Daily lessons with Simon,
ex-IELTS examiner
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IELTS Listening: Use the transcripts
Do you ever check the listening transcripts after doing practice tests in the Cambridge IELTS books?
IELTS Reading: Choose the title 10
Try today’s practice exercise. Read the passage and choose the best title.
IELTS Writing Task 2: ‘New products’ essay
Read my band 9 essay about the advertising of new products, and see if you can list the ‘less common’ vocabulary that it contains.
Improving your vocabulary and grammar
A subscriber asked me a huge question this week: How can I improve my English vocabulary and grammar?
Writing Task 1: ‘Airport diagrams’ overview
Let’s write our overview paragraph for the ‘airport diagrams’ task.
General Writing Task 1: ‘Hotel booking’ part 1
Can you write two sentences to complete the first paragraph in this formal email to a hotel booking department?
IELTS Speaking Part 2: Describe a maths lesson
Describe something important that you learned in a maths lesson at school. Read my sample answer and useful vocabulary list.
IELTS Listening: ‘Fertility rates’ multiple choice
Listen to a presentation about fertility rates in China, South Korea and France, then complete today’s multiple choice exercise.
IELTS Reading: ‘Corpus’ multiple choice
Try today’s multiple choice exercise.
Writing Task 2: ‘New products’ paragraph
Read my band 9 paragraph and complete the quick vocabulary exercise below it.
IELTS Grammar: ‘Although’ and ‘but’
Remember not to use ‘although’ and ‘but’ together. Open the lesson to see some examples.
Writing Task 1: ‘Airport diagrams’ introduction
Let’s write an introduction for the ‘airport diagrams’ task.
General Writing Task 1: ‘Hotel booking’ task
Can you write a ‘purpose sentence’ for the formal letter task in this lesson?
IELTS Speaking Part 1: Art (negative answers)
In this lesson I demonstrate that it’s fine to give negative answers in part 1 of the speaking test.
IELTS Listening: The ‘once only’ problem
The most difficult thing about the IELTS listening test, in my opinion, is the fact that you only hear the recording once.
IELTS Reading: ‘Estuaries’ paragraph heading
Try today’s quick paragraph headings exercise.
Writing Task 2: ‘Advertising products’ conclusion
Can you write a conclusion to finish my ‘essay skeleton’?
IELTS Advice: Examples spark ideas!
I can’t stress enough how important and how useful examples are! We can use them to support our ideas and also to spark more ideas.
Writing Task 1: ‘Airport diagrams’ task
Let’s start work on a new ‘before and after diagrams’ task.
General Writing Task 1: Informal to formal
Can you rewrite three informal sentences in a more formal way?
IELTS Speaking Part 3: For example…
In part 3 of the speaking test, you should try to give longer, more detailed answers. A great way to do this is by giving an example.
IELTS Listening: ‘Stoicism’ gap-fill
Listen to a speech to high school students on the benefits of a philosophy called ‘Stoicism’, then fill the gaps in the summary.
IELTS Reading Advice: Get to the end!
Many IELTS candidates fail to get to the end of the test. In other words, they don’t reach question 40.
Writing Task 2: ‘Advertising products’ topic
In this lesson we’ll write the introduction for a new essay task, which comes from Cambridge IELTS book 16.
Writing Advice: Good lists, bad lists
Sometimes listing is good, but sometimes it’s bad. In this lesson we look at two examples that show the difference.
Academic Writing Task 1: List sentences
One easy way to describe the information on a graph or chart is by writing a sentence that lists three related figures.
General Writing Task 1: ‘Offering help’ letter
Here’s my band 9 answer for the ‘offering help’ letter task. You’ll also see a list of the good vocabulary that I used.
IELTS Speaking Part 3: Three question types
In this lesson we look at examples of three types of question that are often used in part 3 of the speaking test.
IELTS Listening: ‘Retirement planning’ multiple choice
Listen to some advice about financial planning for retirement, and choose the best answers for the multiple choice questions.
IELTS Reading: ‘Happiness’ multiple choice
Try today’s multiple choice exercise on the topic of happiness.