This is the IELTS Energy Podcast Episode 1502, Why Your IELTS Speaking and Writing Scores Are Low.
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English.
Downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner -trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl.
If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two -minute quiz at allearsenglish .com forward slash my score.
Have you wondered why your IELTS scores are lower than you expect?
This can happen even when you answer questions correctly.
Today, we share details about the IELTS scoring system that will help you boost both speaking and writing scores.
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Does knowing your English level, like B1 or B2, matter?
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Go to allearsenglish .com slash fluency score now.
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score. Hello, Michelle.
Welcome. How are you?
I'm good. I'm excited to be here today to talk about IELTS with you guys.
Lindsey is away right now, but she will be returning.
So never fear. She'll be back next week, but it's so fun to have you here in the meantime, Michelle.
And I have a question for you.
Yes. Have you ever gotten a score on an exam that was much lower than you you expected?
Oh, yeah, I do remember.
I think it was a biology final in high school.
I have a lot of test anxiety.
I would imagine our listeners can relate because a lot of people have this, right?
And so I was I really, really struggled with just being so nervous for tests.
And I couldn't focus because I just had anxious thoughts in my head.
So but I specifically remember that one was really bad yeah that's definitely happened to me as well I remember a French exam in at the university it was all grammar it was like French grammar and I just bombed it I got like a F for sure like such a low percentage and I was kind of shocked because I felt like my grammar was pretty good but I didn't study very well I definitely kind of phoned it in it's a fun example that means like you just didn't really spend the time didn't take the effort to do a good job that That would be a great idiom for speaking, guys.
If you ever didn't put in enough effort, be like, I really phoned it in.
I love that. But we got a great question today about why your scores might be lower than you expected.
Can you read this question for us, Michelle?
I'm excited to answer it.
Sure. This is from Jazz, and this was from a webinar.
seminar, and Jess asks, why do some examiners give low band scores in speaking and writing, even if I answer the question correctly?
Please share with me how to go from a 5 .5 band score to seven.
This is a great question, and I've heard this a lot from IELTS students, where you will get lower student scores than you expect, and you're not sure why.
This is such a frustrating place to be.
If you feel like I understood the question, I answered the question, or for your essays, I wrote about the topic.
So why was my score still so low?
And that's what we're going to go into today because the examiners are looking at a lot of different things.
Even if you do answer the question or write about the right topic, you can still unfortunately get a very low score.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
So, well, let's talk about why this could happen.
So the first, we're going to first talk about speaking, right?
So again, it's not enough to answer the question correctly, right?
Understanding the question and giving an answer isn't enough to score a five plus, right, Aubrey?
Exactly, right. You can still get a three or a four if your answer is on topic.
So let's talk about each individual score and what could happen to pull that score down even if you're answering the question correctly, right?
If your answer makes sense, is logical.
First, vocabulary. You need high scoring vocabulary and you need a variety of vocabulary.
So slang, idioms, phrasal verbs, topic -specific vocabulary that's often very formal, less common vocabulary.
And not only that, you have to avoid repetition of vocabulary.
So all of those things, if you're lacking this variety of vocabulary and your vocabulary is repeating a lot and is very common, you're scoring a four or a five for vocabulary, even if your answer's on topic.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
That's a really good point, Aubrey, right?
We just want to have that variety you shut really show off right yeah the next thing let's talk about fluency and coherence so we need to think about pauses and hesitations right so we don't want to be lacking linking phrases or maybe our answers are too short so just really having a nice flow with what you're saying exactly all All of this is vital to score over a 5, 6, right?
If you have too many pauses, if you hesitate and take a while to think of your answer, and then if you have no linking phrases, even in speaking, this is especially tricky because often when we're speaking just regular conversations, we don't use a ton of linking phrases.
But for this score, for fluency and coherence, the examiner is listening for these.
So you want to start some answers with to be honest or to be frank, and then have linking linking phrases between sentences as well.
You're combining simple sentences with those linking words.
All of this is vital for your fluency and coherence score.
And like Michelle said, your answer can't be too short either.
For a part one answer, you need three to five sentences.
If the answer is a yes or no question, right, and all you say is yes, your answer is correct.
But it's, you're getting like what band two, you have to show your vocabulary, you have to show your fluency.
It's not enough to just answer the question.
Right, yeah. What about pronunciation, Aubrey?
Yeah, so this score, it's interesting.
You can have excellent vocabulary, excellent grammar, but there are a few things you can do with pronunciation that would really pull down this score.
First of all, if you're speaking with a monotone, if you have a lack of intonation, your pronunciation score will be very low.
And then there also are a lot of errors students will make with phonemes, individual word sounds.
Some phonemes will be very difficult coming from your first language.
So you have to target these, focus on, you know, which phonemes are difficult for me to make, do some drilling to make sure that you can enunciate these sounds clearly.
And then also word stress, right?
Every word, one syllable is stressed.
And this is tricky.
You have to do a lot of shadowing, mimicking, listening to English to know which syllables need to be stressed.
Yeah, absolutely. That's huge.
I mean, that's one of my favorite things with teaching English is talking about monotone intonation.
I think it's just so, so, so important.
So definitely make sure that you are working on that, as well as grammar, right?
So the grammar piece, it's not, you know, you might answer correctly, but if your answers have simple simple sentences, um, you know, there's going to be a problem, right?
Um, what about mistakes Aubrey?
Can you make mistakes?
Yeah, this is interesting.
You can actually make a lot of grammar errors and still score a six.
But of course if there are too many, if you have a lot of spelling mistakes, verb tense errors, punctuation errors in a writing, you know, for writing, but like we're thinking about speaking, it's more about your grammar. The other issue is if all all you have is simple sentences.
So it's quite choppy.
You can't score a six or higher.
You have to have a variety of grammar structures, but it doesn't have to be super, you don't have to use every verb tense there is, right?
There's only one verb tense accurate for whatever you're saying.
Instead, you need to combine those sentences, use compound sentences, complex sentences, as well as some simple sentences.
And you'll satisfy that requirement for a range of of grammar structures on IELTS, then you could score still score six or higher.
You can even make a lot of mistakes.
So you don't want to only focus on grammar. All of these other scores are actually quicker to improve to boost your score.
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score. All right. Let's talk about writing.
Yes. A lot of this is similar.
A lot of the scores are similar for speaking, but a few differences here.
Again, it's not enough to just answer the question correctly.
Whatever task one or task two topic you get, if you just write a few sentences answering that you could still score very you know you still have very low scores if these individual scores aren't high enough yeah so for with vocabulary i mean you need high scoring vocabulary and variety right so like for general training um task one aubrey tell us about this yeah so you definitely need informal vocabulary if you're writing a letter to a friend And this is interesting.
So for general training task one, you're writing a letter.
But depending on who that letter is to, your vocabulary will be very different.
If it's to a friend, someone you know very well, a family member, it's going to be very informal.
If it's a complaint letter to an airline, it will be very different vocabulary, a very different tone.
And that is vital as well, right, that this vocabulary changes.
So slang, idioms, phrasal verbs for those general task one letters.
But for everything else, for formal letters, task two, it's going to be more formal vocabulary, that topic -specific vocabulary that's less common, right?
And again, we have to avoid repetition, right, Michelle?
Yeah, absolutely. Super important, as well as let's talk about cohesion and coherence, right?
So like what we were talking about in speaking, we need a variety of linking phrases, right?
You need to have that variety, get things to flow together.
Also, your essay must actually be very well -organized.
You have to have thought it out.
It needs to make sense in the order that it is, right?
Lots of organization.
Yes, it's key to brainstorm before you start writing, especially task two, but both of your essays.
You've got to think about it ahead of time and then stick to your brainstorm so that you're not just writing the flow of your thoughts and it's very disorganized, this also will be a low scoring essay, right?
But if you think about those linking phrases, this is what's interesting when it comes to writing.
The examiner is looking for you to use those more formal linking phrases.
You can't just write, so, then, also, next, right?
These common, less formal linking phrases.
You want to push that to get higher scores.
You want to be using consequently, in addition, hence, nevertheless, right?
These less common linking phrases.
You you want to practice using those to transition between ideas for writing task two.
Yeah. And then let's talk about task response.
So, you want to make sure every idea is fully supported with details and examples and that the topic is really fully addressed.
You haven't left anything unsaid.
Yes, exactly. And more and more in IELTS task two topics, we're seeing plurals.
So you'll see, for example, discuss the advantages and disadvantages, or discuss the problems and solutions.
And if you only share one advantage or one problem, that is considered not fully addressing the topic.
You have to make sure that when you brainstorm, you come up with two advantages, two solutions, right, in order to fully address that topic.
and when it comes to making sure every idea is fully supported.
This is also a lot about your brainstorm too.
When you're brainstorming, brainstorm the ideas, the reasons for your opinion.
One, right, if there's a plural, two advantages, if not, just one.
And then you need to brainstorm, how can I support that?
What are some interesting supporting details, some examples?
You can't have any ideas with no support.
So sometimes we'll see essays where it's just several interesting ideas, several reasons to support an opinion, but then no support for these different ideas, that still would be a really low task response score.
Yeah, wow, Aubrey, you are a wealth of information here.
What about grammar?
Yeah, so this is interesting.
The grammar score for your essays is very similar to your speaking scores, right?
You do need a variety of sentence structures, simple, compound, and complex. But beyond that, right, don't stress so much about making sure I use every verb tense, no, the examiner doesn't care.
It doesn't matter. The grammar just needs to be correct.
You need to use the verb tense that's accurate for the sentence, but it's also vital that we proofread, right, Michelle?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
We have to make sure that we have things answered correctly, right?
We want to make sure that our grammar is, you know, great for the score that we're trying to get.
Yeah. And you want to look for specific things.
When you proofread, you're not going to have a ton of time.
You only have one hour for both of these essays so we recommend that you check verb tense agreement right this could be a simple error that as you're writing you mess that up if you're taking the handwritten test just cross it off write it above or add an S if you didn't have an S right if you wrote he live and it has to be he lives squeeze that in right check for verb tense punctuation students will make a lot of punctuation errors and not realize the examiner is looking at that too that affects your grammar score so So definitely check punctuation as well.
Make sure your linking phrases end with a comma, right?
As to the benefits, comma.
We see these missing a lot.
This actually affects both your fluency and coherence score and your grammar score because it's a linking phrase that's not accurate and grammar. So take that time to proofread your essays.
Make sure you're doing all three steps.
Brainstorm, then write, and then proofread.
Love it. Oh my gosh.
Aubrey, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us.
I mean, for takeaway for today, yeah, I mean, this was a great listener question from Jazz.
So, guys, it's not enough to give a correct answer to IELTS speaking questions or to understand and correctly write about the essay topic, right?
The examiner is looking for a lot more to give you a seven plus, right?
And Aubrey really went through in depth all of these things that can help you bump up your score.
Exactly right. right?
We're looking at the individual scoring sections.
This is important that you do, right?
Whenever you have a question like this, look at the task, the band descriptors.
What do you need for vocabulary?
And it's broken down what it looks like to score a six, a seven, an eight.
What is the examiner looking for?
It's vital that you understand this for each of those scoring sections, vocabulary, cohesion, coherence, task response, grammar. What do you need to do for each of those so that you can get that overall band seven or higher.
Awesome, Michelle. Thanks for joining me today.
That was awesome. Yes, this was great.
I'm sure our listeners are going to get a lot of great ideas about how they can improve their scores from this episode.
So thank you so much, Aubrey.
And I'm so glad that we got to talk.
And yeah, hope to see you soon.
Yes, awesome. Thanks for joining me.
I'll see you next time.
Thanks, Michelle. All right.
Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish .com slash myscore.
