u/9706uzim

I'll sit for my IELTS exam in a bit over a year from now and I was wondering what the best book is for teaching myself the syllabus.

Also, how often does the syllabus change? (I.e. can I use old books?)

I'm also worried about the question patterns. Do you need to answer everything in a specific way (like in IGCSE English), or does it really test if you're good at English? I'm quite good at the language itself but I find it difficult to adapt to question patterns which test your knowledge of the test itself rather than mastery over the language.