DanaJ wrote:IELTS is however accepted by most European schools.
Actually all the universities in Europe that I have looked into accept TOEFL and IELTS.
The universities in UK (some in Europe) also accept CPE.
BTW, I gave the IELTS today in Curitiba, Brazil.
This is the nearest city from where I live that have a centre where you give IELTS.
I had the option of giving either IELTS or TOEFL because of the reason given above. However, I prefer IELTS because of the human touch that IELTS provide. I liked the fact that I will be talking to a person and not into some microphone and also the fact that everything will be written with a pencil/pen. Backwardly as I may sound, I prefer pen/pencil over a computerised test. Having said this, the only centre that was offering paper based TOEFL was quite far from my city.
The speaking test was done in the morning and went on well.
I was asked pretty elementary stuffs relating to my life, my city, education etc.
After this I was given a topic on public health and awareness. I was given a minute to prepare and had to speak for 1-2 mins.
The Listening, Reading and Writing tests were conducted at one go in the afternoon.
For the listening test a particular cd was played for 30 mins from which the answers had to be extracted.
The sound was loud and clear and there was no difficulty in hearing. The room was quite sound proof as well.
The Reading and Writing tests were almost as I practised from the Cambridge IELTS materials.
Honestly after giving GMAT, the writing test will seem a cakewalk.
Let me know if you need any specific information about IELTS or study materials and I would be happy to answer.
many thanks.
