About IELTS

[lina]

Hello Paul, and all friends,
     First of all I would like to introduce myself to you. My name is Lina, a high school student but I will finish high school this year.
Nowadays I study Cliff TOEFL book, but just start. I want to win the scholarship to study abroad but I don't know whether I should take the TOEFL or IELTS test. I know nothing about IELTS, but I now know a little bit about it.
So what I want you to help me is answering my question.

1. What is different between TOEFL and IELTS?
2. Which one should I take?
3. What should I prepare before taking the test of IELTS?
3. At what school should I learn the prepation test?
4. How long does it take for me to learn about IELTS?
5. What kinds of book should I learn at home?
6. Could you please tell me about some websites which is useful for me to learn and practice the exercises on lin?
7. How can I win the scholarship to study abroad?

I know that those are the hard questions to answer but I really want to know it. So I hope that you can help me with this.

Thank,

[Tdol]

Toefl is an American exam and IELTS is British/Australian.  However, you can study in the US with IELTS or in Australia or the UK with Toefl.

Sites:
http://www.usingenglish.com/links/Examinations_and_Qualifications/IELTS/index.html
http://www.usingenglish.com/links/Examinations_and_Qualifications/TOEFL/index.html

With all advanced exams, you need to know and understand the exam in great detail; simply having good English is not enough, so get hold of exam books and study them.

I can't say much about scholarships, to be honest, but if you are going to apply, take the application very seriously and make sure your application is perfect and conforms to every detail of the requirements.  It is an incredibly competitive area; a friend of mine got a scholarship to study in Italy, but there were hundreds of applications for just one scholarship.