Hey Chris here from IELTS Vantage and in this video I'm going to show you the only three sources that you should use for practice tests. So if you go to Google and you type in IELTS practice test, you're going to get a bunch of results and most of these results are actually fake unreliable tests. If you use some of these fake unreliable tests, you are going to fail your test. You're going to fail to get the score that you need. However, there are three sources which do give you reliable, real practice tests that you can use to give you reliable results. And in this video I'm going to show you how to find those. I'm also going to show you which books are reliable at the end of the video too. And because there are a lot of books that will actually show you how to practice and they have reliable practice tests. And finally I'm going to show you a scam that is happening at the moment and how to avoid being scammed with practice tests. So the first thing you need to do is go to Google but don't just put in IELTS practice tests. If you put in IELTS practice tests, you're going to get a bunch of information and Google doesn't really know what is reliable and what is not reliable. But you don't need to worry about this because all you need to do is put in IELTS practice tests and then put in what you want to help with. So if you want help with reading, listening, speaking, writing, put in whatever you need. So let's say we want to do a reading practice test. So we're going to put in reading. Then we're going to put in one of the three reliable sources. And those are the British Council or IDP or Cambridge. So for example, if we put in British Council, what you're going to see is that the British Council will give you a bunch of different reading practice tests. And you can note you notice that in the URL, it says British Council, British Council, British Council, British Council, British Council, British Council, British Council, British Council. So if any of these ones are giving you at practice tests, you know that this is reliable because it's coming from the makers of the test, the British Council or IDP, if you go in here, IDP, IDP, IDP, IDP, exactly the same. And sometimes you'll get India IDP, sometimes you'll get Nigeria IDP. These are all part of the IDP network. And they will give you free, reliable practice tests or the people that actually make the test Cambridge, you'll see Cambridge English and be very careful. For example, this one, practice PTE online. I'd never heard of this one before, but just because it has Cambridge in the name of the page, doesn't mean that it's reliable. Look at the URL says here, Cambridge English. Now, is there any other source that gives you free practice tests that are reliable? No. Only Cambridge IDP on the British Council. Everything else is unreliable and you should not trust it. Why do they make so many unreliable tests? Well, it's really to do with their business model. The people who make these fake tests, once you click on their site, you will always see advertising on their site. And when you click on that, advertising, they make money. So their goal is just to get you onto the site. Their goal is not actually to help you pass the test. So don't trust anyone whose goals are completely misaligned with yours. And once you put something like this in, so let's say we want to get some help with listening, we can put that in. So listening practice tests, we can go in here, we can see that this is a real official site. And we can scroll down and get our listening practice tests. And they often, British Council IDP, Cambridge, they often add new ones. So if you've used older ones in the past, for example, this is a new one, you can go in and practice these, especially for listening and reading. If you're using fake tests, either the tests will be way too difficult and then you'll think that you're terrible when you're really not, or they will be way too easy. And you think that you're ready for the test and you are not, please do not use any other practice tests. They are all fake and they do not care about your IELTS scores, they care about your clicks. However, there are a limited number of these online free tests. So we also can use books. So I'm using Amazon.com here. You don't have to use Amazon. You can use any online bookstore or your own bookstore, whatever you want to use. But if we put in here, IELTS practice tests. And let's see what they have. So as you can see, not all of these are going to be reliable. So some of these are not made by Cambridge. And most of these are going to be very unreliable. Even if you have five stars on something, that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean even if something has a low star rating, again, don't go by the star rating. There is only one thing that you can go by. And that is who actually made these tests. And if these tests are made by Cambridge, then they are reliable. If they are not made by Cambridge, then they are unreliable. So where can you find all of the Cambridge books? So if we go and stick into Google Cambridge IELTS books, and then the first results, Cambridge University Press, just click on those. And what it will show you is the results for all the different books. So most of you are familiar with IELTS 16, IELTS 15, all of these different practice books. But they're also practice tests in other Cambridge books. And all of these are reliable. So there's IELTS Trainer 2, which came out in May 2019. There's IELTS Trainer 1. There is a couple of other ones. Cambridge English Practice Test Bank, which is reliable. And then the official Cambridge Guide IELTS, at the back of this book, I think there are five or six practice tests as well. And then we have IELTS Trainer, official IELTS Practice Materials. So there's lots of these books and they are all very, very reliable. And you might look at these and think, well, I have to pay money for these. Well, it is a lot cheaper to buy these books and do the practice tests and get real official tests that give you reliable results than to pay $200, $250 for a real test. And then if you fail that test, you've just thrown away a huge amount of money. I have no affiliation with Cambridge. Cambridge don't give me any money. The only reason I'm telling you this information is because it's the truth. These are the only books that you should use for practice tests if you want to get the score that you need. If you want to give people making fake tests money, then you know, use any of the other ones. But if you are interested in getting the score that you need, then this is the way to go. So the little scam that goes on every year and that I talked about at the beginning is every year around June, July, Cambridge bring out new practice tests. And every year without fail, what happens in countries all over the world is people will make up a fake version of IELTS Academic 16 or last year it was 15 the year before it was 14. Next year I guarantee IELTS 17 there will be fake copies going around of those books. And what happens is if you buy a fake copy of this book and this is not just soft copies on the internet, there's fake copies of this book in real bookstores as well. And if you buy these, you will find that the questions are completely unreliable, you're going to get very, very confused. And what is going to happen is you will contact a teacher like me, which is what happened last week. What happened last week is a Chinese student who bought a book in a real bookstore came to me and said, I've never seen a task two question like this. It is so difficult. I'm really stressed. I can't do this question. And I just say, calm down. This is not a real question. You've bought a fake book. So be very, very careful when you are buying these books to buy them from real reliable sources and good bookshops that aren't selling fake books. But a really easy way of knowing whether your book is fake or not is go to the official site or Amazon, for example, and look at the publication date. So this book was published on 8th of July, 2021. For months and months before this, students were coming to me and saying, teacher, I got the new IELTS 16. Can we do these and practice tests? No, because you just bought a fake book. If the book is available in your country before the publication date, then it's a fake book. Why do people do this to make money from you? They care about your money. They don't care about whether you get the score that you need or not. So I hope that helps. And I hope that that helps you find reliable practice materials so that you can practice and you get a reliable score before you decide to book the test. Thank you very much and if you need any other advice, feel free to get in touch.