Keeping track of IELTS progress through code
The very first requirement which you will have if you are planning to go abroad for studies is the IELTS test. It is an English language proficiency test for non-native English language speakers.
The test has four sections: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. IELTS is scored on a nine-band scale.
I am also planning to give the test anytime soon. The only rule to succeed in this test is through practice. The more practice you do, the higher chance will be there to get a good band in the test.
The problem
I am the kind of person who wants to keep track of everything. While practicing for the test, I wanted to have a record of the marks and have a statistician view of the data.
Another problem was to know the band I was getting. After the test, you can check your answers and know your marks. From the marks, you can check the band from the table provided on the internet. This was very tedious.
There is a thing with the IELTS test. Among the four sections, only the listening and reading section can be checked from the answer sheet because for the other two, i.e. writing and speaking, there is no one answer and the band depends on various factors. So, tracking them was out of the scope of my solution.
The solution
Whenever any problem comes into my life, my head whirls for a solution through code. Any process with structure can be automated. The code ahead is not something fancy, but it works and this is all that matters.
Before running the script, make sure that you have matplotlib installed.
pip install matplotlib
code
Usage
For listening
python ielts.py l N #saves listening marks to the record and shows the band
python ielts.py l #shows overall result of your listening
For reading
python ielts.py r N #saves reading marks to the record and shows the band
python ielts.py r #show overall result of your reading
You can also add alias in your .bashrc or .zshrc file if you wish.
# ielts alias
alias il="./ielts.py l"
alias ir="./ielts.py r"
The above code assumes that you have kept your python script in your home directory. Also don’t forget to make the script executable, i.e. chmod a+x ielts.py
Final thoughts
Writing code is pure craftsmanship. At its core, it’s an art and I truly believe that no art is small. If you find any issue, please do let me know.