Share some experience about IBT

arc9

CD again helps me with a lot of information about the IBT test, so I decided to write something for those who are still working on it.

I took IBT test one month after my GMAT, getting a 100+ scarce. No surprise for me as I have worked in English speaking country for many years. I may get the similar score anyway even I don't study at all. However, I did my part-time study to make sure I don't waste $250 dollars.  

Reading
If you have basic understanding for the reading, please go back to the basic first. First thing first, if you don't recognize the new word, work on the new words until you can get most of the questions for words right. IBT reading is easy if you took GMAT first.  What you need is just to practice the pace, making sure you finish the reading questions on time.  I took the approach of reading the whole article for one minute to get a general idea then working on questions. Most importantly, don't be stuck on any questions for long. Your target is the whole score, not getting every question correct.

Listening
If you don't understand the listening well, please listen to English at least 3 hours a day, which will make you get use to the pace. One more thing for those who want to study abroad, the speed of the lecture is actually slower than the normal speed that people will speak. This is understandable because even we use Chinese to give lecture, we will slow down a little to let students have time to understand. For those people like me have been in an environment for long, I actually have to adjust for the slower speed and will be easily distracted from the topic. "Scientific America" is the normal speed at least half of the time people speak here, so keep working on listening, it will benefit you a lot in the future.

Speaking
If you only have a short time to prepare, probably just get yourself familiar with the questions and pace yourself in one minute speaking. I can't provide a lot info as I only have one or two days preparing for this part.

Writing
The quickest way I think you can do is to recite a few good articles and learn from them.