E2 IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 | Top Tips for 8+ with Jay!

okey-dokey hello everybody my name is J I'm one of the expert IELTS teachers here at e to language in this live class I'm going to give you eight top tips to score eight plus okay yes I should know how to do this let me tell you a little story the story is this I got stuck on 7.5 in IELTS writing three times before I managed to then get 8.5 on my fourth attempt I could get 9 on reading listening and speaking well not with no problem that was certainly difficult in itself but I got stuck on 7.5 for writing it was incredibly frustrating until I did some research about how the examiners mark you in your I answer what this live class is going to be about is about what you need to do to satisfy the examiners you need to know what they're looking for in your writing ok so let's go through and do that and hopefully will boost your band score significantly before we do that though if you're on YouTube live and you're not a subscriber please click the subscribe button I think as of today we're about 97 thousand we want to reach 100,000 subscribers and click like if you like this video ok so these are these crazy these crazy matrix is what the IELTS examiner's look at when they're marking your writing you can see on the left hand side there the band scores from band 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 and 0 right and so they look at these things they look at four things when they're marking your writing we're going to go through them in this live class and I'm going to give you top tips on each of them okay so the first one's called task achievement let me show you how to get plus 8 or 8 and above in task achievement task achievement in short means that you when you describe your graph you're describing relevant features okay you're describing relevant features that's how you get a high score for task achievement easier said than done let me show you what you need to do so here's the graph I'm going to give you 30 seconds to analyze this graph okay so we want to describe key features the first step is to actually understand what you're looking at and I think that is a step that most people fail to do they start writing before they fully understood this graph so let's break down this graph what you want to do when you're looking at the graph is notice the indicators the legend here so we're talking about men in this left-hand part of the graph we're talking about males in the right-hand part divided by this little line here we're talking about females okay males here females there cool all right now that we know that division let's look at what the gray versus the black is so the black this represents full-time education so this these three a full-time education for males well these three are full-time education for females similarly these are part-time education for males these indicate part-time education for females okay then you want to understand the y-axis so it's number of men and women in further education in thousands two hundred thousand four hundred thousand etc up to a million 1.2 million then you want to go one step further so you've identified the important aspects now you need to well if you're going to describe relevant features of this graph you need to understand what's going on so let's look at males in full-time education so you can see there's a slight increase a consistent increase what about females in full-time education we can see there's a quite a jump here and then it's sort of tapers off what about males in part-time education well it fluctuates what about females in part-time education well it's quite a consistent rise there okay these are the key features and what also you might note is that well personally I think this jump here is significant and I think this jump here is significant and I think the males one is sort of not that interesting so now that we've analyzed this we can start to break it down of course the first thing you want to do is take the graph description that's written for you and you want to rewrite it into your own words so let's read this it says the chart below shows the number of men and women in further education in Britain in three periods and whether they were studying full-time or part-time so here's mine and I want you to read this I'll give you 30 seconds and ask yourself do these two say the exact same thing the answer is yes let's go through it step by step so the original said the chart below shows I said the bar chart illustrates same thing different words the number of men and women in further education in Britain the number of males and females engaged in further education in Britain they said in three periods and whether they were studying full time or part night part time I said it shows whether they were studying full time or part time and it's divided into three periods so these two have been written exactly the same using different words therefore my task achievement whether I'm describing the graph accurately is so far above 1/8 which is a good thing now I'm going to move on and write the rest of it but I have forgotten what the next slide is to do I'm not going to go through this actually I'm just gonna leave that on the screen for a second because what we'll do is we'll read this as we go throughout the presentation ok but if you do want to pause this and read my description these are the three body paragraphs you certainly can but on Tuesday there are two tips for task achievements first tip is this you need to spend at least a minute understanding the graph don't just start writing without understanding the graph break it down piece by piece look at the the details of the graph like the legend the y-axis the titles the subtitles for example then look at the graph in more detail and look at the the trends the UPS the Downs the fluctuations the Rises the the Falls etc and more specifically what you need to do there is you need to find and look for the most noticeable features if something went jumped like that or something drops significantly maybe they're quite similar but maybe there are two main features you will need to describe those two main features in your description number to describe key features only don't describe boring features you just want to describe the key features only cool let's look at the second band or the second criterion that you're greater on scored coherence and cohesion but we're not going to call it that we're going to call it structure and flow so this is the second thing that the IELTS examiner's grade you on and what do you need to do to get eight plus let's look at structure first okay look at structure first then we'll look at flow so the structure will the first paragraph well or it could be a single sentence is the graph description and that's the one I just showed you and that's copied from the original one it needs to say the exact same thing in different words so in effect you're paraphrasing it then you'll have your overview paragraph where you look at those main trends and you look at the key differences between men and women or you look at the key differences between part-time study and full-time study for example and you don't want to go into detail here you don't want to use numbers from the y-axis because in the next paragraph you start to drill deeper and what I did for example is my third paragraph here I talked about full-time education the key features and I describe them with numbers you can start to see the numbers in my paragraphs here here you can see a year that's fine but here you can start to see numbers from the y-axis right now in my fourth paragraph I'll talk about part-time education the key features of part-time education comparing men and women and I'll also again use numbers so again you can see here I've used numbers like 1 million nine hundred thousand eight hundred thousand etc I've also used the years as well ok so that's the structure now is there a set structure should use 300s use three or always use four well it depends on what you're looking at and it depends on the decision that the decisions you make you're analyzing your graph right because you look at it and you say ok there's men there's women there's part-time education there's full-time education and you ask yourself how am I going to divide this up what am I going to do here so the key tip here is on test a plan your structure before you write ok just on the on the on the graph itself on that booklet where you see the graph you can draw up a little plan ok think of your plan before you write because if you start writing before you have planned you will end in disaster well it's not going to be too bad but you want to take this test once and once only so let's look at the second part here which is flow okay so we've looked at structure let's look at flow structure means structure means the overall structure like how many paragraphs etc the sort of introductory paragraph the body paragraphs no conclusion by the way you're not concluding and I think you conclude in an essay this is a description only so no conclusions floor means how within those paragraphs the sentences are connected and how the ideas join and connect and flow from one to the next ok so let's look at this because you're also graded on this so here you can see the subject the bar chart and then you can see the pronoun it now in the IELTS they look at your ability to use pronouns to change a noun phrase into a pronoun for example males and females become they okay so that's one part of flow changing nouns to pronouns that's pretty straightforward ok here we've done it again we've talked about the number of men and women and then we've used those all those studying full-time in other words men and women ok here we start to make complex sentences using while there was especially in when this is just these are rather examples of how you use words to create flow within the sentence so the sentence isn't going it's going [Music] that's what you want to do let's look at some other way I know that's not a very technical explanation but trust me you probably don't want a technical explanation with regards to male students Dada for women rising sharply and then so you can see how I'm creating flow by using various words in here the number of males fluctuated dropping from two women increased from two in so let's look at these green ones here because these are prepositions so from - from - in year you can start to see how that how that that flow is being created by the use of prepositions here you can also see that this whole paragraph is in fact one single sentence being coordinated by this word meanwhile so it's like a seesaw I don't know if when your kid used to go on the seesaw right you'd have the two people here sorry that person looks a bit weird so does this one but you have the seesaw and this word here is acting like the fulcrum of the seesaw it's balancing that sentence out so that's the sort of thing that you want to do so on Tuesday tip number four is to consider your sentence before you write it the problem with handwriting so if you're taking the paper-based IELTS is there's no backspace key and there's also no Mouse we can insert something so the way to get around this is to think of your sentence before you write it again don't just start writing and go oh that doesn't make sense that's a terrible sentence that it's really clunky so what you need to do is go okay to say the sentence in your mind okay the number of males in part-time study flood tweeted over the period while the number of females remained steady ok great got it then you write it down okay so again tip number four is to consider your sentence before you write it to make sure your flow is good let's look at the third criterion this is a third thing that the IELTS examiner's look at while they're marking your writing okay they have this matrix in front of them lexical resource just means a vocabulary so let's look at the top tips to get eight plus but what we're going to do in fact is break it down into two parts because there's vocabulary range and there's vocabulary precision so they look at two aspects of the way you use words let's look at range first so there are a number of problems with this description let me point them out to you this would get you like a in IELTS 5 or possibly even at an IELTS for the bar chart the bar chart the bar chart the number of males and females the males and females the number of males and females males and females male goggle you can see that being repeated numerous times look in the first paragraph look at the verbs shows shows look in the second paragraph outnumbered outnumbered and look at the rest of these verbs increased increased increased increased increased so on test day if you're repeating a word you need to think of a synonym ok so that refers to range that's the breadth or how many words in English you know so you want to show off a little bit you want to use a range of different verbs so synonyms ok so for example if you had the verb shows the graph shows well the graph illustrates is a nice way to do that or you could even say the graph depicts ok but here's where you need to be careful and that leads us on to the next part which is precision so here's how you can ape for precision let me read you this unbelievably confusing yet very common piece of writing or a piece of writing that people do this all the time the bar chart elucidates the sheer number of men and females seized in further education in Britain it shows whether they were scholarly full-time or part-time and it's divided into three epochs does that sound impressive to you does that sound good does that sound precise to me that is what is technically known as gobbledygook that's what Turkey's that's what they took you say it doesn't make any sense okay the beautiful words elucidate scholarly epochs but they're used incorrectly they used imprecisely so there's a little key here Oh before I do that this is what the difference is here we have a horse right this is a horse and a horse has short ears small round eyes of a long face right here we have a donkey don't he has long ears darkened at the edges wide eyes in a short face and here we have a mule mule has wide eyes a long face in a large muzzle when you are using words incorrectly so instead of saying time periods for example and you write epochs well in this context it's it's it's it's like mistaking a horse from a donkey or a donkey from a mule okay so you need to be careful with the words you choose because the words have specific meanings and you want to make sure that you're precise with what you say because the IELTS examiner and doesn't matter how beautiful and fancy that word is if its imprecise you'll be marked down so the key to this one is on test day only use words you know are 100% precise okay in other words don't use words you don't know completely cool bananas let's look at the last criterion that the IELTS Examiners mark you on it's called grammatical range and accuracy and again it has two parts so it's about grammar this time but there are two parts and this is the one that used to get me this is the one that I think brought down my mark 27.5 that's why I got stuck because my grandma is well I I won't take perfect because it is possible that to make little mistakes here and there but pretty good I really understand grammar and I like grammar and I'm very confident in the way that I write etc that's accuracy that's not range range is just as critically almost more important than accuracy okay range again refers to the variety of sentence structures that you can create okay so let's look at some bad examples of grammatical range the bar chart shows the number of males and females studying in Britain the bar chart also illustrates where the males and females for studying full-time or part-time the bar chart finally depicts three periods there are more men studying part-time than women there are there are da da da the number of men increased the number of women decreased the number of people fluctuated so basically here I've used three sentence types I've used a simple prison verb shows illustrates and depicts okay so I've just used a simple prison here I've used there are there are there are three times and then I've used the number increased the number decreased the number fluctuated with a past tense verb okay so I'm not don't get me wrong it's not about using as many different verb types as you possibly can because you have to use the right verb at the right time it's not so much about verb types it's about sentence structures okay so really you can think about it grammatical range as are you just writing simple sentences you know the cat ate the dog are you just writing compound sentences the cat ate the dog and and the cat and the dog the cat ate the dog all right that's weird usually doesn't happen the cat ate the dog and the cat ate the mouse that's a compound sentence or what you need to do sorry forgive my crazy examples there what you need to do is you need to use here's the technical term subordinate clauses because you will get stuck on banned for if you use a limited range of subordinate clauses see what happens here is native speakers will take the IELTS test and they'll have perfect grammar fabulous vocabulary range they can structure up the essay beautifully with coherent sets structure and flow etc but they'll just be writing in simple or compound sentences and the maximum grammar score you can get even if it's a hundred percent accurate is for the reason why the IELTS do this is they want you to show that you have the ability to write a range of different sentence types okay so what I mean by that is yes you need to write complex sentences using subordination which I'll show you in a second you should probably try to slip a question sentence in there you should use modal verbs must might could etc you could even put in a conditional sentence like if if the students had returned to school early then the teacher would not have been angry okay you've got to train all of those sentence types that you've probably learned in high school you need to try and include a range of them so when you're writing that sentence think how can I turn this into a more interesting sentence type okay it's a bit of a trick to that one here's the trick if you do not use these words you cannot get more than four for grammar and what I mean by these words is the way that you use them in a sentence let's take the word although this is a good example of a subordinate sentence or subordinate clause okay so when we do this we do it like this you know these sentences that are like although comma duh that's called subordination because it's effectively two parts and it's balancing using that although or you can say Dada Dada Dada Dada or Dada Dada Dada so the one that you use most in the academic writing task 1 is while because you can say something like the number of men studying part-time increased while the number of women decreased ok so that's a common one but again you don't want to overuse it so another one that I like is meanwhile that's that's a nice way to create a certainly a coordinated sentence meanwhile while but have a look at these and pause the video and try and write some sentences that use these words because these are the words that create subordinate clauses and subordinate clauses are the types of sentences that raise your grammar score up to 8 and above I'm sorry it's so complex here's mine so I've got the word whether while when and meanwhile so I've used for well in fact I've used a number of complex sentences but these ones are distinctly subordinate types of sentences there but you need to practice them it's a good idea go back into that part of the video of that list and just start practicing writing those two part think of them as two-part sentences where that although or that while or that whereas or that even though sort of balances the two parts of the sentence the word can come at the beginning or in the middle okay so practice writing a few of those because without them you not going to get past seven point five okay grammatical accuracy we've talked about a range of course it needs to be accurate as well so here's the very important tip for that one before test day if you haven't already sign up to e to language comm because we can give you feedback on your writing and you can take one-on-one tutorials on which is a program like Skype with IELTS experts okay they are well X IELTS examiner's so they certainly know what's going on okay and that's the website you should go to and on test day here's the last tip because we've finished all of the criteria make sure you write more than a hundred and fifty words because if you do not exceed a hundred and fifty words your score will immediately decrease by possibly one to one point five bands okay in other words don't write a hundred and forty nine words this one for example is a hundred and sixty-eight words that's it cool if you have any questions by the way if you're watching this on YouTube live and you have any questions about what our packages are or what the website is you've got to help each leg wage that's a g.com help e to language calm and send a ticket and we'll answer any of the questions you have about the IELTS and what not anyway that's all i just wanted to give you those eight tips I think I missed one but anyway hold on I think there's another one uh I think there was tip number nine which was oh yeah oh yeah use complex sentences okay let's go through this I'm sorry I have to edit this right now in front of you these are I've just decided it's nine tips I think I need to make this nine tips nine tips okay let's go through those nine tips one more time here we go so before test a sign up to e to language comm good idea on Tuesday spend a minute understanding the graph don't just start writing and three describe key features only okay don't describe boring features describe key features only plan your structure before you write think about your paragraphing structure you know what the introductory paragraphs going to be you just rewrite the task I'll sorry the graph description then in the second paragraph you write the overview paragraph but in the third and fourth and possibly even fifth it depends you need to think about how you will divide up your description into meaningful logical paragraphs number five you need to consider your sentence before you write it to make sure that it flows nicely and if you're repeating a word you need to think of a synonym right you don't want the same repetition of words you can think of a synonym but if you can't think of a synonym because there's only one word for that particular word for example the word children I mean there's kids but you don't to say that cuz it's informal so children really is the only word for children young adults is not again its imprecise that's a donkey versus a mule you don't want to do that so make sure it's precise so only use words that you know a hundred percent number eight use complex sentences as much as possible using those words I showed you and number nine because now the sudden we've got nine tips nine tips make sure you write more than 150 words they are my friends the nine key tips to getting a good score in the IELTS if you do all of those then you should be well on your way cool bananas let me answer some questions and I'll start with the zoom people okay

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Id: qywjKFDMhcM

Length: 30min 13sec (1813 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2018