IELTS exam

Just got back from my IELTS exam. I've actually done it before (2004), so it's not new to me. But let me share the experience, in case some of you are planning to.

Here in Singapore, you have to book your exam either via British Council or IDP. You have to go to either office or mail in your application to them. Fee is $300, and you'll need to show your passport. There usually are 2 exam schedules every month.

The exam comes in 4 parts, listening, reading, writing, and speaking. You'd take the first 3 exams on your scheduled date, and the speaking exam on a different date, which they will give during the first exam date.

So the exams go like this.

Registration:

My exam was at the SMU Administration Building so it wasn't too far. Exam starts at 9am but I got there around 8:20 and man, it was already jam-packed. Went to the registration desk where they verified my IDs and gave me a pink slip with my row number. Proceeded upstairs to 10/F where the exam proper is at.

The exam room is big with about 40 rows (columns, actually) and 5-8 chairs each, about 1.5m apart.

Listening:

They give an answer sheet for both a listening and reading exams (1 sheet, back-to-back)
They will play some recordings and on the questionaire, they'll asks some details from the recordings. There were 4 parts to it. The first and second parts were about a phone conversation between a potential employee and an employee, so they talked about the job, the location, salary, transport and the usual. The questions are pretty much taken from the dialogue but rephrased. Examples are, "He is available from ____ to October", "Workers are advise to travel by ____", and "You should bring lunch and a day's supply of ____".

Third part is a new report about women's being competition in the workplace. It's basically fill in the blanks.
Fourth part is about a new report and the last is a 3-way discussion about a turor and 2 students.

Reading:

On this part they gave out a  booklet with 4 parts. The first part was a classified ads section and it was just a simple "match the correct answer" type of exam. There are 9 items describing the ads and you just have to select which ad it is referring to.

Oh god, i can't remember part 2. Me and my bad memory.
Part 3 is a page from a company employee handbook about Safety.
Part 4 is a 2-page article on some endangered australian bird. There about 10 questions, 4 of which are true or false and the other are fill in the blanks.

Writing:

Last exam of the day is a 2-part, hour-long essay writing portion. First part asks you to write a 150-word letter to a landlord of an apartment you rented last year. You had to say why you liked his place, and that there is one problem with it (use your imagination), and that you'd want to rent it again for a holiday.

Second part is a 250 essay on who is better at learning new language - young people or adults. You'd have to put down the arguements for both, then your own view.

When I had this exam in 2004, I remember the first part as writing a birthday invitation and the second part, hmmmm... can't remember.

Speaking:

My speaking is on Wednesday, 3 Nov, at 4:20pm. So, I'll have to share that experience after. But in 2004, I remember being asked to talk about what I think the best job in the world is. I talked about being in IT caused that was what I was doing and I'd know what I was going to talk about, but in hindsight, I should have talked about being an NBA player, which I think is the coolest job on earth!

The results will come out on Nov 14. I'm quite confident I'll get at least 7.5 (my score in 2004).