12 IELTS Writing mistakes that kill your score (IELTS Academic)

hi guys its ICA do you know that most IELTS test takers achieve the lowest score denials writing today I've made a list of 12 common but costly mistakes the dragna score down in IELTS academic writing and let's not waste any time and get started [Music] and the mistake the text of the 12th place is writing under hundred fifty watts or 250 words when you open your IELTS writing task it reads right more than 150 words in task 1 and write more than 250 Watts in task 2 what some of you may not realize is how severe the penalty is for falling short of this requirement a lot of points will be deducted if your essays are shorter than they should be so always aim to write between 170 and 180 words for task 1 and 270 to 280 words in task 2 you may ask how do you know how many words I've written the answer is only by counting them and the truth is you won't have enough time to count what during the exam what I suggest is download the official answer sheet I'm gonna link it in the video description below print it out and use it to practice at home count words and very soon you will know where your essay should end without counting words you will know how long it is by just looking at your essay it will save you some time during the exam the mistakes a text with the 11th place is answering the wrong question before you start writing your essays you should make sure that you understand the question correctly that you've planned what you're gonna write it may seem obvious at the moment but you're in the exam it's not going to be quite like that because by the time the writing section starts you will have already completed the listening and the writing sections and believe me you're gonna feel that you're so short of time but you must resist the temptation to start your writing straightaway if your essay doesn't answer the question you're gonna get a very poor score that's it if your essay doesn't answer the question fully you're not gonna get a good score either so make sure you understand the question don't save your time on that what's more everything you're writing your essays must answer the question the information has to be hundred-percent on topic don't go off-topic ever mistake number 10 is using informal writing style if you take an academic exam your essays must be written in quite a formal academic style first of all it means that you should get rid of all your contractions count becomes cannot doesn't because does not want becomes will not you should also avoid using informal words of length for example I feel that some students start their conclusion with the words in the nutshell I know that you want to be original and use some things that others don't but these words in the nutshell are quite informal they shouldn't be in an IELTS academic essay at all don't try to be different just say in conclusion or to conclude these words are simple and to the point also bear in mind that many Fraser works are quite informal let's compare the results of the study were mixed up it sounds informal the results of the study were confused it sounds much more serious and better for it's academic mistake number nine is coping words from the question if you copy the question in your essay the examiner is going to exclude it from the word count because these are not your words if you could be whole phrases the same is going to happen so what you should do is you should paraphrase for example the task reads of the chat shows you can say the line graph illustrates all the line chart illustrates both are fine you can also change the form of the word for example are the levels of employment employment is an hour you can say how many people are employed to be employed to employ is a work let's compare both sentences the task reads the chat shows are the levels of employment and you write the line graph illustrates how many people are employed however some words can't be paraphrased if your essay is about air pollution then you're gonna repeat the words air pollution time times in USA that's fine don't try to change what can't be changed and we're going to continue talking about the same topic in mistake number eight repeating the same words phrases or ideas frequently even if words or phrases are your own you should not repeat them in your essing many times because it shows to the examiner that either you don't have a sufficient ranger vocabulary or you can't use it flexibly whatever it is it's a problem if you want to learn four ways to avoid repeating words watch my video I'm gonna link in the corner and after you watch the video you will also get a link to download a PDF list of synonyms for 20 most common adjectives used in knives writing tasks - so all that is in the other video speaking about ideas do not repeat the same idea over and over again even if it's very good instead try to present an idea and then find a number of arguments and examples that support this idea number seven using words you don't know well on the one hand using complex vocabulary is what you need in order to achieve a higher score on the other hand using words you don't know well my backfire for two reasons first if you don't spell words correctly you lose points secondly I've seen so many students with a good level of English who avoid using the most obvious words in order to put a more complex word as a result they often use complex words in situations when those shouldn't be used and they make more mistakes in their IELTS essays that they normally would in English remember in IELTS it's better to use a word which is simple and correct then a word which is more complex but is misspelled and is plainly wrong mistake number six is over complicating sentences in order to get bad 7 in writing you have to use a variety of complex grammatical structures but also most of your sentences must be error free and quite often writing simpler sentences will bring you a higher score than writing over complicated Center which are impossible to understand just imagine an examiner reading tones of essays one after one he's not gonna think over sentence he can't understand for too long what's more complex sentences don't have to be long and recently I made a video about how to write a complex sentence in three easy steps you can watch it here and also all the links are gonna be in the video description below the fifth place goes to the mistake of not using linking words your essay should be easy to understand and every hour its examiner will check if your sentences are linked together one of the ways to link them is to use so-called linking words and let me show you an example here is a short abstract many people are overweight because they often eat fast food eating fast food may cause many serious illnesses how's the meals cost more was it easy to understand not really because the sentences are not linked together in any way let me show you the same abstract with linking words many people are overweight because they often eat fast food moreover eating fast food may cause serious illnesses however healthy meals cost more it sounds better doesn't it number four is expressing your opinion in academic task 1 in Al's academic task 1 is a report about a chart a graph a table a diagram and map and here you must only summarize the information that was provided to you you must not express your opinion draw conclude explain why the information is the way it is or add anything you know about this topic be careful number three not expressing your opinion in task 2 unlike the reporting task 1 they assign tasks too often requires you to express your opinion read the task carefully and check if it asks you for your opinion or not if we does clearly state what your opinion is in the introduction and the conclusion of your essay and make sure your opinion is clear throughout the whole writing the second place goes to not having the right essay structure and now it's examiner will be looking for a clear structure in both task 1 and task 2 let me show you a typical structure for both tasks a task 1 essay will have between 3 and 5 paragraphs an introduction and overview and between 1 and 3 body paragraphs depending on the topic there should be no conclusion in a task 1 essay a task 2 essay novella has four or five paragraphs an introduction to body paragraphs more rarely you can have three body paragraphs and a conclusion make sure you have only one idea per body paragraph after paragraph an examiner will be checking for that too and the mistake number one is missing an overview or a conclusion the most important bit of your task 1 essay is an overview that's one or two sentences where you summarize the information similarly a conclusion is a must foot - si that's where you express your opinion if it was required and summarize the key points if USA is missing an overview or a conclusion you'll be heavily penalized during the exam if you can't finish both facets leave body paragraphs unfinished but make sure your essay 1 has an overview and your asset 2 has a conclusion all the mistakes we talked about today are so common but so costly and how that if you know them you'll be able to avoid them more easily during the exam don't forget to watch the video about IELTS vocabulary to learn how to avoid word repetition and to download a list of common adjectives common synonyms of Al's adjectives good luck with your preparation good luck

Channel: Fastrack IELTS

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Keywords: ielts writing, ielts writing academic, ielts writing common mistakes, ielts writing band 7, ielts writing band 8, ielts writing preparation academic module, ielts writing preparation, how to prepare for ielts academic, ielts writing tips, ielts writing tips and tricks academic, how to increase ielts writing score, ielts academic writing, ielts writing task 2, ielts writing task 1

Id: rxow-OI_5gk

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 03 2018