Best Tips for the IELTS WRITING TASK 1!!! IMPROVE YOUR WRITING IN THE IELTS WRITING SECTION

hello and welcome to the ielts multi-step program my name is lanrie and i'll be your anchor through this session today we'll be dealing with the writing section of the ielts and this is unarguably one of the most challenging areas that most non-native users of the language find challenging so what is it about writing that makes it so difficult to pass what is it about writing that ensures that a lot of people do not go beyond the band six mark what is it about writing that ensures that a lot of people make simple simple mistakes that drops their scores every day and every day today i'll be walking you through the mistakes that you've been making the mistakes that a lot of test takers make and the strategies that can correct these mistakes and shoot you from a band 6 or band 7 to an instant band 9. but before i start this video i will point out that a couple of tips that i will be sharing with you and the most important tip is towards the end so you need to watch this video till the complete end for you to get the best benefit from this session come along with me as we begin this journey so what is the writing section of the ielts what does it entail is it the same for both the academic model and the general training model that's where we'll start from for the academic model your writing is in two parts for the general training model also the writing is in two parts you have writing task one and you have writing task two the combined duration for both tasks is 1r while writing task 1 takes you 20 minutes writing task 2 is designed to take you between 40 to 35 minutes for the academic model your writing task 1 is simply a report where you are supposed to interpret visual data in the form of a report for your writing task one for general training you're writing a letter this letter could either be formal informal or semi-formal and usually it is drawn from a context that is either work related academic related or even a social scenario for the writing task too both models have the same question for the academic and the general training model you will be required to write an opinion essay where you will be required to give an opinion or to give a view or to give a claim that you will defend with reasons and examples to illustrate your point very straightforward and easy and simple task so why is it that so many people fail this simple task and that is what we're here to explore today our schedule for today will run through this and i will read out the shadows so that you can follow through as we go for them remember these videos are designed to help you in your self-study uh process and also designed to complement whatever out of class experience that you're having in preparing for the ielts remember that you need to pause the video at several intervals or rewind them to get more to get the tips clearly and also ensure that you can practice or deploy them instantly interpreting the question will be the first stage and after that we'll move to the general training writing task 1 onto academic writing task 1 and then we'll deal with the writing task 2 which is the same for both models and what we'll be dealing with when we get to the writing task 2 will be we'll deal with the introduction writing the body paragraphs and concluding we'll also take a look at peculiar question types and tips to address them and we will also look at editing proofreading and improving written work finally we will take a look at connectives and the grammar behind ielts writing these will form the crux of what we'll be discussing today and i can assure you that it is loaded with nuggets and tips that would ensure that that desired success that you want is something that you can achieve so why is interpreting the question the first and most important task that you need to do when you get to the writing section of the ielts over time we have discovered that a lot of non-native test takers do not take their time to interpret the question people set out to write a 250 word essay without even understanding what the question requires of them at the end of the day you would have written a load of beautiful nonsense with the right words the right expression the right grammar the right vocabulary but you did not answer the question the marking criteria for the writing for the writing task in the ielts has task achievement or task response as the most important criteria what does this mean did you answer the question fully did you answer the question correctly so in a 20-minute start for task one i would advise you to spend at least four to three minutes depending on your um on your level of interpretation or your language or level of language competence four to three minutes interpreting the question taking the question paper looking at the question running it through your mind and trying to decipher if there are any hidden angles to the question is something that is compulsory and non-negotiable you must interpret the question correctly before you can attempt to start answering the question or sharing your thoughts or even developing your thoughts about it please do not disregard this it is it is equal to failure if you start an ielts essay without having a full grasp of what the question requires you to do i have seen people set out to write a letter in the general training writing task one and they do not address all the written prompts they are all the outlined prompts there i have seen people set out to write the academic task one for the academic model which is um the report for a visual data and they do not address all the information on the graph or on the pie chart or on the bar chart that has been given to them i have also seen a lot of people set out to write the opinion essay in the writing task 2 without taking cognizance of the fact that there's a hidden element in the question that they need to respond to failure to do this will ensure that you do not go beyond the band six irrespective of how good of how cool of how perfect your powers of expression are so interpreting the question requires you to break it down into different parts so what are the different parts of an ielts question for the writing task one which is academic what you have is this you will have a sentence set in the context for what you're going to describe a sentence set in the context for what you're going to address or describe so you could have for example the batchat below shows the percentage of people who attended cinema shows between 2001 and 2011 in australia that is the centers that set the context for the question the second part of the question will now i will now ask you to summarize the main details and make comparisons where relevant this is the second part of the question and it's a very very important part it is clearly stated there that what you need to do is a summary of all the main details and also a comparison where relevance a lot of people set out to write a report by putting down all the details there be it major or minor without making any comparisons definitely this will not allow you to get the maximum scores applicable for the writing task one for the letter in the general training model for the best for the writing task on the general training model you'll be given a letter you'll be given a question that could read write a letter to your best friend you have recently decided to travel out of the country write a letter to your best friend who has agreed to house seats for you in the letter and they will not give you um three or four prompts that would be under the sentence that has been given to you in the letter you should say you should give information for contact information for when you're away instructions on how to take care of your pet and further instructions another household chores that you might be uh willing or that you might be interested in you will discover that these three prompts have been assigned to you to help you structure your letter if you write a letter a very good letter without addressing any of those prompts you will be uh you will be seen as not answering the question fully and you will not get the maximum scores applicable for that task so you see that interpreting the question is a very significant step in the journey towards success in the writing section of the ielts and it is something that you cannot afford not to do so let's move on to the academic writing task one before we even get in depth into the structure of what the writing task entails i mentioned earlier that the complete duration for the writing section of the ielts is just one hour and for the act for the writing task one you have 20 minutes to write to deliver a piece of written work that is not less than 150 words now this might seem like a tall order for people who are not used to writing regularly but if you look at it it is actually quite easily done as 150 words is very minute or small before we go further i'd like to just quickly clear something a lot of people ask me how do i decide if it is 150 words or 250 words how do i know if i'm writing the prescribed number of words easy task when you take a piece of paper from a notebook a notebook being a normal notebook that is ruled already that is lined already what you need to do is you need to count number of average words that you use in writing a sentence on a page on a line so for example if there are 20 lines on a page and the average number of words that i write for every line is 7 words that means that if i write 10 lines i have written 70 words so this is this is an easy strategy for you to know if you are writing in accordance with the prescribed word count and this is something that can be done easily within three to five seconds and should not intrude into the time that you will be using to think up your thoughts or develop your ideas for the writing task i've seen a lot of people write their essays or write their letters and stop halfway just to count the words and i discovered that what this does is that it immediately distracts them from the task at hand you do not want to fall into this trap and this is something that is easily avoided if you just take note of the tip that i said earlier for the academic writing task one what does it entail and how does it look like what can you do to be the one who succeeds the most in the academic writing task one there are different types of data that will be given to you in academic writing task one remember it is simply a report of a visual data that you have been given you're writing a report describing what you can see here your knowledge your opinion your views your claims do not matter in fact this is not the type of task that you need to put in any external information you are not asked to interpret what you can see you're only asked to write and describe what you can see a lot of people fail the writing task one for the academic model only because they go there to interpret the data that they can see so you see information in a graph and then you start making assumptions or you start jumping to conclusions given the date by using the data in the graph or in the chart to make those assumptions that is not your job for the writing task one what you are expected to do is simply describe what you have on the piece of paper in front of you so what are the different types of data that could be given to you in your writing task one you could have a diagram you could have a map you could have a pie chart you could have a bar chart you could have a graph you could have a flow chart describing a process those are the six common types of data that could visual data that could be given to you in the academic model in the writing task one for the academic model why is it important to know these different types of data it is important because the first thing that you will be doing in the introduction of that writing task is to describe what you can see to give a description of what you can see so your first sentence would have uh would be would look like this the graph below or the graph shows the graph illustrate the chart illustrates the pie chart illustrates the bar chart illustrates the diagram depicts all these things that i've just mentioned points at the fact that you need to know the exact word for what you can see on your question paper to be able to describe it adequately it would not be appropriate for me to use the word diagram to describe a bar chart it would not be appropriate for me to use the word map to describe a flowchart knowing the exact word to use to describe what you can see on your question paper is the first step on your path to success in the writing task one for the academic model the next thing that you will be doing after that is to decide if the data you've been given is is either static or dynamic what do i mean by static data data that isn't changing it is fixed if it is dynamic it means it undergoes changes now dynamic data is usually found in graphs while you find static data usually in tables or in charts what is the difference and what is the significance of knowing if this information or if the data that you are dealing with is changing or it is stated when you are using words to describe the actions or to interpret the data that you have you will understand the importance of different of differentiating between dynamic and static data in subsequent videos where we'll be doing practical sessions of answering questions on the academic writing task one i will be giving you a practical demonstration of how to employ vocabulary that is peculiar or that is particular to either static data or dynamic data so i will not stretch that at this point moving further two things are important and i'll mention the first one before i go to the second one interpreting the question key instructions in the writing task one are summarize select report and make comparisons where relevant i'll take those things again the key instructions that you have for your academic writing task one are as follows summarize select report and make comparisons where relevant your reports or your presented written work must address all these four areas you must present a summary of the data you've seen you must be able to select the relevant or the main features you must be able to give a report on them and then you must be able to make comparisons where relevant very very important and you can follow them in that sequential order the two key things for you to get a good score for task achievement in the writing task one would be write an open introductory that an opening introductory centers which describes the data that you can see and then write an overview what is an overview an overview simply means your own interpretation of the overall data looking at the data given what is the big picture what is the most significant fact that you can see what way does the data tilt to what summary does the data give to you what message is they trying to pass across this is simply your overview so the introductory paragraph for your writing task one contains those two elements a description of the task itself of the data that you can see itself and an overview an example of this would be the dag the chart below or the bar chart below shows the percentage of boys and girls who participated in football in the year 2005 in the city of pert in australia overall one can see that more boys participated in the sport of football than girls within the time in on that review simple as abc the first sentence is a description the second sentence is an overview looking at the data presented one can see that there are more boys participating in football than girls this is the overview every other thing in between is just supporting detail these two elements must be present in the introduction of your academic writing task one if you desire to get maximum scores for task achievement the opening sentence like i said describes what you can see preferably in your own words do not try as much try as much as possible not to copy word for word descend the quest the sentence that sets up the question a lot of test takers do this and this will significantly reduce your score here is where you can apply your knowledge of synonyms or your knowledge of paraphrasing or you can even rephrase the whole sentence if you can or if you have the competence to do that the second thing like i mentioned is an overview which is a sentence one to three sentences summarizing the main features and avoiding irrelevant details in your overview that's not the place where you want to start mentioning everything that you can see in the data provided here you're just giving one sentence a two sentence or at most a three sentence summary of the main message of the main information of the main thrust of the data presented the next thing that we will look at will be what happens after we write our introduction ideally your writing task your academic writing task one shouldn't have more than four paragraphs at most shouldn't have more than four paragraphs all between three to four paragraphs the first paragraph which is the introduction like i mentioned sets up the task by giving a description and an overview the second paragraph is where you select and you report the main features select and you report the main features and the third paragraph is where you make comparisons if there are any comparisons if there are any relevant sorry relevant comparisons to make and finally you can give a one word conclusion or a two word conclusion or two sentence conclusion sorry a one sentence conclusion or a two sentence conclusion where your overview can be restated or repeated easy as abc and that is all you need to do to pass the academic writing task one so what are other significant things that we need to look at for the academic writing task one before we move to the video that will be a practical demonstration of answering questions in the academic writing task one we'll look at the language of numbers since you're going to be interpreting visual data is every tendency that you will be dealing with numbers a lot the language of numbers is peculiar as you need to know the appropriate way to describe the numerical data that you will be dealing with numbers can either be written in words digits or a combination of both smaller numbers are as either of both and larger ones as a combination of both what do i mean by that for smaller numbers you can either write them as words or as digits but for larger numbers you can use a combination for example 1.5 million and 1.5 million one is a digit 0.5 is also a digit and million is written in words these are ways that you can express yourself when you are dealing with numbers or you're dealing with numerical data in the academic writing task one please note for this tip the shortest form is usually the best the shortest sorry i'll repeat that the shortest and simplest is usually the best so for example if you're someone who knows that it has a problem with the spelling of some of some particular number of some particular numbers when they are written in words for example you have a challenge with spelling thousands or you have a challenge with spelling millions it would be nice for you to avoid writing those things in your exam as you will only be setting yourself up for failure in that instance i would stick to writing out my numbers in figures rather in digits rather than in words knowing what works for you is another significant step towards success in the ielts and you can only arrive at what works for you if you practice on your own moving on proportions proportions are usually divisions of fractions in numerical data they can either be written as fractions or as percentages what do i mean by proportions so for example 50 of something half of something you can either choose to write 50 as a percentage or you can use to write half as a fraction all these are varying ways of expressing numerical data that would boost your score for vocabulary in the academic writing task one remember the way you choose to express yourself is what is assessed in the ielts and not what and not the content of what you're saying so you must choose the easiest and the most appropriate ways of expression so pass across the message that you want to communicate to the examiner who will be marking your script so useful expressions for us for expressing proportion would be slightly over a little over a little under or slightly on them about approximately roughly well over or well under all of these expressions give you variations in um proportion for numerical data and they're very important and there's things that you need to take at least a glance at so that you will be ex you'll be able to extract the ones that work for you and the ones that you will be able to deploy when you get to that examination hall quantifiers are also important when dealing with language of numbers quantifiers usually definitely show as the quantity or depict the quantity of a particular thing be it a liquid solid or even in terms of numbers now for quantifiers there are a lot there are a varying number of quantifiers that you could use but i always advise to err on the side of caution when using quantifiers common quantifiers that you can use will include a large number of several a few a significant a small amount of a significant amount of all of all these are quantifiers that give you an idea of the volume of something that has been described in your visual data four things that you must do for the academic writing task one as follows write a clear introduction write a clear and easy easily accessible and interpretable overview follow the instructions by summarizing the information as the main details in the information report on the main features and finally make comparisons and please as much as possible this is very very key and very very important ensure that you write at least 150 words any attempt to write below 150 words and think what they would be notion that the examiner will not be able to count the number of words will set you up for failure remember the people who assess the the writing script for the ielts are trained examiners who have been doing this job for donkey years for for a large number of years and they have a very easy way or they have ways of knowing of assessing a written piece of work to see if it meets up within what counts that with the number for the number of words that they have prescribed for that task so do not gamble do not leave it to chance by writing 145 words and thinking it's just five words short they wouldn't really know it would look like it it would probably fill up the pages this is not a chance you want to take as the ielts is a place where you do not want to gamble it's a place where you want to go in once write the test and come out successful and i can assure you that if you take your time to watch this video pause this video rewind where you need to and use the tips that have been stated out in this video i can assure you that success in the ielts will be something that you can achieve immediately or instantly another area of the writing section of the writing test in the ielts that we will definitely need to look at will be the area of cohesive devices what are cohesive devices coercive devices are words or are expressions that show the connection or that improve the coherence of your writing coherence and cohesion is the second most important criteria that is used to assess your writing task so this means that your essay as much as you have all the opinions on the thoughts and the ideas there must be connected into a single unit and it must come out as a continuous flow of information that is linked logically cohesive devices play a very important role in your success and you will do well to take a sit and relax and watch this video so that you will be able to get all the tips and strategies that you need to ensure that your success is not um delayed by your lack of knowledge on coercive devices so coercive devices like i mentioned earlier are signposts that link sentences and paragraphs together or signal to the reader what is coming next learn two or three key ones by their functions and you're good for the ielts i'll take that again you need to learn just two or three key ones by their functions and then you're good for the ielts why is this an important thing that i'm mentioning at the beginning of this video for coercive devices over the years i have discovered a lot of ielts test takers spent waste their time trying to cram a large number of coercive devices you would see them looking up lists like a 1 000 um 1000 essential cohesive devices that you can use for the ielts or 100 connective words that you must use in the ielts spending your time studying long lists like this is a waste of time why is this you're only going to write one essay in the ielts one letter in the ielts and one academic report in the ielts what is the essence of learning 100 coercive devices when you're only going to be able to use not more than five to six question devices at any given time in an essay please note that overuse of this coercive devices or connecting devices in an essay or in a letter or in a report will also set you up for failure so what functions do corrective devices perform and why would i give you the tip to lend questions devices by their functions as opposed to learning just a random list of cohesive devices question devices perform the following functions and every time i mention a function i will give you examples of devices or phrases of words that could fall under this particular function your task will now be to pause that video and extract at least two from each function two that you're comfortable with two that if you are walking up from sleep you will be able to remember them and use them effectively this is all that you need to prepare for the ielts remember the ielts is a test of communication another test of intelligence and what you're going to be doing in the test or in the essay or in the letter or in the report that you're writing is not just listing out a list of devices or just putting down a list of words or phrases that do not have any bearing on the message that you want to pass across just because you know them you must use them effectively and deploy them appropriately to perform the function that you want them to perform and what is that function to communicate effectively so we'll start with the different functions of the cohesive devices and i will list out the examples of expressions or phrases or words that fall under each function remember like i told you you need to pick out at least one or two of the ones that work for you and that's enough that you need to know so for adding or for addition or for similar ideas addition simply means that connective devices that are used to connect similar ideas for example furthermore moreover and in addition furthermore moreover and in addition i personally prefer to use connectives that are phrases that involve more than one word why because i feel that this will not only help me meet up my word count it will also give my essay or will give my writing a much more formal sounding tone as opposed to using words like um just single word connectives another function that connects uh perform is to show contrast that's contrasting ideas now for that you have words like however although on the other hand and on the contrary like i said however although on the other hand and on the contrary for giving examples that's connectives that show that indicate examples that show that you want to give an example to a point that you made earlier you want to illustrate a point that you made earlier so you have examples of expressions that follow that this will be for instance for example to illustrate for instance for example and to illustrate uh for connectives that explain results or that show consequence you have connectives like as a result for this reason and consequently as a result for this reason and consequently now for connectives that show sequence that sequencing words this is important for those of us who are writing the academic model that's the writing task for the academic model where we might be um tasked to describe a process that follows a sequence sequence words are very important if you're doing that so you have sequence words like to begin with firstly finally then after next all the sequence words are quite essential if what you are doing is describing a flowchart or describing a process in the writing task one for the academic module moving forward for conclusion for connectives that show conclusions you have to sum it all up finally in conclusion uh a common connective that i've seen for conclusion by a lot of test takers is conclusively and i would advise you to avoid using this because what it means is way different from what you want to actually express in that part when you're using it as the connectives to show your concluding paragraphs i'll advise you to look up what conclusively means and that would be an assignment for you and you will discover that it has you've been using it wrongly if you are one of those who have been using conclusively as the connective for your concluding paragraph please as much as possible when you're introducing your points of view these are not this is another point where you might need to use a conclusion for example if you're writing a if you're writing an essay that tells you to discuss both points of view and give your own opinion or discuss both views and give your own opinion you will definitely need to write a paragraph that your opinion is expressed you could start this paragraph by using the following from my point of view in my opinion personally from where i stand and all of these are expressions that indicate that you are about to express a personal opinion or personal view in an opinion essay as much as possible do not overuse connective words do not overuse cohesive devices in your writing it will not only water down the quality of your writing it will also make you sound repetitive you want to avoid doing this as much as connective words will help you get higher scores it will also might serve as what will make you feel if you use them wrongly or you use them too much another way of connecting of connecting your essay of connecting the thoughts or your different parts of your essay are through using two different techniques that are not usually stated in most textbooks these are referencing and substitution i'll repeat them again referencing and substitution they are also key ways of getting high question marks referencing means referring to expressions or to concepts or to ideas that you've mentioned previously in your writing for referencing you use expressions like this t-h-i-s that these t-h-e-s-e and those they them the former the latter to refer to things that you've mentioned earlier referencing is important if you do not want to keep on repeating certain words like nouns or content words in your essay you could just refer to them because you mentioned them before substitution just means saying the same thing in a different way it helps not to repeat oneself for example as a sentence that which that illustrates substitution is this i suggest that everyone should have a phone tablet internet motive and camera because technology is important nowadays for the mob these devices help to make life easier i'll take that sentence sentence again i suggest that everyone should have a phone a tablet internet modem and a camera because technology is a point is important nowadays furthermore these devices make life much easier the word devices there substitutes internet modem phone camera tablet this is what i mean by substitution in that second sentence which is in addition to what i've said before where i use the word furthermore as a connective device all i needed to do was to substitute all those lists of devices all those types of things that i mentioned with the word devices i see a lot of test takers not do this in the exam and this accounts for a lot of repetitive expressions in the app essay which is something that you must avoid if you want to achieve maximum scores in the writing section of the ielts finally we will move on to the essential grammar for writing what is what is the grammatical what are the grammatical aspects or what are the grammatical elements that are assessed when you are writing in the ielts if you look at the criteria the marking criteria for the eye for the writing section of the ielts you will discover that grammar is the least important grammar is the fourth criteria which which points out that your concern or your major preoccupation should be on structure how well structured is your essay are you communicating effectively before you start bothering yourself about grammar but we cannot just put grammar to the other side we need to still look at it but for the grammar for the grammatical aspect of the ielts i would advise you not to put so much focus on it as it might be a source of distraction for those of you who are non-native users of the language who are just starting their journey in that part towards language competence the most important grammatical elements as follows tense tenses are the significant most common way of making errors for most non-native users of the english language tenses involve how you express time present the past and the future for for it is specific it is clear that in the ielts you're going to be dealing with time you're going to be talking about concepts you're going to be dealing with ideas as they occur in time so you need to use the right tense markers to express those time elements as much as possible you do not want to make too many mistakes with your tenses as you cannot avoid talking about time in your writing which this means that in your introduction your body paragraphs your conclusion there are going to be at least four or five elements of tense markers in every single paragraph if you're someone who is not so solid or who's not so conversant with tenses this means that in every paragraph you're having at least three to four errors and this automatically sets you up for a very low score in the writing section of the ielts another thing another part another grammatical element that you must take note of would be the comparative structures what do i mean by that comparative structures have to do with adjectives comparative um for the positive comparative and the superlative forms of adjective so when you're comparing adjectives you must know how to use the appropriate form for expressing what you want to say the positive form is the base form of the adjective for example the word clever or for example the word beautiful the positive form is beautiful the comparative form is when you are when you want to compare the that particular expression or that particular element or that particular concept which is beauty between two things that is when you use the comparative form and that would be more beautiful landry is more beautiful than aeron now the superlative form is when you're making a comparison between between two or more elements and this at this point you're talking about the highest form of that particular adjective that you are using so that would be most beautiful for example in a sentence that would be language is the most beautiful boy in the class this means that out of all the people in the class landry is the most beautiful or the one that has the element of beauty the most using the correct comparative forms for adjective is another area where a lot of non-native test takers have significant challenges in and it is something that you would do well to take a step back review and try as much as possible to brush yourself up before you write the ielts test another thing another grammatical element that a lot of test takers make mistakes in or that serves as one of the most significant areas of failure is the use of conditionals conditionals are words or as expressions that set up concepts with a particular with an underlying condition so for example you have words like if unless and since these are words that show that modify an expression that modify a sentence to show that what is happening is only possible because of a condition or a pre-existing condition or a condition that must be put in place using conditionals effectively will boost your scores in the ielts but using them the wrong way will might or might serve as a very very easy way of failure in the ielts another grammatical element that you need to be very careful about using will be the modal verbs modal verbs are auxiliary verbs are verbs that assist main verbs in expressing varying degrees of a particular action modal verbs include may might called can should would will all these are elements all these are expressions that we use day in day out in natural conversation in natural communication but for the purpose of the ielts since it's a test you must be intentional about your usage of them and you must be very sure of the very nuances in their meanings when they are used for example the word can expresses capacity or capability while the word may seeks or permission it would be wrong to use the word me for capacity or capability while using the word can for permission know the differences use them well and you will definitely achieve that desired success in the ielts another grammatical element that you must take note of for the ielts is the passive voice versus active voice debacle now the active voice and passive voice are grammatical elements that are most most significant for test takers who are taking the academic model especially in the writing task one for the academic model most times when you're describing visual data or you're talking about static or dynamic data you will be using the passive voice to express yourself so if you're taking the academic model you might want to look up some things about the passive voice as this is something that will be very relevant for your success in the ielts so what are the things that you must do that you must do for your writing task in the ielts i will get to this right after we finish the writing task one for the general training model the general training model has the writing task one being a letter it is one of the easiest tasks that you will encounter in the ielts and i always advise test takers to put as much effort into achieving maximum scores in this part because it is easy to write a letter it is easy to deal with the elements or with the concepts over the ideas that are asked in the questions because for the general training writing task one most of the questions are going to be drawn from con from context that are applicable to all and surgery you're not going to be given things that will be so esoteric or be so strange that you might not be able to come up with ideas for and i see that a lot of people find it easy but they do not put as much seriousness as much focus on it thinking or believing that since the writing task two is the more important part of the writing they should put most of their focus or their power on that this is wrong this is very very wrong if the all writing task is 100 max and writing task 2 carries 70 mask and writing task 1 carries 30 max if you get 28 out of 30 marks in writing task 1 it means that automatically in your writing task 2 all you need to do is to get a 50 or a 60 and you will be able to get a band 9 or a band 8 in the writing for the ielts as opposed to you just doing a shoddy job in the writing task 1 and landing at 15 over 20 while you're putting so much effort in your task 2 which has more areas of errors which is much more prone to mistakes and errors and then landing a 40 or 50 in that part the 50 added to your 15 will only give you 65 and you will definitely be one of those who regret not putting so much focus on your writing task one so what does the general training writing task 1 until you are writing a letter that could be either formal informal or semi-formal you will be asked to do any of the following things you will be asked to either request your information give personal or factual information explain a problem or situation or explain wants and needs or you also will be able you also will be tasked to respond to a request for information any of these things are the things that you might be tasked to do when you are attempting the writing task one in the general training model all of these are easy things and for the writing task one general training model the most important thing that you must focus on are the bullet prompts or the outline prompts that follow the question i mentioned earlier at the beginning of this video that in your writing task one for the general training model you will have a sentence setting up the context for the question and then you will have three to four prompts that are outlined that are outlined with bullets and you must use those problems to structure your letter as everything that you will put in your letter is dependent on the answers that you give to those problems this is the genesis and the revolution for the act for the general training writing task one it is very very easy so what are the significant things that you must do the first thing that you must do for the general training writing task one is to interpret the question just like we said for the academic writing task one interpreting the question adequately or correctly is your first step towards the journey in success the next thing that you will do will be to give it will be to states the purpose why you're writing the letter your introduction must include the purpose of your writing the letter for a lot of test takers they usually prefer to introduce themselves which is not a bad thing but this is not compulsory as the purpose is more compulsory so if i start the letter by saying that hello my name is help dear sub my name is landry a student in your school and i am writing this letter to complain about the defaulting air conditioner in my room simple that is my introduction i have introduced myself and i have stated the purpose of my letter please as much as possible do not ignore this as this is an essential or compulsory element of your letter you must clearly state the purpose while you're writing the letter and you should also introduce yourself your second paragraph will now be a direct response to any of the prompts that has been given in the question ideally you usually have three prompts now each of those prompts can either take an individual paragraph or you could merge two of them into one paragraph and have one as a standalone paragraph whichever way you intend to do it that is your choice but it is something that you should start now by taking out a question paper or by googling a random a sample question for the general training writing task one and trying out your hands on the structure that i have just mentioned for you in the in the question you will be given specific instructions that you do not need to write addresses you do not even need to address the person that you are writing it to by name as you will be given to as you'll be given a suggestion to write either yes sir or dear madam please as much as possible even though the context or the the letter is directed at your friend your best friend your mother and you know that this is an informal letter attempt to use a tone that is formal why is this you're writing a test so there's no point in trying to be too informal or be too relaxed in your letter as this might count against you for your scores so as much as possible avoid using contractions avoid using slangs avoid using expressions that are not appropriate english words that will be used in an official context please as much as possible this is a mistake that i find a lot of non-native test takers that non-native users of the english language make when they are taking the ielts test they assume that since it's an informal letter they can as well as pos they can as much as possible be as relaxed and as be as informal as they want to be this is something that you should definitely avoid for concluding your letter you do not need to write any long paragraph usually one line or one sentence is usually enough to conclude your letter in the general training model i'm looking for thank you for receiving or thank you for receiving my letter and i look forward to your response best regards kind regards thanks easy as abc the the debates between either writing yours faithfully or yours sincerely is one that i would have advised you to avoid if you do not know the difference between the two just go for the easy modern way of salutation when closing your letter by writing best regards this is an easy way that will not set you up for any spelling errors i've seen a lot of people write yours sincerely and they misspell sincerely i've seen a lot of people write yours faithfully and they misspell faithfully i've seen a lot of people use either of these two expressions without following the conventions that go with it i know that for one of them it is used for someone who you're on a first name basis with and the other is used for someone who you do not know personally or you do not have an established relationship with whichever one you choose to use find out the underlying conventions which be behind them and then make sure that you deploy them appropriately so that they would only increase your score or improve the quality of your writing and not reduce your score in the next part of this video we will be dealing with the writing task two and looking at the elements that constitute a good opinion essay before we go to the practical videos that will show you how to use the structure that will be given to you to answer questions in the opinion essay for the ielts

Channel: PrepClass IELTS TV

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Id: bzxenerR1fc

Length: 51min 18sec (3078 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021