How to prepare for IELTS in one month


IELTS is a test that demands extensive preparation if you want to achieve the required score. The length of time required for preparation is determined by various factors, including the candidate’s present level of English and their grasp of the test format.

Even so, let us create a one-month plan that would be great for a learner whose core grammatical abilities are intact, particularly tenses, verbs, and prepositions. Candidates who are having difficulty with their grammar abilities should begin their preparations considerably earlier and grasp the grammar section pertinent to IELTS preparations.

Here are the steps to prepare for IELTS in one month

  1. Learn the test pattern
  2. Prepare Daily
  3. Correct mistakes
  4. Practise all the modules
  5. Choose the right materials
  6. Maintaining notes
Prepare for IELTS in 1 month

Learn the test pattern

Confirm that you understand the IELTS exam structure thoroughly and precisely, particularly the timing for each module. This is critical because having doubts about these fundamental aspects will have a negative impact on your preparation strategy. If you aren’t fully aware of the structure and timing during prep times, you may have to go over it again, wasting time.

Prepare Daily

Make an effort to devote at least 5 hours per day to preparations. It is critical that you set aside enough time each day to devote to each module. Planning the number of hours you can spend will also aid in time management and the organisation of all other activities based on your preparations. Remember to leave “power gaps” in your schedule. It is critical not to overstress and tier your brain.

Correct mistakes

Assure yourself that failures are inevitable and that you should not be discouraged by them, but rather learn from them. You will make mistakes, and you may find yourself repeating them over and over. It’s natural to be frustrated, but try to learn from your mistakes and correct them. Your language abilities, and thus your scores, will undoubtedly improve as a result of this self-correction and evaluation process.

Practise all the modules

It is recommended that you practise all of the modules on a daily basis. If you find it difficult to complete all of the modules, make an effort to complete at least two modules per day. You can even schedule a mandatory half-hour for each module to ensure that they all receive equal attention.

Remember that all modules contribute equally to your final IELTS score.

Choose the right materials

It is vital to select, save, and print (if necessary) all of the materials you intend to use during the learning process, including books, pdfs, videos, and other online resources. While studying, looking for new resources and trying different strategies from different materials for the same question types may confuse or mislead you, slowing down your learning pace. Choose only limited and authentic materials for your study. Always keep in mind the score you require and ensure that the materials you use correspond to the band scores needed.

If you rely on online resources for preparation, IELTS LizOpens in a new tab., howtodoIELTSOpens in a new tab., and ielts-mentorOpens in a new tab. are excellent options. They even provide an abundance of free materials. There are also many telegram channels, such as IELTS Tutorials, IELTS Discussion groups, and so on, where you can find a wealth of free preparation materials. Many students who received high grades freely share the tips and strategies they used in these channels. Check out our blog to learn about the best books for IELTS preparation.

Maintaining notes

You should keep your written notes neatly stacked. It is preferable to keep separate notebooks for writing and speaking. On one side of these notebooks, you can keep track of your listening and reading scores. Keeping track of your scores may help you self-evaluate your progress. For writing and speaking sessions, try to highlight the important vocabulary, phrases or sentence constructions. It will make it easier to refer to them during the final round of revisions.

If you have have good English skill and got very little time, check the blog on how to prepare for IELTS in 2 days

ONE MONTH IELTS STUDY PLAN 

Let us divide our study plan into 4 weeks.

WEEK 1 
DAY 1
LISTENING: 
Spend 30 minutes practising one entire listening module. This will give you an idea of the types of questions to expect.
READING:
Read a text from an actual reading exam. Only attempt the questions from reading passage one. This is because attempting to complete the entire reading part in one sitting may stress you out and cause you to lose interest in reading in the beginning.
WRITING:
Learn about the first writing task by looking at the questions that were asked. (For General IELTS, this would be letter writing, and for Academic IELTS, this would be report writing.)
SPEAKING
Refer to Part one and Part three speaking questions, since they are interactive sessions and will give you a sense of what type of questions the examiner will ask. Choose a book or other publication that includes example responses so you can understand what the examiner is looking for. To be thorough with the procedure, watch videos of actual speaking examinations.
DAY 2
LISTENING:
Attempt one more listening and ensure that you don’t break the sections while you listen. Concentration abilities may be improved if you teach yourself to focus for 30 minutes in a row from the start. Check your answers and make any necessary corrections at the conclusion.
READING:
Do two reading passages and answer the questions today. Don’t worry about the time right now; instead, concentrate on achieving the correct responses by using the strategies and tactics you learned.
WRITING:
Begin by answering one question each day for writing task 1. (You can use a pie chart for Academic  and formal letter writing for General).
SPEAKING:
Learn everything there is to know about cue cards ( part 2). Examine the most recent cue cards to gain a sense of the typical types of questions.
DAY 3 
LISTENING: 
Complete a third listening test. When answering the map question for the first time, you may have some difficulty. If you find it tough, repeat the map and see if you get it all right the second time. Remember to use the strategies while answering map questions.
READING:
Today, try a full reading. Don’t worry if it takes more than an hour. Concentrate on answering all of the questions and being acquainted with the different sorts of questions.
WRITING:
Attempt a Bar chart ( for Academic ) and a Formal invitation letter ( for General). Refer to the tactics and strategies for answering these types of questions. Write your own response and try to identify any problems.
SPEAKING:
Learn about the most significant speaking tactics as well as the speaking assessment criteria. It is critical to recognise that your fluency, lexical resources, cohesion and coherence, vocabulary, and sentence construction are all evaluated. This will assist you in determining your individual speech range.
DAY 4 
LISTENING:
Try a fourth listening test. Today, concentrate on the section three multiple choice questions. It is one of the most difficult questions in listening, and you may make mistakes. To minimise your errors, correct your mistakes and use MCQ-specific tactics.
READING:
Make an effort to complete a whole reading or at least two reading sections. Concentrate on true/false/not given questions. Apply strategies to boost your results if you find yourself receiving lower marks on this type.
WRITING:
Today, learn about the task 2 essay writing section. Both the General and Academic IELTS examinations involve essay writing. Refer to the most recent questions and establish a framework for your essay.
SPEAKING:
Today, learn 5 recently asked cue cards. Refer to books for sample responses, but try to come up with your own ideas or stories so that you remember them better.
DAY 5
LISTENING:
Try out the fifth listening test. Pay attention to section 4. The audio will be faster in this segment, making it easy to overlook important information. Concentrate on getting all of the answers correct for this segment.
READING:
For today’s reading, concentrate on the fill-in-the-blanks model question. Complete a reading and assess how many fill-in-the-blank questions you answered correctly. Check that you are using the correct information retrieval strategy while filling out the question type.
WRITING:
Set a timer for 40 minutes and choose an essay question. Attempt to read prior material related to the topic from the internet or other publications. This is to ease your effort because being stressed and bothered about writing about a topic at the start might impair your confidence. Now try this question and see if you can finish it in 40 minutes.
SPEAKING:
Practice an entire speaking set, parts 1, 2, and 3. Try to enlist the assistance of a friend or family member to ask you questions so that you may practise in an exam style. You may also hire an instructor to act as a speaking partner.
DAY 6 and DAY 7 : MOCK TEST and practise of more questions from each module. 
WEEK 2
DAY 1 
LISTENING: 
Take the sixth listening test today and concentrate on Section 1. Although this is one of the simplest areas of listening, the risk of spelling mistakes is substantial.
READING:
Focus on information/heading matching kind of questions. You may even set aside today’s session solely for answering this sort of query.
WRITING:
Do Line graph ( Academic ) and Semi-formal letter ( General).
SPEAKING:
Learn 5 more latest cue cards. Try not to memorise prepared answers found online or in books because the chances of getting stuck mid-sentence are large if you do.
DAY 2
LISTENING:
In today’s listening test, pay attention to the ‘complete the information’ question type. To do well in this category, you must be very focused and have rapid jotting abilities. do self-assessment with the help of the audio scripts and answer key.
READING:
Set the timer for one hour and strive to finish today’s reading in that amount of time. Self-evaluate and redo any incorrect responses.
WRITING:
Today, try agree/disagree and discuss both sides essay types. Examine example responses and answer a question for yourself. Correct your own answer or seek assistance from a tutor.
SPEAKING:
 At least eight sets of warm-up (part 1) and discussion (part 3) questions should be read. Request that your speaking partner ask the same questions so that you may feel more confident when replying.
DAY 3
LISTENING:
Today, try to finish two complete listening tests. Examine your ability to focus and check your responses for inaccuracies.
READING: 
In today’s reading, concentrate on the label the diagram question type. It’s a simple question if you can extract the relevant keywords from the passage.
WRITING:
Today, concentrate on writing task 1, and practice Line graph (Academic) and informal invitation letter ( General)
SPEAKING:
Study some high-frequency topic-related vocabulary. 
DAY 4 
LISTENING:
After completing today’s listening test, compare your results to those from DAY 2 WEEK 1. Check to see if your results have consistently improved. If you notice significant variations, it suggests that one or more of your techniques are ineffective.
READING: 
Today, just complete one reading passage with a ‘who said what’ question type. Use the appropriate tactics to quickly get the solution, and keep track of your ability to use the approach and your scores.
WRITING:
Attempt task 1 Table question type ( Academic) and Formal Complaint letter ( General).
SPEAKING:
Learn the next five cue cards. Set a 2-minute timer and record your response using a voice recording app. listen to it and make strategies for improvement.
DAY 5 : resting day. Today, instead of taking tests, read a newspaper or some articles, listen to a podcast, or watch some films or documentaries. A power gap is crucial during IELTS preparation so that you do not become exhausted.
DAY 6 and DAY 7: MOCK TEST and practise ONLY the questions types that you found difficult this week.
WEEK 3 
DAY 1
LISTENING: 
Today, concentrate on table, flow chart, and summary completion question types. Keep track of your score and use the audio scripts to correct any mistakes.
READING: 
For today’s reading exercise, concentrate on the ‘list selection’ question format. Make sure you practise a whole reading in one hour today.
WRITING: 
For Task 2, write opinion and double-question essays. To compose the essay, follow a strategic pattern that begins with an introduction and ends with a conclusion. Try to compose one essay in 40 minutes on your own.
SPEAKING:
Learn 5 more recently asked cue cards.
DAY 2
LISTENING:
‘Short response questions’ are practiced in today’s listening exercise. Keep in mind that certain question kinds demand you to write in a specified amount of words (one word, two words, or three words). If you make even a minor mistake, you will lose the complete score for the answer.
READING: 
If you’re having trouble answering matching heading and matching information questions, review them again.
WRITING: 
Today, learn how to write a cause-and-effect essay. Refer to the many questions in this essay kind. Create an essay framework and compose one on your own after referring to the points.
SPEAKING:
Try to incorporate the concepts you learned in Parts 1 and 3 of the speaking module into your responses. Participate in a Q&A session with your speaking partner.
DAY 3
LISTENING:
 Today, practise two listening tests and compare your results to DAY 1 WEEK 2.
READING: 
Do one full reading in the allotted one hour period and check your answers.
WRITING: 
Practice table questions (Academic), as well as formal, semi-formal, and informal apology letters ( General).
SPEAKING:
learn 5 more cue cards. Sort the cue cards into groups where the same ideas or responses can be utilised for multiple cue card questions.
DAY 4
LISTENING: 
In today’s listening, practise answering summary completion questions. Check to see whether you’re making fewer mistakes after practising.
READING:
Today, select certain question categories that you find challenging and practise only reading passages on them.
WRITING:
Try out the mixed graph question type ( Academic). Refer to many types of mixed graphs, read sample answers, and write your own response to a question using academic vocabulary. Practise job-related and reply letters in General. Read example letters to help you create your own.
SPEAKING:
Today’s speaking practice should be devoted to listening to real speaking session footage. Examine the candidates’ temperament and presentation tactics. Adopt the techniques that you find beneficial.
DAY 5
LISTENING: 
Try the’matching’ question type, which is frequently asked in the first section of the listening module. This question necessitates a rapid grasp of the audio as well as the identification of synonyms and paraphrases for the terms used in the audio.
READING: 
Perform one full reading and compare your results to DAY 5 WEEK 2.
WRITING: 
Attempt advantage and disadvantage type essay questions. Same pattern can be followed for merit/demerit and positive/negative type essays.
SPEAKING:
Prepare 5 more cue cards. Review prior cue cards to see if you can recall the topics and key vocabulary you used there.
DAY 6: MOCK TEST ( DAY 7 : Rest day)
WEEK 4
DAY 1:
MOCK TEST 1
LISTENING
READING                                       
SPEAKING 
WRITING
DAY 2
LISTENING and READING
Examine your Mock Test 1 results. Concentrate on the areas and types of questions where you made mistakes. Practice those exact questions/sections.WRITING:
Examine your writing mistakes. It is preferable to get your work corrected by a tutor or a high-scoring applicant. Make a note of your mistakes and develop strategies for improvement.
SPEAKING:
Take your speaking partner’s feedback on your performance in the Mock Test. Learn about your flaws and implement suggestions for improvement.
DAY 3 
MOCK TEST 2
LISTENING
READING                                                  
WRITING
SPEAKING 
DAY 4
LISTENING and READING
Complete one complete listening and reading test. Examine your results to determine if you scored the same or higher than the mock tests. If you have a lower score, you will need to practise more.
WRITING
Check to verify if you covered all question categories for tasks 1 and 2. If you come across any pending models, give it a shot.
SPEAKING 
Explore a list of recently asked speaking sets ( including warm-up, cue card and discussions). If you come across any difficult cue cards, think of a solution and learn.
DAY 5
Day of revision and relaxation. Perform a relaxed review of all modules. If you have any doubts, write them down and clear them up within the following two days.

This is an excellent strategy for a candidate with intermediate grammatical skills. You can customise the plan based on the number of hours you have available each day. However, validate that you spent at least 2 hours each day and attempted 2 modules every day. If you stick to the 2-hour/2 module schedule, one month may not be enough time to completely comprehend and practise all of the modules. So you should allow yourself a two-month window..

Shruthi Raveendran

I am Shruthi Raveendran, a TEFL-certified IELTS/PTE and ESL tutor who has 8+ years of experience working in the education industry. I am a passionate writer, logophile and film enthusiast

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