Must-study books in your IELTS Journey

Hello dear students, this article contains the list of books I use frequently in my teaching to help my students so they can prepare well for IELTS test. I have written similar article about reliable sources for IELTS, yet not everyone has enough time to finish them all. So I have included only those which you must study.

There are two major things to consider about these books, the former is IELTS Practice books, the latter is books which build and improve your language skills. Abraham Lincoln also said “If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.” Therefore I also recommend you to "sharpen" your General English and skills rather than practice, so study consistently those books which focus on developing language skills. You need the combination of both to make the most of preparation. Investing just about $30 in them can make a huge difference in your result if you study them thoroughly.

The key to IELTS Success - this book is so useful that I decided to put outside the list. Although this book does not contain any practical exercises, it gives you the best advice on how to prepare for IELTS by recommending you the most reliable sources and the right way to approach the test. MUST READ it.

Here are the must-do practice books.

• Cambridge 9-16, ❗️ Recommended amount of practice 3 times a week, if you have low level of English, then just do full test once a week.
• Top Tips - A wonderful book which covers both general and specific advice for each skill, each question type in the IELTS. After finishing it, revise tips for 5 minutes before each practice test until you learn them by heart. Apply this valuable knowledge in your test practice.
• For those who have finished, you can do other Cambridge books like Official Guide, Trainer 1 and 2. NOTE: Do not buy any kind of practice books other than Cambridge.

Books which help you to build IELTS skills.

• Cambridge Official Guide - the first part of this book has lessons for listening, reading, writing and speaking skills which are really useful. You will find solutions to your spelling mistakes in listening, time-management in reading, idea generation and how to write main body paragraphs, how to speak in speaking part. You also improve your ability to answer all types of questions which appear in IELTS test.

To improve Lexical Resources (vocabulary) -

• Collocation in Use - This is another extremely useful book to learn collocations naturally as it contains lots of exercises based on various topics. Studying collocations and using them actively boost both your speaking and writing skills because your vocabulary bank becomes much better.
• Vocabulary for IELTS 6.0 and 6.5 - These books although focus primarily on vocabulary, it contains practical exercises for all skills. In addition to this, it also provides test practice at the end of each lesson. You must finish at least one of them if not both.

To improve GRA (grammatical range and accuracy) -

• Grammar in Use by Murphy, Intermediate version - Do not ignore this skill as it accounts for 25% of your total mark in both speaking and writing sections of IELTS. If you make grammar mistakes often with prepositions, articles and don't know wide range of grammatical structures, just study this book. You do not need advanced level grammar book, studying Intermediate version thoroughly will be sufficient. You need to actively use new things you learn from this book.
• Common Mistakes - We often do not know what mistakes we make because they become so common that you think you are using right grammar, but everyone now and then make mistakes, and this book helps to avoid them to improve your Grammatical Range and Accuracy.

Really useful sources for Listening, Reading, Writing

• Listening strategies - This is the MUST DO book if you want to boost your listening skill and make it 7+ or maybe 8+, practice 2 times if you struggle in first attempt, and listen to podcasts on a daily basis. The only problem with this book is that you must pause with one hand and write answers with another hand as there is literally no break between questions. You may also find 8 lessons in Official Guide quite helpful as they contain lots of useful tips and exercises to master listening skills.
• Reading - Guardian Weekly articles collection. Articles in this collection are published by onestopenglish.com community, and compiled meticulously by Ahmad Qodirov. Together with 8 reading lessons in Official Guide, Reading one article per day can help you improve significantly Reading speed, comprehension and skills. which ultimately lead to higher reading results. You should also keep a record of new words from the article exercises as they can be quite useful in Writing and Speaking.
• Writing - IELTS Advantage Writing Skills, one of the few books I trust to improve writing skills, Primarily used to enhance task 1. You may also find 8 Writing lessons really beneficial as they contain lots of activities and tips for both Task 1 and Task 2. Books for Writing Task 2 - I prefer to use the key to IELTS writing Task 2 by Pauline Cullen, and lessons Simon post at ielts-simon.com. I believe you don't need many sources as each teacher explains differently, stick to the most reliable ones.
• Speaking - I don't recommend any kind of books for this section as you simply cannot improve speaking by doing written exercises. However you may find 5 speaking lessons in Official Guide really helpful to understand the Speaking format along with useful speaking videos.

You have come to an end of this article, although there are many other reliable IELTS books, it would be impossible to cover them all in one article. Keep in mind that some of the books I recommend here is my personal choice, so it is absolutely fine if you or your teacher recommends another ones. I have used these materials myself and recommended to my students to prepare for IELTS test. I hope that you got the answers in this article you have been looking for, if there are language errors, I sincerely apologize in advance. I wish you best of luck in your IELTS preparation and in life.

This article is written by Ahmad Qodirov, a local IELTS instructor from the small town of Uchkurgan in Uzbekistan. Ahmad Qodirov has a overall band 8.0 and you can follow his IELTS channel at @IELTS_Journey on telegram messenger. You can order these books at a reasonable price in high quality from Citybooks publishing service. (their channel in Telegram @Citybooks_official)

P.S This recommendation may change as some books gets out of date or when better alternatives are found. Remember to study consistently as this is the key to Success.