IELTS Live - Task 1 Writing - Diagram Skills for a Band 9 Essay

and welcome to today's live ielts class my name is adrian and i'm streaming to you from beautiful victoria here on the west coast of canada i hope everybody has had a great week and is looking forward to a fantastic weekend welcome members hi jaspal hi janil welcome kyber in this class everyone we are looking at a task one writing for the academic ielts exam specifically we will be looking at a diagram and discussing how to approach that band 9 mark while we wait for some of your peers this class is brought to you by ae help.com for academic ielts success visit us there for the general ielts check us out at g ieltshelp.com that's general alex help dot com on both of those websites we have lots and lots of materials to help you improve and get better band scores for task one general ielts letter writing check out the videos at glthelp.com i'll show you real quick what these websites look like this is our academic alts website here with the blue background you can click the big red button to join our premium package there and uh i'll give you a discount code for the day it's r for t y j you'll get a 20 discount off of that premium package it doesn't cost very much worth the investment we are an official ielts registration center and certified agents this is our general ielts website here with the green background you can click that big red button there to join the general ielts web portal to get lots of help with that version of the exam of course we have our own native apps general ielts help links to gltshelp.com and academic islets help links to ae help.com so get those apps from your app stores and follow us on instagram ielts underscore a help and gl's help together with all of these resources you will be joining one of the most advanced online ielts courses in existence today hi rashika angelo honey good to see more members joining in if anybody has questions just send me an email adrian aehelp.com we've got a team of professionals to help answer your questions and after today's task one right now uh we will also have a task two class uh where we will finish a band 9 essay good morning june in calgary okay you're a little bit ahead but it's quite early for you still as well june so good on you for waking up early for your studies okay everyone so let's take a look at today's ielts task one writing question okay uh here we go everyone so you get to the writing module of your ielts exam and start with task one task one is an expository essay your goal is to explain interpret the information that you see in the chart or diagram don't give your own opinion and as long as you know what you're doing it should go fairly smoothly okay it's really important that you learn how to understand and explain information for diagrams and charts you should spend 20 minutes on this task let's read this task for the day the diagram shows the steps needed in making dried cocoa powder needed for the manufacturing of chocolate ooh a yummy topic for the day describe the main features and make comparisons were relevant so main features and making comparisons and write at least 150 words 150 words is the absolute minimum they will count your words if you write less than 150 words it will be not considered a fully complete task and you will lose at least half a band score for that of course uh band 8 band 9 essays often are longer they're closer to 200 220 words okay all right so um let's uh take a look now at the diagram before we go any further there it is that's our diagram for the day okay so when you have a diagram like this what type of a diagram is this uh members um that's kind of strange that you cannot see me but you can hear me uh that's a new issue yeah i can see that the screen is fixed which is kind of bizarre uh let me see if i can try to fix that somehow what could be called you can hear me but you can't see any movement on the screen is that right okay um yeah all right okay so let me try to restart this stream just a second because things are moving on my side but i can see that it's not moving on the screen okay what's going on there hmm okay uh yeah that's an unusual glitch in the system let me just try to see what i can do okay just a moment um still nothing the screen's frozen okay uh it looks like it might be something with the youtube stream connection just a second all right uh the screen switch there let's see if we get something a little bit different now just give me a moment and we will check this out all right okay uh yeah janelle it's definitely on this side it's something in the stream okay uh you can see me now right good good good all right okay so uh let's get back to the question then because i guess you couldn't see the question when we read that so just give me a moment okay i'm glad that it's fixed now yeah that was something with the streaming software okay um okay so let's go through the question again glad we got that fixed by the look of things um let me just do one more quick fix here and then we'll get going yeah live classes are a little bit more challenging for sure okay all right so everything's good yeah you can see me i can see movement now okay good all right a lot of parts a lot of parts okay let's do this so okay let's read the question again no worries we'll get right into it so the diagram shows the steps in making dried cocoa powder needed for the manufacturing of chocolate describe the main features and make comparisons were relevant okay so still on this delicious topic of cocoa and chocolate okay let's take a look at the diagram so a question what type of diagram is this so how do you call this kind of diagram okay what's the name of it how would you call this i can make this a little bit bigger while you give me the answer as well okay there yeah gineal very good it's a process it's not really a flow chart june it's different flowcharts are a little bit different this is a process diagram it's showing the process of manufacturing dried cocoa okay so here we're looking at the diagram and our goal here is to gather some information so that we can write the introduction and the overview accurately with lots of details okay so step one when you are writing your essay is to paraphrase the question and give more details okay using the diagram in this case okay uh so let's do that now and then we will compare our paraphrasing to get some vocabulary and some good ideas on this okay so uh rewrite this statement in your own words and use this information here to give some more details so for example where it says it describes the steps in making cocoa we can count the number of steps so here we have the fermentation stage okay so that's one and then we have the drawing which is uh two and then we have weighing and checking for quality which is three and then we have export which is four so we can clearly say that there are four stages to the making of dried cocoa and now we also know that it is a process diagram so we can include that information so this process diagram shows four distinct stages in the and then here uh we have making dried cocoa powder uh so instead of making we can use the word producing or manufacturing okay go ahead members and write your own paraphrasing i'm just giving you one version there's definitely more ways that you could do this so stages in the creation of dried cocoa powder that is needed to produce uh chocolate okay kyber writes the given process diagram illustrates the required four stages in making dried cocoa powder for producing chocolate okay kyber good a little bit of correction there angelo says the process diagram illustrates the four stages taken in the manufacturing of dried cocoa uh that are needed for the production of chocolate yeah angela is good just be careful with that word beans um the beans are only a part in the process so yeah okay very good all right pre-t writes the process diagram shows four stages of making chocolate from dried cocoa powder not from dried cocoa powder pre-t so we're not actually making chocolate here chocolate would be what comes next here all we're doing is we are making uh dried cocoa powder uh from the uh actual uh cocoa plant or the cocoa uh flowers cocoa pods we can say okay so it's not quite chocolate yet amanda says the process diagram shows producing dried cocoa powder which includes four stages yeah very good okay all right good so we have our paraphrase we have the introduction now we want to discuss the main features and what are the main features here so this would be considered your overview okay so the first part that we wrote that's your introduction and now you have another very short paragraph it's the overview and the overview are the main features that you can see in the diagram okay so in this case uh what are the main features so what can we see in the diagram what is needed to produce this dried cocoa okay all right so obviously we need the raw materials which is the ripe pod okay so we need that and then um we have the uh banana leaves here and six days of in the sun and then we have a table here with some raised mats where there's 10 to 20 more days and then we have the saks here and we have a local agent some money that's paid to farmers and then a truck that's taking these sacks to port so what can we say about the main features when you look at a process diagram like this and you're thinking about the main features a good way to think about it is what is needed for this process so what are the key elements that are required for from start to finish okay so try to think about that okay in this case so what are the key elements needed um from start to finish uh for this process okay that's what you should be thinking about okay janil says uh the several processes fermentation drying and weighing um yeah okay um kyber says cocoa powder comes from beans from a plant yeah so there's definitely a plant that's needed in the process okay what else is needed so so what does it need okay so pretty says it needs sunlight good yeah okay what else so the process needs the fruit of the cocoa plant right so that's where we get the beans from are those big pods that's the fruit of the cocoa plant very good honey yeah manpower okay so you need people to pick um the fruit of the cocoa plant absolutely um to put the beans out to dry on the sun so you need manpower you need labor yeah so if the production of dried cocoa powder needs fruit of the cocoa plant human labor okay somebody already said the sunlight time sunlight and some equipment okay so that's kind of the main feature that's the overview of this process the requirements needed to get from the start to the finish does everybody see that now so when you look at this diagram you can see that uh well you need the plant um obviously we don't have people here but uh we wouldn't be able to get them on the dried banana leaves and the raised mats and into the bags and the local agent would be a person so that's a good hint okay and then uh of course you need some machinery like a truck you need the tables the equipment and then here these are good pieces of information six days in the sun 10 to 20 days so you need time right it doesn't happen from one moment uh to the next janil says yes kyber says that's clear okay uh so let's review what we have so far make sure that we're on the right track and then we can get into the analyses so the process diagram shows four distinct stages in the creation of dried cocoa powder that is needed to produce chocolate when looking at the overall process from start to finish it becomes clear that the production of dried cocoa powder needs the fruit of the cocoa plant human labor time sunlight and some equipment okay all right that looks good everybody's on board so far hopefully and now we go into the analysis and the good news with process diagrams like this especially ones that have a very clear start to finish is the analyses are quite let's say easy at least the thinking or the logic is easy because you simply just go from start to finish okay so in a process diagram where you have a distinct beginning and end your analyses are clear simply go from start to finish what's most important is that you use good connectives to connect those steps or stages in the process okay so importantly make sure to use good connectives to join together the steps there's a really cool series that used to be on discovery channel i think it was discovery channel um and now you can find uh these uh episodes on youtube uh it's called the how's it made series it's a professional series made i don't know somewhere in hollywood or something uh it's called how's it made so here's a little gem for the day a little bit of a a tidbit and these are really great to watch for your english to improve your expository style communication okay so check this out when you have some time one of my favorites is actually pencil they are in the steedler factory okay um so google this series it's professionally done like i say and it's really great it's really great to practice your english and one uh exercise that you can do when you google this series is to write down what the narrator is saying okay so they have beautiful ways of connecting ideas has anybody seen this okay uh kyber says yes i've watched it janil says yeah i watched it that's great and did you guys like it janel kyber did you like the how's it made i i think it's a fantastic series so yeah definitely check that out how's it made chocolates baseball bats trumpets pencils really fascinating to see that process okay so the analyses here is quite simple like i say you go from start to finish so let's do this together now right so here we go we have this big arrow and we have the fermentation stage it is clearly the first stage in the process and you have the ripe pods within the ripe pods you have the beans and the pulp okay now obviously the beans and the pulp are dried on banana leaves uh for six days in the sun okay so it looks like here the entire pod is being dried it doesn't look like it the beans are actually separated from the pulp as where in the next process it looks like that's what probably happens okay so let's discuss this very very first stage okay use your vocabulary write that first stage and then we'll compare okay all right all right so uh here we go what i'm doing is uh discussing this first stage the fermentation stage and i'm this is where i'm using firstly okay uh firstly secondly thirdly uh fourth fifth sixth finally these are great words for leading expressions in process diagrams they're not as good for task two persuasive essays okay students so that's a hint when you're writing your task 2 essay don't use firstly or secondly in argumentative essays firstly and secondly they're not as effective they're better used in process diagrams does everybody have that that's clear okay especially if you have a process diagram like this don't use firstly in both your task one and your task two because you're restricting your lexical resource mark okay so is that clear that's an important note i've seen uh students often make that mistake where they're just using firstly secondly uh without really having a clear purpose for that okay pretty says yeah okay got it it's good pre-t yeah so here using firstly is very very effective okay all right otherwise not so much so firstly secondly it's very good for a process essay or a process diagram like this okay all right honey says it's clear okay so then notice how i use the comma here and here and to add in the actual stage so firstly comma in the fermentation stage comma the ripe cocoa pods are picked and then split in half okay now um what is the grammar of this sentence here so the ripe cocoa pods are picked and then split in half uh what grammar am i using okay i'm going to make a few notes while you tell me the answer to that question so using firstly secondly thirdly fourth finally are very effective for process essays but not for task to persuasive essays okay also note yeah very good june so june says it's passive amanda says it's passive absolutely so when you have a process essay like this one uh you will often use the passive voice so students ask me frequently like when should i use passive in the ielts well one of the most common places where you will use the passive grammar is in a process essay where we know that certain people are doing the action but we don't know the agent of the action so we don't know who is actually doing that okay so it's passive so note the passive grammar is often used in a process essay so if you're not accurate or if you're not familiar with using the passive in english you could be in trouble in this type of an essay okay so the passive grammar is often used in process essays as we either do not know or do not mention the agent of the action so we don't really know who's picking uh these cocoa pods right okay kyber says by analyzing the creation process of cocoa powder the fermentation stage shows that ripe pod pods beans and pulp are picked and splitted in half okay um yeah kyber a little bit confusing so the right pods contain the beans and the pulp they're not three unique elements so make sure that you write that a little bit better okay called deep writes firstly secondly thirdly in the first stage second stage um yeah absolutely so those are good uh connectives to use in the process essay rashika writes the first stage of the process is fermentation in this stage use of ripe pod and convert it to pulp and beans these dry six days in the sunlight rashika you have quite a few grammatical mistakes there you need to rewrite that also um don't repeat yourself rashika so when you write the first stage don't write in this stage it's redundant okay you want to avoid that june writes the process starts with the fermentation stage when the ripe pods are picked from the cocoa plants uh june don't start a sentence with and okay that's usually a technical mistake in writing starting a sentence with and or but so most of the coordinating conjunctions and but uh are not or are not used to start sentences so the better way jun would be writing afterwards the beans are separated from the pulp and dried on banana leaves for six days in the sun during which time the beans turn from brown to purple or turn brown from purple yeah i would write turn from purple to brown okay it's a little bit clearer june if you write it that way all right um good so again uh firstly in the fermentation stage the ripe cocoa pow pods are picked and then split in half at this point the pods which contain both the beans and the pulp notice this sentence here at this point it's again a good leading expression in a process diagram when you use at this point it allows you to stop that part of the process and observe it in more detail okay so at this point comma the pods this is an additive clause so i'm adding information using the adverbial witch here which contain both the beans and the pulp so i have commas on both sides here okay because you could take this out and it would still make sense so i could read this as at this point the pods are put onto large banana leaves uh for six days of drying okay but i want to add this information because for me it looks like in this diagram that at this stage the beans and the pods are still together maybe i'm wrong but i can't see that in the diagram okay so and then june has a really um good point uh the beans uh turn from purple to brown now this part of the process uh is actually showing the transitional stage from the uh banana leaves onto these raised drying mats okay uh what can we infer so why do you think that the drying mats are raised so what's the logic there now again in task one you don't want to give your own opinion but you can infer information so logical information why would why would these mats be raised again remember students academic ielts is also testing your thinking and your knowledge your critical thinking it's not just testing your vocabulary okay so here uh these beans now are raised and they're dried for 10 to 20 days why why do you think that is okay so angelo writes firstly raw cocoa beans are split it's not the cocoa beans angelo that are split it's the cocoa pods that are split in half and both the beans and the pulp are put on banana leaves okay it's a little bit confusing angelo careful with your content okay does everybody see the diagram clearly i'll do a little bit of a zoom in here so that you have further clarity there you go so it's a little bit bigger now for you okay all right so let me write this stage so secondly once the beans have turned from a purple to brown they are placed on sheets that are on raised tables to allow for air circulation for 10 to 20 days of drying okay all right so here we have the drying process okay and uh again we have raised mats so another way to say mats or sheets okay but i might rewrite that okay and notice the inference the inference is that it's probably on these raised tables because you want air to circulate around these beans to help them dry a little bit more okay a little bit more consistently and again that's not adding my own information that's kind of logical right so if you're familiar with how to dry fruits or the drying process of just about anything even your clothes right you don't put wet clothes on the ground because they don't dry so to dry your clothes you need air circulation okay all right so now let me just read this to make sure it makes sense so here i wrote in the seconds or sorry secondly once the beans have turned from purple to brown they are placed on sheets that are on raised tables to allow for air circulation for 10 to 20 days of drying okay that looks good all right yeah to remove humidity very good uh honey so that's what you want to include so honey that's a great idea to remove humidity yeah and that's the reason so very nice okay honey you want to include that into your essay when you put those words in your essay honey you're going to be picking up band scores for sure okay janeille writes after that when the purple beans turn brown they are put on sheets for a further drying process that lasts around 10 to 20 days okay daniel not bad i had to add a few words and remove a couple of words uh so that it's clear again students be concise so avoid unnecessary information geneail you don't need to say turned into brown color it's very wordy so turn from purple to brown keep it simpler okay all right uh let's keep going so after the 10 to 20 days after the drying the dried cocoa beans are then put into sacks which are uh weighed and checked for quality by a local agent okay so again let's put this into a nice sentence and let's focus on having good connections okay keep going you're doing a good job okay so next the dried cocoa beans are put into sacks which are then checked for quality and weighed by a local agent once again you're noticing the passive sentence here now here we know the agent of the action and here an agent has two meanings so uh agent in the sense of grammar so the agent of the action and it's actually a local trade agent in this case so agent the word agent it's important to understand this word it means the person of action so the person that's doing okay so in this case it's a part of the grammar but it's also the actual local agent so um different contexts that you see this word in our travel agent uh real estate agent okay legal agent all right so the doer of the action all right angelo writes the purple beans that eventually turn brown are put on sheets for the drying process lasting 10 to 20 days angelo that's good writing it's clear grammar good job okay honey writes post the beans turned into brown they are being spread on sheets for drying to remove the humidity honey a little bit awkward a few grammatical mistakes uh don't write post comma it's awkward afterwards afterwards comma we usually don't start a sentence with the word post it's a bit awkward okay um once the beans have turned brown okay so you use the present perfect honey for that once the beans have turned brown because it's showing the continuousness and the achievement of turning brown okay uh angelo you cannot say travel agent rather than local agent a travel agent's different angelo a travel agent is a person that helps you to book your travels i was just giving that an ex as an example of where we use the noun agent so agent means the doer of the action in this case the agent is the middle man uh from the farmer uh to the market okay so that's the local agent we can imagine that this person is basically a businessman or a businesswoman whose job it is to take the dried cocoa beans from the farmer and sell it to the importer or the exporter okay so it's not the same in this case all right so now um i'm going to go to this final step here of the money being paid to farmers and then these sacks of dried cocoa beans being exported to different places through the ports okay so they're taken to shipping ports via airplane or boat we don't know that doesn't give us that information but they're taken to shipping ports so it's the final stage okay so finally all right so finally the money for the dried cocoa beans are paid to the farmers and the sacks of product are taken to shipping ports uh for buy trucks sorry it should be buy trucks for export and it's very important that you review your work okay are taken to shipping ports by trucks for exports for the dried cocoa to be eventually made into chocolate okay all right pre-t rights lastly money is paid to the farmers we don't know who's doing the paying pre-tea so it's got to be passive lastly money is paid to the farmers for the dried cocoa bean beans and the sacks are exported by trucks for further processing otherwise quite good pre-t just watch that passive uh grammar okay so everybody be really careful with your passive grammar bachrach says in the third stage of the process the dried cocoa beans are put into sacks um and checked for quality and weight by a local agent bakrat again watch your grammar okay angelo writes afterwards the dried cocoa are put into sacks which will later be checked for quality and weight by a local agent angelo don't jump to the future tense will be checked okay keep it in present tense are checked okay don't use will students avoid will unless you have a year in the diagram like 2030 okay june writes afterwards the dried cocoa beans are put into sacks for local agents to weigh them and check their quality very good june that works nice grammar june nice grammar in today's writing very good all right and then june continues with finally the cocoa beans are exported to port by truck after the transaction with farmers are completed yeah after the farmers are paid for their produce i think reads a bit better june because transaction isn't actually a hundred percent clear okay all right now if you want to be really fancy um you can write a summary a summary should be something that we can learn from observing this process so in summary the whole uh process of fresh cocoa of the whole process of picking ripe cocoa pods until export takes a minimum of 16 to 26 days and involves several different entities such as the farmers agents and exporters okay so that's basically what i've learned in summary from this process diagram right so now that i've written this essay and i just did it real quick to show you that it can be done quickly because here we have the start with the right pod we have six days here we have 10 to 20 days here so that's where i get my 16 to 26 days and then let's imagine that this is all done in one day we don't know but it's a minimum of 16 to 26 days and obviously we have farmers that are getting paid we have the local agent somebody's driving that truck so we definitely have these different entities or these different people in the process okay all right um so now i'm just going to read my essay from beginning to end make sure that it's clear it makes sense i have good flow and good connection so let's do this together this process diagram shows four distinct stages in the creation of dried cocoa powder that is needed all dried cocoa beans that are needed it's not really powder here there's no grinding in the process so so this process diagram shows four distinct stages in the creation of dried cocoa beans that are needed to produce chocolate when looking at the overall process from start to finish it becomes clear that the production of dried cocoa beans need needs the fruit of the cocoa plant human labor time sunlight and some equipment firstly in the fermentation stage the ripe cocoa pods are picked and then split into half at this point the pods which contain both the beans and the pulp are put onto large banana leaves for six days of drying secondly once the beans have turned from purple to brown they are placed on sheets that are on raised tables to allow for air circulation for 10 to 20 days of drying next the dried cocoa beans are put into sacks which are then checked for quality and weighed by a local agent finally the money for the dried cocoa beans is because it's non-count uh paid to the farmers and the sacks of product are taken to shipping ports by trucks for export for the dried cocoa to be eventually made into chocolate in summary the whole process of picking ripe cocoa pods until exports takes a minimum of 16 to 26 days and involves several different entities such as the farmers agents and exporters okay looking good that's definitely going to get me on a path to a band nine now i just have to make sure that i do a really good job on task two as well okay june says i feel the examiners tend to write similar analyses for the process diagram compared with other charts what do you think are main points that can differentiate them i'm not really sure what you mean by that june a process diagram is going to be very different from a line graph or a bar graph it should be one really important tip june a lot of the sample essays that you see online even on the british council website they say it's a high band essay but in fact they're not we have discovered that if you write a very similar kind of task 1 and task 2 as the sample essays that they show you online even on the british council websites or cambridge you'll score a maximum of seven even if you write with perfect english this is very misleading unfortunately but it's the truth to get higher band scores you have to write more academic essays and you have to follow the literary guidelines of college and university essays so that's what i do in these classes june as i teach the more accurate writing approach in fact june you haven't been in the class too long but the in university and college you do not separate the introduction and the overview that's just something silly that ielts does i'm not sure why but in university in a process essay or in a diagram expository essay your introduction and your overview are one paragraph because it's synonymous an introduction is an overview okay so you're going to learn that ielts is not perfect it's the best measurement of the english language proficiency that we have at this time but you do have to be careful you have to take those example essays that you see online with a grain of salt okay all right and on that note um i'm going to finish this class um [Music] yeah process uh diagrams june are quite fixed if you're if i didn't give you the right answer send me an email june and then i'll give you more clarity okay all right okay amanda same thing uh just send me a uh an email and i'll help you out okay everyone that's it for uh today's uh task one i will be back in 30 minutes with task two the essay that we started yesterday for everybody watching check us out at aehelp.com for academic outlets and gltshelp.com for general ielts and indeed our goal is to empower you to get high band scores on ielts as well as doing a fantastic job in college and university okay students i'll be back in 30 minutes with task two uh so take a break and see you soon i'm adrian signing out for now from beautiful victoria canada bye you

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Keywords: IELTS writing task 1, diagram, pie chart, line graph, bar chart, flow-chart, IELTS descriptions, International English Language Testing System, English examination, writing for graphs, writing for charts, writing for tables, IELTS task 1, Lesson, Teacher, Learn, Student, Lessons, Learning, Free, Intro, Tutorial, IELTS task 1 explain, IELTS task 1 learning, IELTS task 1 descriptions

Id: RFfN50bvg3w

Length: 58min 44sec (3524 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 04 2021