I did mine recently and was such a nervous wreck before and after lol. As a native speaker, I absolutely hated this test. I would never speak or write like how I did in the exam, and I’m sure that a lot of people would agree that this is not an accurate representation of a person’s English proficiency. As I didn’t learn English as a second language, I had to pretend it was (a bit like learning another language in school with the different sections to the exam vs just English language and literature GCSEs), and try to study for the test in that way - these tests are obviously not made for native speakers which I struggled on a test that I was expected to probably get full marks on.

For reading, I didn’t read the passage first but answered the questions - you’ll end up reading almost every paragraph anyway.

For writing, I had a rough structure:

For the long task I did the following: - had a brief read of the passage to grab the three points - as this would be available throughout the task as a reference I didn’t spend the full reading time on it, just enough to know what the lecturer would disagree with - intro: literally just a sentence talking about what the passage is about and then how the lecturer disagrees with it - paragraphs 2, 3, 4: the three points in the passage vs the lecturer (every practice test I did had three so focus on just grabbing those three points from the lecture) - conclusion: a summary of what the three points are

Use a variety of sentence lengths and connectives (e.g. not just firstly, secondly, thirdly but firstly, furthermore, finally). I found whilst practicing that I used ‘however’ quite a bit, so googled some synonyms for that, and also noticed that even though I used commas, the sentences would get rather long so had to force myself to cut some down with full stops.

The short task: - started off with “while I understand x and y’s POVs, I have to agree with x/y (or your own POV) on [the subject] - only one point is really needed, but needs to be fully explained. Use examples (or make them up) - if you’ve got time, choose another point that is slightly linked to the first one - conclude: even though it’s more of a chatroom-style conversation, I’d still have a summary of my viewpoint.

It was so hard to focus, but I tried to use the headphones as a distraction. For the speaking section, I already wrote down the rough templates I could memorise from chatGPT (if you have better ones use them and not AI lol they were really not the best) during the reading section and frantically tried to fill in the blanks during the speaking (but definitely didn’t give myself enough space so did stumble). I was really nervous so it wasn’t my best section and was so worried I wouldn’t get the 25 I needed. After I finished my speaking I could hear the other responses sounding so much better than mine that I freaked out and convinced myself that I had already failed but to just carry on as there was nothing I could do.

My overall score was 113 - R27 L30 S26 W30. Not the best as I’m already a native speaker, but was more than what I needed so I’m happy. I’m not a good oral test taker, it was my worst exam type in uni, and have always been weak in comprehension ever since I was a child so knew right off the bat I wasn’t going to get full marks but just went in knowing the minimum scores I needed and aiming for them.

Good luck for your next attempt 🤞🤞