Read the instructions carefully
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- Written by IELTS Mentor
Candidates who do not read or listen to the instructions carefully may believe they are saving time, but the instructions contain vital information which must be understood in order to answer correctly. The instructions may contain information about the passage topic which helps to predict what you may hear or read.
• The instructions tell you what to do, what kind of answer to give, and, in the case of the Listening Test instructions, they tell you when to answer.
• It is important to read the instructions quickly and accurately. You might not have time to complete the test if you are too slow at reading the explanatory information.
• You are in no way allowed to violate the instructions. If a question instruction asks you to use 'No more than two words' and you use three words, you will lose marks even if your answer was thematically correct. For instance, if the instruction is 'Use no more than one word and/or a number' and you write '100 years', you would be awarded a mark for the answer. However, if you write 'a hundred years', your answer is wrong.
• If the question instructions advise you to write 'YES/ NO/ NOT GIVEN', do not simply write 'Y/N/NG'. This is wrong.
• If the instruction says that "Write the appropriate number (i-v) in boxes 10-15 on your answer sheet', do not write a,b,c .... or 1,2,3... instead of i, ii, iii .... You do not need to write what information these roman letters (i.e. i, ii, iii..) contain in the answers.
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