Hi everyone, often I tutor students who have 3-4 days before Duolingo English Test, IELTS, TOEFL, SAT or any other test from a substantial list)) Sure, people ask me as a tutor about which actions on their part can yield the greatest benefit, bring the highest possible score for them at the test? I feel that such a topic may interest you as well, given that you are reading these speculations now:))
OK, first of all let me remind you that the best way to obtain the most out of your 3-4 day preparation to DET or IELTS is, of course, several lessons within experienced tutor – she or he will supply you with the most productive techniques for acing the test within several days. Sometimes students tell me that they really consider me to be the most effective English tutor for super-intensive test preparation in the world! Yes, it is true) So, I think we concur with you on the very global concept: it is 10 times better to work with a highly professional linguistic coach for 3-5 days than to poke around searching for some secret clue to success at IELTS or Duolingo and doing eventually only certain intermittent exercises…
OK, but of course you want to know what approaches can help you overall when your DET is looming in 4 days?) OK, here are some helpful hints.
Firstly, try to focus on Writing and Speaking. The matter is that enlarging your passive English vocabulary for IELTS, TOEFL, Duolingo takes time. Even if you deprive yourself of sleep and food, anyway you will be unlikely able to learn additional 2-3 thousand English words in 3 days. Again, I as a tutor try to help my students in this aspect even in such situation: there are some super-beneficial methods of growing your passive visual and auditory vocabulary in a couple of days. But if you are training on your own, then I think it will be too arduous for you to succeed in this area. Moreover, you will lose some precious additional time for boosting other skills for English tests.
So, try to focus on improving your Speaking and Writing. As I know, Duolingo Test is most strict on your Production which implies Speaking and Writing.
You may ask: how can I improve my writing and speaking in 3-4 days on my own? What should I do?
I can advise you to find and download samples of outstanding essays for IELTS, TOEFL, even Duolingo Test and start reading them, slowly enjoying the style and highlighting your top favourite collocations. Then make a list of your top-super-favourite phrases)) – about 15 to 20 of them, and cram them in your memory forever and ever, so that even if you are woken at night and asked to reproduce them, you will do it easily. The bottom line is that during Duolingo or IELTS Writing (and even Speaking) you will be able to harmoniously integrate those collocations into your essay or oral narration, thus raising your score.
Yes, such approach is very powerful, believe me – I have verified its validity for English tests a lot of times. You cannot write or speak as an educated native speaker – but you can borrow harmonious collocations thus adding charm to your writing. If you insert 2-3 such phrases into your story, it will not be considered plagiarism – everybody has an inalienable right to use 2-3 word collocations from literature or other sources to decorate your essay.
OK, what else… To improve your Speaking, you can watch a lot of YouTube videos with interviews with famous (but educated) people and trying to shadow them. Shadowing means trying to repeat all words from sentences by those people without stopping the video. If it is really necessary, stop the recording after every sentence, repeat this sentence with alike intonation, then go on. Even in 3-4 days of such exercise you will add fluency to your Speaking for IELTS, Duolingo, TOEFL…
The next powerful thing is to find REAL TASKS for Duolingo Test or IELTS or TOEFL and work with them, The more you interact with the authentic test tasks, the better you are prepared for the actual test, thus allowing yourself to sit down to your test and avoid being paralyzed by unexpected sections and the atmosphere of the test itself.
So, these are some of really helpful things to do in 3-5 days before your Duolingo, IELTS, TOEFL.Of course, we should bear in mind that we are all unique, so there are no super universal approaches. However, based upon my observations, those mentioned by me here really work well. Try them – you will feel considerable improvement in your English for DET, IELTS, TOEFL, SAT…
OK, my friends, wish you success at the tests of English – you can accomplish everything you can conceive! If you look for professional and talented English Tutor who should be better called Linguistic Coach – welcome to my online sessions! I will help you to raise your score, even in 3-5 days…