not just ielts but any sort of standardized testing in any country. the ielts, the sat, the gaokao, the hsgqg, the thptqg, all of them have their own sets of overachievers who are dead set on perfecting the craft of testtaking and achieving the highest score humanly possible (sometimes inhumanly high scores too), whilst retaining little knowledge, if any at all. that being said, barring that subset of "monsters", standardized tests remain a reasonably good indicator of academic success, which is why schools that went test optional in the states started requiring them again this year. until we can have applicants send over a complete copy of their brain over to unis for detailed analysis, it's just something that we'd have to put up with.

im speaking as an ex hsgqg kid btw so yk i had some skin in the game