IELTS Live - Task 2 Writing - Practice for Band 9

hi students and welcome to today's live ie LTS class hi for dogs get to see you in class right away excellent alright everyone today we are kicking this class off with an IELTS task 2 writing essay for the writing section and of course as usual our materials do come from our websites AE help.com for the academic module and if you are learning for the general version of the exam please visit us at GI e LTS help.com hi roshni hi Beck zod get to see you in class again for all of our viewers or websites when you're searching for it look for these websites this is our academic one here with the blue background click that big red button to join and for the general very similar appearance green background click that red button to access six original practice exams over a hundred hours of video lessons and a fully interactive course with strategies to help you get those high scores roshni you got 6.5 in your writing that's fantastic good job thanks for sharing that's great is that oh one band increase from before that's fantastic roshni I'm guessing that you were using the structure and the strategies from class and roshni you should know that that's not just good for the exam but it's also great for your future writing for your workplace or if you're going to university that will be great for you so fantastic good for you higher solemn high hung good to see you in class alright students if you have questions definitely don't be shy send me an email Adrian ADR I am at AE help calm hi bovec good to see you in class long time no see alright everyone so this is a members chat class to join the chat you do have to be a member members also get access to our six practice exams and our video library on the YouTube channel so advantages to being a member after this class in about 90 minutes we will have a reading class with an example and strategy for you to improve your reading scores roshni 7 and speaking fantastic you're doing really well so you're moving from a fluent to a good user of the English language awesome alright so members this is a continuation from our last week task 2 question if you weren't here for that class it's okay we will go through the question and the introduction real quick just for a refresher is the screen bright enough for is it legible can you read the text okay just want to make sure before we move along so here is the question from last week IELTS task 2 writing you should spend about 40 minutes on this task all we spend that 40 minutes okay thanks bags odd thanks roshni thanks Preeti appreciate it so here's the original question playing video games has become a daily hobby for millions of people and even a profession for many what has led to this exceptional popularity of video gaming and is this a good or bad development give reasons and explanations for your response now we all did our paraphrasing I was very very happy with the paraphrasing that many of you members produced last week that was great to see of course we need to write at least 250 words then after we paraphrased this question we looked at some of the planning of course we went through that we applied critical thinking we asked some good questions like why are videogames popular okay and we answered those questions they provide an escape from the stresses of reality they provide an alternate reality they're entertaining why they are visually stunning with good sound and they tell interesting stories as well they allow for competition they are challenging for people they challenge our skills our minds and they're interactive that's what makes games so popular then of course we remembered very importantly members we remembered that this is a two-part question so is this a good or bad development and we answered that question it's great a form of entertainment when done in moderation moderation means not too much time spent video gaming it's good for brain development it can even help the hand-eye coordination so an eye coordination people can make lots of money playing video games that's another positive it's actually become a job our parents used to say hey why are you kids playing so much video games you'll never do anything with your life and lo and behold not true many kids who became really good at video games are now making loads of money in that industry in many different ways and then of course we said well it's negative if people become addicted and spend too much time or energy with video games so it can be a negative of course after that planning we came up with our thesis statement and students as I'm going through this members these points and the thesis in the real LTS exam this is about how fast you should be planning and writing your thesis the actual speed that I'm reviewing right now so the thesis remember really important for everybody who's watching the thesis will make your s great if it is a good thesis and it will break your essay or it will show a lower level of skill if it's not a good thesis okay so after a person reads your thesis the last sentence of your introductory paragraph they should know a the question you are answering okay members one good exercise to do at home when you're doing these task two essays when you finish writing your thesis go to your classmates or your friend or your teacher and say look teacher this is my thesis can you tell me which question I'm answering with this thesis if they say a question that is close to the task to question you're doing a great job if they say a completely different question there's something wrong with your thesis and you need to go back to the drawing board so you need to redo your thesis okay all right as well your thesis should clearly show your point of argument it should show your voice if you're writing first or third person voice and it should also show the outline or the structure of your essay what can your reader expect in body paragraph one what can they expect in body paragraph two all of this should be contained in a high level thesis statement okay so this is our thesis statement or this is the one I came up with some of you came up with different ones but they looked solid the ever increasing boom of video gaming can be attributed to escape from reality and competition with others this is a positive or negative for gamers brain development depending on the intensity of their digital gaming habits okay so that thesis is your band 9 level thesis it gives very clear position argument it shows the structure and it shows the voice any questions members so far about the thesis about the planning now is a good chance to kind of ask me so do you have any questions before we go on to the rest of the essay anything that's unclear or you're not sure with a different kind of question her dad says no crystal clear for doves I'm guessing is what you're thinking it's crystal clear which is a good way to be if it is then it means you've got the right idea you just need to put it into practice so thank you for doves for the feedback anybody else any uh any questions about that okay now again just a reminder when you have a multiple question task - like this one so why are video games so popular and is this a positive or a negative then you have to think about the most logical way to structure your body paragraphs okay roshni says this questions answering both positive and negative roshni not only is it answering both the positive and negative but it's also answering the reason for the popularity of video gaming okay Preity an escape from reality basically means that we get to disconnect so move away from our real-life situation so the stresses of work or school are relationships and we get to experience a virtual environment where we can be a hero or a heroine or a racecar driver outside of what's happening in real life so that's how we escape the stress of real life okay that's what it means Preity alright so here is our band 9 introduction for this essay question let's take a look at it and then we will move to the body paragraphs so video gaming has swept the in the past 30 years as one of the most popular pastimes for millions of people that's my hook it's a little bit more complicated than usual you don't have to have a hook this complex okay just kind of showing you that really high band 9 level and then of course the next element of the introduction is the background with the definition and the importance so from simple games played by many on smartphones to the most advanced virtual reality games played in stadiums digital gaming consumes an average of three notice how here I'm using three hours a day to give it some quantitative information again students you don't have to write sentences this complex just the ideas or what it what are important to include okay all right so this clearly has a massive impact on society that's the importance of the question and then the thesis and the thesis is what we just read it's just copy pasted to the end of the introduction now if you're doing the paper-based exam you can actually write your thesis about four or five lines down once you know what you're writing and then you can fill in the hook and the background before your thesis does that make sense so what I just said there's kind of an interesting point does that make sense what I suggested to do in the real exam so again you should have your thesis before you write this part of the introduction okay so you should have a thesis before you write the hook before you write the the background and to do it effectively what in the real exam you have just 40 minutes so you shouldn't be rewriting your thesis unless you're very very fast so to save a little bit of time when you finish your planning and you think about your thesis then you write your thesis about four or five lines below the start of your essay okay hopefully that makes sense and that way you can save a little bit of time okay all right so the ever-increasing boom of video gaming can be attributed to an escape from reality and competition with others this is a positive or negative for gamers brain development depending on the intensity of their digital gaming habits so here my first body paragraph will be about the popularity of video games so my first paragraph will include escape from reality and competition with others okay that's going to be my first body paragraph so let's get into that what is members what is the first sentence of the body paragraph so what comes first what is my first element the first part of a body paragraph it's always this okay what should it be hopefully all of you are having the same idea it's your topic sentence okay and then of course my next question Yap Patricio very good good it's your topic sentence it's basically like the heading of your body paragraph that it answers the what question what is this body paragraph going to be about so it's yes in some sense for doves it's general information but it's definitely much more specific than the introduction okay yes begs odd that's right so I'm going to discuss two points briefly in body paragraph one and then I'm going to discuss two points negative and positive briefly in body paragraph two yes and again it's a 250 word minimum essay so you should be thinking closer to 300 words for a band 9 by the way students if you're doing TOEFL test of English as a foreign language the word count for TOEFL is actually 300 words so they say 300 words minimum the IELTS says 250 but in fact it should be closer to 300 like in the TOEFL to get those bands 7 7.58 and higher okay alright so what is the topic sentence what should that be that should be a deeper definition or another way to think about it as a detailed paraphrase of point 1 in the thesis ok now that means that our topic sentence here for body paragraph 1 needs to be about the escape from reality and competition with others now begs odd you asked a very good question you said well don't you have 2 points here and yes I do so an easier way for this kind of structure is to just focus on one of these two points so for the topic sentence here we want to focus on escape from reality and then later we create a secondary topic sentence which is about the competition with others of course if this is a university essay and I can write a much longer essay then I can do more paragraphs so I could do one paragraph on escape from reality and another paragraph with competition from others but in this case I just don't have the time and the word count so I have to have both of these in one paragraph Beggs odd you could yes you could do that so begs I was asking could I just write positive or negative yes you could do that it might not be as comprehensive but you could and you could still get a very good score certainly regardless bags odd I would still separate that into its own body paragraph just because the connection is weak between the first and second body paragraph here of these points okay so here my topic sentence should focus on escape from reality now we can say that in different ways so members give me a sentence that gives a deeper definition or a paraphrase with some details of escape from reality so think about video games are popular escape from reality think about another way to say that to give more clarity for your reader with some details and try to express that in one sentence okay so let's do this together write your own topic sentence I will do the same okay so begs that says interacting with games can help millions of people depart to be a part begs odd is okay an even better word as depart de ok de PA RT depart from their daily routine as well as stress very good you know what begs odd mine is so close in my mind that I'm just going to take yours it works fine except with that slight change okay so interacting with video games can help millions of people to momentarily depart from their daily grind going to use that word instead of routine it's even more expressive begs odd grind means the demand of daily routine as well as stress okay so that's really good that works that works well begs odd I like it that's a nice topic sentence it says the same idea as escape from reality but with a little bit more detail so you include a quantitative piece here again with millions of people you include the idea of that daily routine or daily grind and the idea of stress so that works really well for that topic sentence again we're continuing with that band nine caliber writing for that task to exam hi America welcome you're just in time for body paragraph one okay and then after this we have to explain this okay now of course we need to be careful make sure that you know we have the ability to write all this and within the allowed time so if we can't we have to shorten it in this case you may want to combine your explanation and your example just to keep it a little bit shorter because we still have that second half of this body paragraph coming which is the competition with others right okay so for doves your topic sentence video games are more well-known than ever before for the reason of unwinding from the stresses of everyday life kafir doves close the correct word form in that context is unwinding from the stresses of everyday life so you're using the gerund in that case okay Petruchio says many people play video games to reduce their stress and escape from daily routine patricio that's good but careful because we have the word escape and that's a key word here Patricio in the in the thesis so escape from reality we don't want to repeat the word escape so you need to find some paraphrase for that like what bags I did with the word to be a part or to depart that's another way to say escape okay so even if you're just simply paraphrasing and it's better than repeating it Patricio alright alright Preity video games help individuals to release stress from their daily routine Preeti that works fantastic as well just watch the grammar videogames help not our helps you don't need the be verb they're just help individuals because it's active Preeti the games are actually actively doing the action remember students that machines are active so we use the active voice okay they actively do all right okay so now we want to explain that so now we want to explain this idea of well what do you mean again remember it's like we're talking or writing for an alien they're very smart the examiners but they're aliens they have a little antennae they're green and they need you to very clearly explain your ideas don't assume that they know what you know okay so explain for me explain to me I'm a Martian I came from Mars I don't know about stress I don't know about the daily grind I don't know what you mean with videogames so give me a sentence that explains of what do you mean to escape stress or the daily grind to play video games how does that work what do you what are you telling me there okay so give me a nice explanation home says playing video games can attract millions of people to focus on virtual scenes to escape from their daily stress home very good sentence okay again nice I'm loving the improvement that many of you are making that's fantastic okay alright so I'll write my explanation a little bit silently and then you can do the same so we'll compare after all right so there's my explanation I'm guessing that you're thinking of well how would I explain this again think of details specifics this is students where you want to visualize yourself so put yourself in the situation of this topic sentence okay what do I do so I go to my work at 8:00 a.m. maybe you're an accountant at an accounting firm or a bank you sit you crunch numbers you deal with managers you deal with clients you're there for 8 hours 10 hours it's getting tough and then you go home and you just sigh a big sigh of relief so you exhale and you're like okay I'm just gonna chill out relax decompress you sit in front of your TV you turn on your Playstation your Xbox your computer you open up your favorite game of warcraft call of duty whatever it may be and and you just click buttons and have fun exploring virtual worlds and so on so ok so that's what it means for me so now you just need to put that into a sentence and this is mine following a Tet a tough 10-hour day at the office it is relaxing for individuals to sit with a game console and transform into a favorite character for two hours of excitement and entertainment that is a very clear explanation of this topic sentence okay all right bags odds says these days most individuals spend at least half of their entire day in both work and study and therefore such an activity is one of the sources for unwinding yet begs odd it's not bad okay it's a little bit redundant with the topic sentence so you're kind of repeating what you've already said here with a little bit more detail what you want to do begs that has always try to reach as much additional detail of course without going off-topic and having clear can action as you can so you want to avoid repeating your topic in your explanation okay so you have a little bit there but again you want more bags so I think more quantitative information try to make it even more visual okay roshni says moreover technology has revolutionized the individual spending two to three hours daily on video games that not only give relaxing playtime with children but also reduce stress roshni you also have kind of the same situation as bags odd so you're somewhat repeating what the topic sentence has done okay yeah I think you just realized that roshni after I read bags odd so that's fine again practice will make it perfect the idea is take your reader from an abstract sphere so from a kind of a less visual or less reality based concept like releasing stress and then bring them to a more visual type of situation so ten hours at the office go home turn on the console become a character for two hours that now becomes a lot more visual now then the next step your example makes it even more visual so that's the mechanism or the idea of a good body paragraph as you go from ideas into reality based explanations all right that's the magic that's what you want to perfect in your writing and in your logic does that make sense students so home muddy coal Preeti does that make sense okay so here we come up with our example so once I've visualized the situation that allowed me to come up with this explanation then I can actually continue with that okay now if I don't have enough time if I'm not a fast enough writer or if I need more time to think then I might just go to the second point here and leave this as kind of my example in the exam if I'm going for a band 9 I would actually go for a detailed example here before switching to the next point of the body paragraph which is competition okay all right home says nowadays most people spend time considerable time on video games not only for excitement but also to have less costly entertainment with others home you're going off-topic there especially with the less costly we're not talking about saving money so playing video games as a form of entertainment which is cheap is not in our introduction so home be very careful not to introduce ideas or arguments in your body paragraph that are not clear from your introduction we do not mention money or cost in the introduction so we can't bring that into our body paragraph hung if we wrote a university essay and it were much longer we might do that as even more but then we need to have it in the introduction okay all right fir Dobbs says after a stressful day at work many people want to relax at home for a couple of hours or at the nearest gaming clubs sure k for dogs so again it's a little repetitive of the topic so be a little bit more detailed make it a little bit it's not bad for dogs so I mean I can visualize it a little bit more with the game clubs okay but still you want to be even more detailed alright so here's my example for instance after spending a day crunching numbers at an accounting firm the employee may want nothing more for the evening then sitting in front of the tube and playing FIFA soccer for a couple of hours with friends okay so here my example is literally an even more detailed description of my explanation okay so let's read it from the top for the first part of body paragraph one interacting with videogames can help millions of people to momentarily depart from their daily grind as well as stress following a tough 10-hour day at the office it is relaxing for individuals to sit with a game console and transform into a favorite character for two hours of excitement and entertainment for instance after spending a day crunching numbers an accounting firm the employee may want nothing more for the evening than sitting in front of the tube and playing Fifa for a couple of hours with friends now when you're practicing at home a couple of interesting points to consider when you're reviewing writing like this is how to make it even better okay you should avoid repetition of ideas so here in this sentence for two hours of excitement and entertainment that's repetitive excitement and entertainment are the same idea you don't need both and this is how you can save time in the exam as well and still get high points or even higher points and make it better don't have repetitive ideas I see many students doing that so the sentence is perfectly the same and reads even better with just the word excitement so transform into a favorite character for two hours of excitement we don't need the word and entertainment entertainment excitement are synonymous don't repeat words okay now another unnecessary word and this is called wordiness in writing this is definitely a higher level skill is most people in the world are familiar with FIFA so we don't need to say FIFA soccer or FIFA Football just FIFA is enough so sitting in front of the tube and playing fifa for a couple of hours with friends okay that's enough I've shortened it up a bit and now I can continue alright so Preeti your example is like just yesterday i spent almost two hours on pub game after working for 10 hours at the office then i felt relaxed and energetic Preeti it's good notice my Corrections now Preeti one difference between your and my example of course is you're writing in first person so you're saying like just yesterday I spent I'm not using first person in my example I'm using third person why because I don't have first person in my thesis ok my thesis is purely third-person why is my thesis third person because the question does not ask me to include personal examples the question just says give reasons and explanations for your response it doesn't say use examples and explanations from your experience so I'm not using my experience here I'm just creating a general third-person essay it's okay pretty to do first-person if the question is asking first-person and your thesis shows first-person like I believe that people enjoy video games because so make sure you pay attention voice is very very important for good writing and that's to all of our viewers if you're not familiar with first second third person voice have to review that for good essay writing okay if you just Google authors voice you will have lots of information available online about how to use author's voice first second or third person so keep that in mind students okay and don't make voice mistakes because it's really confusing for your reader it kind of goes like okay you're talking general now you're talking about yourself now you're talking about me now you're talking about general again it's really confusing in university they take a lot of Marx professors in English classes for voice confusion okay voice confusion and hence confusion so future present past tenses those can be really confusing so be really careful okay be very careful I see Patricio you just caught your own mistake there as well okay all right Hong says for example when you spend most of your time to make brainstorming in the office you want to take a break from home and playing super mario without thinking too much how long you have the right idea but you make the same mistake as Patricio and as preety because you started using you your so that's called the second person voice of the author home it's where you directly speak to your reader so you're actually speaking to or writing to your reader we don't use that voice in university very much it's very rare that we use the second person voice you don't want to speak directly to your professor your professor probably does not play supermario at home it's highly likely that they might not even play video games so you don't want to write directly for them okay so be really careful with voice control okay all right so now I'm going to remember to continue here with my second point of the body paragraph and so in this case of course I need to include that it's challenging for people and they get to compete with others so here students we can you know do it a little bit differently different people differently I would just include it in the same body paragraph however if you're good at writing and you want to separate that into another body paragraph you could you have to be a confident writer so you could do three body paragraphs you could do the first one like this on escape from reality the next one on competing and playing with others as a social medium for video games and then the third one is positive negatives don't do for you'll run out of time most students will not have the fluency to write for body paragraphs so I don't recommend it in the forty minutes okay all right couple more examples for daav says for example after labor-intensive job many workers spend their time near computers for a couple hours playing xbox games for does be careful of confusing your reader so computers Xbox which one okay and please don't tell me that it's an Xbox emulator on the computer because that's way too much detail for an IELTS task 2 essay so just be careful fur doves with your choice of information okay begs that says for instance when a students spend six hours in university playing clash of the clans can not only be entertaining but also relaxing sure yeah begs odd you can also use the word rejuvenating rejuvenating means to get energy back okay rejuvenate rejuvenating alright so I'm just going to link my second point of my body one here so in addition video games create or facilitate a social platform where gamers can challenge each other and their own abilities okay so that's kind of like a secondary topic sentence within the body paragraph now I need to explain that okay and members I'm just going to move a little bit along here so we can kind of see how this body paragraph develops okay but just keep writing with me so right this second topic write the explanation write the example so you know what you're doing now write an original sentence similar to mine and then continue on and we'll compare okay so modern gaming consoles connect players through the internet and offer interactive games that demand knowledge and skill like FIFA which can be played against others online and further entertain the accountant who has arrived home from a long day of labor okay so here is my example and notice something interesting that I'm doing here which is making connections among my examples ok so you know you're doing well with your logic your critical thinking and your writing when you're able to make strong connections and continue on with the same example that you started with alright so I started with the example of the accountant and how they arrived at home from working at their firm for a long time then they're playing a couple hours of fifa and now as I explained that games are also interactive and challenging I continue with that same example like FIFA which can be played against others online and further entertain the accountant who has arrived home from a long day of Labor ok so that will continue to improve your score it will show stronger cohesion in your essay cohesion and coherence in your writing just like in your speaking is very very important and that's what the examiner's are looking for in tasks to to really give those high grades okay so again this is where especially the academic version of the exam it's not just about English but it's your skills as a student as an academic okay all right let me read a couple more sentences here so bags ID says furthermore video games can also help players to socialize and compete with the help of advancements in networking ok bags on you can state that as one sentence and you're kind of overstating there in the long run and current network it's kind of a little bit awkward okay most individuals can connect with any interplay or any player internationally and and challenge each other to to victory or challenge each other for [Music] deciding who has better skills okay roshni FIFA is the football game it's the most popular soccer game in the world but if you don't know it just use another one that's very popular okay FIFA World Cup soccer roshni Patricia says furthermore many companies organize events and competitions to catch more people in the world of gaming Patricio that's a little bit off topic you're talking about companies organising events you have to remember we're answering the question of Wired games popular they're popular because people can connect with others so we can't forget about the question of wire games popular companies organize events you can connect that but you have to be a little bit more tactful you have to be a little bit more strategic to make that clear okay all right so this is my long body paragraph one here and again if I don't have the ability to write the in the allowed time then what I can do is just kind of remove maybe the example here and just keep the explanation I can still get a very high score maybe even a band 9 because you know as long as you have good explanations they can almost substitute for your example so let's read this together and then we can face off with body paragraph 2 so interacting with video games can help millions of people to momentarily depart from their daily grind as well as stress following a tenten tough 10-hour day at the office it is relaxing for individuals to sit with a game console and transform into a favorite character for two hours of excitement for instance after spending a day crunching numbers at an accounting firm the employee may want nothing more for the evening than sitting in front of the tube and playing Fifa for a couple of hours with friends in addition video games facilitate a social platform where gamers have to be careful with plural singulars can challenge each other and their own abilities modern gaming consoles connect players through the internet and offer interactive games that demand knowledge and skill like FIFA which can be played against others online and further entertained the accountant who has arrived home from a long day of Labor okay now I want my concluding sentence here it is quite important and I'm going to keep it simple for these reasons digital games have become a world wide phenomenon okay alright so that's my connecting concluding sentence now I can go on to my body paragraph to my body paragraph - same idea so I'm going to discuss that video games can be neg if they're played too much or that they can be positive and to be very clever I will likely continue on with my FIFA example to create strong cohesion from body 1 to body 2 and then I can come to my conclusion now members that's all the time we have for this class I'm not going to rush into body 2 or the conclusion rather I will challenge you now that you see what's happening to finish body paragraph 2 and the conclusion on your own and over the next couple days I will complete this essay also so I will write body paragraph 2 and the conclusion and then I will post the full essay with the question in to our YouTube community chat so you can see that as well ok begs are how can you start body paragraph 2 I would start with a topic sentence ok just the same so with a little bit more detail ok so something like over using videogames can have detrimental effects on gamers health both mentally and physically that could be a topic sentence start begs odd for body paragraph 2 okay all right yes I'm read I'll check it out later on absolutely students thank you so much for joining in members you've done an awesome job again I can literally see you improve from one class to the next which is fantastic I'm loving it of course I realize you're doing a lot of hard work at home and practicing send your essays members for score estimates and a bit of feedback to Adrian at AE help calm your completed essay and for all of those watching join our classes and our materials at AE help calm for academic version of the test and gee IELTS help calm for the general again those websites look like this this is G IELTS help dog calm click that red button to join and this is our academic here with the blue background click that red button to join and take advantage of our materials to really improve those band scores spend a couple dollars save yourself lots of stress time money not having to do the exam over and over again you're very welcome home you're very welcome for dogs I look forward to your essays and in 30 minutes I will host one more class for the reading section of the exam with examples and strategies ok no Preeti because in the thesis we have positive and negative you should add both in body paragraph to see you soon on meat see you soon everyone bye for now much left to all of you keep practicing keep up the good fight

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Keywords: IELTS, Task 2, writing, essay, paragraphs, sentences, vocabulary, introduction paragraph, band 9, body paragraphs, conclusion, IELTS description, English examination, writing IELTS, writing for task two, second part of writing, writing strategies, IELTS task 2, Lesson, Teacher, Learn, Student, Lessons, Learning, Free, Intro, Tutorial, IELTS task 2 explain, IELTS task 2 learning, IELTS task 2 explanations, plan, planning, understand, skills, strategies

Id: 5Rbx2k4O348

Length: 53min 2sec (3182 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2019