I would like to highlight a couple of issues which I have been discussing with students and colleagues recently.
One point raised by Frank Cheshire who has just become involved with the provision of OET in Madang, Indonesia was the issue of handwriting. I must admit that I hadn't thought about this one at all but it made a lot of sense. Legible handwriting is one of the marking criteria but how do you practise? And how do you practise so that you can write legibly under exam conditions?
One way is to practise writing the common phrases you will use - phrases like:
I'm writing to refer...
If you require any further information, please contact me on this number.
Mr X presented with
On examination he was found to have...
Another way is to practise handwriting the whole of your referral letters. Even if you have to type the letter first so you can do a word count and ensure that you are under the word limit. Then time yourself writing the letter. Make sure you can write 180-200 words legibly in 45 minutes.
Finally, practise writing commonly found words so you do not waste time thinking about the spelling of the word. E.g. referral - you don't want to be thinking 'how many r's?'
The second issue surrounds the Listening test. Both the listening and the reading tests are the same for all professions so you need to read and listen to a wide variety of texts. The last OET had a listening about dentistry, for example, which was a challenge for many students. Also, try to revise medical terminology especially your knowledge of medical prefixes and suffixes. This will help you guess any unknown words. For example, in a podiatry reading you would expect to come across the prefix 'onycho' (nail). Having the prefix of a word gives you a better chance to guess the rest of the word.