Another Vietnamese achieves band 9 in all IELTS skills

A man in Hanoi has achieved a perfect score of 9.0 in all four IELTS skills, becoming the second Vietnamese person with such record.

Dang Tran Tung, 30, on August 1 was confirmed to score 9.0 for speaking, listening, reading and writing at an IELTS test from IDP, one of the two entities approved to organize such examinations in Vietnam, besides British Council.

Tung took the test in May, performing the listening, reading and writing tests online, and the speaking test face-to-face with an examiner.

Previously, Tung had achieved an overall score of 9.0 five times, but had never achieved a perfect score in all four skills. Before the exam in May, 8.5 was the highest score he had got for writing.

"I'm thrilled to get this score after so many tests," said Tung, an IELTS teacher himself.

Tung started his IELTS quest in 2016 and has taken around 20 tests.

"Normally, candidates can get a perfect score in the criteria of grammar and vocabulary, but it is difficult to get that in the criterion of task achievement, in which one must develop the idea completely," Tung commented. 

However, this criterion is quite ambiguous, and it is not easy to tell if an essay is worth 8 or 9, Tung said.

IELTS teachers pursuing a score of 9 at writing often have to adjust and experiment.

Regarding the latest exam, he assessed that the topic was familiar and not complicated. 

Task 1 of the writing test was a chart comparing men and women sports performance, while task 2 asked candidates to give opinions on how technology was predicted to give people more free time.

As advised by Luyen Quang Kien, another IELTS teacher who in June became the first Vietnamese to ever score 9 in all four skills, Tung focused more on comparison for task 1.

Specifically, he highlighted the evaluation of the numbers and their correlation to analyze the chart, instead of just simply describing the chart.

"It is necessary to write expansive sentences, and if they are too obvious, it will not be of good quality," Tung said.