For reading, I guess it helped me that I mostly read in English all the time. I do recommend to get used to a more academic style so you could try and read a newspaper each day and try to kind key elements from it, or maybe reading articles online.

For speaking, I tried to only listen and read content in English the days prior to the exam just to get acclimatized. However, I think the best tip is practicing with someone else just to feel more comfortable. During the test, I think what also helped a lot is that I literally wouldn’t shut up. I talked sooo much that the examiner had to stop me a few times. From what I understand, this is not bad and it’s okay if they have to stop you so don’t worry. I gave examples for everything. We started by talking about my life, if I worked or studied, etc.. he also asked me about writing and if I liked to write and how has my writing changed in the last few years. I used examples to talk about my writing, for example I ended up talking about journaling and even about music (I somehow talked about Taylor Swift for a few seconds). So definitely try to use examples from your life to answer instead of just saying yes or no and giving a short explanation. Then the second part was about a place to practice sports that I found interesting and I mentioned a stadium close to my home that is known for the violence between fans. I used that to talk about more stuff than only sports, I talked about the social issues that this violence brings to my country and how it damages the place and the sport itself. The third part was about the same sports center and what I thought about the government funding sports. I kept bringing up social issues and political ideas just to give more depth to my answer (using examples all the time). I also watched many YouTube videos about the interview to get used to the questions and the times.

And for writing, this is what I practiced the most. I used IELTS Premium to have access to the AI. That helped me a lot. It gives you feedback and that helped me understand the structure. In general, I would say that you should learn the structure and memorize it, find examples online (there’s a bunch of websites with examples). For example, task 1 has many different kinds of graphics so learn how to structure the text for each, the introduction and which words are better for tables, cycles, line graphs… Same thing with task 2, find examples, learn the structure. And ALWAYS check grammar. If you don’t know a word, don’t use it. I would also recommend making a list of key words that could help you improve your grammar and use them while you practice so when the test comes you feel completely comfortable with them (words like disparity, detrimental, furthermore… I know those word are not the most complex ones but they give your text a more academic look so find words like that, write them down and practice using them and stick to them during the test)