Hi. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam.
Nice to see you again. Today's lesson is for IELTS and TOEFL students, and so because these
students need a little extra practice in listening to more natural speed English, I will speak
a little bit faster. If you're a beginner English learner, watch anyway. It's still good
practice, but don't worry if I'm speaking a little bit too fast. So more specifically,
I'm going to be looking at the Writing -- Task 2, the essay of the IELTS and/or TOEFL. They're very similar.
That's why I'm doing them together. There're not big differences, but I will point them out.
And what I'm doing is I'm concentrating on the introduction today, the introduction paragraph.
I'm not showing you the whole essay; I'm just showing you the introduction. Now, you're
wondering, "Why? It's just the introduction. It's a short one, right?" No. This is probably
the most important paragraph in your whole essay. This is where you, basically, make or
break your score, okay? Why? Because here is where the reader understands what you're about to do.
This is where the grader -- the person who's giving you your score -- understands
if you understood the question; understands if you know what you're talking about; and
understands if you knew how to plan well, okay? Very, very important the first paragraph,
the introduction. So what are you going to do? Of course you're going to plan first.
You're not going to start writing. Do not write one word of your essay until you have your plan ready.
Once you have your plan ready, your essay is done. You just have to, basically,
translate this plan into sentences. You're basically going for three to five sentences.
Less than three, you missed something; you didn't do enough. More than five, you're going for words.
You don't have time; don't worry about it. Three to five -- get down what you
need to get down. Get into your bodies where you're going to be writing the most, okay?
There are four questions you want to answer in the introduction. You will already have
these answers once you've planned properly, okay? What do you want to answer? "What is
the topic?" "What is the question?" "What is your opinion?" And "What are your reasons?"
These are the four things that must be included in the introduction. Now, a lot
of you think, "Well, 'topic' and 'question' is the same thing, right?" But no; they're not.
This is where a lot of people lose points because they don't realize that
these are two different things. The "topic" is the general idea of what the question is about.
The "question" is, specifically, what are you asked to do. Now, the most common
type of question you will see on both the IELTS and the TOEFL is a question that asks
you to choose between two things. They want you to choose one and argue why that one is
better than the other one, or why that one is so good. Now, what I'm going to show you
today will mostly apply to these types of questions. But if you have a question that
asks you to compare and contrast two things, keep in mind even if they ask you to compare
two things, they're still going to ask you to lean towards one of them, to choose one as
better than the other, in which case you're still going to need to
give your opinion, okay? "What is the topic?" You're going to keep
this very, very general. All you're doing is giving the idea of what the essay is about.
So I know all of you have probably practiced this question: "Is it better to live in the
countryside or in the city? Explain your reasons, giving examples, etc." Your first sentence,
very, very general: What is the topic of this question? City life? Country life? No. The topic
is "where to live". So your first sentence introduces the idea of living -- choosing a
place to live. The question is then more specific, so your sentence narrows a little
bit, becomes a little bit more focused. The question is: "Is it better in
the country or the city?" Okay? Then, you have to give your opinion. You must
say, "I believe", "I think", "in my opinion". You don't have to use these words. There're
other ways to say your opinion, but if you're not sure of those, put one of those; make it
very, very clear what you're saying. This is your thesis. This is a very specific sentence.
After reading this sentence, I, the grader, must understand which side you've chosen and
what you're going to argue. And then you see the last sentence gets a little bit more general.
Why? Because you're giving your reasons. You're not giving me details. You're giving me general
reasons of why you have this opinion, okay? So four sentences, or you can squeeze them
-- you can squeeze, for example, this one and this one. You can squeeze this one and
this one and make three sentences. Or you can add extra information. You want to make
this one two sentences? Go for it. Make it five. Don't go more than five. More than five
means you've lost focus, okay? Three means you have very good command of the language.
Personally, if you can do a very strong introduction paragraph in three sentences, it could actually
be better for you than five. But three to four -- three to five, four is the average; go for that.
We're going to look at an example, and you'll understand better
what I'm talking about here. Okay, so here's our first example. The first example...
I made it a little bit more basic. I've got four different sentences answering
each question individually, okay? Just to refresh our memories, what is the question? "Is
it better to live in the city or the country?" Or "Is it better to live in the country or
the city?" Doesn't matter. So remember: I'm starting with a very general idea of the topic.
"Deciding where to live is one of life's more difficult choices." "Where to live" -- here
is your topic. Very general. Have I given any information? No. Have I expressed an opinion?
No. All I'm doing is introducing the topic. That's all I want the reader to know:
We're talking about where to live. Next sentence. "One may opt for life in the
country or the city." Now, just in case you're not sure, "opt for" means "choose". I used
"choice" here; I used "deciding" here; I want to use as much different vocabulary as I can.
"Opt for", if you know it, use it. A little bit extra points for nice language. Okay.
"One may opt for life in the country or the city." This is your question. Country? City?
Very clear. "In my opinion" -- very, very direct and to the point. State your thesis.
State what you believe. "In my opinion, life in the city is more advantageous." -- "I choose
city; it's better." That's all I want to say. I'm answering the question. This is my stance.
This is my opinion. "This is due to the fact that the city offers better economic and social
opportunities." So I'm going to present the reader with two reasons: economic and social.
Am I giving any idea what the economic reasons are? No. Am I giving you any ideas what the
social reasons are? No. They're very, very general. I've made it a bit more general, okay?
So I've answered all four questions. I'm doing exactly what the essay's supposed
to do, what the essay's asking me to do. Now, the only thing I would suggest about
this one -- again, very basic. The only thing I would recommend you could do: Make this
-- take out the period. Take out this. "In my opinion, life in the city is more advantageous
due to the fact that the city offers better economic and social opportunities." All I did
was join the last two sentences. So now, I have a three-sentence paragraph and a little
bit more complex sentence because I have more clauses and more phrases in it. So it shows
a little bit of sentence variety. And it's very simple. All you have to do is just take
out the beginning. If I want, I can just take out the whole thing -- "due to the fact" is a
good expression. Use it; remember it -- and just put "because". If you're stuck, if you
don't know another expression to show reason, just use "because". Preferably, you don't use
"because" because a thousand other people taking the test with you are also using "because".
You want to be a little bit different. You want to stand out a little bit. But if you're
panicking, if you're stuck, use "because". Now, again, I mentioned there's a -- slight
differences between TOEFL and IELTS. The only difference is time and number of words. For
IELTS, you have 40 minutes to write your essay. TOEFL you have 30 minutes. That's -- ten minutes
is a huge difference, right? You have to write -- for IELTS, you have to write your paragraph
up to -- your first paragraph, sorry -- up to eight minutes. More than eight minutes,
maybe ten with the planning, you're getting into a bit of trouble. TOEFL, you have maybe
five, six minutes to do this, right? So you have to be a little bit quicker. You have to
be better prepared. All that means is just practice, practice, practice.
Write lots of essays. Another difference is the IELTS, you need a
minimum 250 words, whereas TOEFL you need more words, okay? So write more. If you can
add another sentence but not get off topic, put it in for the TOEFL. But I'm going to
show you another example, a little bit more complex, a little bit fancier if you want to
say it, and one that I can use for a "choose one", or a "compare and contrast
and choose", okay? Let's do that. Okay, so let's look at now -- at another example.
I made this one a little bit more multipurpose, depending on what kind of questions you're asked.
If you're asked to compare and contrast, you can use this. If you're just asked to
choose between two, you can still use this, okay? First thing you'll notice after we read
it: only three sentences, but it's actually longer than the last example, okay? First
sentence: "As a person reaches adulthood, he needs to decide on where he would prefer
to live." Again: topic, "where to live". You can introduce another topic, adulthood, because
you can incorporate that into your reasons, okay? I'm not saying much. I'm just -- my
topic is still "where prefer to live". Okay. Next: "While there are advantages to both
living in the country and the city" -- so here, I'm introducing the fact that I might be comparing.
"Both have advantages" -- so I'm going to compare these." "I believe that
for economic reasons -- I have your thesis and your main reason -- life in the city is
more beneficial" -- I've chosen one. Here's my general reason. Now, you're thinking, "Okay.
Done, right?" No, because here's an example of where you can use one reason for your whole essay.
You don't have to have two reasons -- we think. "This is because the city offers
more employment opportunities, as well as a more affordable cost of living." So now,
you realize, I actually do have two reasons under the umbrella of the one reason. Okay?
So many people think, "Oh, I can't think of ideas. I don't know what to say about this."
If you can have one idea, that's fine. Split it into two categories, right? "Economic reasons":
jobs and cost of living. It's cheaper to live in the city because more people,
more things come in, etc. Now, a couple of things to keep in mind. One,
I only have three sentences. This is a very -- this sentence, this second one is a very
long, complex sentence. If you can write a sentence that has more than one clause, more
than one phrase, you're going to get bonus points because it show a very strong command
of the language, okay? I'm doing three things here almost. I'm showing that I'm going to
talk about the advantages; I'm giving you my opinion; and I'm giving you my major reason
all in one sentence. And then, I'm getting a little bit more specific how
I'm going to split this up. Now, another thing to keep in mind -- two things
to keep in mind: One, whatever -- however way or whatever order you list your reasons,
make sure that the body paragraph follows suit. So I talked about employment opportunities
first, my next paragraph -- if I'm comparing, then the paragraphs are by comparing. Then
the next one is employment opportunities and cost of living. If I'm only making a choice, then
my first body paragraph is about employment; my second body paragraph is about cost of living, okay?
But keep that in mind. If you're comparing and then choosing: first paragraph,
make the comparisons; second paragraph, first reason for your choice; third paragraph, second
reason for your choice. Or if you want, if you have enough reasons -- you're going to need
more than one -- you can compare throughout the body: Each paragraph compares one point.
"The city offers more employment opportunities. In the countryside, there's a limited number
of jobs because there're not that many people -- there aren't that many people.", etc.
in the next one. Another thing I want to mention: Some of you
may be angry with me right now because I said "he", okay? "He" is okay. "She" is okay. Please
do not do this. Do not do: "he/she", he/she, him/her, him/her, himself/herself". It -- (A)
it doesn't count as extra words, and (B) this gets it really, really annoying for the reader.
If you're a girl, say "she". If you're a guy, say "he". If you're a guy and you want to
say "she", say "she". If you're a girl and you want to say "he", say "he". But only choose one.
Don't worry about it. You're not going to lose points for this, okay? Now, again,
I can't stress enough how important it is to practice writing. And ideally, get someone
to check it for you and give you feedback, okay? But write your essays, and go over them.
Make sure all your pronouns are okay, all your prepositions are okay, your subjects
and your verbs agree. Try to have different vocabulary, different sentence structures, okay?
And practice, practice, practice. When you start preparing for the IELTS and the
TOEFL, start with the essay. Learn to write first. Because that takes the longest time
to improve, and it's usually where people get their lowest score on the test, okay?
Anyway, go to www.engvid.com. There will be a quiz there to give you a little bit more
practice with this. And of course, go to my YouTube channel and subscribe there if you like.
And come back again real soon. Bye.
