5 fun ways to prepare for IELTS/TOEFL and GRE verbal
If you are preparing for English proficiency tests and want to improve your skills in a fun way, keep reading.
I am an avid reader and critic, and over the years I have found that the way you approach things matters a lot and leaves a significant impact on your personality.
So, it’s not just what you do, it’s more about how you do it.
You have been learning about a lot of resources and practice tests, but it does become boring and stressful or even overwhelming with a lot of blogs out there.
I’ll be sharing a few things in this blog that anyone can do, without spending many resources, and it not only helps you polish your skills but will also help with stress management and feeding your mental strength.
Let’s get started.
1. Watch at least 2 movies per week (Listening and Speaking skills)
You heard it right. This should not come as a surprise to you that if you want to improve your listening and speaking skills you got to watch movies. Watch good Hollywood movies and start noting down the vocabulary. That’s how you will be able to understand the use of words in daily conversation, with the context.
I always tell this to my students that just remembering a list of frequent words for vocabulary and GRE verbal is not enough, there are too many different meanings of the same word when used in a sentence. It all depends on the context and to understand that you will need to get familiar with day-to-day English speaking like in movies.
Start with old drama movies and classic literary movies adapted from books, then slowly transition to modern movies and even animated movie series.
Here are some recommendations:
The shop around the corner- 1940 and it’s adaptation “You have got mail — 1998”
12 Angry men — 1957
To kill a mocking bird — 1962
Network — 1976
Annie Hall — 1977
The remains of the day — 1993
Forest Gump — 1994
Lord of the rings series — 2001–2003
50 first dates — 2004
V for Vendetta — 2005
The devil wears Prada — 2006
The Jane Austen book club — 2007
Midnight in Paris — 2011
The perks of being a wallflower — 2012
Magic in the moonlight — 2014
A rainy day in New York — 2019
Disclaimer: You can search for yourself, but these are just my recommendations based on the dialogues in the movies which contain a lot of GRE vocab, and are thoughtful too.
2. Host a show in front of the mirror and review those movies (Speaking skills)
Well, this might seem funny to you, but it works wonderfully, like magic, if you want to improve your speaking skills.
Be your host and be your guest as well and just keep talking. Talk about your experience after watching each movie, how did you like it, what should have been improved. You can also comment on the direction of the movie, the plot, the characters and you can review the movie in your own words using the vocab you have learned. You can even make this experience more rememberable when you can talk about the new words that you have learned in the movie. If you are not able to use those words in a new sentence, try repeating the dialogue itself, or try explaining it to yourself that how was it used in the movie, for example, I may say that in ‘You’ve got mail’, Kathleen confesses that she has read Pride and Prejudice 200 times and she loves the words like ‘felicity’ that means ‘intense happiness’.
You can also record your videos to watch later and learn from your mistakes.
Now why speaking in front of the mirror is important, well because you will get to see yourself speaking and you will gain more and more confidence as well if you keep doing it.
3. Read Novels (Reading and Writing Skills)
Further, to improve your vocabulary, read, read and read. I cannot stress it enough, but reading will change your life, trust me. Novels are not only a great way to improve English comprehension but also a stress relief.
GRE prep can be stressful, so books are good to get away from the real world for a while. And when you read, be critical, ask questions about the character and be thoughtful.
If you came across the old English book taught at the intermediate level for the KPK board, they have included ‘Great Expectations’ by C. Dickens, and at the end of each chapter, there are a bunch of questions. Try reading that again in GRE or IELTS perspective, note down the vocabulary, and answer the questions.
Here are my recommendations for the books that are rich in vocabulary:
Little women — Louisa May Alcott (both book and 2019 movie are good)
Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities — Charles Dickens
Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights — Emily Bronte
The adventures of Tom Sawyer — Mark Twain
Frankenstein — Mary Shelley
From classics, anything by Jane Austen, Dickens, and Bronte is amazingly good.
For modern literature, JK Rowling (hands down). Read all 7 books of Harry Potter. Some people also recommend reading the Narnia series, I haven’t read them all, but the ones I have are good ones.
I have been reading Alex E Harrow recently and both her novels; ‘Ten thousand doors of January’ and ‘The once and future witches’ are extremely good and rich in vocabulary.
4. Write reviews and use vocab (Writing skills)
Just as you had reviewed the movies by speaking in front of the Mirror, now you can start writing about the books that you have read. The best way to write reviews is to write as you read. So, for example, you’ve just read the first chapter of a book, and while all that it’s fresh in your mind, try writing about that. You can talk about the characters, theme of the novel, plot, and writing style of the author. You can also talk about your own feelings while you were reading, and you can use the vocabulary words that you had noted.
5. Pick topics from daily life for arguments (Analytical skills)
This might seem a little odd too, but best observations come from daily life and observation is the key to writing. Raise your hand if you engage in comments on ICC's Facebook page about Babar vs Kohli? We all love cricket, but let’s engage in a meaningful way.
Be logical and write down your opinions.
You can pick topics from everyday life, like food choices in Islamabad, or whether family-owned restaurants are good or chains, or is reading at the library more beneficial than at home, you can even talk about common comparisons like iPhone vs android, Karachi vs Lahore, Beaches vs Mountains, etc.
As an example, I’m sharing one of my food reviews:
https://medium.com/.../taste-of-pakistan-in-the-heart-of...
Choose at least one such topic every week and write about it. Put on an unbiased lens and just write down the pros and cons for each. Then while concluding, form an opinion and back it with logic.
General (boring) recommendations :)
Now some general recommendations. Always remember that assessment and evaluation are a big part of progress. Mock tests are your friends. Follow all these tips I shared, use official ETS and British Council resources for practice, and then take mock tests to find out where you stand.
On the last note, another not so boring thing to do is listening to Joe Rogan’s podcasts instead of music, that will help too :)
Regards
Sara Sultan Aqib
