A friend of mine tests people for the IELTS and i asked him for some concrete tips for my desi friends. His job is to grade the spoken segment of the IELTS test and the written component.

As for the spoken part, he said the testers were told to look for 'connectors'. words such as "as a result", "subsequently", "nevertheless", "with regard to", etc.

such expressions are used by advanced speakers of english. if someone uses these connectors in the oral part of the test, they are to automatically be moved up one point.

however, if they use nothing but "and" and "but", they are to be moved DOWN one notch, as it is a sign of a basic student.

as for the written component, he warned that the major mistake that applicants make when describing the chart/graph is to extrapolate. you are to DESCRIBE the graph and nothing more.

for example, if the graph shows increased pollution in the summer and you write that "this is probably due to increased traffic during the holidays", you will fail. why? because this information is NOT in the graph. you are not meant to presume or interpret the graph: only to describe it.

hope these tips are helpful.

Thats great. Thanks. Maybe you can coax your friend to take out some time and write an article on it and post at Canadian Desi.