9/9/6.5 Club - Pankaj's Struggles to get to Where he Should be.

Pankaj B was not the first IELTS candidate I had come accross whose English must've been really good (I'm an English teacher by trade, I should acknowledge that you can't determine someone's real aptitude without a placement test - which in some ways, the IELTS is). Here now was this guy who was so depressed, not understanding what went wrong, while everyone else was in awe of his Facebook post with his double-9's  in reading and writing.




I won't tell the whole story, suffice to say he had posted a mere 2 essays on the Tips and Tricks board, and like the other Pankaj from the other night, none were commented on.

So what's the secret to getting a 9 in reading or listening?  Apparently, it is to be the kind of guy who posts stuff, never gets it read, and doesn't complain. Oh, and be named Pankaj. And live in Delhi.


Anyway, I've been coaching him for a couple months and have reiviewed 4 or 5 essays, and with each one, he got better. He wrote one that I felt was definitely 7.5 or thereabouts. My sense of humor being what it is, I started to joke about his Task 1 letters. I'm not a General Training instructor, and since he seemed ready, I made a comedy version of the letter recipients reaction.


So a few weeks have passed and I can see some of the same mistakes he was making occurring again. Missing keywords in the instructions. Misusing my least favorite word: 'moreover' Using capital letters where they shouldn't be.

It's in two parts.



But perhaps the most disturbing to me is the unsupported conclusions. In BP1, there was an attempt to say that people would drop out because they were never interested in the course in the first place. Hmm.. The second point about value and cost was better supported. The edit is definitely better.

The grammar point about unreal future situations reminds us that the 2nd conditional grammar rules apply without their being an "if" anywhere on the page.


In three weeks, the founding member of the 9/6 club has another shot.