 Chris here from IELTS Advantage. So it's the day before your test. How can you make sure that you get the score that you deserve? So in this video, I'm going to talk about four things that are going to lead to you getting the score that you deserve, reaching your potential. No video will be able to genuinely tell you things that will boost your score 24 hours before the test. There are no magic tips and tricks and hacks and shortcuts. They're lying to you. They only want clicks on their YouTube channel. But what is really, really important is you reach your potential. So for example, let's say you were in my class and I said, book the test. You are going to get a band seven. All of your essays are a band seven. Your speaking is at a band seven. You're reading. You're listening. But then you go and do the test and you get a six or 6.5. Often that is nothing to do with the test. It is nothing to do with your speaking ability or your writing ability. It's to do with these four things that cause people to get a lower score than they deserve. And the four things are number one, stress can lower your score. Number two, some practical things can lower your score. Number three, physiology. So things like nutrition, your sleep, stress as well is related to that. And then number four, your whole approach to the test, your test technique, your test strategy. So we're going to talk about these four things, these things that you should and shouldn't do the day before your test. Okay. So let's start off with number one, which is stress. Stress can cause you to get a lower score. There's no way around that. And what, when I talk to people about stress related to the test, they think that their IELTS score is who they are as a person. And they're afraid of letting people down that could be a friend or a family member, or it could mean that they don't get to move to this country, don't get their visa, don't get their job. And they build all of this up and they start to feel really guilty about maybe not getting the score that they need. They're afraid of letting other people down and letting themselves down. You are not the IELTS score that you need. You are not a 6.5. You are not a 7. You are not a 7.5. You are you as a person. If you speak to the people who really love you and you speak to them about how you are feeling, if they actually love you, they will totally agree with you that you, yes, you are under stress, you're under pressure, but just go and do your best. They love you. They're not going to judge you if you don't get the score that you need. And then if you think about it, oh, I'm going to miss out on the job of my dreams or I can't move to this country. You can't move to that country today, but that doesn't mean to say that you won't get the score that you need in the future. When people talk about stress, what they really mean is fear. They fear that unknown, they fear that they're not ready. They fear that something's going to come up that they're not ready for. And how you combat that fear is by preparing properly for the test. So when you go into the test tomorrow, there's nothing you can do that is going to boost your score, that is going to improve your score. You are going to get the score that you deserve. And if you get the score that you need, great, but if you don't get the score that you need next time, what you should do, instead of booking the test and putting pressure on yourself to get the score that you need next time at that date, instead flip it completely around and focus on what do I need to do to guarantee that I will get that score. So the students that I work with, we tell them, don't book the test until we tell you you're ready, until we do everything that you need to do in order to get to a band seven. And then when you do the test next time, you have no fear or no stress at all. Once you know if you do this, do this, do this, you're going to get the score that you need. So remove all of that fear, remove all of that stress, don't put any pressure on yourself, think realistically about it, and talk to the people who you think might be let down if you don't get the score that you need. And that will remove all of that stress. The second thing is practical things to think about. You would not believe the number of students who would run into a speaking test, covered in sweat, because they didn't know where the room was, they got stuck in traffic, they didn't know where the building was, and they get there completely flustered, and they don't get the score that they deserve. Because their brain is thinking about 20,000 different things other than how do I give my best performance in the speaking test, the writing test, the listening test, the reading test, whatever. So the day before, figure out how you are going to get there and get there one hour before your test begins. Go into the building, find out where the toilets are, where you can get water, which room you are in, and then you will be completely settled, and you'll be completely focused on what you need to do, rather than, I'm late, which bus is it, which street is it, which room is it, you want to be completely focused on what you are going to do. Our brains are not very good at thinking about lots of different things at the same time. We want you sitting in that chair and able to give your best performance. So the day before, figure out all of those other things, and then you can be totally focused on test day. So the examiners are going to be testing your ability to speak, testing your ability to write, to read, to listen, and as human beings, that is going to be affected by our physiology, by how much sleep we get the night before and the week leading up to the test, by the food that we have in our body, by the stress or hormones, all of those things do affect our score, and students can get very angry about this because maybe they have sent me like five essays, and they're all at a seven or above, and then they go in and do the test and they get a 6.5, and they get really angry, and I say, well, did you sleep well the night before? What did you have for dinner? What did you have for breakfast? How were your stress levels? And they'll say, oh, I only slept three hours because I was so stressed out, and then I didn't eat any breakfast because I was really nervous, and then I couldn't find the room and I was really stressed out. It's like, it's pretty amazing that you got a 6.5. I'm surprised that you got as high of a score as that, considering all of those things. Start the week before to get into a normal sleep pattern. Go to bed at the same time every day, get up at the same time every day, so that you get into a regular sleep pattern. I'm not a sleep doctor, but I'm sure that you understand the things that you need to do that will make a difference between you getting a good night's sleep and not getting a good night's sleep. Do those things. Make sure that you are getting as much sleep as possible before your test date, and whatever you do, do not sit up the night before cramming and looking at YouTube videos about aisles and looking for vocabulary and looking at band 9 essays and all these things. It's impossible for you to improve your aisles performance by doing those things the day before your test. The next thing is nutrition. If your blood sugar is low, if you don't have enough energy, you're not going to be able to perform as well. So make sure that you get a really healthy dinner the night before and a really healthy breakfast. If you're not a breakfast person, try and eat something, you can also bring some drinks and snacks. Ask the British Council or IDP, is it okay if you bring a bottle of Coca-Cola or some sweets to keep your blood sugar up while you're doing that? It will make a difference. The difference between a 6.5 and a 7, for example, can be a tiny, tiny, tiny thing. It can mean spotting a small grammar mistake or your pronunciation being a certain way or your fluency being a certain way on test day. Nutrition, sleep, stress, we've already talked about stress can mean the difference. So give yourself every chance to get the score that you need by following those few rules that I've given you on physiology. The final thing is test strategy and test technique. One thing that I encourage my students to do 24 hours before the test is something called an English warm-up. So think about yourself as an athlete. Imagine you were going and playing a football match. Footballers don't walk onto the pitch and just immediately start playing. They would go through like an hour or half an hour of a warm-up. They would stretch, they would run around, they would kick a few balls around. You should do the same thing with English. 24 hours before your test, try and listen and read and speak and write in English. Alright, your friends and your family might think that you're a little bit crazy. I'm not saying that you should stay up all night watching English movies or listening to English podcasts. Just try and do as many of the things that you would normally do, but do them in English. If you would normally listen to a podcast in your own language, listen to it in English. If you would normally watch the news in your own language or read a newspaper in your own language, read it in English, speak to people in English, write emails in English. You might not be able to do that for work purposes, but try and do as much in English the 24 hours before your test as possible. It is going to make a big, big difference because it's very difficult to, let's say, you are from Vietnam where my wife is and you're totally surrounded by Vietnamese. And then to go in and then, let's say, you're in your speaking test to switch into English immediately, it's quite difficult to do, but if you have been chatting in English for the past 24 hours, it's much easier because you're warmed up. Now, when it comes to 24 hours before your test, there's nothing I can tell you which is going to boost your score, but there are a few things that I can tell you that will stop you getting a lower score than you deserve. You're not going to be able to trick the examiner by using memorized essays and memorized speaking answers or learning lists of vocabulary and fixed phrases and anything that is a trick or a hack or a shortcut, the examiners know what you're doing and they're counterproductive. Instead, in the speaking test and the writing test, focus on what you are being tested on. It's not a memorization test. It's not a how many tricks can you learn test. It's an English test. They're testing whether when you move to an English speaking country, can you operate normally in English when you get there. So in the speaking test, focus on clearly communicating with the examiner. Pretend you're speaking to a friend. So if you're speaking to a friend, you wouldn't show off how many amazing words you know or how many tenses you know how to use. You would just answer the questions and clearly communicate with them in English. Same with writing. Feel as if you are writing to a friend. So if you are writing a letter, what would you write to them? Would you try and show off or would you just clearly communicate with them? Put yourself in the reader's shoes. If you were reading your essay, what would you want to read? Would you want to read something where you're adding in as many different ideas as possible? Or would you just clearly answer the question? And that is going to ensure that you get the best possible mark, not by using tips and tricks and hacks. Even though people on YouTube will try and sell you those things, they simply don't work. Go in and give your best performance. And if you get the score that you need, absolutely amazing. You can forget about this test for the rest of your life. If you don't get the score that you need, then you can feel free to get in touch with me, Chris at islesavantage.com and we will talk you through how to prepare not 24 hours before your test, but months and weeks before your test so that you can be guaranteed to get the score that you need next time. Hopefully you enjoyed that and good luck in your test tomorrow. Bye-bye.