Cambridge Practice Tests for IELTS 1 is written by experienced IELTS examiners, one based in Britain and one based in Australia.
The Student's Book contains an introduction to the different modules of the exam together with an explanation of the different IELTS question types and how to approach them.
The inclusion of annotated keys and tapescripts for each test makes the book ideal for students working partly or entirely on their own.
The Audio CDs contain listening material carefully chosen to reflect the reality of the exam in terms of timing, format and the types of speaker and accent used.
From my experience with IELTS, you have to do the following in order to get the perfect result:
1 - read a lot of magazines and books in English as a life style. 2 - keep listening to an English radio all the day to stay in the listening mood and try to catch a good station with appropriate accent mainly you can find many on the iTunes radio. 3 - practicing the exams & the exercises which are in the book and set yourself a time to finish the task. 4 - remember there are no auto correct on the writing task! so you have to learn the correct writings of many words you usually use or you are willing to. 5 - finally, it is totally insane not to register yourself in an IELTS course at the British council when you are aiming to get 8 and above specially the Academic module!! Good luck everyone :)
If you want to start reading for IELTS , Ignore Cambridge IELTS 1-2-3-4 and start from IELTS 5 to 10. They are not useful anymore because of new methods of IELTS.
Though the speaking exercises are obsolete in most editions the rest is excellent if you're looking for exam practice material only. Contains 4 Advanced exams and 2 General Training (only reading and writing).