 Hi everyone, Chris here from IELTS Advantage with another success story. Today we have Gerlene who is going to share her success with all of you so that you can learn from her and get the scores that you need yourself. So Gerlene, can you start off just by introducing yourself to everyone? Yeah, my name is Gerlene and I'm from India, but right now I'm working in Thailand. Excellent, excellent. And let's talk a little bit about your IELTS journey. Like how long have you been trying to get the score that you need and what what scores were you getting? How many times did you do the test? Actually I started giving my IELTS test in May. I started in May and that was the first time so I did not prepare well. I just wanted to see the format like how are the questions and am I going to do all the questions in time or not so it was just a trial the first time and fortunately I got good points, good grades in listening, reading, in speaking and speaking but the first time I got 6.5 in writing so I thought like I could crack it. It's not a big deal if I can get without preparation if I can do so well so maybe if I prepare for one month I can do better but next time when I give I got less in reading and the same in writing. I got 6.5 in reading and 6.5 in writing but good grades in listening and speaking. Then I tried one more time with little with very less preparation again as I'm working so I don't get time to prepare much and third time also I got good bands in listening, reading and speaking but again 6.5 in writing so I saw that I could get with preparation or without I could get good bands in the three sections but my weaker part was only writing and again and again I give seven times before joining your course seven times in because I used to give twice in a month. I was so confident like I could do it it's just point five it's just point five I can get it if I can get above eight in all the other three sections then I can get point five in writing. It was so disappointing so disappointing every time I used to get six point five in writing so because of that half band I could not go further with my process. Yeah I think two things are very common with your situation is it's just an English test and I'm pretty good I'll be able to get it and then secondly it's just point five and I didn't do any preparation so if I do it a couple more times again point five is small but it is huge as well the amount of things that could go wrong. That's why it was so frustrating I mean no one can understand what I went through in these months from May until December from May until December. I used to give two times or sometimes one time a month because I thought I could do it it's just point five it's just point five I need seven in writing but again and again I was failing I was getting six point five I was stuck at six point five until I joined your course. And when you joined the course and when we were giving you feedback on your writing did you understand the main reasons why you were getting six point five and not getting a seven what were those key reasons? The first evaluation I did was was not video the only the written evaluation it was good but I could not get exact like exact explanation about all the errors so next time I tried for video that was excellent and I understood each and every mistake so then I kept getting seven point five and seven in my writing so after doing all the five evaluations I was confident like I could do it and the first time I gave I was after joining your course I cracked it with excellent grades. When we were giving you that video feedback on your writing what were the key errors that you were making so you're like oh you know that's why I was getting six point five. See first thing I joined your VIP writing course so I went through all the modules before writing before writing any essay or any later. So first I finished all the 12 and then I understood that my structure was totally wrong which I used to write before totally I mean I was wrong I used maybe I used to get five instructor before so after joining your course when I understood the structure for each type of essay so first I tried to memorize all the structures then first evaluation was my structure was excellent I mean I got good point instructor but my problem area was grammar and prepositions. Was it just prepositions within grammar you just had one common grammar error? And some mistakes in punctuation as well. Okay but you focus on prepositions. Yeah so my first evaluation I got six point five again I was disheartened like why I got again six point five but then I understood my mistakes so five days I studied grammar from YouTube just random videos I worked on my mistakes and then again I did one more evaluation I got seven point five so that time I was confident okay now I understood where I'm going wrong. Yeah I know for you it was it was hard to structure your answer and grammar and those were just the two areas that you really needed to focus on and once you understand those are the areas that that are causing the problem then you can attack those areas instead of doing the test again and again and again it's much it's it sounds easier to some people to just keep repeating the test because they want to avoid doing a whole course and being feedback and having to work hard on those things but if you think about them at the time that you spend failing the test over and over again compared to learning what to do you know it's it's much I thought maybe one day I'll be lucky and I will get seven in writing luck and hope we're not a good strategy and I've talked to so many students who talk about oh I'll be I hope I'll be lucky next time that's like hope and luck and then I after seven attempts I give three EOR also because I was so confident like it's just half point maybe the examiner give me half point high half band and then I'll get my desired band but unlucky every time I didn't get seven so I was so so so happy when I saw the result the eighth time and I finally cracked it so if you were giving advice to you six months ago and you know someone who is who is just repeating the test and repeating the test and keeps getting six point five what advice would you give to that person I would say please work on your first find out your problem areas and then work on it properly at least give it a month before trying the next time and definitely I would advise everyone to join your course because I have tried other examiners also for evaluating my essays and they used to give me seven point five but when I used to write an exam I got six point five yeah so I think it depends on the examiner also like you also have to be very careful because there's a lot of people online who say that they're examiners but they're not really in reality they're not and some some ex examiners are really ex examiners and they're excellent and they do a really good job but there are other people online just telling people yeah we're examiners when they're not and they're just copy and pasting comments and instead of giving you detailed advice and on your essay they're just copy and pastes you do doing it as quickly as possible and that's not going to help you you know one of the thing which I liked about video evaluation was the detailed explanation yeah like they explain you so clearly and so properly like where I'm wrong and how I can overcome that problem yeah that was excellent that helped me a lot yeah about three months ago we stopped doing written feedback so before we gave a PDF report with all the mistakes and explanations via writing now we do it via video so we make a video we share our screen and we talk through exactly what the problems are so it's it's like being in a classroom with a real teacher and but the convenience of our mind I suppose is the best thing about it I think that's excellent yeah and you are helping so many students so many people by letting them getting their desired bands well it's a pleasure that's why that's what we do every day and that's why we come into the office every day because we get to work with with people like you and you know the fact that you did and have a great attitude towards your feedback and you wanted to improve and you just you stop that behavior of hope and luck and repeating the test and change your behavior and your mindset completely to okay I need to stop repeating the test I need help identify my weaknesses work hard to improve those in districts and that makes it so much easier for teachers because if if you had the opposite mindset which was I don't want you to tell me what's wrong I just want you to magically sprinkle some fairy dust and I will magically improve by doing your work then that we can't help that doesn't work that doesn't work that doesn't work so what will you be able to do now in the future now that you have the score that you need actually I wanted to apply for a Canadian Canadian PR so for that I need minimum 7778 like 8 in listening and at least 7 in the other three sections now I have yeah I got that so I can apply now so finally bit of a difference in temperature between Canada and Thailand so you'll need a new wardrobe I think but best of luck in your future and if you need anything always feel free to get in touch with us thank you so much thank you so much for the help you're welcome okay bye bye hey Chris here again hopefully you enjoyed that success story video that student was part of our IELTS VIP course and on that course we show students exactly where they're going wrong and exactly what to do to get the score that they need and we give them all the help and support that they need in order to get a 7 8 or even 9 in their IELTS test now we only work with the really really small number of students because of the level of help and feedback and support that we give students we can only work with a very very small number of them but we also have more success stories than any other online or offline course in the world which has created a huge amount of demand for our course so we're the only course in the world I believe that has a very very very long waiting list if you want to join that waiting list all you have to do is just click here and you'll be able to add your name add your email address and then when one of our students become successful and leaves the course the next position can be for you hopefully see you in there bye bye