A lot has been said about the OET on the web but no website really covers the top mistakes to avoid on the OET exam. That is why, we decided to help you by writing this short guide which will prevent you from making the vast majority of them.
So read it carefully, I promise it won’t take more than 3 minutes of your time.
1-Attention OET Test Takers: Say NO to Using Case Note Dates!
When writing your OET letter, you should use the date of the test in the header, not the date of the case notes.
Several doctors insist on doing the opposite and then score low in the writing part.
2-Missing Link in Your OET Letters
An OET letter is just like an Essay for college, although you are writing a medical letter, you still have to organize it in chronological order.
3- Hybrid doesn’t work
For both the speaking and writing sections, you can use American, British, or even Australian English if you prefer. However, you cannot mix them.
Can you imagine a situation where a person speaks using 50% of the local Spanish vocabulary from Mexico and another 50% from Spain? Crazy, right?
That is why you cannot do it.
4- Being Beaten by the clock in the OET speaking
You have 5 minutes for each role-play card consultation, and that’s it. So, make sure to move swiftly while addressing the bullet points and following proper protocol.
If you spend too much time with the patient on one item, you might not be able to finish within the given time frame. Thus, efficient time management is crucial during the consultation.
5- Spelling kills it all
If you have spelling problems, you need to sort them out as soon as possible. Misspellings can significantly affect your score in writing, listening, and reading. Neither the system nor the OET examiner will overlook your misspellings, depending on the situation.
It’s crucial to work on improving your spelling skills to avoid any negative impact on your performance.
6-“Raise Your Voice: Why Ignoring Pronunciation is a Mistake in OET Speaking!”
Pronunciation in most tests, including OET, is king. However, most so-called OET tutors and students ignore it.
If you download the OET scoring criteria, you will be able to see in the speaking section how important pronunciation is. So in case you have a heavy, non-intelligible pronunciation, you must work on it.
What is the point of using complex grammar structure and nice medical words when examiners can’t really understand what you are saying, get the picture?
7- Thinking as a Doctor
In the reading part, a lot of doctors and nurses automatically resort to their medical knowledge when answering the questions.
If you do that, STOPPP it right NOW!
OET reading is designed to evaluate your reading skills and not your knowledge. So every time you try to bring external knowledge into the test, you get it wrong.
They want to know if you can read, interpret and answer questions based on the information you were presented with, only that.
8- Too slow to make decisions
In the listening section, you don’t really have any additional time to answer the questions after you have listened. So you must answer them as they go.
In other words, if you overthink you will get lost during the listening and miss on a lot of questions.
9- I understand BBC attitude
A lot of doctors have this. I understand BBC ‘s attitude.
What do I mean by that?
When you ask a person if they can understand British English, they tend to claim they understand everything when they watch BBC.
Here is the Bad News
The accents used on the OET listening tracks are a far cry from what you listen to on BBC. In fact, according to some studies, only 3% of the British population speaks like that.
I hope this article can help you get a higher score on your OET test by avoiding those mistakes.
If you have any OET-related questions, drop a comment, and will be pleased to answer it.