IELTS EXAMINATION!!!
Venue: College Hall
Time: 9 am
I remember that I and some of my friends had a bit of confusion on the starting time. Funnily enough I don’t know what prompted me to think that it starts at 8 am but my teacher did say it starts at 8.30 am. Now, this wouldn’t be much of a problem if the candidates weren’t required to come 45 MINUTES EARLY! Oh my! See my problem? If it starts at 8, I’ll have to go at 7.15 but if it starts at 8.30, I could happily go at 7.45. In the end, went at 7.25 and boy was it a LONG wait.
The British Council people came around 8 am. It was interesting seeing them come…one of them was rolling a ‘treasure case?’ It certainly looked like it. It was a BIG silver-metallic box thingy. Until the end I’m not quite sure what was stored in it. Perhaps our exam papers. That would make sense.
Registration started at 8.15 am.
Number of candidates to register: 170
Definitely not going to start at 8.30.
During registration we were required to show our IC, our little white slip that has our picture and candidate number on it, and we have to put down our signatures. I made it a point to mention this coz they cross referenced everything with our original registration form. Phew! Boy! Must’ve been a case of candidates asking someone else to sit for their paper or something! But man! For an English Test?? Tsk tsk!
Finally registration was over and everyone was seated (assigned seats according to our candidate number) and our exams begin!
First up: LISTENING
Time: 9 – 9.40 am
The CD is half an hour long. After that we’re given 10 minutes to transfer our answers to the answer sheet.
I’ve never really had any problems with my listening during my classes but hmm…might’ve missed a couple of words this time around. SIGH!
Second up:
READING
Time: 9.56 – 10.56 am
Your typical ‘read the passage and answer the questions’ type of thing but don’t underestimate the paper though. It could be pretty tricky (and that’s coming from me!)
Third and lastly:
WRITING
Time: 11.05 – 12.05 noon
Two parts in writing: Task 1 and Task 2.
Task 1 is based on a chart/diagram/graph/etc. where we’ll have to describe all the trends and what not. Analyze and report! Write about 150 words.
Task 2 is a normal 250 words essay (could always go more, of course but never less!). The topic (I can’t remember PRECISELY since they took away our question papers at the end of every component! Why I wonder..): If products are good and meets the consumer’s needs, people will buy it. Therefore there is not a need for advertisements and they are nothing more than a form of entertainment. How far do you agree of disagree? (I’m pretty sure it was phrased out better though but well…you get the idea.)
And that’s the end!
Point to note: We weren’t allowed to bring in ANYTHING into the examination hall and I mean NOTHING! Just bring yourself. And your IC. And your little white slip. And that’s it. Everything else we had to surrender (even my student tag!) But not too worry. They had little zip-lock bags where we could store our belongings (wallets and handphones).
Also, we all used the British Council pencil (No, it wasn’t mechanical. A normal ‘soft’ pencil. Hardly the type kids like us use these days. You should’ve have heard how people went on and on about these pencils!) and an eraser. I do think they have a policy of only letting 2 pencils on the table at a time. Funny though. Halfway trough my writing tasks both my pencil were blunt so I asked for a new one. He took the one on my table, brought 2 new sharp ones and before leaving, took the one I had in my hand. Lolx.
Yeah…that’s about it. They said we’ll be able to check our results on the 30th of April (2 weeks from now). Can’t wait! We could either wait for our college announce our results or check it ourselves online at
http://ielts-results.britishcouncil.org/.
