8th grade female student shares secret to achieving IELTS 8.5 on first try

Overcoming challenges

Truong Thanh Tra just took the examIELTS certificatein mid-October. In early November, when receiving the results, Tra and her whole family were overwhelmed with joy, because the IELTS result of 8.5 (with a listening score of 9.0, reading 8.5, speaking 8.0 and writing 7.5) was an achievement beyond expectations. This was also the first time Tra tried her hand at this competition with the aim of challenging herself and self-assessing her own abilities.

Was Tra's English teacher for 3 years atDang Thai Mai Secondary School, teacher Cao Thi Huong is also someone who is eagerly waiting for the results of this exam. When she received the phone call from Tra's family, she also said she was a bit "trembling" because of excitement. Knowing that Tra got 8.5 points and was the first student of the school to achieve this result when she was only in 8th grade, she said she was very happy and affirmed "this is completely deserved".

Nearly 30 years standing on the podium and teaching in the specialized environment of the top quality school in Nghe An province, but to teacher Cao Thi Huong, Tra is a special student.

What's more interesting is that Tra is one of the very few students who received a perfect score of 10 in English from her teacher: "Although English is an advantage subject in our school and there are many good students, it is rare for a student to get a score of 10 in all tests like Tra. When Tra was in grade 7 (first semester), I gave her a total score of 10. In Tra, in addition to her academic ability, I highly appreciate her seriousness. Although she has a good foundation in English, she has never been subjective in all the lessons in class, even the lessons in the textbook, she does her homework meticulously and carefully, almost never making mistakes", teacher Cao Thi Huong added.

Truong Thanh Tra is the second child in the family. Tra's older brother studied at Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted and has a talent for English, so it seems like she has been living in an English environment since childhood.

Before entering first grade, although she had just learned to read and was only familiar with English through the form of “learning while playing”, she was able to communicate simply and read English books for children. According to Thanh Tra, she loved English because at first she had a very funny foreign teacher. The conversations with the teacher, although “babbling”, introduced her to another world, making her increasingly curious and interested.

After entering primary school, her family always supported her English learning process. With her talent and diligence, in grade 5, Tra took the exam and got a B2 certificate. This helped her to be admitted directly to the IELTS class of Dang Thai Mai Secondary School and was in the top 5 students with the highest entrance scores in that course.

Secrets to conquering IELTS

From a good initial foundation, Truong Thanh Tra set a goal for herself to conquer many other English competitions. In fact, before getting an IELTS 8.5 certificate at the beginning of grade 8, Tra also tried to take the C1 exam and achieved a fairly high score of 183/190 points.

Coming to the IELTS exam, Tra said that this exam is much more difficult than other exams. With a wide range of knowledge, requiring thinking and logic, a 7th or 8th grade student will have a harder time than those who have studied in high school or university. During the IELTS study process, Tra was most worried about the reading comprehension part and this was the part she admitted was her weakest. Therefore, to overcome this limitation, Tra tried to read a lot and listen a lot to enrich her vocabulary. In addition, she often looked for English articles to improve her reading comprehension ability.

For the listening part, in addition to a good initial foundation, Tra often goes to YouTube to find IELTS test papers to practice more and listen every day. In case listening too much will be tiring, Tra often looks for clips of foreigners talking to enrich the conversation. To practice listening and improve skills when taking the test, Tra also looks for previous year's test papers to practice on her own.

In speaking, besides learning from teachers, I practice pronunciation every day to use English better. Creating an environment with friends is also very important and I often talk in English with my classmates or with my brother and younger brother in the family.

In the writing section, according to Tra, vocabulary is very important but does not need to be too "advanced". Instead, learn vocabulary by topic, know how to arrange ideas logically and tightly. Studying and taking the IELTS test must be done in parallel with learning grammar well and focusing on the advanced part that is often taught in class and at school.

To prepare well for the English exam, Tra shared that before the exam, she should not put pressure on herself. Even during Tra's exam, even though she encountered a difficult topic, even falling into the "red question" situation (a backup question and often considered more difficult), Tra still tried to stay calm to do the test.

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One of the readings I caught was about confidence in learning and confidence in communication. This was a topic I had never done before and had never read in reference books so I was quite worried at first.

But, I calmed down and told my own story. For example, when I first learned English, I was shy to communicate with foreigners, but then I practiced by making a schedule for myself, listening and speaking more to build my confidence.

Truong Thanh Tra

In addition to conquering foreign language certification exams, Truong Thanh Tra is also a class monitor and one of the excellent members, ranked in the top of the excellent student team of Dang Thai Mai Secondary School.

She is also a member of the English Club and the Youth Volunteer Team at school. Since primary school, Tra has been an all-round student, with her overall scores always above 9.

She also has a long list of achievements in many competitions such as Second Prize in National Talent Competition, Second Prize in Provincial Talent Competition, ASMO Math Gold Medal, ASMO English Gold Medal, Vioedu Silver Medal, Sasmo Math Bronze Medal, First Prize in Provincial TOEFL Primary Competition...

Currently, Tra is continuing to set goals to be on the provincial excellent student team next school year and continue to bring awards to herself and the school.