7. Practise saying “I don’t know” 練習說“I don’t know”
Another reason why some candidates go wrong in the exam is that they feel they have to give a complete answer to very question and they think of IELTS as some academic test. It isn’t. It’s simply a test of your language. In parts 1 and 3， you may well be asked questions that you have very little to say about. That’s not a problem， there’s always another question coming. The big mistake is to try and give a full answer when you have nothing to say. What happens is that your language becomes confused and so do you， with the result that things get and worse and worse.
很多考生誤以為雅思是學術(shù)測試。恰恰相反，這只是語言測試而已，第一和第三部分你可能被問到說不了什么的問題，有什么關系?之后還有問題。千萬別在你沒話可說的情況下試圖整出和完整答案，弄糊涂了考官會讓你萬劫不復。
All you need to do is say you don’t know and explain why and then wait for the next question. This may take a little practice. You want to build a set of phrases such as：
其實你也沒必要說你不知道然后解釋理由，你可以模仿下面的例子：
Q. What colour is your favourite room and why did you choose that colour?
A. I’m not sure what to say about that. It’s not a question I’ve ever thought about before. I suppose yellow is just my favourite colour and so I painted my room yellow?
8. Talk to a mirror拿個鏡子
This is another strange sounding piece of advice， but it can be very practical – especially if you don’t have a speaking partner. The idea is that when you practise speaking， you should sit in front of a mirror and speak to yourself. It can work because：
這個建議聽起來有點奇怪，不過真心實用，特別是在缺少陪練的時候。你可以站在鏡子面前自言自語，這個方法超有效，原因如下：
Eye contact is extremely important in all parts of the test. As a former speaking examiner for other exams， I can promise you that examiners are influenced by candidates who make eye contact - even though they may not be aware of this. Typically， the candidate who makes good eye contact gets a more generous mark because they seem to be communicating better as body language is around 70% of all communication.
考試中眼神交流很重要，作為一個前任考官，我負責任地告訴你，就算他們沒注意到，但是考生的眼神交流絕對會影響考官評分。懂得眼神交流的考生絕對能得到慷慨的分數(shù)大放送，理由就是他們占據(jù)整個交流70%的身體語言讓他們的交流更流暢。
the other point is that， for most people， sitting and looking at themselves in a mirror is an uncomfortable experience. After that， the exam will seem easy!
還有一點，對大部分人來說，坐在鏡子面前看著自己實在窘迫不安，過了這關，考試還不是小菜一碟?