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Hi Ryan,

Since you had been teaching long in ielts and advising tips to the students.
I would like to ask whether these writing task 1 and 2 are repeated?
If so, is there any kind of pattern to it.

Does digging latest questions from different sources helps in the preparation?


Regards
Mari

Hi Mari,

I honestly can't remember a time when I saw a question repeated word for word; however, there definitely appears to be some repetition of theme. Over the years, topics to do with technology and education pop up now and then. Pollution and humanity's relationship to it has also had a few appearances in questions. Food, culture and lifestyle topics were seen in 2013. Several students reported question variations on the topic of "tourism".

I guess the key is to be versed in as many areas of the language as you can. Read and listen to English publications on a variety of themes. Perhaps consider listening to an English news podcast every morning (the BBC's daily commute podcast is a terrific, 30 minute digest of world events over the past 24 hours: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/worldupmc). If you hear of a topic that you know little about, do some digging online for more information. Read broadly themed magazines like National Geographic. Be sure to note language that is new and review these notes regularly.

Good luck!
Ryan

mari wrote:Hi Ryan,

Since you had been teaching long in ielts and advising tips to the students.
I would like to ask whether these writing task 1 and 2 are repeated?
If so, is there any kind of pattern to it.

Does digging latest questions from different sources helps in the preparation?


Regards
Mari

I heard from IELTS-blog.com that speaking questions may be repeated/very similar - not sure about writing tasks. However there are numerous locations every week around the world and as Ryan said, the best preparation is to have good and varied English.

according to my experience,
if you are talking about writing, it is really hardto predict.
in China, many people or institutions try to prectict the topics in Ielts test. I saw sometims they do get it by providing a list with more than 60 topics, but it is more often for them to fail.

For speaking:
A interesting thing is ,in China, we have an APP provided someone, on which people can share recent topics with others. there is a very good chance that you will find what you will be asked in the exam.

allen_zhang wrote:according to my experience,
if you are talking about writing, it is really hardto predict.
in China, many people or institutions try to prectict the topics in Ielts test. I saw sometims they do get it by providing a list with more than 60 topics, but it is more often for them to fail.

For speaking:
A interesting thing is ,in China, we have an APP provided someone, on which people can share recent topics with others. there is a very good chance that you will find what you will be asked in the exam.

I had that also from one of my Chinese IELTS Skype students in Australia, regarding predictions.

One of my realization about IELTS exam, at least based on my recent experience are that the topics often revolve around first world problem. I ponder if there's there's a "Western" / privileged partiality in IELTS exams.

Questions I have encountered, [ all my IELTS I sat in Australia ] such as :

1) Extreme sports are assimilating into mainstream, why are people engage such life endangering activities? what are the proposed method reducing its risks?
2) Fashion are becoming prevalent but also creates social stigma and divide, particularly within the younger generations. Discuss positive + negative.

etc etc.


So aspiring candidate, please take note on first world problem also.

robdrake wrote:One of my realization about IELTS exam, at least based on my recent experience are that the topics often revolve around first world problem. I ponder if there's there's a "Western" / privileged partiality in IELTS exams.

Questions I have encountered, [ all my IELTS I sat in Australia ] such as :

1) Extreme sports are assimilating into mainstream, why are people engage such life endangering activities? what are the proposed method reducing its risks?
2) Fashion are becoming prevalent but also creates social stigma and divide, particularly within the younger generations. Discuss positive + negative.

etc etc.


So aspiring candidate, please take note on first world problem also.

Point noted - it would be interesting to note how exams from different countries/regions vary - maybe someone could make a summary.