How ChatGPT Helped Me Score 8.0 on the IELTS
Last September, I found myself in a complete time crunch. I had just returned from a 3-week vacation and while reviewing my work emails, I learned that the master’s program application I’d been managing for a few weeks had been put on hold. The problem: the IELTS certificate I’d submitted to the university I was applying to would no longer be valid in January 2025, and this was an impediment to being admitted to that institution..
The frustration hit me hard. In January 2023, after 3 months of preparation, I had taken the IELTS exam and managed to get an Overall Score of 7.5 (as you can see in the image below). It wasn’t a bad score and was more than enough to get into several universities. However, this time I’d have to take the exam again in record time if I wanted to keep my chances of being admitted to the master’s program I was pursuing intact. The challenge was clear: I needed to reinforce the exam’s evaluation criteria and do practice tests for all four sections as soon as possible.
With this goal in mind, I quickly evaluated the options I had available. First, to practice the Listening and Reading sections, I found a website with tons of exercises where you can quickly get feedback on your correct answers, errors, and even an approximate score based on your performance. Then, to practice the Writing and Speaking stages, I realized I’d need feedback from an English teacher online or at least asynchronously. Of course, this would take time and money (as you can see in the chart below) and I needed a more practical solution.
That’s when I asked myself: could ChatGPT help with this challenge? Like many of you, I’ve used the chatbot developed by OpenAI to get answers to specific questions. However, up until that point I hadn’t tried using it as an “official examiner.” So I decided to test this prompt: “Let’s suppose you’re an examiner of IELTS Exam and you’re qualifying Task 2. The question of the exam is: ‘In many areas of work, robots are being given more roles. Is this a positive or negative trend?’ Now review my answer, give me feedback and score it according to IELTS criteria. This is my answer: [XXXXXXX].“.
I was greatly surprised by how detailed the responses from the GPT-4-based chatbot were—the most recent model that OpenAI had made available for free on the internet. In fact, it was remarkably similar to the feedback I’d received from a private tutor days before trying this chatbot. Here’s an example of the responses I got:
It was even possible to get a simulation of the potential score you could receive in the Writing section of the exam based on the performance demonstrated.
After at least 10 practice tests, I asked ChatGPT to write a version of my own response but meeting the necessary requirements to achieve a 9.0 score. Following the same conversation thread, I used this prompt: “Can you give an example of how this essay could achieve a Band 9 score for the same question?”
After taking note of the feedback received from ChatGPT and having the peace of mind that I could get up to a 7.0 on the Writing section evaluation, I decided to try something more complex. I switched to voice mode from my smartphone using the same free GPT-4 version and began dialoguing with the chatbot to practice the Speaking section of the IELTS exam.
This was the prompt I gave it: “I’d like you to help practice my English for an IELTS examination. My test will be in a week, so I need to practice task one, two and three of the speaking evaluation.” Here I’m sharing a transcription of a dialogue that in practice was spoken
While at first I had some difficulties dialoguing with ChatGPT because it sometimes rushed to interrupt me or took a few extra seconds to process all the information I was providing, as the minutes passed I was able to feel comfortable and receive real-time feedback on my pronunciation as well as the vocabulary I was using. After at least a couple of days of intense practice, I started noticing progress and the score the chatbot gave me left me feeling more at ease.
At the end of one week, I felt more confident to take the exam, and the results matched ChatGPT’s forecast almost perfectly. My general average increased to an Overall Score of 8.0, I improved my Writing score and confirmed my Speaking score. Best of all: my master’s program application was able to continue its process.
