How to Stay Focused in the IELTS Listening Test

hi everyone Chris here from Isles mantich and here is another life lesson today we're going to focus on how to focus during IELTS listening test many of you have contacted us and explained that vocabulary isn't a problem listening skills they're not a problem but really your main problem is how to remain totally focused on what you need to do for the duration of the listening test so that's what we're going to look at today and there are four key elements that we're going to look at number one is your health number two preparation number three stress and number four practice and we're going to look at each of these take a look at health first not obviously I'm not a health expert or a dietician or an exercise expert or anything like that but what I've noticed with thousands of our students is and dealing with students both face-to-face on online the students that looked after themselves were healthy were able to on test they were able to focus for the whole day and that was not a problem but I've spoke to many students who had a pure diet didn't really exercise they were maybe overweight and they didn't really get a lot of sleep because of their job or because they had kids or because they were you know checking Instagram at 3 o'clock in the morning and they found it really really difficult and they always underperformed so they should have got about 7 or AB on date and they always consistently got a 6 or 6.5 and this isn't the case for all students but for some of those students by just making tweaks to their diet and starting to eat healthy food and going for a walk each day and getting eight hours of sleep was the difference between them getting six six point five and seven seven point five eight and because again it doesn't matter how good your English is if you cannot focus especially in the listening and the reading test you're not going to do very well so think about health both long-term on short term long term obviously improving your diet your exercise your sleep is going to make you healthier happier more productive you're going to be able to focus and get higher scores on the IELTS test but also short term the day before your test on the morning of your test make sure you eat a healthy dinner and a healthy especially a healthy breakfast I know some some of you eat like a chocolate bar before he go into the test or like a count of Coke or something like that obviously eat something healthy and go for a walk the day before the morning of a hundred percent make sure that you get at least eight hours of sleep the night before your test I know you're going to be a little bit stressed out but we'll talk about that in a second preparation know what's coming up I know how to deal with it so one of the main reasons students lose focus during the test is they see a question and they have no idea how to so I'm not talking really about the content of the question or the difficulty of the question just a question that comes up that they're like I've never seen this before it's really unusual like and then they panic and they don't know what to do so number one know what's going to come up know exactly which types of questions you're not going to be able to predict exactly what the content is going to be but you will be able to reliably predict the types of question summary completion multiple-choice filling out a form labeling a map all of these different types of listening test test questions and if you are aware of those then you're not going to be surprised on test day and you will remain focused also more importantly know how to deal with each of those different types of questions so students that I work with they I give them a step-by-step strategy for each of those different types of questions so that they know exactly what to do on test day and they're not thinking about strategy because it's automated it becomes automatic because we teach them exactly what to do they practice doing that and they know exactly what to do on test day so they're not spending all of their time and all of their mental energy thinking like what is this question and how do I do it they're totally focused on reading listening thinking about the question writing the correct answer darn spelling all of those important functions that you're going to need those are going to need priority not oh my god I've never seen this question before so at the end of this lesson I'll show you where you can find the different types of questions and and how to deal with them strategies for them number three stress so believe it or not a little bit of stress during your IELTS test is good it's a totally natural human response to get those stress hormones going when you're in a test environment any test that I've ever done I recently did my my driving theory test and when I sat down even though I know I knew a hundred percent that I was going to pass because I'd done so many practice tests and I got a little bit nervous it's totally normal and that's actually good because a little bit of cortisol a little bit of adrenaline these hormones are going to help you focus and they're going to give you the energy and the clarity that you need however if you've got too much stress you're going to get completely overwhelmed and you're going to be you know you won't be able to focus on anything so it is about reducing stress as much as possible nobody no student I've ever worked with has ever said yeah I was you know I sat down and I'd no stress no nerves whatsoever they're lying every single student gets a little bit but it's about reducing those stress levels as much as possible and this is really really important in the IELTS contact stress is just another word for fear so what do I mean by that well the students that I work with for their listening test anyway they know what scores are going to get before they do the tests why is that we've given them all the different types of questions we've given them strategies we've helped them with the vocabulary help them with their listening skills help them with their with their test taking strategies and they've done so many different practice tests just like when I did my driving test there my theory driving test I knew and they knew what score they were going to get before the exam because they done so many mock practice tests same with with here those students are not fearful at all they know what's going to happen the students that sit down and are overcome with stress on test day are the students who didn't do any work they knew that they just didn't do the work they know that they're going to fail if you know that you a haven't done any work and you know you're going to fail how are you going to feel you're going to be completely overwhelmed with stress so what's the solution to reducing stress as much as possible preparation if you put in the hard work you do everything you need to do you're not going to be nervous I guarantee it but if you don't do the work you're going to lie to yourself for weeks and months and you'll pretend that nothing bad is going to happen but when you're sitting down in that chair and you open paper and you know you haven't done the work then stress is going to come and interplay so simple do the work before last but not least practice so when was the last time you actively listen to English for more than thirty minutes and I don't mean watching movies because half the time when you watch a movie you're not really focusing on what's happening or YouTube videos or podcasts you know if you're listening to a podcast on your way to work and looking at the window thinking about the weather or what you're going to do that day it's not really focusing on what you're doing it is a it is something that is quite difficult to sit there for 30 40 minutes and listen to English and think about the answers and read and think and think about spelling and all of these different things for that extended period of time just like running a marathon is very very difficult but anybody can do it if they put in enough hard work or lifting 100 kilograms is really really difficult if you go to the gym and try and do that it's really difficult but with enough hard work anybody can do it and if you want to run a marathon or lift a hundred kilograms you don't just go and start to run a marathon you would run a little bit each day same with lifting weights you would lift increasingly heavier weights each day over a long period of time same with this don't try and do a practice test the night before your test and be like oh I'm going to fail I couldn't do it did it start off months before and start off with five minutes then 10 minutes then 15 20 25 30 until you're able to stay completely focused on what you're doing and I'm able to get the score you need before you do the test don't book the test until you are consistently getting those scores you need nothing magic is going to happen on test day it's not like you're going to like a magic fairy is going to come down and move the pen for you luck it and prayer and all of these things are not going to help you and doing the work is going to help you so if you do these four things if you work on your health your preparation work on your stress and make sure you get enough practice getting the score you need is just a formality and you're not going to be a stressed out you're going to be able to focus exactly on what you need to do and you can apply that to not only listening but to reading and to speaking and to writing as well so I promised that I would give you some information about strategies and the different types of questions and if you go to my website so if you type in IELTS advantage and you'll find a lot to help task 1 task 2 speaking reading listening vocabulary but click on listening and then scroll down you'll get lots of information about the test there's a video about the test and how to practice improving your listening skills but then if you go down here there's some lessons full lessons with strategies so summary completion form filling questions multiple choice labeling a plan labeling a mop to go in there look at those strategies but most importantly take action apply them to practice tests learn the strategy you're going to make life so much easier for yourself but it's all just about taking action and if you need help with anything else you can go to the home page we've helped with tasks one size too speaking reading listening vocabulary help yourself it's all free you can work at home for free if you need my help don't know why I keep saying 2017 every change that still doesn't work if you need my help with your preparation you can send me an email so you'll find my email at the top of the website and I can't guarantee that I'll be able to work with you because I only work with a small number of people but we do run the most successful online or offline IELTS course in the world so if you are interested in improving your scores feel free to send me an email we can have a chat or one of my team will have a chat with you thank you very much guys hope that you enjoyed that and if you enjoyed the video give it a like or subscribe to the channel and so that you can get further videos in the future thanks guys and see you again soon buh-bye

Channel: IELTS Advantage

Views: 58,173

Keywords: IELTS, IELTS Advantage, IELTS Test, English, Pronunciation, live lesson, Band 7, subscribe, www.ieltsadvantage.com, IELTS Writing, Chris Pell, lesson, IELTS listening, Practice tests, tips, ielts listening, international english language testing system, ielts speaking, grammar, listening, ielts tips, How to Stay Focused in the IELTS Listening Test, How to, IELTS Listening Test, Stay Focused, In this live IELTS lesson, to ensure you get the best possible score

Id: FjjFOBoT8iU

Length: 11min 56sec (716 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 15 2018