Hi, I am Sai Teja. I’m an IMG from India, and I passed OET in December 2021 and preparing for PLAB 1. In this blog, I will talk about my preparation strategy for OET.
Reading
Part-A: Remember, the reading and listening part -A’s is the easiest thing among the 3 parts, so try to score maximum marks in this part.
I divided part A again into 3 parts. Questions 1 to 7, 8 to14, 15 to 20. In part A, firstly, I started from the 8th question to the 20th question, and I completed them in 7 to 8 minutes. After that, I went with the first 7 questions. The reason I did this is that it will save time and find answers for 1 to 7 will also be easy.
After completion of the last 13 questions, we will be familiar with the content and we can find the key very easily among 4 big paragraphs. If we start from the 1st question most of the time will be wasted in the first part itself and afterwards, we may panic and make many mistakes.
For parts, B and C, what I did was, in the initial part of the preparation I used to practice without any time limit and later on I kept the time limit. The key is you have to understand the paragraph correctly so initially without a time limit I used to understand the paragraph later on with a time limit I used to complete up to the 38th question finally I’m able to complete 42 questions within the time. Practice makes man perfect right?
Listening
The key thing in the whole listening section is concentration and focus.
Part -A: In the 30 seconds, I used to read the side headings as they make you understand where the speaker is speaking. So that I don’t get confused. If you miss one question forget about that question and go on to the next question. Otherwise, you may lose more questions.
For parts, B and C focus on the speaker and practice accordingly. In part C there will be two types of audio. One is a monologue, in which only one person speaks and another one is a dialogue in which two persons speak like an interview.
Second one is a bit easier because one person asks the question and the other one answers it. The monologue is a bit difficult because we have to find both questions and answer in that monologue. So what I did was concentrating on the speaker. Initially, I didn’t get good results and it was very difficult to concentrate but later with practice, I improved a lot.
Writing
Divide and conquer technique
If you don’t know the format of the letter, take any letter or letter from the Official OETwebsite and divide that into separate sections, and ace each section. For example, a letter can be divided into details, introduction, the body of the paragraph, closing paragraph, and ending.
Again divide the details section into doctor details, hospital address, date, patient name, and age. After the division, select a letter with A-grade and check with that letter what is correct and what you thought or written is correct or not, if it is correct that’s great and if not, learn from that and never repeat that. If you practice like this in each section you can write a letter confidently and easily.
Speaking
What I did was, In the OET roleplay card there were verbs like reassure, explain, advise....and these are the questions. I practised how to respond to those questions with my friends. Also, check out YouTube videos of official OET so that you can get insight regarding the speaking test.
The key thing in all is PRACTICE.
That’s it, and this is my experience. It may work out for some, and for some, it may not, but among all this, if at least something is useful for at least a single person, I would be grateful for that.
Need more help ?
If you have any questions about building your portfolio, I would be happy to answer them at trewlink.com. You can register using this link https://trewlink.com?referrer=sai553130.Find me as an Ambassador and Follow my profile – Sai Teja - to receive regular support and advice.