Dear Ckarmer, As Xris tells IELTS validation is 2 years from the exam date. Following the booklet6 , you may get 20 with a score like : 6-6-6-6 , and got 15 with 9-9-9-5.5 ! , so as you can see if you think that 15 suffice to get the pbuttmark OK..go ahead...they would let you only one band below 6!
Regarding this exam as far as I know , the result may vary from centerA to centerB considerably and as I heared some guys tried to find easier centers(!)based on : 1- better quality of vocie (depends on exam hall) 2- better and fair speaking-reading examiner
just for your information 5 years ago when I took the exam for the first time with a mediocare speaking presentation(but very good accent) I got 7, yet after 4 years of living with English speaking people and doing anything including job , study ... in Enligsh ,I tried again and got 7 in speaking!!!! , I promise you the latter examiner who was not an English native speaker, could not understand some parts of my talks!!!!(this was another center, same country). in fact I got problem with reading that time... Just as a final experience that might work,NEVER ask the center for something like express result , I and other 3 guys believed that if we did not want to get it sooner we would get much better score! , this was a real comparison between us and others that we knew their level of English at the same exam, though I am not pretty sure that was they do with your exam paper when they are gonna announce the result sooner...
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