For me, the reason I would like to migrate is more towards the lifestyle, culture, dissatisfaction with Malaysia, and weather. Money is definitely a factor, just not the biggest one.

Visited their public school and did saw their facilities and services is superb. Government funding in education is a lot i guess.
Even daycare have so many info which is resourceful regardless the childcare system and children's education.
Its more like private school in KL...

but if cannot get what we can get here, in fact after factoring the additional living cost, no point to go.

I would think you would understand seeing that you are already here. There was just an article like a month or so saying the enrollment to private have raised and there is like 40%-60% of people who do send their kids to private school. If you think you should send your kids to private school in Malaysia, then you should do the same in Australia, there is no reason to compromise and downgrade.

People here either move to an address with selected public school or enroll into private school. I would think that people who chose to migrate here are people who care about their kids education, and thus belong to this group too.

Houses with an address that can get you into a good public school are 20% or even more expensive then an address right across the street that can't get you into that good school. So it is really either private school or more expensive address. Or is it just Sydney?

I don't think the number of years you study English will effect the IELTS examiner marking. At times, it could be the topics you gotten on that day is a bit difficult that's why you didn't get the score you required.
Do you a score of 7 for all bands?

What did you get across all 4 components?

Unfortunately no. I don't find the questions were hard especially for reading and speaking but only get 6.5 for both. I looked at reading score sheet and probably I just missed 1-3 answers to get 7 or 7.5 but I quite confident with speaking though

Although there are no concrete evidence for this but there are a lot of complaints about IELTS giving you lower marks if they roughly know your intention (like migration) so that you will go for the resit(and of course pay) again.

L7.5 R6.5 W6.5 S6.5

Understand with the writing part especially with my bad handwriting but still not satisfy with R and S marks. Oh well, guess I just need to pay and resit

Maybe I should try to take the test in Malaysia and see how it goes

You are taking it in Australia? Maybe try taking it at a different centre. My friend took ILETS 4 times already, once being in Malaysia and her score for writing is still the same.
But taking it in Malaysia is definitely cheaper than in Australia. So if you are coming back, i think it is no harm taking it here.
All the best.

yeah in Australia. visa expiring in 3 months so can't really go back Malaysia for now. Anyway, I will try again

I suggest take a short trip back here and resit. I do heard different centre have different standard.
I remember when i fill up the form there's this section asking you the reason getting IELTS results. I was wondering if you fill up as entering uni or watsoever reason, does this going to make any difference?

That's what I concerned. I ticked migration and also studies 5years in English

Next time I will try something else with maybe 1 or 2 years of English studied but I don't think different test centre within the country makes any difference. I guess the papers will be transported to head centre for marking

I took the test like you but back home and got a good score. One of my friends trying to get PR is doing the IELTS again in aus for the umpteenth time.

Becareful about Australia even a university associated with Waga 2x conned me RM38 many years ago what is worse they wanted some more and may be I felt I was being extorted. So becareful when you get there.

During those days i took IELTS, i did some research online on other countries scores. I realised that some people from India & Pakistan majority they score band 8 in each modules. This really surprise me....a lot! That's why i'm commenting maybe there is better chance of getting high score if you're coming back here.

I believe listening and speaking sections are areas which you can practice and be able to score higher with better preparation.

Writing to me should be the toughest, the time allotted itself is also just enough that you have no margin for massive rewrites or lengthy compositions. So just try to write simple and concise within the required word count, and most importantly do not make any gross tense or vocab mistakes.

For speaking, if you retake the test in Malaysia, you could get a local examiner and they might be slightly lenient since they are more accustomed to Malaysian English.

This is my opinion and I could be wrong.

This post has been edited by supercolossal: Jun 24 2013, 08:25 AM

During my speaking test, i dont see any single local examiner. All of them are angmoh girl who do the test.
As a tips given, keep on talking to the examiner until they ask you to stop. They don't test how much know, they're testing how good is your expression and language skills.

and if you could throw in idioms and expressions, and be witty in your replies, that would be a plus point as well. I know the questions may sound strange, but it is all part of testing your speaking skills.

True, speaking exam is just to gauge how well your understanding of the English language. Although you may know how to answer the questions, if you can twist your answer to at least how your answer is related to the question then it should be fine.
For me i stopped before the examiner stop me because I really dunno what else to stay but I still get quite a good score.
I was a bit disappointed with reading score because I thought did better than listening as I dose off part of the listening exam. But I scored better for listening than reading. But I am just glad that i got the score i required because I dont want to resit because it is not cheap to retake the exam plus you might feel demoralized after several attempts.
Btw, the questions are the same if regardless of which country you take the exam because my friend and I got the same questions for listening but the other exam was different because I took general module while my friend took academic

I took the test in KL, had a local examiner I think, nice Indian lady, and she basically told me to continue talking even though I thought I was done.

The writing is definitely the most difficult for me, first because most of us, myself included aren't used to writing on pen and paper so you need to plan your way well. Second is that I tend to write a lot

Practice and practice, speak english until you can think and dream in english The accent to me matters less, vocabulary, articulation and sentence structure matters more.


This post has been edited by tishaban: Jun 24 2013, 01:41 PM