OET Success Tips From Winners | Best OET Test Strategies and Tips
Listening
Part A
There is nothing more important than concentration. It is the most important key to success in any listening part. There is another most important thing that will make a person gain when he/she uses the time when the speaker explains the pattern of the questions (hope you understood what I mean). Try to use most of the time marking and finding the keyword of the question and answer options. In Listening Part A, the trick that helped me most is that I tried to find out who is going to give the answer (patient/doctor, most of the time the patient gave the answer), and you can get it from the left-side heading over every conversation start. Try to write answers in short form; that will save time for listening. But remember to make it correct when you get 2 minutes for writing answers.
Part B
I think this is the easiest part of listening because here you will get time before every question, so no need to worry. Before Part B starts, you get some time, use that time to find out the keywords from the question only and mark them at a glance, then relax. Again, you will get time before every question starts, follow the sequence, read the question and answer options repeatedly, then listen and give the answer 😊. Remember to keep your eyes on the answer options while listening (the question should be in your mind at that time).
Part C
This is the hardest part of the listening test. But don’t worry, you will get time before every extract (2 parts). Don’t rush, don’t read the 2nd part in the 1st part time. You will get 90 seconds for reading the 2nd part. Again, mark all the keywords, both from the question and answers, but don’t mark the answer option of Question 42, only mark its question words. Remember, you can be sure of the correct answer for the last question (42) of the listening test by not answering it when you’re listening to the conversation. Listen carefully and answer it after the conversation ends because now you have time, the exam is ending, and again, you will get 2 minutes for giving answers. In listening, try to cross out the incorrect answers because it will make the correct one more obvious. I know it’s hard, but try it if you can. Remember, the speaker will talk about every question before giving the answer; this way, you will know when the next question answer is coming.
Reading Test
In Part A, you have to read all the passage headings and guess what is written in there. Moreover, you will find some points in the paragraphs that include symptoms of a disease, causes of the disease, doses of drugs, names of the drugs, and, most importantly, the last line of every paragraph because you will always find some questions whose answers are not coming easily. Most likely, you will find the answer at the end of the paragraph. You have to read all these things when you first get the question booklet. Don’t worry, it won’t take much time. Then, you should start giving your answers from Question 8-20 and leave Question 1-7 for last. This will help when you have a shortage of time because it’s easier to write a, b, c, d rather than full words at the end. In Reading Part B, first, read the question and mark the keyword, then read the passage, and again read the question and answer. For Part C, when you run out of time, only read the first 2 lines and the last 2 lines of the passage. You will find 2 questions from 1 paragraph in both parts of C, so a total of 4 questions from 2 passages. There will also be 1 question from each part where 1 word will be bold in both the question and the paragraph. Again, a total of 2 questions from both parts. Read the sentences before and after the bold word. So here, you can answer 6 questions from both parts easily.
Speaking Part
Make a group and try to practice with one another. This is the most important thing. Don’t try to give too much concentration on your grammar, and don’t try to think too much about time. Too much focus on grammar will hamper your fluency, and I can assure you if you continue your conversation and can show your sympathy to the patient (saying sorry, hmm, yes, I understand you’re passing through a hard time, etc.), you can pass even if you didn’t complete all the points. Some people will say there is not much role play on YouTube. I will say forget YouTube, there are a bunch of practice materials hiding in the listening test. Every Listening Part A, there will be a patient and a doctor, so try to listen to them and use them to learn how to talk with a patient.
