ISLPR Language Services Blog
Strategies for ISLPR Test Candidates: The Writing Test (Part 1)
Over the next month we will go over some tips to help you mentally prepare yourself for an ISLPR test and strategies to help you perform well during an exam.
To make things easy, we’ll break the test down into 4 parts and provide strategies to improve each of your macro-skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Today, we’re looking at:
The Writing Test.
Part 1: before the test
Practise writing in English every day. Write texts as outlined in the Guidelines page of the Application Pack so that you know what they look like in your handwriting and you don’t waste time counting words during the test. Practise writing about 400 words in 60 minutes, including time for planning and for checking and editing.
Do not try to guess what your tasks will be and practise only these. Also do not prepare ‘chunks’ of language – other than very short formulae such as greetings – that you hope you can use for almost any topic.
If you write with a computer, use the spell-check and grammar-check functions constructively, e.g. to keep track of the mistakes that you make and to help you reflect on why you make them but, except in special circumstances, this will not be allowed in a test.
Check with your teacher or a modern textbook for basic formatting conventions (e.g. indicating new paragraphs) and for editing conventions (e.g. for inserting a piece of text) in hand-written texts. The way this is done in English may be different from your first language.
A© ISLPR Language Services Pty Ltd, October, 2019
Did you know, writing is the biggest issue we come across at ILS? To help combat this, we offer writing tutorials via Skype or in-person. If you’re not ready to book a tutorial, we highly recommend Dr Ingram’s lecture on developing your reading and writing skills.
