How Mental Filter Affects Your IELTS Success

Cognitive distortions are patterns of thoughts that reinforce a person’s negative thoughts or emotions. These distortions can interfere with how someone perceives conversations, identifies patterns and concepts, or gathers ideas and information. For instance, mental filter is a type of cognitive distortion where someone tends to pick out one negative detail in any situation. When thinking through a mental filter, a person is focusing on the negative aspects of a situation and is filtering out all the positive ones.

How mental filter affects your IELTS success

As a student enrolled in an IELTS review online package, it is essential that you know how this cognitive distortion affects your IELTS success. To guide you more, check out this sample situation when someone uses mental filter in their IELTS training:

Sample situation

John wanted to boost his communication skills and ace the IELTS Academic test. He decided to enroll in an IELTS review online. During his review sessions, he noticed that the speaking section is the most challenging part of the test. When John tried to take up an IELTS mock test, he got great scores in the three IELTS components (Reading, Writing, and Listening). However, he got a very low score on the speaking component. He was very disappointed with the result and got anxious about it. Days had passed, and he still contemplates on the mock test result. John started to skip online review sessions and decided not to take the IELTS Academic test.

In this sample situation, John only saw the negative aspect of his IELTS review online training which is the challenges he experienced in the IELTS speaking component. He did not seek for any solutions on how he can handle the IELTS speaking mock test.

The following are the three things that John should have done:

        1.    He should have looked at the positive side of the situation. (When he got great band scores on the other IELTS components)

        2.    He should have seeked various test-taking strategies and study tips that can help boost his speaking skills and his IELTS review online package preparation.

        3. He should have just accepted the result of the IELTS mock test and used it as a motivation for the actual IELTS Academic test.

Now that you have identified how mental filter affects your IELTS success, use the sample situation above and share it to your group study buddies and other IELTS students to help them avoid this cognitive distortion.

For more IELTS study tips and test-taking strategies, enroll now in JRooz Review Center and get your own IELTS Review Online package or subscribe to our blog today!

REFERENCES:

Robbins, L. "Cognitive Distortions: Mental Filter." Wild Tree Psychotherapy. January 23, 2017. Accessed July 03, 2018. http://wildtreewellness.com/mental/.

Sicinski, A. "10 Unhelpful Thinking Styles Sabotaging Your Success." IQ Matrix Blog. January 16, 2018. Accessed July 03, 2018. https://blog.iqmatrix.com/unhelpful-thoughts.

Star, K. PhD. "Are Mental Filters Causing Your Anxiety?" Verywell Mind. Accessed July 03, 2018. https://www.verywellmind.com/mental-filters-and-panic-disorder-2584186.