IELTS Test

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Comment by Fay Robin sAMIOD on July 8, 2009 at 10:46pm

Hi Stephanie,
To the best of my knowledge as you are British and a registered nurse you should not have to sit for IELTS if you have Australian registration. By the way OET (Occupational English Test) is easier for Doctors and Nurses as it is geared to medical terminology

Comment by Stephanie Bennett on July 6, 2009 at 8:57pm

Thanks for your reply. Fortunately i am a nurse and therefore on the critical demand list and have already been in touch with the Ian Harrop agency, who have said our visa application should be pretty much straight forward. I hope i do find the test easy though. xx

Comment by jennifer salter on July 6, 2009 at 11:35am

Hi - sorry to sound a bit doom and gloom, my husband was 5 points short of skilled visa due to being 42 - he is British and fairly educated man - however he sat IELTS test in Bristol - £100 and failed one of the sections by 2 points - therefore failed the whole thing! He said it was like sitting a proper examination and like I said, he certainly knows his stuff. In essence - we wasted £100 and had to go for a sponsored visa rather than independant one! Had he been 39 with limited English though - he would have not needed the extra points! The whole system has left a sour taste in our mouths at the moment as 12mths after entering our visa - we have been advised by agent that priorities 4 and 5 will not get looked at until goodness knows when and looks like we have also wasted medical, x-ray and police check fees - not happy at all but good luck with your IELTS test when taken.

Comment by Stephanie Bennett on July 4, 2009 at 7:49pm

Hi! thanks for all the info! It really seemed quite daunting, but hearing from you guys I feel a bit better now! I will have a look at the website.
Thanks again.
Steph x

Comment by Ken Fayers on July 3, 2009 at 9:17pm

One more thing on IELTS. There are two different exams - Academic and General. For visa purposes you only need to sit the General exam. The Academic is only to test your English if you are seeking a University place.

Comment by Ken Fayers on July 3, 2009 at 9:14pm

When I sat the exam last year the fee was £100 - it may of course have gone up since then. I sat mine with eurocentres in London as that was convenient for me, but if you go to www.ielts.org you'll find the full list of test centres. The three written papers (testing reading, listening and writing) are done in the morning and then you go back at your individual scheduled time in the afternoon to test your speaking. It is very easy but you might want to look at past papers so you can understand the format and what is expected of you before you go in. If you get a 7 (out of 9) or more in each of the 4 sections of the test you'll have passed the test for any Australian Migration requirements. For some requirements a lower score (or just an average score of 7 across all 4 sections) will suffice.

Comment by Chris Reilly on July 3, 2009 at 10:28am

Hi Steph

I set the exam in Glasgow in January of this year.

The exam is split into a few sections and takes about 4 or 5 hours.

There is a listening section, replying to a letter, a small 10 minute one on one discussion.

All quite easy. You can buy a past paper book and CD.

At work at the moment, so I don't any real details to hand. I passed quite comfortably.

Hope this helps.

Chris