Scoring Band 6 in MUET on your first try

I am a Malaysian medical student studying in Russian Federation right now. I am 23 this year. I sat for STPM and MUET in the year 2004. My interests include playing and watching football, blogging and programming.

Scoring Band 6 in MUET on your first try

by Manager for Writing Contest 2008

Scoring Band 6 in MUET on your first try is not that hard. Here are some tips on how to do exactly that.

Listening test
This is one of the tests in MUET which you could possibly get a perfect score. You should get a perfect score here, it is important for you to get a Band 6 because you will lose points in other tests.

Listening does not really indicate your level of English, especially if the speaker is English! So if you do lose points here, don't worry. Just try not to lose too many points here, practise many times with your MUET teachers before the actual test, try to listen to as many tapes as you can get your hands on. During the test, please look to your friends for help if you could not catch the questions or remember the correct answers. I am not encouraging you to be dishonest, but you could always pay attention to your friends gestures, read their lips, spot the blink of an eye, the touch of an ear, etc. Having a system before the actual tests does help.

Speaking test
If you can speak English naturally, please do all you can to convince the examiners that you have a good command of English during you individual presentation. Otherwise, use short sentences, put forward your main ideas in simple grammatically correct sentences. Do not just harp on a single point, try a few points, the positive side and negative side of an issue, etc. to show that you are not a narrow-minded student.

In the group discussion, you would be able to get a good score if you could lead the discussion. Be warned though, do not overdo it. Give others the opportunities to speak too. You should be polite, try to keep the flow of the discussion and help out should any of the fellow students got stuck in mid-sentence or is stammering. Remember, lead the discussion, keep its flow ("What do you think about this issue?") but do not be extravagant! Like it or not, this test is subjective and you will most probably not get a perfect score here.

Reading test
There are not many tips to share in this test, it is similar to Form 5 SPM English exam, just do your best. There are some tricky questions with similar answers. If you are lucky, you could get a perfect score here but usually the better students would be able to get near perfect scores, making a few mistakes here and there.

Writing test
Seriously, I have always told people that the writing test in MUET is even easier than SPM GCE 'O' Level. In this test, it is important to keep to the rules, follow the recommend length of essays and finish them in allocated time.

Even if you are a good English user, do not attempt to write beyond the recommended length. Concentrate instead on presenting your main ideas, this test papers are marked by Malaysian teachers, so don't bother having too many idioms, figurative meanings, etc.

For students who are not too comfortable with English, this may be one of the tests which you would tend to lose many points. To avoid that, keep your sentences short, check your grammars, try to compensate for your lack of flowery language with good ideas, mature arguments and logical explanations.

To be honest, it is not so easy to score a Band 6 in MUET after all. It is not the perfect test, but it is indicative of one's command of English, mainly because it includes listening and speaking tests. Good luck scoring a Band 6 in MUET on your first try, do let me know if my tips are useful.

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