Have you hit a plateau with IELTS? Are you stuck at the same band despite studying really hard? I’ve done some research and condensed it into this 40-minute episode so that you can push yourself to the next level.

Passage 3 about the restoration of an 18th century house which caught fire. Excellent for Vocab about Buildings (Day 8 in the Vocab Course).

Academic Passage 2 about over-fishing, commercial fishing, sustainable fishing and environmental responsibility. T/F/NG.

An example of a Band 9 essay that breaks some of the essay-writing ‘rules’, but answers the question perfectly with plenty of expressions that you can use and adapt to suit many other IELTS essay topics. I also rant on a bit about what kind of Vocab you should learn, how you should learn it, and why my Vocabulary Course answers both of those questions, saving you time, hassle and money! Www.members.ieltsetc.com/mayday/ Get the full essay here

https://ieltsetc.com/2019/09/ielts-writing-task-2-topics-and-models-crime/

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Ok this one is pretty tedious BUT! it covers 4 question of the WORST types (Matching Headings, YNNG, Sentence completion and Q40) so it’s well worth a listen. There are also some fab collocations at the end.

Last week I outlined the 10 signals and signposts that lead you to the answer in the Listening Test (see my blog for more details and a YouTube video). This week I’m showing you an almost identical example so that you can see exactly how these patterns work in other tests and you can apply the same principles to all your tests. https://ieltsetc.com/2019/09/ielts-listening-how-to-recognise-signals-and-signposts/

Listening Part 3 is a very carefully structured dialogue full of signals like ‘So!’ ‘’Well!’ ‘’Now!’, emphatic structures (‘What I decided to do was....’), negative tones (‘But I’m afraid I didn’t manage to...’) and advice structures (‘If I were you I’d...’ ‘I think you should...’ ‘You really do need to...’).

Reading about a building in Zimbabwe whose ‘air-conditioning system’ was based on termite mounds. Fascinating!

If you struggle to work out when to use ‘ing’ the solution is here! Find the whole blog on my website and 10-minute tutorial on YouTube. https://www.ieltsetc.com/2019/08/ing-versus-infinitives/

I chose this one JUST because of the vocab! It’s fabulous to review the topic of intensive industrial agriculture and its impact on the environment.