An eight-week plan for people with a job or classes

A plan written for someone with three free hours a day falls apart the first Wednesday you finish work at eight. This one starts from the other end: short weekday sessions, one longer weekend session and rules for the weeks that go wrong. It runs for eight weeks at roughly six hours a week, and it assumes you cannot study every day.

Four phases, two weeks each

1. Foundation (weeks 1 and 2). Learn how each task works, sort out your headset and a quiet corner, start an error log and begin a daily vocabulary habit. The weekend of week 1 is a baseline mock. The weekend of week 2 is a timed block on the skill that looked weakest.
2. Skills (weeks 3 and 4). One skill per weekday, as in the example week below. Take a full mock at the weekend of week 3 and a timed block at the weekend of week 4.
3. Integration (weeks 5 and 6). The real test jumps from one task type to the next without warning, so practise that: mixed sets under the clock. Take a full mock in week 5 and a half-length one in week 6, meaning one or two parts of the test under test conditions.
4. Polish (weeks 7 and 8). A full mock in week 7, repairs from its errors during week 8, and a light last weekend: error log, equipment check, an early night.

In the week after any mock, Monday's session goes on reviewing it and Wednesday's opens with redoing its weak items. Using mock tests well explains both.

An example week for the skills phase

• Monday, 50 minutes: speaking. Read Aloud and Repeat Sentence, recorded.
• Tuesday, 50 minutes: writing. One Summarize Written Text and one essay plan.
• Wednesday, 45 minutes: reading. Fill in the Blanks and Re-order Paragraphs against a timer.
• Thursday, 45 minutes: listening. Write from Dictation and one Summarize Spoken Text.
• Friday, 45 minutes: your weakest skill, chosen from the error log.
• Saturday, two hours: a timed block of 90 minutes from one skill, then 30 minutes of review.
• Sunday: rest, apart from the 15-minute weekly review below.

That adds up to about six hours. If your fixed evenings are different, move the sessions, but keep one skill per session. Squeezing four skills into 45 minutes means doing none of them properly.

If you work shifts, count sessions instead of weekdays. Six sessions a week, one skill each, placed wherever your rota allows, do the same job as the timetable above. Protect the long session in particular: put it in your calendar as an appointment, and tell the people you live with when it is.

Using the gaps in your day

Fifteen minutes on a bus will not replace a timed task, but it does things a desk session cannot.

• Commute, listening: play a talk or a news interview. When it ends, say its main point in one sentence, aloud if you can and silently if not.
• Commute, vocabulary: review five words and the sentences you wrote for them. The twenty-minute vocabulary routine explains the method.
• Chores, speaking: wash the dishes while describing what you are doing in full sentences, then retell something you read today in 30 seconds. It feels silly for the first few days, and then it feels like practice.

None of this counts towards your six hours. It is a bonus for fluency, vocabulary and your ear, not a substitute for real tasks under a timer.

When you miss days, and the weekly review

You will miss days. The rule is simple: do not double up. If Tuesday's session is lost, Tuesday is gone, and Wednesday gets Wednesday's session. Two sessions in one evening mean the second is done tired, and tired practice mostly rehearses mistakes.

If you miss three or four days running because of illness or a work trip, repeat the week you were in instead of jumping ahead. If you lose more than a week, go back one week and look at your test date calmly, rather than cramming to catch up.

Whatever happens, keep the weekly review. On Sunday evening, spend 15 minutes on it:

1. Read this week's error-log entries and tick any that repeated.
2. Pick the three most-ticked errors. Those are next week's drills.
3. Open your calendar and check that next week's sessions have a place in it. A session with no slot does not happen.

Copy the example week into your phone calendar tonight, with alarms. If your test is less than five weeks away, the four-week plan is the better fit. Otherwise, spend week 1 on the formats and plan the baseline mock for that weekend on the practice tests on this site.