Haychel

Thanks for your opinion and congratulations on your success! Yeah, I tried that a lot too! I found planning before writing the actual essay to be immensely useful! I would definitely practice more if I need to resit. The grade this time actually caught me off-guard, too. It's mainly because I did my plan thoroughly, had time to structure and got around like 10-15 minutes to proofread for mistakes. Unfortunately, it's still a disappointing 7. I don't know, it is definitely very disheartening and I'm on the brink of giving up too... I think I'll just wait for the final result to be posted here, which should be next Monday, and I'll see what I will do.

Thanks, I have indeed used some of the materials on ielts-simon.com, and also a lot more that I could gather from other websites, but it seems they didn't help me that much, which is unfortunate... :-/ I have booked for my next one yet because my financial ability is rather limiting at the moment, which is then again a problem with IELTS test, that it is not cheap at all. I do think after all the practices and the constant conscience of not making errors should at least earn me a 0.5 band increase though. So yeah, it is such a let down to know that it has not improved even for a bit. That's also why I'm sitting on the fence when it comes to whether I should apply for a remark... I really appreciate your opinion though. I learn that you have achieved all 8. Do you have any tips regarding writing that you have picked up through your attempts? It might be helpful to others who read the posts as well.

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum, but I really need some advice on IELTS test. I'm sure a lot of you are like me, struggling with the IELTS test, especially with the writing category. Here are my results from the various tests that I have took in the course of last year: (07DEC13) L 9 R 8.5 W 6.5 S 7.5 (12APR14) L 8 R 9 W 7 S 8.5 (12JUL14) L 9 R 8.5 W 7 S 7.5 I need 8 in all category to maximize my chance of gaining permanent residency through Skilled Migration, so I really need to strengthen my skills in writing and speaking, more to the former category. I have tried seeking help from local friends and coworkers and they usually think that I am a local Australian to begin with, judging by my writing and speaking skills. I have practiced numerous speaking topics with them and I have also requested to have them mark my essays for Writing Task 2, both of which always return positive results, that I should have received a better result than a band 7. Recently, after practicing more on these two categories with them, I have given the test another try and here is the preview of my results: (6SEP14) L 9 R 8.5 W 7 S 8 Again, I seem to face this impassable hurdle for the writing task. However, I am really confident about my performance this time. I pretty much made sure that I use a lot of advanced vocabulary accurately, some of which my local friends haven't even heard of (e.g. "Apropos of"). I am also pretty certain that I didn't make a lot of errors. Do you reckon I should lodge for a re-mark? I have researched a bit that when some categories have discrepancies of 2 bands, they would have been looked through by two examiners already. Would it be worth it to gamble for a one-band increase? Or, do you think I'm better off trying my "luck" again on another test, but also risking having the same [or even lower] results?