Hello, everybody, my name is Jay, I'm one of the
expert IELTS teachers here at E2Language, what we're going to do is not write an essay, instead,
we're going to look at some top tips. One tip in particular, which I'm afraid to say will come
right at the end of this presentation. But I need to take you through this presentation so that that
tip at the end really makes sense to you. And so, you fully utilize it to your benefit. So, what
we're going to do specifically is look at real tips for how to score an eight plus in writing
task two. Okay. Let me first tell you my little experience maybe you've heard this before,
maybe you haven't. I'm an English teacher, obviously, I'm a native English speaker,
I had to take the IELTS four times, before I got a decent score in writing, I could
get nines in reading, listening and speaking, not no problem was still challenging. But
writing I got stuck on 7.5 three times. And so, I did some investigation into why it is that I
got stuck and why so many people get stuck at sort of 6.5 to 7. And it turns out that there are
certain ways that you need to write your essay in order to boost your score. So, one of those ways
is looking at grammar. And that's what we're going to look at here. These ugly looking things are
what the examiners use to mark your writing. And there's one here which focuses on two things,
grammatical range, and grammatical accuracy. Okay, these two things are key for boosting your score.
The first one grammatical range means variety of sentence types. Okay, you need to use a variety of
different sentence types to boost your score and grammatical accuracy. Well, it means grammatical
accuracy that your sentences are correct and accurate. And there is s on the end of plural
nouns, and you use articles properly and your verb tenses are straight, etc. Have a look at these two
paragraphs. These two paragraphs have perfectly accurate grammar. Okay, so I mentioned that you
wrote these two paragraphs, and everything you wrote was just 100% accurate. However, there's a
big problem here. And that problem is range. These sentences are all simple sentences, or compound
sentences. There are no complex sentences. There are no modal verbs. There are no question
sentences, there are no conditionals. They're all just simple sentences. So, what score Do you think
you would get for grammar? You would get a four. Because here in the criteria, what the examiners
look at, it says, rare use of subordinate clause, I'm going to show you what a subordinate clause
is in a minute. But the maximum score you can get the maximum score you can get if you do not use
a variety of sentence structures is four. Okay, so even if your accuracy is nine, but your range
is four your score for grammar will be four. That's the highest you can possibly get. So, let's
say then, let's say you wrote perfectly on task, and you answered the essay question, and the
examiner gave you an eight for that part. And the way that you structured the essay and
structured your paragraphs, the examiner gave you an eight for that part. And your vocabulary
was excellent. It was very wide ranging. So, the examiner gave you an eight for that part.
But the examiner gave you a four for grammar, because your range was limited. In that case,
the average for your total writing band score would be seven, because the four brings it down to
seven. And let's say the same thing happened here, you got seven for tasks seven for structure, seven
for vocab and four for grammar. The maximum score you can get for writing then because of the
grammar score is six, right. So, the super tip is this, you need to use a wide variety of
sentence types in your essay. And if you don't, the same thing will happen to you that happened
to me and your mark will get stuck on something poor. Okay. So, what we're going to do in this
lesson is we're going to look at different sentence types. I'm going to show you seven,
seven. I can't remember six or seven different sentence types. But we're specifically
going to focus in on complex sentences, and a particular type of complex sentence called a
subordinate clause. Don't worry, it sounds crazy, but it's pretty easy. You probably already
know it. So, let's have a look. So, in fact, I want to show you six different sentence types.
First of all, let's start with simple sentences. These are obviously quite straightforward. So,
a simple sentence has one idea. Let's use the question prompts Let's say the question prompt
said something about the government should tax sugary drinks. That's your writing task two essay
prompt or part of it. So here are three simple sentences. This is 1, 2, 3. Sugar makes people
unhealthy. Okay, it's got it's got a subject, it's got a verb, and it's got an object here,
or people gain weight from sugar. Okay, again, subject verb object, sugar harms people's teeth.
These three are examples of simple sentences, you should definitely include simple sentences
in your essay, but again, it's about variety. So, let's look at compound sentences. compound
sentences are when you have one idea plus another idea. For example, let's say the question prompt,
again, is government should attack sugary drinks, you say sugar makes people unhealthy, and it harms
their teeth. So here, we're using a conjunction like; and, for yet, but, so, or, or nor, there's a
few different conjunctions or different ways that you can create a compound sentence. Fine. These
ones are the critical ones, you need to include what I'm about to show you into your essay. And
I suggest you include at least five, at least five of these complex sentences using these words.
These are the words that the IELTS examiners look for. These are the sentence types that create
subordination, which I'll show you in a second; after, although, as, because, before, even if,
even though, if, in order that, once, provided that, rather than, since, so that, then, that,
though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, whereas, who, whether, while, and which. Okay,
so let's have a look at some examples here. So, what a complex sentence does, it coordinates
two or more ideas into a single sentence. So, the prompt is the government should tax
sugary drinks, my complex sentence using the connector while is this. While some people will
support the tax, others will be against it. So, let's remove this and let's have a look at let's
say it just said some people will support the tax full stop. Others will be against it. So here
I've got two simple sentences. But if I use one of these subordinate clause type words, like while
I can create a complex sentence, okay, and these are the sentences that make you win in IELTS
writing. So, what I did on my fourth attempt, after I investigated and did all this homework
and realize what was going on, and actually had a meeting with the IELTS, people. When I wrote
my fourth attempt, I thought, okay, usually when I write essays or emails, or whatever, I
like to write short, simple sentences, because I believe that they're clearer. But that's not
what you should do in the IELTS, you need to use a variety as I said, so what I did on the fourth
attempt was, I use a whole variety of different sentence types. I use complex ones and compound
ones and simple ones, I even put questions in made sure they were passive. I use modal verbs,
that dah, dah, dah, dah, but I made sure that I had at least five of these complex structures. Now
I want you to try to write a few. Okay. I'm going to give you two minutes to write three complex
sentences. The prompt is the government should tax sugary drinks. So your complex sentence will
go although dot dot dot dot dot comma dot dot, dot, dot, dot full stop, or dah dah dah dah, dah,
so that da da da, da, da, because dah dah dah dah, dah dah dah, dah, dah. So, try to fill these gaps
with some information from the prompt. You have two minutes to write three complex sentences to
increase your IELTS band score. Starting now. Okay, maybe you need more time. Seeing people
sort of still on the first type of sentence. Let me push on. What I want you to do, if you
haven't finished, I want you to pause the video, go back and finish those three sentences. Okay.
I'm going to show you mine. But if you haven't finished, please go back and do that. Now. Let
me show you mine. Okay, here are my examples, although people will benefit companies will
suffer. Again, let's look at this because what's going on? Let's say we get rid of this.
And we've said people will benefit. Companies will suffer two simple sentences. Or I can make
a complex sentence using this powerful word here. What about so that the government should tax
sodas so that the public becomes healthier. Okay, again, I've got two simple sentences, but I've
created a complex sentence using so that . What about number three, using the word because at
the beginning of the sentence, because people are becoming more obese, the government should
tax sugary drinks. There you go. It's actually I shouldn't say it's not that hard. It's hard
to get these accurate and you definitely need to practice them. Because as I said, without them
four is the maximum score you can get in grammar, okay. I seriously mean that you can double check
the criteria if you want. They're extraordinarily important sentence types. So, the big take home
message is this you need to use complex sentences in your writing task. One and two, by the way,
use it in both of your writing tasks. Let's have a quick look at the other sentence types before
we finish, so passive sentences. So, the prompt again, the government should tax sugary drinks.
Well, a passive sentence is when you reverse the order of the subject and the object. For example,
here's the active sentence. Food scientists know that sugary drinks are addictive. Let's say
we want to reverse this order. And we don't want to talk about food scientists we can say
sugary drinks are known to be addictive. Okay, so I've created a passive form from the active
form there. So passive sentences are also important in your writing to show variety. Let's
have a look at a question sentence. But what is sugar tax really work? My suggestion here is to
use one question in your essay. I think they work really well if they're placed properly, okay.
They can work really well if I put one in my last one where I got the 8.5. And I think I put
it in the introduction. But it was just a short, simple sentence as a question type. And it just
created a nice sort of narrative voice for the essay. And it just added to my variety. So do
think about putting perhaps one question into your essay there because it can work well. The
last one is conditional sent. Last one is our conditional sentences. These are somewhat complex.
These are conditional sentences or sentences that start with if; if sentences. So, if the government
had text sugary drinks earlier, then we would not have an obesity issue now. So how do you strike a
balance, between grammatical range and grammatical accuracy? Because perhaps if you're attempting
to use a wider variety of sentence types, your accuracy will go down. Or maybe if you're
trying to be very accurate, your grammatical range will go down. So how do you strike that balance
between variety and accuracy? That's a critical question. The question is, do you need to strike a
balance? Here's the thing, if you do not attempt, if there is rare use of subordinate clauses, in
other words, you rarely use complex structures, then you will get a four. Okay. But if you attempt
complex sentences, even if they're less accurate, remember, this is the same thing that the IELTS
examiners are looking at the end when they're marking your writing, you can get a five. Of
course, if you're even if let's say you're a native English speaker, so your accuracy is
nine, you should definitely try to attempt a wide variety of different sentence structures, because
then we'll just boost your score. But even if your English is quite poor, and you're worried about
accuracy, at least try to use a wide variety. So, the takeaway message, the key point that I wanted
to talk about right at the beginning, which I led you through is. Variety, sentence variety is
more important than sentence accuracy. So, on test day, you should attempt to use a wide
variety of sentence types, including the six that I showed you, in this live class. And even
if the accuracy is not 100%, doesn't matter, it will increase your chances of scoring better than
if you are conservative, and just attempt simple structures. That my friend is the end of that
presentation. If you need help with your IELTS in any way speaking, listening, reading writing,
check out E2Language.com sign up for free. And you may want to think about upgrading your account
for one-on-one tutorials, writing feedback, lots of practice questions, sample essays,
overview lessons, methodology lessons like this one that take you through everything the course
can last Well, there's a lot of material, it can last about three to six months, if you want to do
it slowly, or you can blast through it in about a week to get the main stuff there. So do check
out that website. If you have any questions, do check out this one here. Go to help.E2Language.com
help.E2Language.com. So, it's the same as this but help.E2Language.com ask your question. We'll get
back to you with an answer. Okay, cool bananas.
