The last seven days: a plan for the week before your test
You can plan your last week so that you reach the test rested and used to its timing.
A week before the test, your English is nearly what it will be on the day. What you can still change is how you use it under time pressure.
On the day, Listening, Reading and Writing come one after another, with no breaks: about 30 minutes, then an hour, then another hour. This week you sit that stretch twice and study your mistakes in between. The last day is for rest.
Warm-up
Six days to go
Your test is on Saturday. Three candidates spend the Sunday before it in different ways.
Whose Sunday does most for the test?
How it works
Two kinds of work
Most of the week goes on two things. The first is mock tests: full practice tests done under the real timing, in the real order. The second is your mistakes: finding out why each wrong answer was wrong.
Sit the mock tests on a computer if you can, and type your answers. That is how the test is taken at a centre. In some countries you can book Writing on Paper, where the Writing is done by hand. If you booked it, practise the Writing by hand. Take your watch off as well: watches are not allowed in the test room.
Seven days, one at a time
- 1Day 1, a week before: the first mock test
Listening, Reading and Writing back to back, at the hour your real test starts. Play each recording once, with no pausing. Mark Listening and Reading, and leave the Writing until tomorrow.
- 2Day 2: the mistakes
Write down why each wrong answer was wrong: over the word limit, a spelling, a misread question, no time left, or a word you did not know. Then read my notes on your two Writing tasks, and check each task against its question.
- 3Day 3: Speaking
A full Speaking test with me, all three parts, 11 to 14 minutes. Then one Reading section in 20 minutes, a third of the hour.
- 4Day 4: the second mock test
The same as day 1, at the same hour. Read your list of reasons from day 2 before you start.
- 5Day 5: the mistakes again, and the checks
Look for the reasons that came back a second time. Then do the practical checks below.
- 6Day 6: short practice
One Listening part, one Reading section and one Speaking Part 2, with a minute to prepare. Stop by the early evening.
- 7Day 7, the day before: rest
No tests. Pack your bag, read your list of reasons once, and go to bed at your usual time.
What to stop this week
A word you met this week is one you have not yet used in your own sentences. Use the words you already use correctly.
The questions on the day will be different ones. In Speaking, an answer recited from memory does not flow like conversation.
Every paper and every passage this week is timed, because on the day they all are.
A method you try for the first time this week will be slower than the one you know. Keep the ones from this course.
Go to bed at your usual time, even if it means studying less. A tired reader misreads questions, and a misread question costs the mark.
The practical checks
Do these by day 5, so the last two days are free.
- Your identity document. Bring the same one you booked with, to the written papers and to Speaking. If it has changed, for example because you renewed your passport, tell the test centre before the test date.
- Your times. Your test centre confirms your booking in writing. Check the date, the place and the time to arrive for each part, Speaking included.
- Your route. Plan when you will leave home to arrive before that time, with room for a delay. Late candidates cannot take the test.
What you may take into the room, and the rest of the day's rules, are in the next lesson.
Watch me do one
Say your test is on a Saturday at nine in the morning. Your Speaking test is on the Wednesday before, and you work until five every weekday.
Only two mornings are free at nine: the Saturday and the Sunday a week before. Both mock tests should start at the real hour, so I put one on each.
The review has to come between them. So on Saturday afternoon you find the reason for each wrong answer and read my notes on your Writing. That list goes with you into Sunday's mock.
The weekday evenings take the rest. Monday is for the second mock's mistakes. Your real Speaking test is on Wednesday, so on Tuesday you do a full Speaking test with me.
Thursday is for the practical checks and one short practice. Friday is the day before, so you rest, pack your bag and go to bed at your usual time.
I mark the Writing from your mock tests, criterion by criterion. If you would also like a teacher to read an essay this week, Kriti and Christine do that in their classes.
Practice with Elita6 questions
Six questions on the last week. In most of them, you choose what you would do.
The hour of the mock
Your test starts at nine in the morning. You usually study in the evening, after work.
When should you sit this week's full mock tests?
Keep it or stop it?
Decide whether this belongs in your last week.
Reading passages slowly with no clock, so that you understand every word
Eleven wrong answers
In your first Reading mock you got 11 questions wrong.
What is the most useful thing to do with them?
The evening before
It is the evening before your test.
Which evening is the best preparation?
A new passport
Five days before the test, you realise you booked with your old passport. You renewed it last month.
What should you do?
A fix for each mistake
Each mistake comes from a first mock test. Match it to the fix for the rest of the week.
Before you go
Sit two full mock tests, Listening, Reading and Writing back to back, at the hour your test starts.
After each one, write down why every wrong answer was wrong, and watch for those reasons on the day.
Stop new word lists and learned answers, and put a clock on every paper.
Check your identity document, times and route by day 5, and rest on the day before.
Next: Next, the test day itself: what happens at the centre, in what order, and the rules that can stop you taking the test.