 Hi everyone, Chris here from IELTS Advantage with another one of our success stories. So today we're going to talk to Komal and what we were able to do with Komal was to bring her from 5.5 in writing to a band 7 in writing. So Komal was getting great scores for her listening, she ended up getting 8.5 for listening, she got 7.5 in speaking, she got 7 in reading but the thing that she was really struggling with like many many other students out there was the writing and she did the test four times and her final on her final attempt we were able to get her a band 7. So Komal, let's start off by talking about what were the main differences between when you were getting a 5.5 and when you were getting a 7. What would you suggest to a student who is in a similar position to you who's maybe getting a 6 or 6.5 or 5.5 what do you think is a good and I'll let you explain anyway. You know better than me because you're the one who did it. Well actually I went through a lot of videos online and what they focused on was vocabulary. They told to practice vocabulary, high frequency words and stuff and I did practice that and in my exam I used them but when I got my result I was very shocked like after hard work like I worked hard for around a month and in the end the result which I got was like 5.5 which was not what I expected then I thought of going with your course after after trying your challenge and I was quite happy with the structure and specifically what you told was keep it simple and the sample essays which were provided in VIP Academy that had a lot because there were around I guess around 15 16 essays also and I went through each and every one and the topics were different and I read them the vocabulary I was like I was shocked I mean is this a band-aid essay yeah where in others tell that you have to focus on vocabulary and stuff and the formula which we have to like keep in mind is keep it simple so I use that strategy I went through your videos specifically the structure it's so specific so easy to understand and yeah I made my own notes going through your videos and I saw most of them were similar and there were some tips and tricks like if you remember them then you can score easily band 7 and I that's not difficult. The reason why I was laughing there about vocabulary was one of the things that we used to do when I was teaching face-to-face when I was working for the British Council on the very first day of class I would give them a band 9 essay and a band 6 essay and I wouldn't tell them which one was which and I said take the band 9 essay and put it on the left hand side and the 6 essay on the right hand side and they always 100% got them mixed up and the reason yeah 100% of them said was we thought it the we thought the band 6 essay was a band 9 because it has lots of bit words and we thought the band 9 essay was band 6 because it has lots of simple words and it comes from this thing that you will see on YouTube and Facebook and in lots of schools where they teach you that the secret to getting a high score in IELTS writing is use lots of big words. I came across those videos five vocabulary words which would help you example plethora and stuff and it was like I had literally by heart. Well the problem is that well the first problem is 25% of your total score is vocabulary so you're by focusing on vocabulary you're ignoring the other 75% the other problem is what happens if you try and use very high level words what what do you do it became very difficult there was a time when I thought oh my god this is not my cup of tea I should not do IELTS and I told my husband let's not go to Canada and let's cancel the plan and but then when I referred your structure it was so simple I mean I just spend around 30 40 minutes a day or two hours in a weekend and yeah that was great especially your correction service it was so up to the mark when I went through my mistakes I understood where I was going wrong yeah I think and your team and your team they are really active I mean on Facebook group also if I put something that I have difficulty and so and so and they will immediately send me a link which I have to just go through and practice yeah I think the other problem with teaching people high level words is that most of the people that they're teaching that to are not capable of using those those words so it's the analogy I always use is like if I go to the gym I can normally lift let's say 50 kilos but if I try and 200 kilos I will I'll get injured I or I'll drop the weight on my head and it's the same thing with giving people lists of big long words they don't know how to use them and it's very common to get 5.5 because you will get a very low score for vocabulary because you have so many mistakes would you would you agree with that yeah I totally agree plus I believe that people should verify before going to an IELTS instructor for example what happened with me is before giving my second attempt I came across one instructor I mean there was just a Facebook page to help me with my preparation and they charge a very small chunk of amount and they correct the answer can give but then through my research I came to know that that person is still struggling with the exam and yeah and they are just tutoring to earn some money so that they can you know it's like an investment for them yeah yeah and people like us they get cheated just by you know paying and then demotivated no you need another six months of time to prepare for the exam and stuff yeah but I believe that as you always seen that take IELTS as an investment rather than giving exam again and again yeah find a better tutor and do and I feel that IELTS advantage is the best I know this there's a lot of people out there that have not even got the score that they need yet calling themselves IELTS teachers and it's like if you broke your leg and went to the hospital would you ask the other people the other patients the sick people to help you or would you ask a doctor or a nurse you know it's it's yeah it's crazy the things that doing out there and the cheapest option like anything else if you buy the cheapest car it will break down yeah by the cheapest house it's going to have a leaky roof and be in a terrible neighborhood if you buy the cheapest correction service or the cheapest course and I'm not saying that because I want people to give me money I'm saying that because I want people to save money and give it to someone who really knows what they're doing that's probably not going to be me because I can't help you know too many people but save your money and give it to someone who knows what they're doing and then you'll get the score that you need because it it would be a shame for you to have missed out on an opportunity to move to Canada have a better life because you trust someone who just doesn't know what they're doing yeah I mean there was like really shocking for me how people earn money through various networking sites yeah so I think people should verify before going through any institute or any classes so what would you say to someone who you mentioned to keep it simple what would you say to someone who right now is watching this video I would say well if you use simple vocabulary and simple grammar you're going to get a low score you have to use complex vocabulary and grammar and everything no I would just say that follow a particular tutor don't just keep changing your tutors just because you don't get a good score from that person other thing is practice practice as much as you can and follow a structure mm-hmm I mean following a structure is very important because for example in question when they say that what are the causes and what are the causes and solution so when we see that word causes and solutions there are many people who might misinterpret that oh we have to write two causes or three causes and three solutions which is not possible in fact I also used to feel the same but when I followed your structure I realized okay we can write one cause and one solution for the same and we get good marks for that so in the real test did you have a causes and solutions question no I had opinion question mm-hmm whether do you agree or disagree mm-hmm it was like I don't remember the question as such but it was based on children growing in whether children should grow in rural area or whether they should be in cities mm-hmm and what basic structure do you use there I followed your structure that is paraphrasing the question and giving like I disagree that they should not stay in rural area so why do I disagree I in introduction I mentioned my two ideas mm-hmm then my first paragraph was on my topic sentence plus explanation and example same in with the second paragraph and conclusion yeah simple yeah another thing I would also like to share with others is basically I'm from India I stay in Dubai but I'm from India so one problem which we Indians face is mentioning the same thing again and again yep I mean there would be a topic sentence and in my explanation I would just write the same thing and it would just go round and round and round so that was a problem with me and I went through your video on YouTube about mistakes which Indians do as in going round and round with the same topic yeah so I went through it and you had explained it in such an easy way yeah so other Indian students can check it yeah yeah after that when I wrote my essay there was a sudden change as in first when I used to get my essays corrected by you I never got more than 6.5 or 6 and after going through that video when I wrote my essay I started getting seven because it went into my mind how I have to basically write an essay the typical format because we are so used to writing same thing again and again and again it reflected in my essay so that video really helped me a lot to overcome my problem with you know running around the bush and writing the same thing yeah I think for it for anyone watching they might be thinking well I don't have that problem and I have no idea what my problems are the key is to get feedback on on your writing as if there was a you know if there's a problem with your car you wouldn't try and fix your own car or you wouldn't go to a mechanic school and try and learn it yourself you would take it to a mechanic and they would fix that one or two problems that you have exactly the same writing essays anybody getting below a seven there's at least one or two big problems that you have but you're unaware of those things but once you become aware of them and then you work on fixing those things then you see yeah progress yeah and another thing when I went through your videos it also helped me to improve my listening because I was listening what a native speaker spoke yeah it helped me with my listening and it also helped me with my speaking because at times there are particular words which we might be pronouncing wrong but when you go through when I went through your modules I realized that some words are to be pronounced this way when you're speaking to a native English speaker yeah so the advantages you it's like a complete package yeah I was I was recently traveling in in Asia it's going around different countries in Southeast Asia and I was just googling IELTS schools just to check out the competition there and stuff and I couldn't believe that most IELTS courses are taught in the native language so there was like yeah schools in Thailand that were teaching IELTS in Thai there was schools in Vietnam that were teaching IELTS in Vietnamese and I was like this is crazy why are you doing a English test but you're learning it in a different language and then yeah then wanting to get a band 7 but doing that yeah just crazy so yeah I think another point from that is surround yourself with as much English as possible be listening and reading and speaking and writing English as much as you can because it's an English test at the end of the day yeah and don't be overconfident because I tried that I became overconfident and once I got 7.5 in listening and I got a good score in other things so I would advise people don't be overconfident practice practice as much as you can yeah and get feedback that is very important and go through that feedback don't just ignore it and yeah yeah don't just ignore it and keep it aside please read your essays go through that and review yeah Zeeb even a problem that we have with some students on the VIP courses we'll give them feedback and tell them this is wrong you need to fix this you need to work on that and they won't do that even when they get back and we say that learning is the first step getting feedback is the second step but the third and most important step is taking action on on the feet yeah actually I was one of them yeah yeah I got my essays corrected in the start and I just you know had a glance yeah yeah yeah okay I need to just focus on grammar nothing else okay this is the feedback okay fine but then later on when I got my result after my third attempt I became really very serious and I took all my previous essays I literally highlighted my mistakes and I went through it and then I understood that yes Chris told that once you're done with the correction go through your essay review it for 30 minutes or so and then you write another essay yeah and that is how I got my desired score yeah I think that's another reason why we limit the number of of essay corrections that people can do because if you don't do that people just do essay after essay after essay and they don't look at the feedback or take action to improve the things on the feedback practice alone is useless if you need this get feedback and then take action on on your weak points and then you will see and the improvement because you get like imagine learning how to drive a car by just driving a car around and around you know same with reading listening speaking writing you can't just do lots and lots of practice and then see any improvement you really need to to look at the feedback and take action on it so what we will definitely show this clip to the other yeah yeah so yeah that's it what was your mindset whenever you saw a lower score than than you thought like so when you were practicing when you were sending us essays we were giving you six we were giving you six point five we were you know a lot of mistakes and things what was your mindset towards that well I got really very demotivated when I saw my score and then I told my husband also look I cannot do this you find another way to migrate or you give the exam I told him you give the exam I cannot do it so but then he motivated me and your quotes motivated me the quotes which you put regularly on your Facebook Facebook page as well as he also come out you you the there we go yeah sorry you must have hit the button by mistake sorry you were saying that you went you seen the stuff on the Facebook group the motivational stuff yeah motivational stuff as well as he put that a triple seven score in front of my eyes so whenever I used to see I said I used to see that and I'm a teacher basically so then I thought that what would others feel if they see that their teacher is only not trying her level best so that is how I woke up one day and I had like Cambridge books 11 to 15 oh again okay yeah I had already practiced those books so I took copies of those books again and I you know I was continuously practicing I dedicated myself towards us for around 8 to 9 hours in a day continuously doing those listening modules and writing and stuff in fact I used to finish my writing task to in around 20 minutes wow wow that's amazing yeah but the problem with me was idea generation and I was not very sure about that like and how I went that's that's a good though how would you help someone if they were struggling with idea generation because there's a lot of people who do struggle with that would you say brainstorming no I loved your coffee shop method so I went through your previous videos on YouTube as well as Facebook and I went through the mini module in VIP course I went through it again and again I made my own notes then again I bought essay correction service again because my previous one was already finished I had got my five essays corrected so I bought another essays correction service and then I started writing and that is how I I got around seven from you and all the essays I wrote well link up our idea generation video and here because you talked about the coffee shop and other students watching and can have a look and improve as well yeah yeah and that is when yeah that's when I came to know yes I'm actually prepared for the exam excellent so congratulations again on going going to seven in such a short period of time and now you'll be able to to go to Canada is it yeah and just a few days back I came to know I have to give us academic as well because I'm into teaching okay so I have to revisit the course I have to give it again well if you have any problems well you know that you've got lifetime access and will help you yeah yeah I'm I feel that I took a right step and rolling myself with I said one teach and it's a very good investment for me and thank you so much for helping me out you're welcome because it's it's because of you that I'll be going to Canada now you're welcome you're welcome well thank you so much for for helping other people and it's a really inspirational story and you've given really good advice so if you need anything in the future just let me know we're here for you and we'll do anything we can to help you all right sure thank you bye yeah but I have a good day