The exam took place in some ballrooms of a well known hotel in the northern part of the city located too far from the downtown. Firstly, I have a real problem with the time scheduled for the listening, reading and writing sections, witch has been at 8 o'clock in the morning and this specification was made by email with just 4 days before the exam, too late for me to change my working schedule. Just try to imagine how hard this could be for someone who works in night shifts, moreover I saw a lot of people bothered of this schedule because they came from other cities. I strongly believe that a noon time could have been much appropriate. Secondly they have made me feel like a thief. In order to let us in the examining room, they told us to let all the personal belongings, especially phones and wallets, at the wardrobe and there we received a ticket witch specified that "the hotel can't be held responsible for any losses", like the only use of the phone is to record them or to receive information, or like my wallet could have been full of English dictionaries. How the hell is possible to be forced to let some of my values in some place and nobody could be held responsible if they disappear? What could be so wrong if I have my phone with me and keep it turned off on the desk, throughout the examination? And finally, I sat in the same desk with a jerk, witch moved it continuously, at every two words he had to use his eraser and it's obvious that the supervisors haven't notice how bothering that was for me. Maybe if I would smashed his ugly face, they would managed to see something.
IELTS Bottom Line
Considering the lower articles, I wonder why is this the monopoly of international English language testing system? Why immigration services for Australia and Canada have chosen not to offer other alternatives? Why don't I have the possibility to chose another testing system witch I consider fair? Are these guys from Cambridge University the ones who invented the English language and everybody must obey to their judgement? And why the hell I'm not allowed to display parts of the exam in any public environments? Is this some kind of secret service or what?
IELTS Band Score
According to this website (http://ielts.calculator.free.fr/), here are some tables made by myself, for both academic and general training reading sections and also for the listening module witch represent the balance between the percents of understanding (correct answered questions) and the grade you get represented also in percents from the highest band. A very important thing to notice is that is not important witch questions you answer well, the simple ones or the hard ones, the only criterion being the number of correct answers. Let's see how fair is it!...
We can easily notice that, on the inferior bands from 1 to 5, they are pretty generous, probably because you will not be able to do anything you need with a 5 band score, between 5.5 to 6.5, the situation is getting fair on both reading academic and listening, but they really kick your ass at general reading. Please take a look at 26 correct answers in the reading general chart, at 65% level of understanding you get only 56% from the maximum grade, witch means a 9% difference. On a normal scale from 1 to 10, this means they cut you off 1 point from the deserved grade. ...Finally the worst situation is at 29 correct answers, where the level of understanding is 73% and the band you get is only 61%, that means they cut off 12% from your grade. Isn't this a different way of stealing? Stealing is a crime, dear lightning heads from Cambridge!
IELTS Writing
The situation at writing is similar to the one at speaking. Why the hell you have to describe a situation in a minimum of 150 words, when you can describe it in just 50? ...And this could be a situation that anybody could handle if the theme would have something to do with reality, but no, you ain't get that. You get the most stupid and the most unrealistic situation that you could think, like me.
"You are moving to another country and you have some furniture that you'd like to give to a friend. Write a letter to your friend and tell him what kind of furniture do you have, why would he like it and what means of transportation he needs to get it"How's that? I bet everybody meets this kind of situation at list 4 or 5 times per year. ...And when you actually meet it, what would you do? In the speed and communications edge we live in, you write a letter. Yeah right!
IELTS Speaking
This is probably the king of bullshiting probe. This guys haven't ever heard about of efficiency of language? Why the hell do you need 2 minutes to say something that you could say in 30 seconds? Do they ever thought of people who actually do not like to talk in vain, just for the sake of doing something? Here's a sample of stupidity from my exam, speaking theme 2.
"Describe something you would like to learn."
"Explain why is this useful for you."
"Tell the examiner where you will find the information you need."
"You should talk between 1 and 2 minutes on this task."
I judged this in terms of reality, so I answered that I had enough learning in this lifetime and I will do my best to avoid being put in another situation of learning something again. Guess what, that took about 30 seconds and for another minute the examiner looked at me like a stupid, without saying one word. Is honesty wrong in this exam? Obviously yes, if I could made up a story, like that I would love to learn how to pilot an F-16 airplane, or how much I would like to learn how to jump with the parachute, maybe I would talked a little bit longer, but I am not a creative guy. Speaking has nothing to do with creativity. Maybe the only thing that was coming into my mind at that point, was how much I would like to learn how to be a porn star, would have been better if I talked about it? Isn't this task wrong in every way, just because my answer to the first question cancelled any possible answer to the other remaining 2 questions? This is not an exam of speech development guys, the purpose of this exam is to figure out how much English I am able to speak, dear geniuses from Cambridge University.
"Explain why is this useful for you."
"Tell the examiner where you will find the information you need."
"You should talk between 1 and 2 minutes on this task."
I judged this in terms of reality, so I answered that I had enough learning in this lifetime and I will do my best to avoid being put in another situation of learning something again. Guess what, that took about 30 seconds and for another minute the examiner looked at me like a stupid, without saying one word. Is honesty wrong in this exam? Obviously yes, if I could made up a story, like that I would love to learn how to pilot an F-16 airplane, or how much I would like to learn how to jump with the parachute, maybe I would talked a little bit longer, but I am not a creative guy. Speaking has nothing to do with creativity. Maybe the only thing that was coming into my mind at that point, was how much I would like to learn how to be a porn star, would have been better if I talked about it? Isn't this task wrong in every way, just because my answer to the first question cancelled any possible answer to the other remaining 2 questions? This is not an exam of speech development guys, the purpose of this exam is to figure out how much English I am able to speak, dear geniuses from Cambridge University.
IELTS Reading
What is the purpose of reading as an activity? In my opinion is for getting some knowledge about something we like. I'm pretty sure that nobody in this world, except probably the news guys presenters, is not forced to read something against time, even if we have to memorize something or if we have to learn something from a certain text. For this type of activity, everybody is setting the time, depending on his own collecting capacities of information. So, why is this task against time?
IELTS Listening
Let's take for example this dialog witch is almost the same with the one I had in the exercise:
"... - Our working months are beginning with June and we finish in September. When would you like to begin?- I think is best for me to start in the second month."
The question to this dialogue was "John wants to start working in ...",
...And the correct answer to this question is not "second month", is actually "July"
My problem regarding this types of dialogues is that they actually could not be real. In a real life situation any normal person would answer as clear and simple as possible "In July" or at a specific date of that month. All other themes are the same, for instance somebody says for 3 times that something is wrong, after that says that it could be brought to normal and the correct answer to that statement, is the person actually likes that something. Isn't this stupid?
...And the correct answer to this question is not "second month", is actually "July"
My problem regarding this types of dialogues is that they actually could not be real. In a real life situation any normal person would answer as clear and simple as possible "In July" or at a specific date of that month. All other themes are the same, for instance somebody says for 3 times that something is wrong, after that says that it could be brought to normal and the correct answer to that statement, is the person actually likes that something. Isn't this stupid?
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