By British Council

05 April 2021 - 14:49

We continue to share stories of successful candidates who passed IELTS with high score. Let us introduce you Zhanggirkhan Nurlanuly, who took IELTS with British Council and got 8,5 score! 

‘IELTS is probably the most universally recognised English language certification and seeing as I needed to obtain it as soon as possible I opted for the earliest available examination date, which was only a month away. Coincidentally, this was a computer-delivered session, which I personally found to be very pleasant, with its main advantages being: fast results processing (I sat the exam on Wednesday and already had my results on Saturday), easier answer writing (typing the answers on a computer allows you to avoid hand fatigue and obviously saves time, especially in the written task). I was, however, thrown off by the speaking evaluation as I expected it to be conducted face-to-face, but it was in reality conducted via video-conference, which I obviously understand given the epidemiological situation’ - Zhanggirkhan Nurlanuly. 

Currently Zhanggirkhan in his second year of studies at Sciences Po, he was in the middle of his application for his exchange semester abroad. He was very interested in going to the UK for this semester, but ultimately ended up being selected to the University of Toronto, a certificate of English language proficiency was thus necessary for the validation of his application. 

‘I was placed at the University of Toronto for my exchange semester during the third year of my BA. While this was not my first choice, I am satisfied and am looking forward to it. I will also need to provide my IELTS certificate during my Master’s application as I intend to get into the Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs’ – he said. 

Given that Zhanggirkhan has studied in schools with English as the language of instruction from the age of 10, he felt rather confident before passing IELTS and did not dedicate much time and effort into preparing for it. A couple of days before the examination he did just a couple of practice tests, and focused primarily on sharpening his writing task skills as it was the most tedious part to him, and ultimately ended up being the one I scored the lowest on.

‘Born and raised in Almaty, I was fortunate to have lived and studied in Romania and Israel for over 6 years, experiences which contributed immensely to my education, personal development and most importantly to the development of my linguistic skills. I graduated from Haileybury Astana in 2019, obtained an International Baccalaureate Diploma and am currently pursuing my BA in Social Sciences & Humanities with a major in Economies and Societies and a regional specialisation in Central & Eastern Europe. All at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Sciences Po on its Dijon Campus. Having experienced first-hand various cultures and being part of diverse societies, I was able to develop a wide outlook on the world around us and am proficient in Kazakh, Russian, English and French, intermediate in Spanish and Romanian, and have just started learning German’ – concluded our candidate.

You can also book your CD IELTS test right here!