The IELTS test
I was in Tehran studying for my master’s degree in environmental engineering at Tarbiat Modares University when I sensed the necessity to prepare myself for this exam. I had heard about it before, from my CAE teacher, who himself had an 8.5 overall. I studied different books and watched a variety of IELTS-related videos. There wasn’t any pressure on me, so participating in any IELTS course seemed unjustified. I was very confident that I could handle this on my own. I only took two Mock tests, and I earned an overall of 7.5 for both. Yet, my Writing scores were terrible. No more than 5.5. I was stunned. It took me months to find out why. At the time, I was back in Mashhad, graduated, and getting prepared for the official Academic test. I sat the exam on a sunny day in a quiet hotel. Despite the minor car accident I had on my way to the test center, I felt pretty relaxed. It was Feb. 13th, 2020. Just before the outbreak of the Coronavirus in Iran. I did awful in the Listening test, failing to answer two questions out of ten in the first part of the test. So, I somehow had to compensate for underperforming in the Listening test, and I did. I finished the Reading test within 50 minutes and was pretty confident that I would score 9. The writing test started, and I did task II first. I didn’t want to write such a long essay though, and it took me 45 minutes to complete it. With only 15 minutes remaining, I started task 1, and oh Lord, how bizarre it was. A perplexing table. I can barely remember what I wrote and how I wrote it, and I did no proofreading as my time ran out. I had never been in such a rush in my life before. Honestly, I was somewhat disappointed with my performance when leaving the hotel. My test result arrived after two weeks. And I was finally relieved.
