5 Tips for Maximizing Your English Speaking Test Score

hi everybody welcome back to ask Alicia

the weekly series where you ask me questions and I answer them

maybe first question comes from meu ki I'm Yuki Yuki says I want to know about

test taking tips okay I will give you five tips tip number one is to know your

test on your test do you need to write do you need to read listen speak what do

you need to do first make sure you know the test and know the requirements of

the test number two check and see if the sections are timed check to see how much

time you have for each section of your test number three is to ask yourself

have you taken the test before what was good for you what was not good for you

so what do you need to improve review your past tests to see what you need to

work on for the next test number four if you can if it's available take a

practice test practice tests can help you find your weak points and your

strong points and help you if you have timed sections in your test as well

number five if your test includes speaking you need to practice speaking

if you don't practice you won't be able to do it at the time that you need it so

if you don't have a language partner you can look for one online or you can

practice with media like repeating shadowing media so those are five quick

test tips I know they're very general but I hope that they can apply to lots

of different tests so I hope that this helps you thanks for the question ok

let's go on to your next question next question comes from nerd on Emma net hi

again nerd on nerd on says hi Alicia what's the difference between blame

accuse and charge alright blame accuse in charge these are three verbs that

have very similar meanings let's begin with blame to blame means to assign

someone responsibility for something this has a negative nuance to it some

examples my parents blamed me for the broken vase

the police blamed the accident on a broken traffic light to accuse someone

means to suggest that someone did something bad so it's a little bit

different from blame blame is like assigning responsibility to someone for

like a negative effect to accuse someone of something is like someone did

something wrong maybe on purpose and you want to suggest that it was that person

some examples the landlord accused him of not paying

rent she accused the company of fraud let's move along then to the last one -

charge - charge is a legal term this is a legal word which means you formally

accuse someone of wrongdoing so we do not use charge in everyday conversation

when we're saying like you did this bad thing or I think it was you charge is

used in courts to charge someone with a crime means to officially and legally

accuse them of a crime examples the suspect has been charged with murder

she's been charged with breaking and entering so that's a quick introduction

to the differences between these three verbs I hope that that helped you thanks

for an interesting question okay let's move on to your next question next

question comes from Isaac Alexander Hagen Isaac Isaac says hi Alicia what's

the difference between soccer and football yeah soccer is just the word

that people from the u.s. used to talk about what the rest of the world calls

football so to my knowledge most if not all other countries use the word

football to talk about the game with the black and white ball the players kick

around a field we do have a football of our own we have what many people call

American football which is a totally different game which involves passing

and a little bit of kicking if you're speaking with an American English

speaker soccer refers to the black and white ball sport football refers to that

kind of egg-shaped brown leather ball sport if you're talking to maybe a

British English speaker football probably means what American English

speakers call soccer I hope that that helps you thanks for the question all

right let's move on to your next question next question comes from Ahmed

McGee hi Ahmed Ahmed says hi Lee show what does whiplash mean

with flash this is an injury whiplash is an injury that happens when the body is

like jerked in a strong way like in a car accident or maybe another like

transportation related accident whiplash is an injury around like the head and

neck and shoulders where the body and the head moves like separately if this

is the body and this is the head they move separately like in a very quick

like jumping like whip like motion if you know a whip it's like this Indiana

Jones has one it's like so - like whiplash is the name of the injury we

get from our bodies being moved in this way so I hope that that helps you thanks

very much for the question okay let's move on to your next question next

question comes from Karima heigen Karima karema says hi Alicia I want to ask you

what does the preposition up mean or refer to in the following sentence what

exactly are you up to I'll write this up doesn't have any

meaning so what are you up to or what's up this is just a set phrase up doesn't

have any like directional meaning there's no movement or positioning just

consider this a set phrase like what's up means how are you or what are you

doing same thing with what exactly are you up to it means what exactly are you

doing up doesn't really have a function here it's just a set phrase so don't

worry too much about what exactly up means here it's sort of just it's just

an expression that we use so that's everything that I have for this week

thank you as always for sending your questions remember you can send them to

me at English class 101.com slash ask - Alicia of course if you liked the video

please don't forget to give it a thumbs up subscribe to our channel if you have

not already and check us out at English class 101.com for some other things that

can help you with your English Studies thanks very much for watching this

episode of ask Alicia and I will see you again next week bye