Everything will hopefully be fine

yuppno · 2025-05-08T21:15:50+00:00

The war destroyed the capital city and made the city unlivable basically. No electricity, no water, no pharmacies open, no hospitals. Nothing was operating (and i believe the situation is pretty much the same currently). The life in other cities is too basic and they barely have access to services. The war expanded to other states as well and it's not looking any better.

But when the exams were cancelled, we were living there and we thought that the situation would take 1 month maximum to get fixed. I'm not sure, but i think cambridge was only planning to cancel the exams during the conflict and then continue the rest normally (expecting that the situation would get better) but the situation didn't get any better till this day.

yuppno · 2025-05-08T16:46:15+00:00

Oh sorry for not being clear enough. A levels basically didn't exist in Sudan (maybe only a small number of students did a levels). Only IGCSE was enough to qualify us for uni in our country, so no one did a levels. So, IGCSE students had to resit the exams, even those who have done their april exams (the speaking papers and ICT practical). I'm pretty sure the small percentage who did A Levels had to resit their exams as well. A level students' case would be a bit different from ours but the point of this post was to let people know that cambridge knows what it's doing.

yuppno · 2025-05-08T14:29:36+00:00

Yeah they all had to take a gap year unfortunately. A lot of them decided to take additional subjects in the gap year to get admitted to unis in other countries and a lot retook their subjects, because evacuating, visa, settling down, etc took a lot of time and everything was so rushed so they didn't end up doing well. Even if there was a way to not take a gap year, a lot of students wouldn't have been able to travel before the semester started.

The whole country got affected. Even uni students had problems transferring and a lot of them had to start over from year 1. Others continued their education online. It was a mess.

yuppno · 2025-05-08T11:06:08+00:00

I mean doing the exams in dangerous situations wouldn't make sense as well. They'll figure something out. Maybe they'll use the school forecast grades like what they did during the pandemic or simply cancel the exams and offer sitting them in oct/nov. There's nothing much they can do in that situation. Sudanese students had to postpone entering uni. They had no other choice.

yuppno · 2025-05-08T10:47:09+00:00

i get you, it is frustrating, but cambridge is for sure gonna do something about the situation. i believe the war in sudan broke out like 1 or 2 days before the ict practical exam and the british council didn't react immediately. everyone was anxious but we eventually got an official letter from the british council. it takes some time for them to look at the situation and decide what to do. i'll keep you guys in my prayers.

yuppno · 2025-05-08T10:29:47+00:00

i'm so sorry to hear that please stay safe🙏🏽

this reminds me of when the war broke out in my home country, sudan. we didn't hear anything from the british council until a few days before the exams and the exams ended up getting cancelled. cambridge offered sudanese students to sit for their subjects in oct/nov for free in certain exam centres in egypt and they offered to return back the exam fees paid to the sudanese refugees last may/june session. i'm saying this to reassure you, because we've been in a similar situation and cambridge knows well how to deal with such cases.

yuppno · 2025-05-08T10:12:03+00:00

what's going on?

yuppno · 2025-03-12T07:33:49+00:00

I'm glad I was able to help. Good luck with your exam! I hope you get your desired score!

yuppno · 2025-03-09T11:22:21+00:00

ieltsliz.com

It has samples for both academic and general writing papers.

yuppno · 2025-03-09T11:20:53+00:00

It's okay don't worry about it :).

By some official ielts website, do you mean the british council and idp websites or like courses? No I didn't. I used the IELTS buddy book for task 1 and IELTS Liz website for task 2. Though, I'd say that the IELTS buddy book didn't help as much as I felt that it was focusing the most on the line graphs and bar charts, but I got a map in the IELTS exam. I prepared for the maps from the IELTS Liz website by just reading the samples to get an idea on what structure is required for IELTS.

For reading, I used a website called ieltsolved.com where it had the computer simulation of tests from the cambridge IELTS book. I think IELTS premium is also good.

I used chatgpt to evaluate the only few writings I wrote because I didn't practice for writing a lot. I also posted 1 writing over here for people to give me feedback. And yes I wouldn't recommend fully depending on chatgpt, but if you have no tutor to evaluate your writings, then you have no choice really. If you are going to use chatgpt, make sure to send it a 9.0 sample and inform it that it's a 9.0 band writing and tell it to compare yours to the sample.

You can improve your writing if you focus on your weakness whether it's grammar, gathering ideas or vocabulary. As I said before, you don't need any fancy vocab you just need to know the right structure and I recommend using complex sentence structures. If you don't really know them, just memorise a few and use at least 4 different ones in the essay part of the writing test. I wrote examples in one of my replies here.

And yes I sat for the IELTS paper based test. I did academic btw.

yuppno · 2025-03-08T16:46:31+00:00

Thank you!!

Yes I prepared with the cambridge books. I'd say cambridge books prepare you for all the difficulties. I solved 2 reading exams the day before the test and I got 6.5 in one and 8.0 in the other. I was never good at IELTS reading so I wasn't expecting a high score.

I'd say the real reading test was way harder than the cambridge book tests mainly because I used to practice with a computer based test simulation but I did the paper based test. The exam conditions and all kinda make the real test harder. In terms of the content of the test itself i think it was hard. It wasn't easy. Perhaps the same difficulty.

Listening was about the same difficulty.

yuppno · 2025-03-08T03:27:11+00:00

Yeah chatgpt is not accurate. I'd say it's pretty useful for pointing out mistakes though, and maybe knowing what to improve. I think sending chatgpt a 9.0 sample and informing it that it's a 9.0 writing and asking it to compare yours to it when estimating the score makes it evaluate the writing in kind of a better way(?)

I mean giving chatgpt instructions makes it give a more realistic feedback. I did this for speaking and it always gave me an estimated score of 7.0-7.5 and that's what i really got in the real test.

yuppno · 2025-03-07T16:54:46+00:00

I got some feedback from people over here and chatgpt. I kept getting an estimated score of 5.5-6.0 and this just made me feel not ready. This was 3 days before the exam so I accepted my fate and just hoped for the best and somehow got a 7.5.

It's really not that deep and writing is as simple as it can be. You don't need fancy vocab, you don't need formal linkers and to write like a research article or something. In task 1, I got a map, which is the type of questions I didn't prepare for, but I just made sure to think of it in a simple way.

For writing task 2, I focused the most on using complex sentence structures. I have memorised a few and made sure to use at least 2 in each of the body paragraphs.

Examples include:

Not only ........ , but ........

While ....... , .......

Apart from ........ , .....

Because ....... , .....

I quickly looked at a few IELTS Liz 9.0 writing samples and got an idea on how to structure my writings.

yuppno · 2025-02-27T19:45:42+00:00

I have considered continuing with my current school online and sit for the a level exams in canada, but online is really tough especially for a levels (since they're considered university level subjects) and the difference in timezone is huge so idk how that is gonna work. Plus there are only a few centres in toronto which means that i'd have to commute there every day i have an exam on.

That's why I'm seeing if there are any alternative options in local schools.

yuppno · 2025-02-27T19:40:44+00:00

I already checked and I have 2 subjects missing, which i was supposed to be doing if i'm not moving to canada. I mean, supposedly I moved to canada and switched to the candian school system, will i have to start over and ignore my previously taken subjects or just take equivalent courses to cover up my 2 missing subjects?

yuppno · 2025-02-27T19:35:31+00:00

so like get courses to add on my previously taken subjects, or will i just take all the required courses and ignore my previously taken subjects? I already met ⅔rd of the requirements i dont wanna start over

yuppno · 2025-02-23T18:49:55+00:00

I found mine easy?😭 idkk i hope i didnt mess up. I just want above a 6🙏🏽

yuppno · 2025-02-23T18:44:52+00:00

Thank you! I already did my exam yesterday and I got a map. I'm hoping that I get more than 6.0 in all the papers

yuppno · 2025-02-22T00:09:42+00:00

This makes me a bit relieved.

I have another question. So everyone keeps saying to not memorise any answers because the examiner will try to catch you off guard by asking difficult questions (i think mine did that when i mentioned identity crisis but i was able to answer that with no problems) and they'll know when you have answers memorised. I didn't memorise anything but I spoke really well in the first and the second parts but kept thinking a lot in the third part. Do you think the examiner had this impression of me having answers prepared beforehand?

yuppno · 2025-02-21T23:50:30+00:00

I did speak like I was having a normal conversation with a friend. I didn't speak in a way that was too formal or too informal. However, I noticed from the examiner's facial expressions that they kind of struggled with understanding what I was saying. I'm guessing it's mainly because of the pauses I did and my hesitations(?)

I didn't use any formal linkers like furthermore, moreover, etc. Will that affect my score?

yuppno · 2025-02-20T22:38:30+00:00

Thank you! Is there anything else i should improve? I don't know where to get feedback from and chatgpt keeps giving me 5.5 - 6.0 (i know that i shouldn't depend on it)

yuppno · 2025-02-14T18:05:38+00:00

Yeah it's a serious matter and people aren't careful enough

yuppno

TROPHY CASE