5 Silly Things You Say To Decrease Your IELTS Speaking Band Score

The IELTS Speaking exam is conducted face-to-face and similar for IELTS Academic and General. It is an oral interview between you and the examiner. It is divided into three parts and goes on for 14-15 minutes. Most students are anxious on the day of their IELTS Speaking test, and due to this, they make some silly mistakes. Being mindful of such silly mistakes and avoiding speaking faulty statements can help you escape the possibility of getting a low band score in the IELTS speaking exam. So, let’s figure out what these silly errors are and how you can avoid them.

1. Excessive Use of Idioms

In your IELTS Speaking preparation lessons, you are told that idioms can help you improve your scores. While idioms are a measure of a high band score, there are other aspects that can help you get a good score. Some other factors that contribute to your band score are vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and your sentences’ logical structure. The fallacy of using idioms often results in a lower band score in IELTS speaking, and you can be penalized if you use them too often. As a result, use idioms only when you need to bring cohesion to your expression, which can happen when you focus on addressing the question effectively.

2. Excessive use of filler words

Fillers are useful in IELTS speaking when you need to think and improve your fluency, but you should use them carefully and in moderation. For example, fillers in between sentences disrupt your fluency, and the examiner gets distracted, making it impossible for him/her to understand what you are trying to convey. In addition, you should avoid fillers like ‘ahh, Umm, er, oh.’ These words, instead of adding any value, negatively impact your performance.

3. Going off-topic

The importance of sticking to the main subject cannot be overstated. Unfortunately, some students try to talk more and more in order to get high band scores, which causes them to lose focus on the main topic. This occurs in both the cue card section and the question-answer round of the IELTS Speaking exam. However, you won’t lose marks if you go off-topic in the cue card section. But if you completely avoid the topic and don’t even mention it in your answers, you will definitely be marked low.

4. Excessive use of connectors

During your IELTS speaking test, you should avoid using connectors excessively, just as you should avoid using idioms excessively. Sentence connectors are words and phrases that help you build your ideas and convey your thoughts. For example, some good connectors are furthermore, consequently, on the other hand, in contrast to this, however, and so on. Some students don’t put much effort into learning such a variety of connectors and ultimately repeat the same connectors multiple times. Others use connectors excessively, due to which the coherence of their sentences are lost. As a result, you should only use connectives only when absolutely necessary so that they seem natural.

5. Using advanced vocabulary incorrectly.

Advanced level vocabulary is essential, but it is not the only factor that contributes to achieving a high band score. Fluency, pronunciation, grammar, and coherence are other important factors contributing to achieving a high band score in the IELTS speaking exam. Unfortunately, there are some students who widely use advanced vocabulary but still end up getting low band scores.  Practice is the only way to improve that. Always remember that it is advisable to use the words you are familiar with rather than using those you find difficult and unsure about its meaning and usage. Continue to learn new vocabulary by listening to podcasts, music, or watching movies, films, chat shows, interviews, group talks, and, most importantly, try to say them yourself. Reading these words in books, magazines, and other publications and then composing your own sentences is another good way to learn to use advanced vocabulary.

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