The ParrotTalk journal
Notes from building a 100% free IELTS practice site with AI feedback. What I tried, what broke, and what actually helped candidates.
Common IELTS mistakes and how to avoid them
The mistakes that cost bands even when your English is good, and how to catch them before exam day.
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IELTS Writing Task 2: how to structure a band 7+ essay
A clear, repeatable structure for Task 2: read the question, plan in minutes, and organize your essay so every paragraph earns marks.
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How to prepare for IELTS in 30 days: a free practice plan
A realistic week-by-week plan: diagnose, target your weakest skill, then a full mock test under real conditions.
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IELTS band descriptors explained: what examiners actually look for
The four official criteria behind your Writing and Speaking band, and how Listening and Reading convert to one.
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IELTS Speaking Part 1, 2 and 3 explained
The interview, the cue card long turn, and the discussion: what actually happens in each part, and how to practise for free.
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IELTS Listening practice online, 100% free
Real audio timing, four sections, 40 questions, and tips on where candidates actually lose marks.
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IELTS Reading practice: free tips to improve your score
Real timing, real question types, and practical tips on where candidates actually lose marks.
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Making sure we grade what you wrote
For feedback to mean anything, the essay you see must be the exact one the AI reads. A bug I found, fixed, and now guard against.
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Never lose an essay again
Your essay now saves as you type, so a stray tab close or a reload never wipes your work. A small seatbelt, big peace of mind.
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The surprise in my notes: assistants were sending me students
A lovely early surprise: AI assistants began recommending ParrotTalk on their own, and why honesty is what made it findable.
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Giving each speaker a different voice
Rebuilding the Listening audio so each section has its own distinct voice, the way exam day actually sounds.
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Putting the exam clock on Listening
Adding a single running clock and automatic submission to Listening, so a free practice test feels like the real computer-delivered exam.
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When someone skips a question
Real people do not answer in a tidy order. The small saga of making Speaking practice survive skipped questions and messy input.
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Free IELTS practice for candidates in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Uzbekistan
Full IELTS practice for all four skills, 100% free, and built to be genuinely usable from Hanoi to Tashkent.
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An AI checker for IELTS Writing Task 2: what it looks at
An AI checker for IELTS Writing Task 2 that does more than count words: a band on each of the four official criteria, plus feedback on concrete sentences. Free on ParrotTalk.
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What a free IELTS mock test really means
Is there a genuinely free IELTS mock test online, the full thing? Yes. All four sections back to back under real exam timing, with a band at the end, 100% free on ParrotTalk.
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Moving the AI off the browser
Where your answers go when you get AI IELTS feedback on ParrotTalk: not to a stranger, but through our own small server. The first real backend decision, in plain terms.
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Opening the doors, and keeping them open
The day ParrotTalk went from a private project to an open public beta, what real users taught me, and the honest plan for measuring the scoring.
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Rewriting the FAQ around proof, not promises
Rebuilding the FAQ from the actual code rather than from what I wished were true, and admitting a real gap.
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Starting to measure whether any of this works
Installing measurement early, looking at genuinely tiny numbers, and refusing to tell myself a flattering story about them.
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The day a passing test lied to me
My test suite was green. The site was broken. The day a passing test told me a comfortable lie.
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The bug that mattered most: never losing your progress
The most important fix of the whole project was not a feature. It was making sure a reload never costs you your answers.
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The honesty pass: cutting every claim I could not stand behind
The day I read every page as a suspicious stranger and struck out anything I could not stand behind.
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Ten bugs, and letting you submit one section at a time
An unglamorous bug-fix day, and the feature hiding inside the bug list: practice in the time you actually have.
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Teaching a parrot to grade a voice in one day
Building browser voice recording and AI Speaking feedback in a single day, and the messy fight it took.
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How our AI scoring works, and how accurate it is
How the band is estimated, what we calibrated to make it fair, and why it is a compass, not an official result.
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I couldn't find an IELTS site I liked, so I built one by talking to an AI
How ParrotTalk went from a one-day prototype to a real IELTS practice platform, built in the open, one honest fix at a time.
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