okay? Only visualize success
and more success. All right? So, if you'd like to read about
this kind of information, please go to my website
at www.GoodLuckExams.com. Also check out, of course, our engVid website
which has, like I said, hundreds of videos that can help you do
better on your exam. And I really hope that these questions and
my experience in the field will help you to be more successful, and to plan your
path to success in a much better way. If you'd like to get more tips and
lessons like this, please subscribe... Sorry. Subscribe to my website and
my channel on YouTube. Okay? And that is RebeccaESL. Thank you very much. Good luck with your exam and
good luck with your English. Bye for now.
