Practice using past test papers. – You wouldn’t perform a piece of music without rehearsing and neither should you take an exam without practicing the format. Topics often repeat themselves every other year, you must not only know the format but be used to it. You must get used to writing for an hour or doing a speaking practice for around 14 minutes. Practice will not only help you apply your knowledge but also give you an opportunity to adjust your speed to match the paper.
Join a speaking club. – Using appropriate grammar and vocabulary without having to think about it is essential, this comes down to practice. We suggest arranging meetings with fellow students to practice speaking exercises. Your brain only remembers knowledge you use.
Study the mark scheme – Each exam has its own criteria, you must know the writing and speaking criteria so that you can accurately judge your own work. We recommend using a professional to provide you initial feedback and then learning to judge your own writing using model answers.
Unlearn/avoid using colloquialisms – A lot of non-native speakers learn English using popular culture, this results in a lot of unconscious use of slangs or neologisms (for example, wanna, gonna, shoulda, innit etc.). It is easy to accidently use these under pressure and you will pay a price.
Understand your limitations and stay within them. When you are practicing you must do your best to use complicated grammatical structures and unfamiliar vocabulary but you must not do this during the test. Understand your limits and stay within them otherwise you will lose marks.
Avoid repeating collocations and key vocabulary, it betrays a limited range of language and will only work against you.