Reading band 8.5+ vs band 7 — criteria chi tiết + path-up

Score conversion

→ Band 8 = max 5 errors. Band 7 = max 10. Cải thiện 5 questions = 1 band point.

Question types ranked by difficulty

Easy (most candidates score 80%+)

• TFNG (basic)
• Matching list to questions
• Sentence completion (with word list)

Medium

• Multiple choice (3 options)
• Summary completion
• Short answer questions

Hard (band 8 differentiators)

• Match heading (advanced)
• YNN/G (opinion)
• Match features (multi-entity)
• Match information (paragraph-level)

Band 7 candidate sai ~3-4 ở "hard" types. Band 8 cải thiện these to 1-2 errors.

Common reasons for band 7 → 8 gap

Reason 1: Slow reading (insufficient time)

• Band 7: spends 22-25 min per passage → rushed at passage 3
• Band 8: spends 18-20 min per passage → time buffer

Fix: speed training (lesson on 250 wpm)

Reason 2: Surface-level inference

• Band 7: picks based on keyword match
• Band 8: picks based on meaning + author intent

Fix: practice inference (lesson on inference)

Reason 3: Weak vocabulary