Exams · 10 Aug 2026 · 5 min read
What IELTS examiners actually reward
By James Okafor
Candidates prepare for the IELTS speaking test by memorising 'advanced vocabulary'. Examiners hear the same memorised phrases dozens of times a week — 'a double-edged sword', 'in this day and age' — and the descriptors tell us precisely how to treat language that is 'memorised' rather than flexible: it doesn't count.
What moves a speaking score from 6 to 7 is not exotic vocabulary. It's fluency mechanics: speaking at length without unnatural effort, self-correcting smoothly, using discourse markers the way native speakers actually use them — to buy time and signal structure.
The writing test is even more mechanical. Task 2 essays are marked against four criteria with equal weight, and one of them — Task Response — is failed by perhaps a third of all candidates before they write a single grammatical error, simply because they answer a slightly different question than the one asked.
Our preparation course is built around the descriptors themselves. Students learn to read them, mark sample answers with them, and finally mark their own recordings. It's less glamorous than 'secret examiner tricks'. It also works.
Reading about English is not speaking English.
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