IELTS exam experience :)

Assalamualaikum and good afternoon readers ( i really hope there is someone out there reading my post haha because if not i'll just be syok sendiri )

Again, i failed in keeping track on my post. It is not 100% busy actually but it is more to laziness. ugghh i don't know why. Computer rooms are all over this campus but still i cannot find a single time to write anything. Hate myself right now.

While i'm gone here, lots of excitement and disappointment happened. Well Alhamdulillah the good news out powered the bad ones. First thing first, my last semester result was exemplary Alhamdulillah and i am feeling so grateful to Allah. I've gone half mad waiting for the result because if I failed in meeting the requirements for pursuing my degree in Pharmacy then there is no point for me staying here. I REALLT WANTED TO BE A PHARMACIST. fiuuhhh that was great. So now i only got less than 3 months for this last semester to do my best InsyaaAllah.

The next happy news is that I PASSES MY IELTS EXAM too !!! Alhamdulillah. HONESTLY i an very very GRATEFUL ! i don't know how to express it but only Allah knows how nervous I am about this and He gave me what I prayed :) See people ? Pray to Allah. There's never a NO in answering our prayers. Allah will either grant it immediately, later or He has something better than that. I am very glad about this because this means that during the summer break I don't have to worry about repeating the exam and my family has planned to go to Mekah for Umrah InsyaaAllah. I am longing to go there since the past 2 years. My dad, mom and both of my brothers have been there. So yeah I am the only person in the family who still never been to the Holy Land. But this year InsyaaAllah my prayer will be granted.

So, as I have been through the anxiousness and haste of taking IELTS, i wanted to share it with you guys. Hopefully this will be useful for those who are preparing for their exam.

I took the same exam date with 3 of my friends. We need to get minimum 6.5 for overall mark and 6.0 for each of the sections. We took it under British Council Malaysia. The exam venue was at Kuala Lumpur ( the middle of KL so you could imagine how the traffic is. Gladly we used public transport) Me and my friend Ain need to stay at Park Royal Hotel KL for that Friday night to avoid rush in the Saturday exam morning.

We were told to be there by 8 a.m. for the briefing session. The facilitator told us about some mandatory identification steps and where to put our stuffs. British Council provides a very good service i must say. They will take care of your belongings even though in the email they prefer us to not to bring any belongings except your ID. Next at the identification station ( sounds weird haha ) you will have to scan your index finger and take a passport picture ( this picture will be on your result transcript ). Then, we went inside the hall and wait for everyone to settle down so the exact time we started the exam was on 9 a.m.

Oh ya you cannot even bring your own stationaries for the exam. Everything will be given. ( cool huh ?) You will be given a pencil and a rubber. Don't worry if you have any problems or need a new one you could just raise your hand and ask them. The first paper is Listening continued by Reading and the last one is Writing. For Speaking test, it will be on other day or on the same day but at different time.

My advice :)

• For Listening test ( app 30 mins ) you must be super focus on the recordings. Before beginning they will do some testings on the volume. So be alert and raise your hand if you have problem with the volume. MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE. As for the preparation, even though this might sounds easy but trust me you need a lot of practice on this too. Learn how to grasp the main idea and important words in the conversation. Buy or borrow ielts books with CD in them okay ?
• Reading ( 1 hour ) is quite relaxing for me. But, questions drilling are very important. The articles are not some middle school ones. They are usually more sophisticated. Learn to skim the text and scan the answer. Don't waste your time on understanding 100% what the article was about. Again, just grasp the main idea. Understand the questions are a MUST.
• As for writing ( 1 hour ) I can't really say much because i got only 6.0 haha. But, what i could say is you need to practice a lot of essay questions. This is academic writing so learn to be straight to the point and try to think critically. Usually the question wants you to show how well you could support your arguments.

After about two and a half hours cracking our heads, we went back to our hotel rooms and check out at noon. Then we went to British Council Wisma at Jalan Dredging because that's where we took our speaking test. My speaking test was at 3 p.m. so after the Zuhr prayer I straightly went to the waiting room. 

• I just got 6.0 also so yeah I am not sure I have a brilliant tips for you guys. A month before or even early than that, brush up your verbal English. In ielts they will examine your grammar, pronunciation, coherence, fluency and some others that i could not remember haha. The examiner won't buy if you talk nonsense and have bad coherence in your sentences. ONE thing that i could advice is that ALWAYS BE CONFIDENT while you were talking. Make eye contact with her/him. Maybe this is not graded but heyh the examiners are human right ? Somehow they will feel our positive aura and who knows they will eventually like us. HAHAHAH.

There, DONE.

I really hope some of you or just one of you could find this helpful.