IELTS (pronounced alternatively by people as EYE-Elts and EYE-Lets) is the standardized international English test from the UK and Australia, equivalent to Toefl for the US.
I had to do it for a myriad of reasons but mainly to prove to the aforesaid 'Commonwealthers' that I can indeed communicate in English. Disgruntled but excited I booked my test for this past Saturday and pictured myself getting 98% because ‘I even have a blog-o!’ How good must my English be?
Woke up at the crack of dawn! I had received warnings of non-refundable expulsion for late-comers so my senses were acutely aware of my alarm clock.
Thinking I was too early, I arrived to find a horde (word I used in my speaking test) of anxious-looking people already waiting outside the British Council building. I immediately befriended the most cheerful face sitting at the end of the line who was to become my friend for the whole day. Payal had carried 5 pens, 5 pencils, several rubbers and a sparkling sharpener. I asked her if she even had a calculator somewhere. I should not laugh at her paranoia because during the course of the day she lent me one of those pens which I still hold dearly as my main pen up to now. (Come on, she said I could keep it!)
The test was to cover 4 areas: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. I’ve done all of those, I thought. How hard can it be? I had not bothered to buy the sample booklet or download the stuff I saw links to. It’s English! But standing outside that building I thought, maybe I should have just skimmed through it…for familiarization or something.
It was a process to get the 100 people in with all the embassy-type security checks. As we were being called into the different classrooms there, of course, had to be the guy who rushes in late and is confused because his name has just been called out and he can’t even find his pen and has excuses that he just got off a plane ’30 minutes ago!’ and how tired he is. We don’t care! Hurry it on up! I woke up at 5:25am! You have known about this test for weeks, stop acting surprised.
So, I was finally called into my classroom (named Manchester by some divine grace) with my self-righteous self seated at the back next to the window (yay, my favorite position of all time).
The CD played for the Listening part was ambitiously loud. The cute guy I had spotted earlier broke his pencil and put up his hand to ask the examiners to borrow a sharpener from any kind person. I almost fell over trying to give him a spare pencil. This means you owe me coffee, right?
The trick of the Listening and Reading tests was speed. The Reading was comprised of columns and columns of mundane facts about parks, micro-fibres and baby’s brains printed out in the smallest font available to Microsoft. Reminded me of my days in the library in medical school. Even so, I think I did fine in those two parts.
Lo and behold. The Writing.
Naturally I thought this would be my favourite and easiest part but it must be said it was far from it. There are some downfalls to being a creative writer. Firstly you do not like following rules. The whole point of creating something new is to be different and somewhat rebellious. So following instructions is not a strength of mine. Secondly there is no Spell-check in real life! Who knows if ‘everyday’ is one word or two? The task was to summarize a series of pictures on fish canning using at least 150 words. My high school English teacher popped up in my head. What did Miss Greenland used to say about this again? It seemed like eons ago. When I finally produced a piece I was alarmed to find I had only used 120 words. Enter Panic Mode. I wanted more paper to start over but the examiner said I had to fill in the other sheet first. I was perplexed by this passport-office-like reasoning. I became obsessed with watching the clock now. I hadn’t even started my second discursive essay which would need more thinking. To cut a long story short, I handed in a messy Writing exam with a summary containing more adjectives than was necessary and a discussion of general education which exhausted each point to tears.
Lunch was great. I’ll give one to British Council. I found a still cheerful Payal, now of 4 pens and 5 pencils, having booked me a seat next to her and we relayed the test experiences with a lot of giggles over lunch.
The Speaking part was last. I had been booked for the end of the afternoon. There were a total of 5 examiners and as we waited the usual speculations circulated in hushed tones. People believed that if you got the African lady ‘you will definitely fail because Africans don’t want to promote other Africans’. So everyone wanted the young looking British guy in Room 2 who was rumoured to give some people full marks.
As I sat and waited my anxiety mounted. What could they POSSIBLY ask? I began second-guessing my command of English and blamed the time I have spent in East Africa learning ‘bad manners’. I was fixated by asking myself if ‘problematic’ was an actual English word. Just don’t use it! But the more I thought about it the more panicked I became about using it accidentally. The people sitting around me were no help each with their own fears and already full-blown hatred of the African woman who after a few hours of waiting was alleged to fail people on purpose.
I was one of the last people to go in and of course I got the African lady. She was incredibly nice and I relaxed immediately. I was a little distracted by the tape-recorder, so every time I spoke I would lean in slightly into the thing making me look like I had a neurological problem. I developed an accent I could not explain or drop and the words I used came from some hidden place I never knew existed.
All in all, it was pretty fun. Stay tuned for my test results in 2 weeks. Fingers crossed!
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