Conquer IELTS & TOEFL: A Step-by-Step Mastery Guide

Think of the next six months as your training montage in a movie. You’re a macho hero, and English is the staircase you’re about to conquer. Your enemies are sneaky reading passages, fast-talking speakers, and essay topics you’d never actually discuss in real life. So how do you go about winning the fight?

Step 1: Know Where You Stand

Take a practice test (you’ll find tons of free ones online) and identify your strongest and weakest sections—Reading, Listening, Speaking, or Writing. If the university you’re applying to has no strict criteria regarding which exam they prefer—IELTS or TOEFL—then take a practice test for both and see which one you score better. The reading and writing sections of both exams are vastly different.

Step 2: Build Vocabulary

Both IELTS and TOEFL LOVE testing vocabulary and you’ll find tens of websites providing ultimate word lists for the exams. However, memorizing these random words is boring and ineffective. Instead, take things contextually. Try this:

Read news articles on topics like the environment, health, or technology. Highlight tricky words, then learn their meanings and usage.
Example: In a news article about climate change, you come across the word mitigate. Look it up. Use it in a sentence like:

“We need to mitigate the effects of global warming by reducing emissions.”

Practice close tests or short passages that ask you to fill in a word.
Example: Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?

_Mann’s research was conducted in two parts — a literature review and an interview study. A literature review of both the scientific and the popular literature was conducted and reviewed from August to November 2013. The interview study involved semi-structured, one-time, in-person private interviews conducted in the same year. Twenty vegans were interviewed, and questions targeted personal history of veganism, related health beliefs, factors influencing the decision to become vegan, and diet ______. Once all data was obtained, it was analyzed in tandem.

A) arrangement
B) disposition
C) constitution
D) amalgam

If you don’t know the meaning of the words in the options, look them up and then apply them in context. You’ll remember better by doing, not by rote learning random word lists.

Answer: (C) Constitution

Step 3: Reading in Parts

The wonderful part of IELTS reading passages is that questions are often asked in chronological order of the paragraphs. Meaning, Q1 will most likely be from paragraph 1, Q2 from paragraph 2, and so on. This makes reading easier because you can read the passage one paragraph at a time and solve the questions simultaneously. So even if you have a short attention span or find it hard to track the overall idea throughout the passage, you can still figure it out as you move from one question to another.

Of course, this chronological method won’t work in TOEFL because most questions there pertain to the passage as a whole—such as main idea, primary purpose, inferences, summaries, etc. So for those of you taking the TOEFL, you can work on creating mind maps. Next to each paragraph, write down what idea it specifically discusses and whether it portrays a positive, negative, or neutral tone towards the idea. Highlight important words. That way, by the time you finish reading, you’ll have a list of all the ideas mentioned in the order of paragraphs. Then, you can find the connection between the paragraph ideas to figure out the larger theme/purpose.

If you’re looking for tips on how to create mind maps or summarize passages, we’ve discussed them in more detail here.

Step 4: Don’t Just Listen. Repeat.

Listening for IELTS or TOEFL is tricky because you don’t just have to be completely alert when listening, but also be able to understand the accent and note the details.

Try This:

Watch an English TV series you like (such as Friends or The Crown). Choose an episode and write down key points you hear in the dialogues.
Then practice shadow speaking. Listen to a sentence, pause, and repeat it out loud, mimicking the speaker’s tone and accent.

Step 5: Writing with Structure

Writing tasks often stump students because of time pressure. Students often struggle to streamline the 50 thoughts roaming in their heads and translate them into a well-structured essay. The trick is to have a solid template. You’ll find several tried-and-tested templates online for both exams. Practice your writing within those templates to improve your scores.

Example Essay Template:

Intro: Paraphrase the question and state your opinion.
Body 1: First reason + example.
Body 2: Second reason + example.
Conclusion: Restate your opinion and summarize.

As for improving your grammar and sentence construction, use a word grammar check or install a Grammarly plugin. When the app underlines a word or sentence in red, don’t just hit ignore. Try to understand what the error is in the sentence and how it differs from the suggested correction provided by the app. If you still can’t figure out the grammatical error, look it up or ask your English teacher. The key is to make the effort—no matter how tedious and time-consuming—to improve your grammar.

Step 6: Record Your Voice

For the speaking section, pick up sample topics online and record yourself while answering them. Then, play it back to see how you sound. Note how many times you say the words “ummm,” “like,” or “so” in your dialogue. How many times do you use slang words or mispronounce words?

Use speech-to-text and then paste the converted text into Grammarly to see how many grammatical mistakes you made while speaking.

In general, spend your time listening to TED Talks, news  (BBC or NPR), or audiobooks. These will expose you to accents, formal speech, talking points, and complex vocabulary—which will eventually help you in all four sections.