In order to get an 8 band score in listening and reading you need to get 89% of the marks. Since IELTS reading and listening have 40 questions each, in order to get band 8 you have to at least answer 36 questions of each.

Whereas in IELTS speaking and writing the performance is not measured only by looking at the scores that you get, but there are certain descriptors in each of the sections and the test taker must meet the requirements of these descriptors.

There are few things in each section which the test taker has to understand, in order to get an 8 band score in the IELTS examination. Let’s go through each section one by one:

LISTENING

There are few points which can be kept in mind while taking up the listening test to achieve an 8 band score. The points that you can follow are listed below:

DO NOT ALWAYS DEPEND ON TIPS AND TRICKS

You can go through the tips and tricks given to achieve an 8 band score. But, fully depending on it is not at all good. Instead of spending your time only focusing on tips and tricks, you can utilize that time to study for the IELTS test. The only way to achieve an 8 band score in the IELTS examination is by working for it.

LISTEN TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE EVERY DAY

This is the most important point, because when you listen to certain things, again and again, you will be able to grab it easily and it also improves you. If you listen to the English language every single day, you will be able to understand the different accents of the English language, not only that you will be able to understand which word can be used while framing the sentence. There are a lot of websites which will help you to improve your listening skills and which provide you with a lot of resources.

LISTEN ACTIVELY

While listening to a particular thing, there should be full concentration given so that you do not miss out anything. Since in the listening test the audio is played only once, you need to give your full concentration and should be able to understand the different accents as well. Listening carefully will improve your vocabulary and grammar, which are very important in the IELTS test.

BUILD A STRATEGY

In order to have a perfect answer, you must have an appropriate strategy or a structure which you need to follow. By having a proper strategy you will be able to take the IELTS test with confidence and you will know how the steps are to be followed one after the other.

PRACTICE

The practice is the only thing that helps you to get your desirable band score. You need to practice until and unless you become fully confident in your language. The practice is the appropriate way in which you can invest your time fully. And the time that you have used for practicing the lessons will not be wasted at all. Make sure you use all the practice papers while practicing for the IELTS test and set the time exactly as the time set for the actual test so that you will be able to manage your time as well as you will not have to stress yourself while writing the test.

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READING

Few points which can be kept in mind while taking the reading test, to achieve a band score of 8 is as follows:

GOOD LEVEL OF READING SKILLS

In order to achieve a good 8 band score, you should have excellent reading skills, and for this you need to read a lot of books, magazines, journals, and newspapers so that you have an improved English. For this, you need mainly focus on improving your grammar and vocabulary, try to know the relationship between two sentences that are given and also should be able to appropriately use the keywords given in the passage.

THE ANSWER WILL BE IN THE QUESTION ITSELF

This means if you understand the question very well, then it will be easier to answer that particular question. It is better to go through the text and the questions, before actually writing the answer, you should give yourself 5 minutes, in the beginning, to prepare for the answer.

KNOW THE DIFFERENCE

You must understand the difference between skimming and scanning in the reading test. You will find these words in every blog, and every website of IELTS reading. Skimming means going through the text quickly and getting the overview of the same. You need to have a skill for getting a general idea about the whole text by looking at the heading or quickly going through it. Scanning means taking the keywords which you feel are important and explaining in detail about it. If you have these both skills you will be able to easily manage the time as well as score well in the IELTS exam.

DO NOT SPEND MORE THAN A MINUTE ON A SINGLE QUESTION

If you are not able to understand which answer to be written to a particular question. Do not waste much of a time in finding the answer to that question alone, skip to the next question. You can come back at the end when extra time is given to review the answers and try to figure out what is the answer. It is important to manage your time well because if you get stuck in the first passage itself you will end up losing a lot of marks because the time limit to answer the questions will only be 40 minutes and it is advisable to take only one minute or even less than that to answer an particular answer.

STUDY THE VOCABULARY SPECIFIC TO PARTICULAR TOPICS

In the reading, section vocabulary plays an important role and the vocabularies will be different for different topics. So you need to be careful while studying the vocabulary. If in case you have practiced a lot of reading tests then you might come across the topics which are repeating and along with that the vocabularies also repeat. Spending time on these is never wasted because if the same topic comes in the IELTS exam that you take, you will be well prepared for it.

WRITING

In this particular section, the performance is not measured by the marks that you receive but on certain criteria. There are 4 criteria which fetch you 8 band scores which are explained below:

TASK ACHIEVEMENT/ RESPONSE

The ideas that you want to explain in your essay must be understandable by the examiner only then you will be able to get an 8 band score. If the test taker is excellent in english and is able to explain the ideas in detail he will definitely get band 8 in the exam and also you should write an essay of at least 150 words for task 1 and 250 words for task 2.

COHERENCE AND COHESION

In this criteria the examiner will expect the answer which is easily readable and you should be able to give a perfect answer. Along with that some of the connectors which are not commonly used by anyone and a paragraph with the unique content must be there in order to get an 8 band score.

LEXICAL RESOURCE

If you want to get a band score of 8 then you also have to think about the wide range of vocabulary that the examiner expects, he will expect you to use high level words in the sentences you make, but again if you know the high level words but do not know to make use of such words appropriately, then it is waste studying those words. So you need to keep these things in mind if you want to get an 8 band score.

GRAMMATICAL RANGE AND ACCURACY

You have to make sure that you do not make any major errors while writing the essay, making minor errors is fine. The examiner also checks whether the grammar used in the sentence framed is appropriate, in order to score a 8 band score the grammar that you use must be excellent and the sentence must look unique.

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SPEAKING

Again in speaking also same like writing the performance will measured on the basis of 4 criterias which are explained below:

FLUENCY AND COHERENCE

In the speaking test, you should be able to speak confidently without hesitation, and in the speaking test mainly the fluency of the test taker English language is measured, and if the test taker is able to speak English fluently without stammering then he will have chances of getting 8 band score in the speaking test.

LEXICAL RESOURCE

The examiner expects you to use some complex words while explaining the situation and along with that you should be able to explain the meaning of the complex words that are used, the examiner may be impressed if you use idioms while speaking and also explain the original meaning of that. If you speak on the given topic fluently without thinking much about what to explain, the examiner will understand that you have knowledge about the topic and may also give you an 8 band score.

GRAMMATICAL RANGE AND ACCURACY

Here the examiner will check if the speaking is in a structured way. If you are not that great in the English language while writing you will be able to manage but while speaking it becomes challenging for non-native speakers to speak fluently.

PRONUNCIATION

If the candidate speaks continuously and fluently without any efforts from the examiner and if the test taker is able to pronounce all the complex words during the test, he has high chances of getting a high band score.

Good luck!