Do you want to prepare for the NAATI test on your own at home?
Do you have enough study materials, dialogues and vocabulary for preparation and don’t want to take NAATI classes?
If yes, then these 5 tips are exactly what you’re looking for.
Tip # 1 Familiarise yourself with 12 NAATI CCL dialogue topics
There are thousands of complex terminologies, but you don’t need to know all of them. NAATI has specified the following 12 topics on which the dialogues are based on. Start by exploring vocabulary related with these topics. If you can get your hands on past-exam dialogues, that’s even better.
- Business
- Consumer Affairs
- Employment
- Health
- Immigration/Settlement
- Legal
- Community
- Education
- Financial
- Housing
- Insurance
- Social Services
Tip # 2 Dialogue and vocabulary practice should go hand-in-hand.
I am speaking this from my experience of consulting with more than 500 Nepali students after they take their NAATI CCL test.
Most beginners make this mistake of cramming difficult vocabulary for days and weeks. They only start practising dialogues after going through thousands of vocabulary.
However, in the actual NAATI CCL test they end up forgetting even the easiest vocabulary, because they’re not used to using those words in a sentence. Therefore, always practise dialogue and the required vocabulary at the same time.
There are two ways of doing this. One is to study the required vocabulary first and then practise dialogue interpretation. The other is directly practising the dialogue first and then noting down the vocabulary which you couldn’t translate while practising.
Practise both methods and choose the one that works for you well.
Tip # 3 Don’t practise NAATI exam related dialogues only.
NAATI CCL test is the test of your spontaneity. Unlike a writing test, you don’t have enough time to think, write down a few full sentences and then speak. You have to be quick. Therefore, you need to practise in a range of both likely and unlikely settings.
So, we suggest that you practise English to Nepali and vice-versa interpretation while listening to BBC Nepali Sewa, SBS Nepal radio, and some other news channels, and lectures/podcasts on YouTube can be helpful too. Take notes while listening to these channels. Then stop the audio after 5 to 15 seconds and start interpreting. Record yourself while doing so and then you can do self-assessment.
Tip # 4 Get Expert Feedback
Preparing for the test on your own can be daunting sometimes. Usually, students end up underestimating or even overestimating the difficulty level of the exam.
Sometimes you might feel like ” Oh, all I have to do is interpret from English to Nepali and vice-versa. Nepali is my mother tongue and I’ve studied English all my life. How hard could it be“. But then during the NAATI test you have to interpret under pressure of time constraint and you realise that it’s not as easy as you thought.
On the other hand, some students think that they need to interpret as if it was a written translation test, and they try to interpret each and every single word, which is an impossible task to be honest.
So, you see this is why need Expert Feedback. You may already have practice materials, dialogues and vocabulary, but you need someone with experience to give you a direction, an initial boost. After that you’re ready to practise on your own.
Did you know that you can book a free one-one consultation with me? All you need to do is enroll and login to our Free NAATI Course, Starter Kit. Then you can book the appointment using the calendar.
Tip #5 Book A NAATI Mock Test
This one is very important. Imagine paying $800 to book the NAATI test and preparing for weeks and months only to fail the test and then having to pay $800 to book the NAATI CCL exam again! Needless to mention the delay caused by this in your PR application. So, you want to know about your chances of passing the test before taking the real exam. You need to know where you’re standing.
For this book a mock test with us for $49 only. It’s actually much more than just a mock test. I’ll give you an instant score and feedback. I’ll also point out your strengths and weaknesses, and the exact mistakes that make you lose points. You can then use this insight to develop an action plan to improve your score.
Did you know that there is deviation of 2 points between the actual NAATI test score and our mock test score? Meaning, if you score 70 in our NAATI mock test, you can expect to score anywhere from 68-72 in the real test too. So, if you fail our mock test, most likely you’ll fail the actual test too. Your next step then would be to reschedule to the test because you’re not ready yet.
