1.11 The Seven Habits That Lose Marks

Every year, candidates with perfectly good English lose this assessment to one of the seven habits below. Audit yourself against this list after every practice set; it is the fastest diagnostic you have.

• Whispering when unsure. Confidence drops volume exactly when the microphone needs it most. Record yourself once and check whether your quiet answers survive playback.
• Racing the easy parts. Speeding through familiar words and stumbling on hard ones wrecks your pace score. Hold 100-120 words per minute everywhere.
• Freezing after an error. One slip, one silent second of horror, and the restart never comes. Train the instant self-correction: say the fix, keep moving.
• Answering in a word. "Yes." "Coffee." Single-word answers starve the engine of evidence and read as avoidance. Always give the answer plus one sentence.
• Over-planning the topic task. Ten seconds of silent outline-building becomes ten seconds of scored silence. Start with your runway sentence and structure as you speak.
• Treating it like a written exam. Pausing to compose perfect sentences produces silence, and silence is the one thing the engine cannot reward. Simple, complete, continuous beats perfect but broken.
• Ignoring the microphone check. A bad mic position quietly taxes every single answer that follows it. Take the check seriously, fix the distance once, and forget it.

That completes the theory. Everything from here is practice: Part 2 for the spoken drills, Part 3 for email, Part 4 for grammar, Part 5 for the full mock, and Part 6 for the final hours. Work loudly, record honestly, and trust the structure.