The Benefits of Proper PTE & IELTS Test Preparation

When it comes to PTE & IELTS test preparation, good teaching, good materials and good methods are absolutely crucial.

Some of the stuff I read on the internet about how to pass the IELTS or the PTE is astonishingly bad. Plus, some of the material that I see on the internet is completely wrong – not to mention confusing!

If you are preparing for your IELTS or PTE then you need to be very, very careful about whom you are getting your advice from and where you are getting your practice materials from. Taking the wrong advice and practicing using the wrong materials can do much more damage than good.

PTE & IELTS Test Preparation: The Importance of Good Teaching

It’s easy to become an English teacher, especially for a native-English speaker in another country. In many countries, the so-called “teacher” only has to speak the language to become a teacher. Many of these people have never studied English language and do not know their own language the way that an English teacher should.

You have to be critical when it comes to choosing your teacher. Your test is extremely important. Teachers need to be trusted, but you shouldn’t trust all teachers. How would you know if the teacher is giving you the right advice?

At E2Language we only use experienced and well-qualified teachers. But more than that, we use teachers who have experience actually taking the PTE.

Here’s my report card from the day I sat the PTE:

If you’re thinking of doing an IELTS preparation course or a PTE preparation course, ask your teacher if he or she has ever taken an English test – even if they are a native English speaker. Don’t be shy. It’s extremely important that your teacher has the experience necessary to teach you properly. And, please, don’t listen to non-English teachers tell you how to do the IELTS or the PTE or any other test. Just because someone aced the PTE does not mean that they know how to teach it to you. Doing and teaching are very different things!

PTE & IELTS Test Preparation: The Importance of Good Practice Materials

The other day a student sent me an email asking if his answers were correct. His answers were fine but the questions were wrong! The questions, in fact, did not resemble the actual PTE practice questions at all. I asked him where he got them from and he told me they were free on the internet…

It’s not only a waste of time to practice bad questions, but it can actually be deleterious – or bad for your progress.

Imagine you are preparing for PTE Speaking: Answer Short Question and you come across this question:

Please talk about a time when you went to the seaside.

Well, it’s wrong and it will teach you a bad habit: to answer in more than one or two words. You need to be skeptical of anything that is floating around on the internet. Just because it is free does not mean that it is good. This is an important test and you should ‘invest’ in your preparation – not be stingy.

Writing good quality test questions is incredibly difficult. Did you know that it takes a team of experts about three months to write a recent IELTS exam? That’s right. It has to be written and checked and double-checked ad nauseam.

When you get practice materials from the internet you do not know who wrote them and 99% of the time the person who wrote them does not know what they’re doing. You may get a rude shock when you walk into the exam and the exam questions that you see are far different from the ones that you were practicing!

PTE & IELTS Test Preparation: The Importance of Good Methods

Methods are critical. If you have a method then you can go into your test confident because you will know what to do. However, if you go into a test with the wrong method, then you may go in confident but you may come out shattered. I’ve seen some bad methods getting around, especially in PTE. I once saw a “tip” from someone saying that you should read as quickly as you possibly can. WHAT?! That’s crazy. That’s a recipe for a low score. That is NOT how the PTE scoring works.

The methods that E2Language devises are solid. We spend hours reverse-engineering the PTE score guides and IELTS criteria to determine the best way to answer the questions. Plus, our methods are tested. Not only have our teachers scored straight 90s in PTE but we are now getting HEAPS of testimonials that the methods work for our students as well.

Summary

In short, you need to make sure that you have a good teacher, who uses good materials and teaches good methods. It is these three things that will get you the PTE test result or IELTS results you need. If you cut corners and try to save money by using free materials from the internet then you will probably do more harm than good. You can trust the teachers, materials and methods at E2Language because they are tried and tested and they work. Our E2Language reviews speak for themselves. We are a team of experts who have cracked the code of the IELTS and PTE. 

Written by Jay Merlo