IELTS Practice or IELTS Practise?

Which is right? Do you know?  This is one of the most common mistakes made.

Read the following passage and see if you can spot when each is used.

How to get a Better Band Score

From April until August every year, there is a huge rush to take the IELTS exam and many, many students ask me how they can pass IELTS at their required band. The answer, of course, is to practise IELTS skills as much as you possibly can in the lead up to your examination date.

It is easy to say this but what can you do to gain or improve your band score?

Get your mind into the set by reading as much as you can. When you have a spare 15 minutes, while travelling to work or college, or eating your lunch, work at improving your reading speeds. This method of IELTS practice will certainly achieve a good band score if you can read and understand a text of 300 words in one minute. The more you apply yourself to IELTS reading skills, the more easily you will improve your reading speeds and understanding.

Practise skills of listening in the same way. Watch as much television as you can and especially more serious documentary programmes about the arts or the environment or business. In order to develop each specific skill for IELTS, practise by recording new phrases and vocabulary, committing these to memory and recycling the knowledge when you speak to people. By extending your knowledge of vocabulary in this way, you will improve in all areas.

A better IELTS band can also be achieved if you use the IELTS Practice books on the market which have been produced to help the IELTS student. These IELTS Practice books guide the way in which you approach the IELTS exam by showing you the exam format, introducing typical topics and on finishing the tests, allow you to calculate your approximate IELTS score.

Did you get it?

‘Practice’ is a noun. ‘To practise’ is a verb.

There is often confusion over the words ‘practice’ and ‘practise’. In order to understand which to use, you must know the difference between a noun and a verb. This is because ‘practice’ is a noun; whereas, ‘practise’ is a verb. However, there are tricks to get around this.

You need more practice.
(“practice” – noun)
(“You need more preparation/lessons.” < sounds ok too; practice is correct)

You should practise more.
(“practise” – verb)

Hopefully you got a little more than that out of the passage. The advice is good too!

To your IELTS success,

James

P.S Don’t forget to practice your grammar using Murphy’s “English Grammar in USE” or Grammar Girl’s “Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing”