IELTS Writing - Master the IELTS Writing Test - British Council

either means you are very very bored and have nothing else to do or more likely you really care about getting a good score Nile so thanks very much for coming this thank you very much big welcome to all of our friends on Facebook I hope you can see me wherever you are in the world if you're on the beach or if you're here in Hanoi or somewhere in Vietnam good to have you here thanks for joining us today we're going to have a little bit of fun I won't make it too boring I promise I'll try and make it as fun as I can and today I'm going to give you some tips about writing but I'm not going to give you the normal boring tips about take plan before you write and blah blah blah I'm going to try and give you some practical tips to get a seven so that's my goal for you is a seven and I hope you get at least that or more so today I'll talk about five secrets five specific secrets about getting a seven in both task one and in task two towards the end I'll give you some recommended books and websites which I find quite helpful and I'm sure they'll be helpful for you too and most of all we'll have lots of time at the end we'll have about half an hour for any questions at all about writing whether they're little tiny questions or huge life-changing questions I'll try my best to answer any questions at all and the good news is if you ask a question you can win a lovely prize from the British Council it's that easy all you need to do is ask a question and you can get one of these ten amazing prizes we have books from the British Council about IELTS we have some USBs we have some movie tickets really easy to win a prize just ask any question okay so to start with just a little bit of get to know you maybe with the person beside you or a few people beside you what's your target score for IELTS writing yeah if it's six six point five seven nine nine point five why not what scares you the deep personal question you know what scares you about Isles writing what's your biggest fear about writing and the third the most important question I find this one divides Vietnam everybody has a preference are you a football kind of person or are you a fog a person yeah so with the person beside you if you're watching on Facebook maybe a comment in the livestream let's spend about two minutes yeah [Music] if there's any interesting comments can use somehow let me [Music] okay sir yeah it's what you can only choose one yeah for the rest of your life if you could only eat football or if you get only forgot you can only choose one okay I'll share mine yes I'll go first my target writing score I'd be happy with an eight I'd be happy with an eight it's pretty hard yeah I'd be very nervous about running out of time yeah I'm a very slow hand writer so I'd be very happy with an eight personally what scares me over already time it's really hard to do everything in one hour I'm the kind of person who likes to overthink so I worry I just spent half of my time thinking that's what scares me I'm probably not the only one and for me I'm a classic I'm a traditionalist Lavazza that's my dream yeah I could eat it every day for the rest of my life and I'd be very happy okay so let's start with the the basic information about how its marked task one it's marked in only four categories and each of these categories is worth the same yeah so the first one is called task achievement which basically means have you followed the instructions have you done what the task is asking you to do so for example have you written at least 150 words have you summarized the main features of the graph or the diagram or the process have you included some data or some numbers to to support your explanation things like that the second one is called coherence cohesion which basically means organization so is it easy for the reader to follow your essay from the beginning to the end and normally the way you do that is using paragraphs using discourse markers or kind of connecting words to connect to your sentences so that the the reader can just easily follow from the beginning to the end the third one it's kind of a confusing word they say lexical resource what does that mean basically it just means vocabulary so are you able to use a wide enough range of vocabulary to to summarize this graph and the fourth one is called grammatical range and accuracy which means can you use a range of different types of sentence structures can you make not too many mistakes it doesn't have to be perfect even for a nine you're allowed to make a few mistakes and a nine but not too often for those mistakes task two it's quite similar these two are actually exactly the same between task 1 and task 2 organization there's only one slight difference which relates to paragraphs so paragraphs in task 2 excuse me are a little bit more important than task 1 because task 2 is a longer essay task 1 is only 150 words so paragraphing is not as important but task 2 it's a little bit more important otherwise everything else is exactly the same and the big difference for task 2 is the first category is called task response which means how well have you responded to the question so how clear are your ideas how well do you explain your ideas etc but really the big difference between task 1 and task 2 is the first category IELTS is very transparent yet there aren't any big secrets a lot of people ask me so what are the secrets to getting a 7 I say there are none it's all right here and they say I know but what are the real secrets there are none trust me but IELTS does have copies that you can download for free so if you go to these two websites it should take you directly to the PDF and it's a little bit complicated it's a little bit boring I'm not going to lie if you're having difficulty falling asleep about 10 minutes reading this you'll be fast asleep dreaming of IELTS maybe so my advice is don't try and read everything if you try and read from 1 to 9 it's just too much information so maybe think about your goal if your goal says 7 maybe read 6 7 & 8 yeah but if your goals are 7 why would you read too it's obviously much below your goal and if your goal is a five why would you read nine so think about your goal maybe one above and one below that's enough so the first secret this one relates to task 1 and IELTS calls it a clear overview and if you look at a 7 from task achievement this is one of the bullet points they say presents a clear overview of the main features Sorry mate trends differences or stages and if you look at a 6 & a 5 they also mention overview so what is an overview it's basically a very short summary of the most important thing so imagine if your friend asked you what's this about and you only have 10 seconds to tell them that's kind of like what an overview is so for example after today if your friend asks you what did you learn about at this workshop and you say IELTS it's not very clear yeah but if you say well the first slide was about football and fuga and the second slide was about marking criteria and the thirds like too much information yeah so what else is looking for is a very brief summary of just the most important things that happened yeah and I'll show you some examples in the next part it's usually one sentence but it can be - particularly if there are multiple graphs so for example if you have a pie chart and a table you might want to have one sentence for each of those or if it's a really complicated diagram you might want to have more than one sentence but for most of the graphs you should be able to write an overview in about one sentence if you're writing more than that you may be including too much detail normally it's in the introduction paragraph so normally what I would do is my first sentence would kind of summarize what's the graph about yeah so if you if you look in the box at the top it usually says the graph shows information about blah blah blah I changed the words a little bit so I'm not copy so I might use some synonyms I might change the order a little bit that would be my first sentence and then my second sentence would be the overview so I'd say overall more and more people are going to the cinema for example so normally I put those two sentences together in the introduction paragraph and here's the here's the most important thing of the day yeah if you only listen to one thing this should be it if you don't have a clear overview it's a maximum five for task achievement so even if you have a brilliant beautiful essay but you're missing that overview you're stuck in the 5 for task achievement which means you need to get higher scores in the other three categories which is hard yeah so it's a really important sentence it's not easy to write because you need to understand the graph first so it will probably take you a few minutes to understand what's happening and then write the overview sentence I'll show you an example yeah and I'll show you a bad example a good example and a great example so this is the graph I hope you can see it okay it's basically about telephone calls in the UK very exciting topic from 1995 to 2002 and we have three different categories three different types phone calls yeah so before I show you the examples maybe just have a think yeah you don't need to share with your partner I just have a think about what's the most important thing that you see yeah just spend about 30 seconds thinking okay so now I'll show you a few examples this is a bad example this one's kind of the lazy example this one says overall there were many significant changes in the figures well it doesn't really say what changed yeah and it's kind of like if you asked me Oh Dan tell me about your wife what does she look like what's she like as oh my wife she's human doesn't really help much yeah so this is kind of a very lazy way of writing an overview overall there were many changes overall the graphs are very interesting that doesn't really say anything so this is a very lazy way of writing it um this one's a much better example I'll give you a chance to read it so this one's much better and I'll explain some good features so here they say the direction of national and international calls so that's this one here increased and sorry and mobile so these two increased and I know they did increase differently so Mobile's increase kind of exponentially yeah whereas National International increases gradually but for the overview you don't need to be that exact it's okay just to be general and say they increased yeah we can talk about the differences later in the body paragraph but for now it's okay if we just say increased whereas so that's a nice connecting word to make it one sentence instead of having two short sentences that word kind of connects it whereas local fixed line calls rose then fell so it's kind of summarizing the the graph what happened in the graph it's not too long it's probably about 25 30 words maybe it's not too long it does cover all of the important trends and it's a nice complex sentence so this would be a really good example yeah and I'll show you a great example so this one's probably even better than the last one any ideas why what makes this one better than the last one any guesses specific time yeah it does include that yeah anything else compact and good so if you look at this first part here it says local fixed line calls were still the most popular in 2002 so this is quite interesting because it tells us what was the highest instead of just talking about the trends like it increased it decreased it actually tells us the ranking which one was the highest sometimes you might say which one was the lowest you might say higher than lower then but this is a really good way of looking at not just what happened but also what's important so when they say still the most popular it tells me that it was always number one it was always the highest right from the beginning to the end yeah so that's a really effective way to show not just what happened but what's important it depends on the graph of course but for this graph it's very obvious that that's I think that's a very important feature is what was the highest one and then the second part they kind of summarized the trend in a really efficient way they say the gap between them so the difference between these ones the gap between them had narrowed so they became much more similar towards the end so it's a really nice efficient way of summarizing but the thing that makes this one great is it's not just the trend but it's also the the ranking so when you're planning your overview maybe think about is it possible to include both in the overview however if it takes you 15 minutes to write one sentence it's not worth it it shouldn't take you more than about 4 or 5 minutes if it is taking you more than that maybe you're overthinking I know this is beautiful and amazing but it doesn't have to be perfect in IELTS it just has to be good enough yeah so don't don't spend too much time on the overview but maybe have a think about what's the highest what's the lowest higher than lower than they'd said okay your turn a little bit of practice yeah this is a chart about radio and television audiences in the UK another fascinating time way back in dissent in 1992 when people still listen to the radio and this chart is interesting because it's hours in the day yeah so it's from six o'clock in the morning until six o'clock the next morning and we have two lines this little dashed line is for radio and this big dashed line is for television yeah so with the partner you don't need to write anything just talk together for our friends on Facebook maybe just write a little comment if you if you have some time what do you see as the most important thing that happened here okay let's say about two minutes with partner please that's the hard part yeah okay if you are brave and you'd like to volunteer I do have two prizes yeah I have a Collins keywords for IELTS advanced an amazing read it's a very interesting story now it's kind of like a dictionary of useful words for IELTS and this one is the IELTS essential guide from the British Council a very long read it's about 500 pages of goodness yeah so if you're feeling brave just tell me your overview and if it's not horrible you can win a prize it's pretty easy yeah any volunteers go ahead [Music] okay so people who listen to the radio focus on the morning that's here and people watch television focus on the evening which is about yeah yeah good so obviously this one's pretty pretty obviously there's a big difference between the morning and the evening so you could probably draw a line here and see that yeah it's quite different for the morning and the evening I think that's pretty good you can have keywords for us no worries it's that easy any other volunteers this is for the big book go ahead okay for radio from okay okay and how about for television in the evening so you might say what's the what's the highest point in the evening okay okay not in the morning and in the evening yeah so yeah for that one you'd probably want to say if you mentioned this one in the morning you'd probably want to say at and vice-versa or on the other hand television is most popular at about so it's good you you've caught it's basically the peaks of each of them yeah and yeah I think that's a really good overview so congratulations happy reading so the interesting thing is for an overview you can have a hundred different overviews there's no one correct answer so don't worry if you're practicing and yours is different from your friends it's okay because everybody sees something different and there's no one correct way to write an overview so as long as it's significant as long as it's true you're not making up data and it's it's fine yeah so don't overthink it should take you maybe for five minutes in total if it's taking you longer than that maybe you're overthinking okay the next secret I also uses this word quite a lot in coherence and cohesion remember coherence and cohesion refers to organization and this secret applies to both task one and task two because remember organization in both of the tasks are is quite similar except for paragraphing and IELTS uses this in a in seven for a bullet point they say uses a range of cohesive devices appropriately a range of cohesive devices appropriately so the first thing we need to understand is what do they mean by cohesive device a cohesive device is basically literally cohesive or cohesion means sticks together cohesion means to stick together excuse me so what they mean in organization are words or phrases that connect your ideas or connect your sentences together and there's many different words some people call them connectives some people call them connecting words some people call them linking words some people call them discourse markers IELTS calls them cohesive devices they all kind of mean the same thing which are words or phrases to connect ideas or to connect sentences together and I chose this picture because that's kind of how I see it I see it as a link a chain that links your idea sentences together what aisle tears about number one they care about range of cohesive so they don't want just simple ones they don't want things like firstly secondly thirdly fourthly they don't want boring ones like moreover everybody uses moreover they don't want boring ones like in conclusion imagine the poor examiner's if every essay they read it's always firstly secondly thirdly in conclusion next firstly secondly thirdly in conclusion it's very boring yet so they want to see some less common ones some more interesting not ones that everybody else uses and I'll show you some examples a bit later of those less common ones the second thing they want which not many people know about is most people use these between sentences so it's like the first word in your sentence yeah but IELTS is looking for also within your sentence and that's a little bit more advanced yeah it's not many people use them within the sentence so if you're able to use some of them within your sentence instead of always at the beginning you're kind of different from the norm different from the pact so I'll show you how you can do that in in a couple of slides but I'd say about 90% of people only use them at the beginning of the sentence so if you're able to use some of them within your diff from most candidates and like I said earlier they want more than just listing so if you say firstly secondly thirdly it's not showing the relationship it's just showing the order it's like saying one two three but IELTS expects a little bit more advanced connecting worse than that so here's an example of what I mean by less card so on this on the left hand side these are some simple ones that almost everybody can use easily but on the right side these are some less common ways to say the same thing feel free to take a picture if you'd like souvenir of the day yeah I hope I'm not in the picture now you don't have to use all of these yeah in fact if you used all of these that would be a little bit too many you'd be overusing them so maybe use a couple from each of these categories yeah but you don't need to use all of these but for example instead of firstly or first of all you might say to begin with you might say first and foremost it's something a little bit different than what most people would use instead of saying however you might say conversely you might say in spite of this or despite this etc etc so these are some nice ways to to make or connecting words different from most people yeah I hope after today if not everybody is using the same ones from today just to start there are many many more out there the other good thing is some of these are quite long so this one by the same token it's four words instead of one word so it could actually help you make your word count go up a little bit a nice bonus the other thing like I mentioned is not always at the beginning of the sentence yeah so not always and there aren't any rules that I can give you English is kind of like that but they can often be used within the sentence so I'll show you a few examples here they say strict punishments ma on the other hand comma so instead of saying on the other hand strict punishments which most people would probably write like that this one they're moving it within the sentence so it's a little bit more advanced which is what IELTS is looking for in the seven example this solution in addition instead of saying in addition this solution so it's just moving it within the sentence and you'll notice that it's surrounded by commas so comma comma and it's between the subject and the verb yeah so like I said it you can't use it for every single connecting where there are some exceptions but if you don't know just try it and if you're wrong at least you're showing your range at least you're showing your range even if there are some mistakes it's another example that however is not an effective solution to the problem so you don't need to use these within the sentence for every single one but if you can use a few of them within your sentences you're really showing off to the examiner your flexibility and to get a seven that's what the examiner is looking for is can you be flexible yeah if you remember the previous slide I showed you the picture of this this guy doing yoga yeah and that's flexible yeah that's what they're looking for is can you be a little bit different can you be a little bit flexible instead of very rigid basically you want to be a little bit different imagine the poor examiner's they have a pile of essays to mark and you're at the bottom of the pile and the first twenty essays are first of all secondly thirdly first of all secondly thirdly and you're the very last one and the examiner just wants to go home and relax it's been a boring day and the last one is first and foremost Wow in spite of this Wow nice so that's you you've turned into a cat those are your connecting words or linking words and that's the tired examiner so your job is to wake wake them up be interesting third secret is in the same category coherence and cohesion again it relates to both task 1 and task 2 and eioped calls this referencing and substitution and this is something that not many people notice in the marking criteria so in a5 they say maybe repetitive so repetitive means you repeat the same words repeat the same ideas again and again maybe repetitive because of a lack of referencing and substitution so key word a lack of so if you tend to repeat the same words again and again that would be a lack of referencing and I'll explain what exactly does this mean in the next part but basically if you repeat the same words again and again it's probably in the five category in a six that says may not always may not always use referencing clearly or appropriate so that means sometimes you're using it but maybe it's a little bit unclear at times but you're trying to you're trying to use it and that would be within a six in a seven they don't mention it specifically but we can assume that if a six says may not always use it appropriately a seven means you're using it clearly and appropriately yeah so let's look in more detail what does it mean what do they mean by substitution referencing and substitution the easier one is substitution so it's kind of like a football pitch yeah so number nine comes off number seven comes on so they change the players and in Aisle substitution just means you change the words so you use synonyms maybe you use pronouns instead of repeating the same word again so instead of saying the number the number the number the number the number the number you might use a different word you might say the number or the figure yeah exactly so that's basically you're changing the word number for figure and you're substituting just like on a football match you're substituting substituting this player for that player so this is pretty basic it's pretty easy you just need to use a few synonyms I'm sure all of you are already doing that that's pretty simple the more complicated one is referencing what referencing means is when we refer back that's why they use the word reference it refers back and I like to use this picture where you're looking back in the mirror you're looking back and this is a little bit more advanced because it's not just using synonyms it's using words that refer back to what you said earlier so this is much more advanced and therefore it's much more difficult so I'll show you an example this is a really repetitive paragraph it says my cat is named mitts and my cat is white I really like my cat because my cat is friendly and I hope my cat again will stay friendly in the future so obviously they're overusing the word my cat sorry the phrase my cat so before I show you some examples with a partner maybe think of some other words some other synonyms instead of my cat yeah so let's try and substitute some other ways to say my cat I know this might be difficult you probably don't think about cat vocabulary too often yeah try your best so with the partner Facebook maybe just leave a quick comment what are some other ways instead of saying my cat again and again yep anything okay okay so now you have lots of cat vocabulary very useful in there Eielson I don't think I've ever seen a topic about cats and ions but maybe one day before I get some exam I did I looked at the comments on the Facebook page there was a really good one from shala Abdullah sorry if I mispronounced your name so using she or it and that one's interesting because a pet should use it like a thing or should use he or she like a person it depends that normally I guess in Western culture people are very close to their pets most people would say he or she it just depends how close you are to your pet I guess but yeah you could use a pronoun like she or it you could use the cat's name you could use MIPS maybe again okay any ideas from the audience what else could I use instead of my cat yet it's white my pets good good my dear buddy aw that sounds very nice good yeah excellent any other ideas for my cat so she met my kitten instead of my cat good excellent here's a test what's the adjective of cat Wow amazing who said feline was amazing you have really good cat vocabulary I'm impressed so I'll show you in my example this is my example my cat is named it's and she is white yeah so like a few people have said I really like my pet I think that was the same because my kitty I'm a very emotional pet owner my kitty like a kitten yeah and I hope my feline friends so there was a test of your vocabulary feline is the adjective of cat don't write it down you'll never need to use it again in your life I'm sure but in case you're curious what is the adjective of Canada so this is an example where I'm just substituting these different words instead of repeating my cat again and again so that would be the the basic way now to be a little bit more advanced you'd probably want to use some referencing and some examples of that ere pronouns like we used it she they et cetera this is actually a very powerful word this you can also use this in a noun so you might say this or this cat this this person this or this idea etc I'll show you an example some people think that the government should pay for education and I agree with this or I agree with this view so instead of repeating the government should pay for education it's referring back to that idea yeah but in a much more efficient way it's only one one word or here it's two words some other things you can do you could say the former so if you talk about two things the former is the first one and the latter is the second one you can only use it for two things so if you have three it doesn't work yeah you'd have to say the former or the latter only for two things that one's very useful in task one so if you talk about say the price of gold and the price of silver you could say the former was $10 the latter was 20 instead of saying silver and gold again another one is respectively so respectively you could use for two things or you could use for three things I wouldn't use it for more than three because then it's a little bit complicated for the reader so if you say the price of gold silver diamonds and platinum were $10 $50 100 200 whoa whoa whoa whoa which ones which so I wouldn't use it for more than three things here's some other useful phrases that of the price of gold was $100 while that of instead of saying the price of again that of silver stood at $50 so instead of repeating silver again I'm sorry instead of repeating the price again here's an example of respectively that the price of gold and silver rose to 100 and $200 respectively if you refer to a point in time you might say from this year from this year onwards or from this point onwards or from this period onwards instead of saying the year again another one you might say is the reverse if something is opposite so if you remember the example about radio and television you might say radio is most popular in the morning while the reverse is true for the afternoon yeah or while the opposite was true for the afternoon so instead of referring to the word you're referring to the idea some other useful phrases for tasks too this is like a nice thesis statement here this I think will discuss two reasons why I agree with this view or this viewpoint in your body paragraphs when you're explaining you might say one reason for this is one such example of this this one actually has two double reference one such example of this is one way of explaining this is an interesting example of this is this may be true to some extent but it's so you can see it's a little bit more advanced than just changing the word substituting the words so if you're able to use some of the referencing words of phrases you're really showing off your advanced organization yes and like I said not many people know about this announced and not many people use them in my experience so you'll be different from the norm so it's a good idea you came here to thank you okay the next secret relates to task two specifically and IELTS uses the word position to get a seven in task response one of the bullet points is presents a clear position throughout the response and that a position what's another way to say position any ideas stance I heard yet opinion yeah outlook yeah point of view perspective etc yeah so IELTS is for task two if the question is asking for your opinion IELTS wants it to be clear and they want it to be clear throughout the response so it shouldn't change sometimes you see really strange essays where at the beginning it says I strongly agree and then at the end it says I strongly disagree what happened so it should be clear throughout the response I chose this picture I'm not sure if you can see it clearly but for this picture the person says it's a six and this person says it's a nine so obviously two different viewpoints and if that's you if that's the writer and you say I strongly agree but the reader doesn't see that they see I strongly disagree it means that your your perspective is not clearly being communicated so before we talk about position let's think about what tasks are asking for your position in IELTS so I've chosen five of probably the most common question types and tasks too and for each of these I'd like you just to talk with your partner or comment on the Facebook page which of these is asking for your position or your opinion or point of view which of these is asking for an analysis but no opinion and which of these is asking for both position and analysis yeah so for each of these five prompts is that one two or one and two okay let's say two minutes with each other please one entry let's write an answer that way okay Thanks a little bit tricky as some of them it kind of depends some of it depends so I just looked at the Facebook comments thanks to mr. Chang thanks for your comments I think you got most of them right let's go through them one at a time and see see what I think the first one to what extent do you agree or disagree is that one two or one and two it's just one yeah if they're asking for your opinion and your opinion is how much do you agree or how much do you disagree yes pretty simple the second one not so simple do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages one end - okay it depends it depends how you write it so the way I would write it which I think many people would probably do the same thing is my first paragraph I talk about the advantages so I'd analyze what are the advantages and then my second paragraph I'd analyze what are the disadvantages but I do need to answer the question overall right it is a yes/no question it's do do the advantages so I need to have an answer yes they do or no they don't so overall I would give my position so probably in the conclusion I'd say overall after considering both I argue that the advantages are stronger than so it's - with a little bit of one mostly analyzed but maybe your opinion at the end however you could if you wanted to you could you could just argue for one side so you might just say from the beginning the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and here are some reasons why so you could make it mostly position with a bit of analysis it just depends on your style yeah I think the easiest way is analyze analyze overall answer the question that's the way I would write it but you could kind of argue one side I guess the third one discuss both views and give your own opinion one too it's kind of the same thing it's really the same essay so discuss both that would give your own opinion that would be position so it's kind of the same structure really number four what are the causes of this and what measures could be taken to solve this problem analysis if they're not asking for your opinion they're not asking is it good is it bad it's just analyzing sorry thank you just number two just analysis yeah so they're not asking for any position at all and the lesson is this a positive or a negative development one and two yeah just one it depends again it's quite similar to this one where I could analyze what are the positive features one of the negative features overall negative or I could just choose one and I'd say here are two reasons why it's positive again if it were me I'd probably be more bounced I'd look at positive and negative kind of like this one but it is possible just to choose one side but I would recommend maybe being more balanced so it's important when you get your question is to think about are they asking for my opinion or are they just asking me to analyze or are they asking me to do both and if they are it's important that it's clear and consistent so for example if it's agree or disagree it should be very clear to the reader which one is it is it agree is it strongly agrees that slightly agree is it strongly disagree it should be clear that the reader shouldn't have to think about it it should be really obvious to them what's your opinion and it should be consistent so you don't want to change halfway through yeah so that's why I'm planning is very important because if you think about your ideas before you write you won't have that problem it's the people who start writing and then they change their mind those are the people who usually their opinions not very clear and the other thing is IELTS doesn't want you to be ambiguous ambiguous means unclear yeah and a lot of people have these kind of phrases which don't say anything so for example every coin has two sides and this issue is no exception is overused it's a cliche in Isles and really if you think about it that doesn't say anything it doesn't actually say what is your opinion and some people change it so some people change the word coin to nice and they say every knife has two edges it's the same thing it's the same thing but really that's not drawing any conclusions it's not saying anything so try and avoid phrases like that overall I both agree and disagree with this issue I'm exactly in the middle IELTS doesn't want you to be in the middle they want you to have some opinion it doesn't matter how strong your opinion is it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree as long as it's clear but IELTS hates it when people say overall I don't know or overall it's I both agree and disagree that's its kind lazy I think the next one this is a serious issue in modern society which needs to be addressed if it's so serious why are you wasting your time doing an English exam go out and solve the world's problems don't wait they'll spend three or four hours doing your IELTS exam go out there and solve the world's problems the government needs to take action call the Prime Minister oh no phones allowed an IELTS I'm sorry but basically over I'll be careful with these phrases because they don't actually give your opinion and IELTS wants you to have a very clear opinion so try not to sit on the fence sit on the fence means you're exactly in the middle you're very neutral if it's asking for your opinion make sure it's clear examiner's don't care what your opinion is as long as you have an opinion the last secret is a tricky one it's hard to improve yet this one just takes a lot of time and effort it's to less common vocabulary so this is the same in both task 1 and task 2 yeah it's exactly the same and one of the bullet points and 7 is uses less common less common lexical items lexical items words or phrases that just means words or phrases less common lexical items with some awareness of style and collocation so this is a really complicated sentence yeah let's break it down a bit so the first thing is the first thing is less common so the examiner wants to see some vocabulary that not everybody else uses yeah and there's no list that the examiners have there's no instruction this is less common this is common it's kind of it depends on a lot of things but it's kind of relative to other people so for example in Vietnam a lot of people will use vocabulary like interesting comfortable useful a lot of people say thanks to the development of modern technology plays an important role in something these are kind of words or phrases that are overused a bit in Vietnam yeah so the examiners are looking for can you use some more impressive vocabulary yeah so for example instead of interesting what are some other less common words or phrases for interesting intriguing nice appealing yeah could be stimulating yeah nice any others but if you read a really good book and you can't put it down engrossing that's a good one yeah captivating it said so those are all examples of less common vocabulary yeah so it's not just about academic words it's about different words instead of the normal ones that most people would use in writing the examiners not looking for idioms that's not really appropriate for writing that would be more for speaking so probably not idioms in your writing and the second one is some awareness of style and collocation style and collocation so style means kind of how formal or how informal is is your vocabulary so in English and in many languages the vocabulary you use for writing is not always the same as what you use for speaking yeah so for example if you use an idiom in in writing it's a little bit informal so you want to use vocabulary that's formal or academic but not too formal if all of your words are long 13 14 letter words and even the examiner doesn't know what it means and they have to open the diction and says what does that mean Oh new word for me then maybe that's a little bit too formal yeah so you should be aware of your style it should be formal but not too formal academic but not too academic and the second one is awareness of collocation so collocation is when words often go together and I'll talk about that a bit later with some examples basically your job is to be a vocabulary ninja yeah and unfortunately there aren't any shortcuts it takes a lot of effort a lot of practice and hard work to remember those words or phrases but there are some things that can help you so there's this website which i think is really useful it's called viscom and I'll see if it works on here it's a really nice website which will show you visually that's the vision some synonyms some related words etc so for this one I put in interesting I put in interesting and it's a little bit complicated you can see it gets really specific about what's the relationship I don't worry about that too much so here interesting I see what are some related words exciting newsworthy so you see newsworthy it's similar to it's not exactly the same it's similar to so maybe I wouldn't use that one stimulating I think somebody mentions stimulating intriguing absorbing engrossing fascinating so the closer it is the more similar it is but if you notice this one's a little bit far away it's getting further away maybe a little bit less related yeah it also teaches you some opposites uninteresting some other word forms like here's the adverb interestingly etc so it's a really nice way to kind of expand your vocabulary but it's easier than reading a dictionary I think the only thing to be careful of is they're not exactly the same so you can't just use this word or this word there there are little differences between them like here for example newsworthy that's kind of you know interesting that it would be in the news but I wouldn't say oh my girlfriend is such a newsworthy person it's kind of different so you have to be a little bit careful you might need to still use a dictionary with this but I think it's a nice website too without much effort kind of expand your vocabulary that one's vision words calm visual words calm another way to show off your vocabulary it's by using less common word forms so in English nouns usually have the most information so the information in one noun it's usually more than the information you get from an adverb or from an adjective so nouns are really full of information and in English if you can change a verb into a noun or a verb into a noun phrase that's called nominalization yeah it's when you make a noun phrase from a verb and I'll show you some examples of this and this is it's not easy but it's easier than using less common synonyms where often you can easily change a verb into a noun yeah so in the sentence they say the planets temperature is rising as a result of global warming so this would be a verb verb phrase here oops but an easy way to make it into a noun you could just say the rise of so instead of is rising here they say the rise of and it's not it's not a show-off word but it's taking it's taking a verb and making it into a noun phrase which is a little bit more advanced in English vocabulary a lot of nouns are really uncommon and it's hard to know kind of what's the noun of this verb but if you're able to using noun phrases instead of verb phrases is a way of showing off your your vocabulary yeah so this is a simple example but obviously a lot of nouns are quite hard to learn quite hard to memorize the third one is collocation so collocation are when two or more words often go together and I'll show you a few simple examples of what I mean this one would be a verb so what verb would often go with the word research you do research so if you use the wrong verb if you say make research or have research it just doesn't really go together yeah it's like a girlfriend and boyfriend who aren't really compatible yeah yeah so you're looking for a husband and wife yeah here you could say do research or you could say conduct research carry out yeah so these are collocations that would naturally go together how about this one is an adverb this one yeah wildly fluctuate wildly yeah or you could say mildly yeah you could say that's it maybe dramatically etc but if you say fluctuate slightly just doesn't really work doesn't go together it just sounds a bit strange yeah fluctuate gradually slightly it just doesn't work how about this one an adjective for issued a lot of people would say con controversial yeah that was kind of overused controversial what's another way to say controversial a-something issue instead of controversial debatable a serious issue yep okay so this is a tricky one now it's hard thing to do if you go if you look in the dictionary and if you're looking for other collocations it's kind of tricky so these are two websites that can help you with complications the first one is called Asda calm and the second one is called just the word and I'll show you some examples for issue let's use issue as an example so the first one if you go to Asda calm I put an issue as the noun and quick-quick easily you can see we have a big issue a burning issue a central issue a critical issue a crucial issue an important issue a key issue bla bla bla this one for a controversial that's a nice word contentious a contentious issue a thorny issue so without much effort you can kind of expand your collocations instead of just one word you might be able to expand it to say two words three words and by doing that you're showing your flexibility and again a seven it's all about showing your flexibility you have to be a little bit careful because like visual words it doesn't tell you the difference between them yeah so for example the difference between a vital issue and a major issue it doesn't tell you here so you might still have to use a dictionary to notice the difference between them but it's pretty easy for a lot of examples if you know this word controversial then this word contention obviously is related yeah so it's a pretty I think it's a pretty easy way to expand your call occasions um the other one is called just the word this one's a little bit more technical Oh looks like it's down I must have crashed the server okay I'll try that one a bit later but it's it's a similar idea this one is a little bit more technical and it shows how common or how less common the collocation is so I'll try that one a bit later I guess the server must be down but if you can when you're learning a new word if you can also think about the collocation if you can expand your collocations then that's another good way to show off your vocabulary to get a seven again there's no shortcuts it's a bit of hard work but I think these websites can help you make it a bit easier and speaking of some recommended websites so I have a list here of some some websites that I think are quite good for writing the official IELTS site has lots of materials for teachers but as a candidate there's some good stuff in there so you don't have to be a teacher to click on teachers but there's lots of good practice essays sample essays with comments from the examiners it's not just for teachers for Candida - um the official IELTS Asia org has some good materials British Council it's a good materials as well DC IELTS I think is quite good Domenic coli outs as videos there's practice activities etc I love Liz I think is amazing she has full videos she covers every skill in IELTS lots of good video lessons IELTS advantage comm has some really good practice activities as well IELTS academic IELTS buddy is good for task one whoops IELTS buddy is good for process writing and maps writing which are kind of the other tasks ones you could get they have some really good lessons about that and I also blog as well so these ones I think are my my personal favorites if I had to choose only one I probably choose British Council if I had to choose only two I would probably choose Isles Liz I think she has some amazing material I'll Simon I hope Simon's not watching on Facebook I'll Simon there's one thing I don't like about Simon it's when he writes sample essays he always says ban 9 right and it's kind of like according to me I'm the most handsome man in the universe according to me but if you actually look at the criteria not all of his essays I think would be a 9 particularly for organisation so if you remember earlier today I said you want to use a range of discourse markers a range of linking words he often uses first of all secondly he for example in conclusion and he rarely uses them within the sentence they're almost always at the beginning so particularly for organisation I don't think everything he writes as a 9 even though he says it's ban 9 so I think he's sending the wrong message to candidates because candidates look at his essay and they think this is how I should write but if you look at the IELTS criteria it's not always a 9 so I I know Simon has some really good materials but I think just be careful when he says it's a bad line be a little bit more critical and maybe look at the criteria and think well is it a ban 9 is it why is it not a bad line so Simon some great things but maybe be careful so I mean if you're watching I apologize don't hate me some books if you like the old fashioned way of using books I really like this series called improve your IELTS they have one for writing to have one for listening and speaking they have one for reading really good practice activities to improve your writing over time so if you have a lot of time if you have a lot of energy that I think this is a really good book if you don't have much time if your test is tomorrow or next week don't use that one use this one this one's called action plan and right here on the cover they say last-minute preparations so it's everything you need to know it's pretty short it's about a hundred and thirty pages I think it covers all of the four skills but it's just what you need to know there's not a lot of extra information just what you need to know so this is great if you don't have much time or if you don't have much energy I really like IELTS test builder for practice tests I know it's not specifically for writing but for they're listening and reading tests I think it's really good because the answer key explains the answer so for example if the answer is not given it says why is it not given whereas the Cambridge books it just says not given and you say but I wrote false why hmm whereas this book will explain the answers so not so much for think the writing samples are good but I really like series for the practice listening and reading tests these ones are a little bit hard to find yeah I don't know where you can buy them in Hanoi it but if you can find them they're really good because their official their official straight from IELTS yeah yeah there are two volumes there's volume wanted volume two they have full practice test and for writing they have about I think three or four for task one and task two they have sample essays and they have scores from the examiner and comments from the examiner so it's a good way to see what do the examiners give these sample essays yeah if you can find volume two there's a DVD if you still have VD player most laptops don't have anymore there are three full speaking tests can see what happens in the speaking test what does it feel like when you do your test in the room what score did the examiner give etc so if you can find them really good this is another of the book it's called high scoring IELTS writing model answers easy to find in Vietnam it's published in Vienna and this one's good because they're honest they say based on past papers a lot of publishers will say things like actual tests or recent tests but IELTS never releases their tests to the public so if any book says actual tests they're kind of telling a lie because IELTS doesn't release them so at least this book is honest they say based on past papers yeah so they're similar to IELTS exams from the past and when they say high-scoring they're actually high-scoring so when I read these essays all of them are at least an eight there are all really good quality essays and its really good for vocabulary because they have translations into Vietnamese yeah so sometimes when you're learning vocabulary if it's all in English it's so much hard work and if it's translation sometimes it's so easy so this book has translations for vocabulary which is quite helpful okay so that's the end of the session before we move on to the questions part or you can win some amazing prizes if you can still remember I know it's been a long evening what are three things you remember from today's session yet to refresh your memory so with a partner or a comment on the Facebook what three things do you remember from today's session [Music] [Music] [Laughter] okay so hopefully a few of these things stuck yeah I know there's been a lot of information but at least if three of them stuck that'd be yeah so let's review what were the five secrets to success what was the first one task achievement yeah second one was referencing substitution I'm sorry range of cohesive devices yeah referencing substitution yeah I think we missed one though didn't we before that overview good clear overview really important and task one yeah really important sentence we talked about referencing substitution after that clear position yeah and the last one was yeah less common vocabulary collocations it's etiquette okay now for me it's the hard part for you I think it's the easy part any questions and remember if you if you ask any question and for our friends on Facebook as well there'll be some prizes for you if you ask some good questions so any questions about writing can you bring quotes from a famous person into writing you can it's a little bit tricky because you'd have to memorize them and it it can be difficult to make sure the quote relates to the topic yeah so a lot of people they might just memorize a quote from Einstein and try and use it for any topic so it's a little bit risky I think and it's easy to make a mistake so if you if you don't remember it exactly or if you make a mistake with one of the words so for IELTS I probably would have voided because they're not expecting you to bring anything from outside right so you don't have to bring in any facts you're not expected to have any research or even quotes so you're not expected to and it's a little bit risky because it's easy to make a mistake so maybe maybe I would try and avoid quotes Oh link how do I do the prizes you can choose okay thanks very much you can choose a prize we have IELTS Central guide we have USBs notebooks keywords for IELTS good choice I would choose the same enjoy happy reading oh now everybody's hands go it's that easy it is that easy I strongly believe that or I believe that it kind of depends on I guess how strong your opinions are so for IELTS it doesn't matter it doesn't matter if you strongly believe if you slightly believe if you strongly disagree I think some people think that stronger is better but in IELTS that's not true as long as it's clear that's what's important so whether you slightly believe or strongly believe that's not really too important as long as it's clear to the reader yeah so you don't have to always be strong I think some people think strong means a strong score but not always like that yeah so as long as it's clear if you if you slightly agree or strongly agree the the strength doesn't matter too much it's just can you be clear in your in your essay okay questions of the online audience mr. vu says how to effectively solve the chart problems to get maximum score solve the chart problems I guess what that means is what do I need to cover in a chart to get the high score if you look at their criteria it says covers all key features so what you want to do is you want to look at the graph and think what's important and for example if it's a pie chart if you miss out a category you're missing an important detail which would really hurt your score so to get a maximum score you want to cover all the important features and you'd want to support it with some some data or some numbers or figures so if you say it increase you should say how much did it increase for example a question from Joe could you please tell me how I can manage to have enough time to finish two tasks you can pray to the gods it's that's hard I'd like it the beginning for me that's the hardest part is doing all of these things in 60 minutes planning helps planning so thinking of your ideas or looking at the chart before you write it helps because that way you don't have to stop and think yeah you if you can think of your ideas maybe take a few notes I for me that helps speed it up and it also helps me to stay focused so I'm not trying to cover too much I'm not trying to include too many ideas it helps me stay focused kind of eyes on the prize so I think thinking of your ideas before you write even if it's only two or three minutes I think for me that helps me to plan my time whether you start with task 1 or start with task 2 that's kind of your personal decision nobody will tell you in IELTS they won't say stop task 1 please stop task 1 it's up to you to manage your time for both tasks I do notice the people who start with task 2 often run out of time for test 1 because I think they spend too much time on their ideas and in the essay and then they have to rush to do their task 1 so if you do start with tasks to be very careful that you really are stripped with your time yeah if it's 40 minutes you gotta finish and move on to task 1 practice as well so when you're practicing at home be really strict with the time yeah close your door lock the root lock your door turn off your Facebook except when you're watching today's live feed and just be really strict when you're practicing so that you get used to the feeling I think that could help a little bit Chang asked how can we use respectively with three things good question I forgot to give an example for that TURN RIGHT it here so here's an example of respectively for three things so I'm not sure if you can read my writing probably not the price of gold silver and copper yeah so let's say gold number one copper two necessary silver to copper three were $100 that's gold $50 silver and $25 respectively I normally use a comma before it some people don't use a comma I'm a traditionalist I guess and so I would probably put comma respectively again yeah I wouldn't use it for more than four things so if it's that gold silver copper and something it gets a little bit complicated so I would just use it for three things good questions thanks very much veau Cho and Chang great questions sorry I forgot the prize you can choose any prize you'd like oh this is a popular one Ling I think we need to get more of these sure actually funny you should mention because a good dictionary I'm not promoting Collin specifically but they actually are quite good because they'll tell you if it's academic so right here core it says academic word and there are other dictionaries McMillan is quite good for that Oxford has I think they call them keywords or the Oxford 3000 or something so good dictionaries will tell you if it's academic if it's formal if it's informal whereas other maybe lower quality dictionaries wouldn't tell you that information and that's why you have to be careful although I recommended those websites they don't tell you that information so you'd have to use them in combination with a good dictionary and the hard part is to remember it's easy to learn vocabulary but it's hard to remember it so having a good notebook can help you so you might want to have categories so you might have like academic vocabulary in one part speaking vocabulary in another part so that when you're revising your vocabulary you can kind of categorize it but to be honest it's really hard to remember vocabulary and to remember is it formal is it informal that's that's actually quite a lot of effort but my advice would be get a good dictionary I will tell you if it's kind of formal or informal academic or not academic etc it's great I mean the thing about vocabulary is you don't just learn a word once like for it to stick in your memory you have to see it again and again and again and there's lots of research from what I remember it's something like I think it's 9 or 12 times so if you see a new word it takes about 9 to 12 times for it to really stick unless it's like a really important word like for your job you might need to see it once but if it's just a random word like deplete ok if I just learned deplete I'll probably forget it tomorrow morning Sadie something what was it but if tomorrow I read a newspaper and I see deplete does it oh I it refreshes my memory so the more you can encounter vocabulary the more it's likely you'll remember it so read as much as possible newspapers are great but remember newspapers are kind of one-stop but it might not be very good for helping you in your essay yeah because it's a very different way of writing but yeah the more you read the more you can watch or listen the more vocabularies likely to stick in your memory thank you sure yeah what prize would you like okay I think that's the last one actually good question yeah so I'll just go back to the slide so it was advantages and disadvantages was that it now what are the advantages okay yep okay good so if the question is what are the advantages disadvantages they're not asking for your opinion they're just asking you to analyze it so for that one it depends if you want to just talk about one but again for me I'd probably be balanced and I'd say okay here are some of the advantages and here are some of the disadvantages but if they're not asking you for your position like this question where it says do the advantages outweigh then you don't actually have to give your opinion yeah yeah well not exactly because I always like to imagine if you go to court yeah so let's say you go to a court of law and you have to defend yourself you could defend yourself and say well they just asked me what are the advantages and just they didn't ask me what do I think about it so I think you would be able to end yourself in court but for this question if it says do the advantages outweigh you would if you went to court and you say well I didn't answer the question but I don't have to they say yeah yes you do so I think for what are the advantages disadvantages you don't have to give your opinion but for this question you you do have to give your opinion so just be very careful when you read the question some people skim it and then I'd say yeah yeah advantage is this man I know I know I know and they might not notice the due for example so just be really slow when you're reading the question so that you don't make a mistake yeah good question process so what are you expected to do um just get my pen okay so for a process and I think it's the easiest task one and I'll explain why a process they're expecting you to describe what you see whereas a graph they're expecting you to summarize the information and in order to summarize the information you need to understand it because you need to think about what's important what's left important what's a key feature what's a supporting feature it's there's a lot of thinking for a graph a process all you're doing is you're summarizing the picture you're summarizing what you see so you don't have to understand it like if it's a complicated process about how soybeans are harvested and I see the picture and I said I have no idea what this means it doesn't matter that much because I'm just describing what I see yeah all tasks and the other thing about process is the other thing about process is it's okay to use the vocabulary on the picture right you're not allowed to use the vocabulary in the box at the top so the one that says the graph gives information about I'm sorry the this is a process about how soybeans are made but if there's any vocabulary on the graph it's okay to use that it's not considered copying so even if you don't understand what it means it's okay to use the the vocabulary on here it's great if you can use synonyms but you're not expected to so for process always remember they're not asking skew they're not testing do you understand what happened they're testing can you summarize this complicated picture in a simple way so even if you don't understand how it works it's not an engineering test it's just a language test so don't worry too much about if you don't understand it just try your best to summarize what you see and remember it's okay to use vocabulary from the picture already for process I would normally the simplest way is how many stages and [Music] what's the end result so for example if it's this complicated picture I might say overall after four stages bottles are produced and that be a very a very simple example but that's basically how you'd write an overview for processes how many stages like how many separate stages and then at the end what what happened you're welcome which one would you like we have USB notebooks movie tickets from cgv IELTS this one oh happy reading that's going to put you to sleep very quickly Oh a lot of questions go ahead yep conclusion and tasks to you okay so it depends on the question but let's assume you get a position question right so let's say assume you get agree disagree or something like that yeah the first thing most important is what's your overall position yeah so if the question is to what extent do you agree or disagree the first thing you need to do is say the answer to the question yeah overall I strongly agree that the government should pay for education so that would be your first sentence must be clear no coins have two sides clear opinion yet after that if you want to make it a bit longer there are a few things you could do so you could you could summarize your reasons you might say overall I strongly agree the government should fund education because and your first reason was this so your second reason was that you could kind of summarize your reasons you also end it with something like a prediction so you might say for example if the government funds education children will be more likely to be successful in their future careers or something like that or so you could give a prediction you might give some advice yeah so you could say I strongly encourage the government to fund education because children deserve a bright future something like that what else could you do yeah those are all I can think of but really the most important thing is you need to have an overall position if it's a position question if it's not a position if it's an analysis and I would probably summarize what it's about in my essay and again your last sentence is optional but you maybe do something general like a prediction for the future or some advice or something like that correct it's not rubbing you have to be careful that you like you don't want to give a new reason in your conclusion but I think if it's something general like yes I don't think you're including a new idea because I think it's still related to your your overall essay so as long as it's pretty general I up about that it's a very specific new idea then it's yeah you'd have to be careful but I think for this part as long as its general you don't have to worry about that too much if you are worried about it then just don't write that one but for me I I wouldn't I wouldn't consider that a new idea you're welcome what would you like you have choices of notebook USB movie ticket or IELTS essential guide can we get another Collins book Ling sorry I think we've run out yeah okay I think so if you can read how long is it it's 490 pages so that would be how many pages a day my maths not very good but it's possible if you're dedicated okay enjoy good luck yeah the the IELTS itself what do you mean by the IELTS itself Oh example with the ask AHA I guess it depends on the topic so if the topic were about language tests or tests maybe if it's relevant but yeah it's okay to use the Isles as an example as long as it's relevant but I think it's not too often in IELTS you get you'd get a topic about English tests but maybe if it's a topic about language or if it's a topic about education you might be able to you don't have to say IELTS is great it's not like the example is a good example have a nine uh-huh but as long as it's relevant then yeah it's it's okay just think about whether it's it's relevant to use that example or not you have a choice of notebooks USV or movie tickets okay I would choose this is really nice one actually okay oh we have three questions from Facebook let anything for prizes the first question from Tweel a is should we use the first-person pronoun I me or we when we want to express our personal opinion in IELTS it's okay I know for a lot of formal writing like your assignments at school or dissertations you avoid it but for IELTS it's okay to use personal pronouns I think in my opinion I believe etc and it's also okay to use personal experience for your examples so if you give an example it doesn't have to be a statistic or a fact you could say for example in my home town people bla bla bla or in my country people bla bla bla so for examples it's okay to use an example from your personal experience it's okay Niles so it's a it's a formal writing but it's not too formal it's okay to use I me my opinion it's try chewing had a question what if task 1 is mixed with 2 charts how do we know which is the main chart and how much should it account in our writing ok so if you get more than one graph past one you have to cover both of them right if you if you miss the second one I think you'll get a 4 for a task achievement you miss the key feature so you have to talk about both of them which one is the main one which is the secondary one it kind of depends but it's not that important you don't need to think about that as long as you cover the key features for both if it's if it's a bigger graph you'll probably write more for that one but to be honest you don't need to worry about that much chewing because as long as you cover the key features in both you'll be alright so don't worry if you two paragraphs are not the same length if one is bigger than the other it's it's not a problem for that situation the last question is from to peg task 1 for example requires at least 150 words should I write about 200 to 250 or stick to the 10% rule which means I should be plus or minus 15 words to the essays length ok you don't need to write 200 to 250 in fact it's really hard to for most task ones it's really hard to write that many words there's just not that much information so no you don't need to write more you won't get any bonus points for writing extra so no you shouldn't I wouldn't try and write 200 to 250 words the 10% rule it's not really a rule because that's not what IELTS does they just care about the minimum so you you need to write 150 words that's it if you write more okay no problem if you write less problem because you'll start to to get points deducted depending on how short it is so there is no 10% rule it's 150 words minimum so always try and write at least 250 good questions from the Facebook crew I think we have one more one more prize okay I'm gonna be as fair as possible I'm going to close my eyes I'll say 1 2 3 hands up and the first hand I see I will ask ok ok hands down I'm not looking hands down ok 1 2 3 hands up I saw this in the purple yeah good so good question so the question was about let's say you follow the five secrets which is great I hope you do but let's say you have some problem with your critical thinking and your ideas how will it affect your score to be honest it it doesn't really affect your score because it's not a test of your critical thinking it's not a test of your ideas it's not a test of how smart you are it's not a test of your creativity it's just a language test right so the e L and il stands for English language is not the International how smart are you test which would be the I have smelts I guess so you don't need to worry too much about being critical you don't need to worry too much about being a balanced thinker and considering the other side and all of those things because really what IELTS is testing is can you clearly communicate ideas that's it it's not about how smart you sound or can you include facts and statistics it's just about can you clearly communicate ideas so don't worry about how critical you are don't worry about how balanced you are as long as you can answer the question clearly that's what IELTS is looking for yeah you don't need to worry about all those it's good that you know about those strawman and red herring and slippery slopes but to be honest it's not it's not a it's not like a university assignment where they might be looking for can you be critical it's just a test of your language so if you're able to use those concepts that's great but Al's doesn't expect them they just expect answer the question clearly and explain your ideas that's it so you have a choice of usb movie tickets or notebooks I think these are actually from the classroom I don't want I don't want to get in trouble from the British Council ah yes good choice enjoy if you're looking for somebody to go with you I'm sorry I'm married so I'm not allowed to 300-thousand so you can bring two friends yes or on happy happy Wednesday you can bring four friends maybe make make lots of friends here today treat she'll treat you to a movie this okay well thanks very much if you have any other questions I'll stick around here and Facebook fans if you have any questions feel free to leave comments and I'll try and answer them in the future thanks very much for coming enjoy the rest of your Sunday evening and good luck in your IELTS I hope you get the score you need [Applause] and give your opinion there isn't a rule normally what most people would do is they follow the same order as the as the box so for

Channel: KUL IELTS Listening

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Keywords: Ielts, ielts 2018, ielts face off, ielts writing, writing ielts task 1, writing ielts task 2, writing ielts task 2 simon, ielts writing task 1, ielts writing task 1 ngoc bach, ielts british council

Id: 6UKVKcLHVLA

Length: 108min 45sec (6525 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 12 2018