IELTS - Writing Skills - Writing Task 2 - Structure & Response - Live from Cambridge

you you you you you you you okay guys good morning welcome today is Saturday the 10th of December that means if you're doing your Christmas shopping you have just two weeks left just two weeks that's it okay so time to go out there buy fantastic gifts and give them beautifully wrapped up and think very carefully about how many pairs of socks you want to buy for your boyfriend's and your father's and how many belts and ties also really really important I want to thank everybody for tuning in this morning especially thanks for those who are returning hitting the like button subscribing is this is the best way to show support and it also means that you're never going to miss a future show okay for those who are tuned in for the first time my name is Andrew and I'm the director of a company called Cambridge aap we are based here in Cambridge so we are a real Cambridge flat training center and our job is to help those who have very specific language needs so we tend not to do general English but instead we tend to focus much more on examination English this series of broadcasts is all about IELTS as we know is a very popular okay popular is in we have to do it what popular as we like it but still popular still a popular English exam which many people have to do to come to University in the UK or to Australia and increasingly so in America we're going to we we go to look at examination English so IELTS as the most popular as I just mentioned we have becca-boo Ladd's CAE cpe FCE and for those who don't know the Cambridge language assessment they actually do produce quite a few language exams the most popular is IELTS but yeah there are others as well so the point of this series is that we're going to just go through some of the basics some of the more important information about ods exam now a lot of people I know spend time studying for studying their vocabulary and their grammar they want to learn more phrases more expressions but we found especially in my experience we've found that it's it's really quite important to focus on the basic things but quite Almond quite often the examiners come and say that the students you know lack in the basics they don't know how to do this or that's not clear or the structure as well okay so don't just spend all the time focusing on vocabulary or grammar in it when we look at your papers when we mark your papers we normally only 50% of the score is actually based on your vocabulary and grammar the other 50% is based on things like how well is it organized how well do you explain yourself is it logical because it makes sense and also how well do you respond to the question all of these are really very important so before you use pick before we pick up the vocabulary list and I know you do it and you try to learn another twenty thirty new words which you know seem like they're a good idea for the exam just stop and think how many of those words do you think you're actually going to use one thing that we've always taught in class is that is focused on quality quality really matters not quantity okay so stop think about how you doing and hopefully today's session will help you with that now last week are we focused on writing task one the overall structure and also the introductions and if you didn't catch that that's fine that's okay that's totally amazing my heart wasn't broken it's still there available for you on the Cambridge a PE YouTube homepage and you watch it anytime you want hopefully there's some great information there for you but for all of you it's very important to understand that if you have questions or comments or something you'd like to ask then post a question into the comments section below the video today and at the end of the session we will try to answer two or three questions connected to the topic that we're talking about okay so you can catch us on email meaning go to our websites the details are also posted you can catch us on Twitter Facebook or even just on YouTube okay you can even send us a letter a handwritten letter great for writing practice and if you'd like that we can post our business address our school address here in Cambridge and we look forward to seeing hearing from you okay so today we are going to look at writing tasks to question types and the structures these this is often things though which are not really well explained in classes and in books and so people can be a great writer but being a great writer isn't enough we know so we need to understand exactly what we're doing okay so we're going to look at the main question types and there are three and also I'm going to give you examples of structures let's say templates that you can think about as you begin to shape your answer now what we know about the exam I'll just go what site let's get this circuit so okay so what we know about the exam okay let's just make some notes about this okay so so the first thing we know about the exam is that it should that you should spend at least 40 40 minutes writing it okay now forty minutes doesn't seem like a long time and honestly it's not it is quite short your target if you can do this is actually to go to 45 minutes this means that you're going hopefully hopefully you'll be able to finish writing task 1 quicker a question that's often asked us is do we do writing task 1 first or task 2 first it's a difficult question because writing task 1 doesn't have so many points and it's shorter and writing task 2 takes more points and it's longer often I say to people try to get writing task 1 done first and get it done as quickly as possible so that you have much more time available okay so 45 minutes is your target the next thing to understand is about the number of words 250 words or more the or more power actually matters ok so 250 words what can you do you can do a lot this IELTS test is not about solving all the problems in the world it's you're not at university yet the writing task 2 is just an example of what you can do so we have an introduction we have some body paragraphs and we have a conclusion and that's it that's really the important things ok so 250 words matters and we suggest also make it we are larger and easier to read we also suggest that in it's better to maybe about 300 words maximum now in the arts test there is no maximum number of words ok but we are found from experience especially my experience of marking our students and training them is that it's very good to get exactly what you want in 250 words and we recommend that you practice when you do your practice for the test practice on a4 paper you can really proud you can download examples of the IELTS writing paper practice on this so you know exactly how many words you're producing now the examiners they count the words that's really that really does matter a lot you need to be aware that this they have an exciting job well maybe not for you but for them by hopefully they have the exciting job of actually counting those words and if it's below 250 words there's a chance that your score may drop so a great IELTS grade 6 become of five point five or five and that's before and that's before they consider your grammar and vocabulary so make sure you do this in the test of course you can't count the words that's that's crazy okay so don't be crazy if you're counting the words it means everything else is finished okay but what we suggest instead is to actually count the number so we can say count the number of lines so no okay so number of them the kind of number of lines that matters much more okay so if you write or if you write an average maybe ten eleven words per line then you know that you have to write at least 25 to 27 lines to make sure that you are actually in the safe area okay now another thing to consider is that it is an English test it's not a specialist business test or anything like this if you are a really great writer and you've practiced very hard and your writing is too short only slightly too short or something is missing and writing tasks - it's important to don't panic so so don't panic don't panic so if so if it's okay too short because if you are a great writer your score is not going to be affected too much the examiners believe it or not is a strange thing is that they're human as well and because they're human they also understand what you're trying to do and they can see that if you're a great writer then everything will be okay I mean there may be a slight penalty but they want to try and give you the best score they can and if it's clear that you're good writer and you just had a problem with time then they're not going to they're not going to punish you okay so please relax about this we're really like I said we really want quality if asked quality quality matters okay right so just a review we want to do at least 45 I do it in 45 minutes give us more time and we want to do between 250 and 300 words counts the number of lines and don't panic it was too short okay now let's go back to the 45 minutes it seems like 45 minutes is a short time but the truth is that if you've really practiced then you shouldn't be thinking you shouldn't be so you shouldn't be writing for just 45 minutes the problem we find and we see this in the exams the invigilator to talk about this is that people when they see the question they just write they write straight away they don't have time to organise themselves so the first piece of advice we're going to give you and go is let's let's let's move ourselves over is this this is something that we teach all our students and it's very very important the four steps in a writing task - it doesn't matter what type it is ok t/o w f so T the first one it means that when you see the question stop and think think about what the question is asking you okay is there is there just one part maybe the question is asking you one thing or maybe two parts there could be even be three okay trying to think about the topic try to think how you feel about this topic quite often people start writing without really thinking about it and they after one or two sentences they change their mind and they go ah but the clock is still ticking so make sure that you think about this think what the question is asking the O means organize that means we need you we would like you to plan the essay okay there's space on the paper to plan it you've all seen this let's go to the session where one might horrible drawings so this is the paper we have the question just here and we have this space just here this space this space is not for drawing a picture so please no pictures of flowers or KQ cartoons use the space planning means this very much so it means firstly our do you maybe you agree or disagree with something gay planning also means okay how many body pair up how many body paragraphs do you want to write it means how many ideas do you have it means thinking about all the examples for these ideas it also means make sure they think about your grammar because we you know planning your grammar is really important we don't just want to see 110 so we want to actually see a number of tenses so two tenses means I mean maybe maybe don't just write using the present the present simple use the perfect tense use their continuous tense if you don't know how to use these tenses learn them okay or contact us we can help you the tenses grammar grammar is not such a terrible thing I don't understand why people don't like grammar they like grandfather but grammar I don't know why she's so nice grammar matters okay think about think about your vocabulary make sure when you're doing your vocabulary that you're not repeating the same word again and again and again so maybe if the writing is about food or music or family or education please don't keep repeating these words if you say the word school or Technology four times in one paragraph your score I promise you is going to come down okay plan plan and predicts these problems before you actually do the writing okay that the w is very simple it's means write it so in terms of timing we often recommend and we train our students to spend maybe eight minutes planning and organizing because the truth is that if something is very well planned out and organized you know generally the idea the structure the vocabulary then actually the writing process should be quite quick because you're just copying you're making those key words into sentences so think about that you have to spend a bit more time organizing yourself at the beginning and then the actual writing process if it's very well planned out should be a fairly quick process and that will bring us on to the final step F means to fix mistakes mistakes happen and it's a test you're under pressure so mistakes happen test pressure test pressure mistakes so think about you know think of a think about you know giving yourself two or three minutes at the end of the paper so it's a two or three minutes at the end of this paper to actually find mistakes now we know that maybe you still have some English problems that's okay we don't want you to fix every mistake it's okay don't know every mistake but some simple mistakes mistakes we have here very common ones such as no does the subject and the verb go together you know so I like or I likes okay she thinks she thinks things like this think about mistakes such as your spelling especially of words which may be in another situation where your karma would be good we never poem at all but in the test and the pressure everything goes crazy think about are you repeating something if you're repeating something think about another way to say it okay and also think about you know any grammar errors that may come up finding three four mistakes could make a difference between a five point five and a six a six point five and a seven okay so calm down give yourself a few minutes at the end fix those mistakes and here's here's a quiz a point for you imagine that you are just coming into the end of your writing test you haven't you've got two minutes left you haven't written your conclusion what do you do well you could spend two or three minutes writing your conclusion okay it may be our conclusions are difficult and we do cover this later on in the future sessions closer to Christmas you can write your conclusion or you can spend a few minutes finding your mistakes you have to ask yourself which one do you think is going to help you if a writing is rushed and it has many mistakes it will leave a bad impression on the examiner and that's something that we wanted we don't to happen we want the examiner to read your writing go ah it's so good it's not finished but wow it's so good or you could try to rush the essay you could try to finish the conclusion two or three minutes and have yet more mistakes and it's almost guaranteed that your score will come down I am NOT going to tell you which is the best way to do this conclusion or mistakes conclusion or mistakes but it's worth you doing this for yourself find yourself a question try to answer that question in the time limit when you get to the last three four minutes stop and think conclusion or mistakes and if you can go back into your reading look at your introduction and your body paragraphs if you can find some mistakes guarantee the examiner will find them also so change those mistakes show the examiner that you recognized as a mistake can you changed it okay all of this is very important to think organize write and fix and we haven't even any writing yet this is just before you actually do the writing okay it's really very important for people who actually don't plan their essays we tend to see some very common mistakes and I write these our writers and represent mistakes we see for people who don't plan so things like bad structure the structure doesn't match the question and structure does matter and we'll talk about this a bit later on okay maybe something is missing we panicked we wrote the question and we didn't understand the entire question we misunderstand the question itself so misunderstand the question okay again we see this a lot where people will quickly turn up paper go back and calm down quickly start writing but maybe they didn't look at the question properly stop think look at the question okay of the mistakes as I've mentioned repetition repetition and repetition of us of key key vocabulary this is vocabulary that may have appeared in the question already okay or maybe mistakes is that because you panicked you didn't have time maybe your vocabulary is limited its limited vocabulary stop think organize write it and then fix it people can do this and I promise if you try these steps it may work out better for you and we want you to be better okay think about where you're going for the majority of people doing the Arts test the academic IELTS test you're going off to university now University if you're doing a master's course or an undergraduate course you're going to have some written examinations these examinations you're going to have are going to be written exams so get into the good habit now planning something I mean the good news is at university you when you're given an assignment and project by your teacher your professor you're going to have a month three weeks two weeks maybe to do the essay but that means you've got even more time to plan this even much more time to make it better and it's a warning for you.we when you submit your paper to your teacher your professor say hey you teacher I'm finished yes okay when you do that to the teacher the teacher be really happy but the teacher doesn't not wanted to see mistakes the teacher the professor whoever it is they're experts in the topic and if they're experts they know what they want to see and if they find mistakes simple mistakes in your writing the planning the organization misunderstanding the question they're going to think maybe you're in trouble maybe you need help maybe well maybe just that you know it's not the right course so plan and think and all the nicest writing now okay I can't stress this this part of your test can make or break if you think and organize and okay maybe it's a grammar mistakes in there but if you think and organizing you show the examiner that you think and you organize you could could still get it very good score because how will you communicate okay right so let's move on now in the IELTS test we actually have three main question types and let's look at the first let's look at those now so this is the first type of question question type one so question type one it says you need to give your opinion in the introduction but you do not need to write about other people's viewpoints or ideas whatever ideas you do present make sure you explain them and each paragraph must have a clear central idea now a lot of people they notice as the agree/disagree essay and the agree/disagree essay is the most common type it comes up in about 60 65 70 percent of all our exams in one year but it has a proper name and we cut we actually call this a thesis essay a thesis essay is actually based on your opinion and as we're going to demonstrate in today's session there are actually not just agree/disagree questions there are many kinds of thesis questions okay and this is also important you do not need to write the other side a lot of people when they are taught by teachers say you must show the other side you don't have to the danger as I'm going to show to you bit later on is that if you write the other side then we may think that your essay is a different essay which is the two-sided essay the benefits and drawbacks the advantages and disadvantages within 250 to 300 words you don't have so much space to show so many different points of view so make sure make sure you know this and relax you don't have to write the other side okay so question type 1 the agree/disagree essay okay and it saves the most common type problems comes out let's say 65 to 70% or four hours exams in the year that question type the next one is question type 2 question type 2 question type 2 is we call it okay well many people call it the two-sided essay two-sided so two-sided essays could be such as the benefits benefits and drawbacks it could be the advantages and disadvantages these are very common questions okay or it could be some people so some people and other people so one of the key things to remember about this question type is that it's not focused on your opinion so if you want to say and sometimes the question will ask you do you think there are more benefits and drawbacks do you think there are more advantages than disadvantages you can say that but this this this will come at the end of the essay it's important in this essay that you need to explain the different sites the other side is different viewpoints okay so this two sides to it and there will be two sides in this question type and at the end of the essay is where you say where the balance it's do you think there are more benefits or do you think there are more drawbacks or more advantages or do you think that some people are right and other people not so right okay it has a name and it's called the evaluation essay evaluation means you look at one side you look at the other side and then you decide which one is stronger which is better okay evaluation essay doesn't happen so often in the test but it is an important structure because maybe don't use it in your tests I promise you however you are going to use it in your future studies so so so far to review we have the thesis essay and the evaluation essay okay now the last kind of question type happens sometimes not very often but sometimes when it does it causes problems okay people people find that people find this one can cause a lot of problems okay and problem is actually the word because it's actually the problem solution essay so the problem solution essay okay it has it has a prom solution is actually one example what we are actually testing you is actually called cause and effect cause and effect can apply not just for the past but also the future and again when you go off to your University cause and effect essay is a very very common things to see indeed in these essays you may be asked to explain devourer again a number types you may be asked to explain the problems connected to is connected to a question or maybe what's caused the problem okay there are a few types but one thing that's guaranteed is that you'll always be given you'll always be given the question where we say please tell us their solutions advice to you here very very important advice don't try to save the world now what I mean here is that we don't want a perfect solution we it's an English test there's time pressure we don't want you to have some amazing ideas or try to think of the perfect way to do something that's not the point we're looking the exam that's looking at do you understand the question type and do you understand the grammar we when you do give solutions follow these two rules first thing make sure the solution is either something new or something has changed the examiners know about the problem and they have maybe in their mind some solutions but if you say one of the solution is to have police maybe if there's crime how do we solve crime maybe we say that oh we should have police walking around or by CCTV as a good way to deter crime which is true problem with that is that it's already out there you've walked down the street you've seen CCTV everywhere you walk around and in some countries more than others you'll find that there's police and police cars walking around especially here in Cambridge at Christmastime crazy so many police making sure that no no making sure that Santa Claus is protected be don't be original but be clear you can say that we have to introduce more police or have more CCTV camps okay but don't give something that which you know already happens because if it already happens it's not a solution ok right so we have our three main types that's the zoom out for a second and for those who are new to the stream all of this will be provided in the download link later on after the session is finished ok so to review we have the thesis essay which is based on your opinion we have here the two-sided essay the evaluation essay and we have the cause-effect essay okay the three main types okay why do we have these because when you go off for those again who are doing their studies their university studies when you're given a big project by your teachers and your professors your answer your written answer which could be many thousands of words is going to have a combination of these structures so not now but certainly certainly at university a university is a one written answer could actually have all saying all of these structures so make sure you know them be careful about this okay some one part of the essay may be about agreeing disagreeing the next part could be maybe you want to to where evaluates different points of view and lastly talk about what's going to happen in the future so make sure you make sure you know them very well right regardless of this remember this is the golden rule this is the one that matters the most this is the one where really does frustrate readers examiners teachers professors myself if you say it you must explain it and if you can't say don't write it the examiner doesn't want amazing things but they want to see well explain one simple or complex we don't mind the key point here don't show things that you can't explain and you're going to figure this out in the planning this is why those steps the T the o DW and the F those first two steps are very very important because it helps you understand I have this great idea but I can't explain it I have to change my idea also think about topic you need to choose things that you've practiced and you can really talk about make sure that when you really innocence thinking organizing writing fixing stage now think about your nouns or verbs your adjectives or adverbs or the vocabulary that's related to the topic think about any phrasal verbs and expressions and maybe the appropriate grammar did and what we mean here is to show how events in the past are related to what's happening now and maybe also what can happen in the future okay so I leave that there for a few seconds for people to read I'm going to drink a cup of very British tea we live i tea here okay tea drunk he just happy right and let's let's actually look at some question types just zoom out and let's look at these so this is the first question okay better okay so question types so the first question type the rates of obesity in both developing and developed countries are increasing and it says what do you think are some of the causes of this problem what measures can be taken to tackle these social this social and health issue so it's clear that it's a problem-solution essay so we know that is question type three okay key things to look for in this question type it says some of the causes so we know that we have to write at least two though if you do if you write this one the exams going to say that the question hasn't been answered and it also says what measures what solutions can be taken to tackle this so again at least two okay people can be great writers but unfortunately if they misunderstand the question if they don't write everything then there's going to be a problem the exam will say it's not answered and the score will come down so again thinking and organizing your thinking part you're organizing parts would tell you how much you need to write okay now for every writing task to question there there is going to be two parts and I would just quickly show this to you now you need to be clear of two parts this is the first part here is the topic this is the background this is the task the task means is what you have to do so make sure you know the difference between the topic which is the background and the task itself okay let's move on to the court next question type go back to let's go to our black color it says in order for people to have a comfortable life they should consider financial security as the most important factor to what extent do you agree or disagree with this core pinyin this one is very simple it says agree disagree that means it must be question type one okay and we again we have our we have our topic just here we have our task just here in our topic we need to consider the words so they should we know that that equal that means is an opinion okay so we network so agree that say do we do we think that's true should they consider this maybe they should consider family for me personally I would consider pizza I love pizza but you need to identify what thing in the topic is the question okay here is a very simple example of agree disagree the thesis okay so I just write it in so this is a cause this is cause effect this one here is our thesis let's go on to this one here some people feel that technology is the best way to solve all of our current and future problems in society while others think we are becoming overly dependent and should focus on other solutions so we and we ask do you think the benefits of Technology outweigh the possible disadvantages so we have benefits we have disadvantages so we have two sides so we know that this is question type 2 which is the evaluation essay and if we look in the question itself we can see that we have some people here and others so in this kind of essay we have to talk about those people and then these ones here and it says do you think which is important so this okay this part written in not the introduction but the conclusion so in the conclusion wet okay okay if you write your opinion in the introduction then it could be confused as an agree disagree essay type but if that happens the examiners going to think well maybe this person has some problems understanding different questions structures different types okay so be careful this is an evaluation essay and we only give you our opinion here in our conclusion what so these three here the ones you just covered these ones are the most common type they're the simple ones okay but we have some others which begin to change and it's here we find people begin to make mistakes so let's have a look at those now so question type question for go to our black color says choose three of the following forms of transport and say how appropriate you think they are in the 21st century which do you think are the most appropriate in today's society any ideas then somebody tell me what question type do you think this is I'll give you a few more so think about this what question is it one is it okay well it's not it's not a cause and effect it's not a problem solution there's no problems here so we have a choice of either the thesis essay or the evaluation thesis or evaluation thesis or evaluation okay well if you chose the thesis essay question type of question type one you'll be correct the reason being is that you have you are being asked to do this so choose three that's part of your task and then you say how appropriate you think they are again that's your task and then you've been asked here which do you think are the most appropriate that's your task this means that in our writing the we were choosing three and say how appropriate they are these were form fire to part of our body paragraphs which you think is the most appropriate reform part of our conclusion again thinking organizing makes them is a very important step we can if we think about it it wouldn't we there's no right answer here we don't mind which ones you choose but make sure you understand the question before you write it let's move on to question number five so achievements sense question 5 says achievements are an important part of a person's career although some people believe they are much more important than others what do you feel is the most important most merciful' the factor of working say so I just know zoo there you go despite being an amazing teacher I'm not perfect most important sorry are white oops okay what do you think is the most important factor of working what other factors are important for a successful career well what question type is this here it's not so clear the reason being is that achievements are important although some people believe important than others so maybe is this the evaluation essay is this the two-sided essay it's possible we've got some people other people but if we remember that this is the topic and this is the task the task says what do you feel are most important factors of working and what other factors are important for successful career that tells us that we're still asking about your opinion what do you think and it means that this is still a thesis question it's driven by your opinion and it's also important that whilst this question it does say achievements maybe your answer is not about achievements maybe you think is teamwork maybe you think it's money I don't know but the point here is that you don't have to talk about achievements be clear about the tasks it's all about what do you feel the topic is often background so just this just label this up so you can understand clearer this is background only you don't have to write about achievements okay right on to the last question type some people feel that a lie is acceptable if it is given for appropriate reasons others say that there is no acceptable reason for lying and we should be honest at all types especially Christmas boys and girls remember father christmas is coming so you know no lying because he will put you on a naughty list okay and I'm I'm sure you guys are all fantastic and for being good boys and girls and I really want to get lots of presents at Christmas time I love okay right so we are told to discuss both these views and give your opinion we have some people here we have others and we're told but we says both these views so that's number one view and that's number two sit lay well that's up number one and number two and give your opinion and here this again will be your conclusion so we know this is a question type - this is the evaluation type of question okay again it's not about what you think is not your opinion so what happens in this part here would form part of body paragraph 1 and what happens in the other part here will form body paragraph 2 so in this essay we know we only have two body paragraphs okay guys so so six let's the zoom out a bit so six different writing questions again you can download these in your free time but the link will be given at the end of the show and all the images will be there so you can review things carefully and in a bit more detail okay so question types how to understand and we've come back and I've mentioned this again and again again so make sure I'll make it very big for you consider topic and consider the task ok topic is the background and task is what you must do make sure you know the difference between them okay right so let's let's move on so these are the types so here's a question for you now so how do we structure these questions how do we organize them how do we put them on paper okay well structure is important structure matters very much okay we need to know okay we need to know how to present the answer and we need to know what is the purpose of each part of my introduction so let's let's look at this okay so let's just get some space okay let's do some space up here okay okay just make it a bit smaller otherwise okay okay so this okay let's let's talk about the thesis essay and maybe read is not so good so right so the thesis so the thesis essay again this is the example here so eg example agree disagree agree disagree okay so this is based okay so this is based is the most common kind of question type okay and so how do we present it well it has three key parts it has our introduction it has our body paragraphs their body paragraphs and it has our conclusion the examiner wants to know that you know the purpose and the function for each of these parts so in the introduction we suggest a three sentence introduction so s1 s2 and s3 sends one K the first sentence of our introduction should where we give and we give background information this could be education technology music whatever else it is okay it's just background information it's not the right time to say if you agree or disagree okay then we folk then the second sentence where we focus on the issue or issues as there may be sometimes okay so where people should do something something should happen okay and the third sentence is your thesis statement so thesis statement this is important this is about you so this is about whether so you agree so you can maybe you agree or you disagree but to do this by itself it's not enough but we want you to say why okay so give us give us a reason about why you agree why you disagree okay then we go into the body paragraphs body paragraphs will be two or three of them okay and we will cover two or three body paragraphs in more detail in a later presentation but we have a number of parts okay so we can call these parts and there's not sentences parts because you may want to write more than one sentence for this so part 1 part 2 part 3 and part 4 okay so the first part is where we actually introduce one reason the next part is where we explain it okay and then we can give some supporting information and sporting information could be men example any times it could be an example maybe it's a reason maybe it's a statistic maybe it's a quotation okay or maybe it's a cenar we go what we called a scenario and a scenario is the if something commerce something structure and then in the final part we should actually then give give a concluding comments okay and then finally in our conclusion we actually give two parts here so let's say part again that's a part 1 and part 2 and it's go for let's go for a read this time so problem sort of we need to do two things in our conclusion we need to restate your opinion okay and then summarize the body paragraphs okay and body paragraphs means the main ideas only so this is the general structure for a thesis essay okay and just to be clear this part here we do this again two or three times once for each paragraph so the thesis essay structure okay it's the one which you're going to be seeing most off okay so let's just move this to one side and let's talk about the next one which is the evaluation evaluation structures are very very very clear very simple and it don't happen very often the exam but when they do happen it's it's a good thing a lot of students like to get this question type so let's start with value it so devaluation okay and an example of the evaluation would be the K the to site which is a two sided essay to remind you again we have our three parts we have our introduction okay and again we suggest maybe three three sentences for this okay we're just going for colors go for blue so we're the first the first sentence we talk about the topic and then the second sentence we paraphrase the first side side one and then the second third sentence we paraphrase side two and then we go on to our body paragraphs and again there will be a few body paragraphs so BP for body paragraphs okay here there's always there's always two body paragraphs solution are two sides where the first thing we should do is actually so introduce so introduce introduce okay the paragraph or let's say here interview side one and then we have a number of we have reason one and we explain it and then the same thing for reason to and explain that and maybe if you have some time we suggest you know maybe to do reason three and also explain that and then when you finish the paragraph give us what we call a concluding comment concluding comments okay which means the Kate it's summarized so here summarizes the body paragraph summarizes okay the body paragraph body paragraph from okay and then the final thing to do is move us up a bit we have our conclusion again conclusion two parts here you can of course write as many parts as you want to a conclusion introduction but you need to consider that we have a limited time and as we had me have a limited time we need to limit ourselves and what we do we don't have spend too much time in one section so here in our conclusion we again we summarize the body paragraphs body paragraph one and two and also more importantly so where do where arms so where do you think the balance is between them okay so is it more site one or more site - okay so so so we have here this is the it's an example participant line is as easy to define to distinguish between them so we have here this is question type one which is our thesis essay and this is question type two which is our evaluation essay okay so those ones are call it David that not too bad but what about the final one the problem solution essay the cause-effect solution essay okay well this is more complex there's many more parts to this one so let's have good let's give us some space and let's talk about this one line in here I need to practice my lines right away and okay let's give the title okay so that's right okay so so with this so the senator so cause-and-effect there are different kinds of cause-and-effect questions okay we have as of all essays we have the introduction and this is where things get a bit more confusing s1 we also get we always give our background s2 we always focus we always focus on the issue or the problem and sentence three now sentence three it actually depends okay the either words incentive three we don't write I agree or disagree so this is not a thesis essay as such but this is the purpose so we have two interests say what is the purpose of this essay so purpose okay so of this essay so either we're going to talk about the causes maybe the causes and also solutions or maybe it's just solutions it varies but you'll know which one it is because read the question carefully that's this that's the most important advice here so background focus on the issue or the problem and then what's the purpose of this essay are we talking about causes and solutions or just solutions and the details of those sentences are the things we were white recover in a later session okay but what about what about the body paragraphs well there are actually two kinds so let's let's just make this label is up now so let's call this some good as version one and version 1 is about problems and solutions okay so in the first body paragraph by paragraph 1 we're going to talk about problems so we can so it's a problem problem 1 and why it's a problem we're going to then talk about we're going to give an example of this problem and then we're going to talk about a consequence why okay what's the result of it okay and then we're going to talk about basement space so so problem 2 and again why is this a problem and we're going to again again give an example and consequence okay now these second sentences so this sentence here this one here this really matters very much because this is development and when we develop the answer we adding vocabulary with showing they're hopefully different structures to illustrate and show we understand and also help the reader this case the examiner also understand after we've done our body first body paragraph we can then go into our second body paragraph so let's go this body paragraph two and it's very similar to the first one we introduce introduce our first solution solution one and also why this is a good solution we're going to give some example and also a consequence what we hope will happen because of this but the consequence here is usually our intended it's our intended consequence so its focus on the future okay and again may be solution to and we're going to say so okay why is that a solution again we're going to give an example and again a consequence again it's our intended consequences intended right good okay now body power so there may be of third body paragraph you want to you have if you want to as a writer maybe you think maybe you think the problems are more important so maybe you can actually make maybe this could be a new paragraph here okay or maybe you think that the solutions need more detail so again make sure this can be a new body paragraph but we are demonstrate the structure to you at the moment so at the moment a bit later one okay right okay and then bring us on to our conclusion the final part so conclusion okay again are two parts so we restate okay we restate we say again we summarize the causes or the problems so they said we state problems and also the restate restate our solutions and what is the end goal end goal means what do we really want to achieve what's what's the whole point about this okay now as I said that there's two versions okay so version one since version one is where we where the examiners asking for problems and solutions so made that very clear forms and solutions okay there is a second version which is simpler because sometimes in the test we we are you are just asked to give solutions they will give the problem and they say how can we solve it this is a slightly easier writing so let's label this one up so this is so version two the session two is solutions only okay now solutions only okay again is it easier structure okay we have our so we have our body paragraph 1 our body paragraph 2 and maybe our body paragraph 3 okay but the details of what goes inside is slightly different because we have more space to explain it so the first thing we so we talked about our so we talked about our solution okay so we introduced it what is our solution to be the next part here we explain it and you see because we only focus on solutions we have now more space in the paragraph to do this this may be good news or bad news depending on how much vocabulary you know how well you understand the topic okay then we are to talk about the consequence of our okay what is the consequence of the solution how do we think this solution is going to help the problem we're given in the question and this next part dot dot for the moment this final part of a paragraph is often missed and it's a shame because it means that we're not really showing examiner how well we can think or how far we can think no solution is going to be perfect so we can if we want to talk about a possible a possible drawback of this solution maybe we have a solution but it costs too much money or maybe our solution means that every government has to work together so think about this think about that no solution is perfect what is the problem with this because if you write it you're also showing the examiner that you can think more thinking is great and showing that your think and showing that you can understand is fantastic so possible drawback okay or benefit may be your solution you through feels the best one so you can say it here say Y as well body paragraph two we do the same thing for solution two and maybe three if we have time and then we bring ourselves on to our conclusion and our conclusion okay we do our two parts again we restate we restate our solutions of which it will be two or three and then maybe we talk about the benefits the benefits the drawbacks okay and as with the other one what's our goal what do we want to achieve with the writing so the problem solution question the cause-effect question it doesn't happen very often in the test but when it does happen it causes problems so hopefully these guidelines will now begin to clear this up a bit for you and everything will come everything will be available for you to review again after class of this session okay right so structure let's move down here so this is just a summarize what we have spoken about and as we draw as you draw this session to the end okay this okay this is our structure we have here for our type of one question so listen so type one and this is our introduction okay this is our body paragraph one body paragraph two body paragraph three or we can sue body paragraph one or body paragraph two so this means that we can do two or three body paragraphs we don't mind we really don't mind we care more about how will you explain something in if we have to if we have here just two body paragraphs so if we're looking at this side here or just highlight it okay we look at this side here it means that it's going to be going to explain more explain more and that also means more vocabulary so be careful about to body paragraphs especially if the topic is difficult and you don't have so many ideas about it so more vocabulary okay over this side here the three body paragraph structure well we have more ideas but for each idea we have each idea the paragraph is shorter and shorter is better so shorter body paragraphs and that means okay less vocabulary for each topic that may be a good thing because maybe the question is quite difficult okay and to finish off at the end of course as we know we have our conclusion so this so we have our introduction we have either a two or three body paragraph structure so we do it all here or there my handwriting is not so good okay so two or three body paragraphs and our conclusion and so type one here this will be the thesis structure we go on to this one here this is our type this is our type two okay and this was the evaluation question and you see it's a much simpler structure where we have our we just have our introduction we have our body paragraph one and body paragraph two and then we have our conclusion okay normally when people start practicing IELTS the academic version of IELTS type 2 is where we begin because it's the easiest structure there's less choice about structure it's the one which is II say more comfortable in an easy way into IELTS writing the third one is as I said third one the cause-effect the problem solution that's where there's many choices to be made so okay so we have so we have so let's put let's just make a bit larger site so desire type three and so this so this is our so cause this is our so this is a cause-and-effect structure and in the beginning we have our introduction okay let's go to space okay introduction okay and then so so body paragraph body paragraph one and body paragraph two so in here we could talk about our so problem one and problem too and here solution one and solution 2 or this could be larger so this is our body paragraph one body paragraph two and body paragraph three and this here then could be I this is problem one we have more detail problem - and here solution one and solution - so maybe we want to spend more time talking about the problems maybe you think that maybe we think they're not connected to each other or that this is the res many choices to be made and this is why the thinking and the organizing really matters we have body paragraph 1 body paragraph 2 body paragraph 3 and here we talk about ok so this is this is problem 1 and a problem two in the same paragraph solution 1 and solution to their separate paragraphs maybe this time we think there are more solutions and they need more detail and of course that the entity si we have our conclusion okay so type three so this is the cause effect okay and if you if you look at the notes from before again you're going to see those after the class let's call this v1 version one version one here and on to this one so this again is also a type three but it's a simpler structure okay so let's um just participate that make it's clear okay so we turn and sort of we don't we don't quite good right okay so so this again so it is Type O put a black black is not good color so type this is our type type three again this is this will be again I'll this is cause and effect but in this version it's we're talking about solutions only okay and to begin with like all of them we have our introduction and then we go onto our body paragraphs so body paragraph one body paragraph 2 and maybe body paragraph 3 if you have time okay and with inside these okay we actually label the slavery this up a bit more so we have solution number one solution number two and again solution number three the final thing that we talked about at the end is our conclusion okay so there are many structures here there's a zoom rail to have a look at this and talk about it for a second sorry it's cold in Cambridge and I'm just getting over a cold so we have three main questions our thesis question we have our evaluation question and our cause-and-effect problem solution question okay you can see that there are many ways of answering the question this is why it's so important to learn and take time to understand how to organize your answer it's not just writing quality is really important not quantity and you need to show the examiner that's your words your sentences your structure is really well thought out it's clear it's understandable you're in control of it so remember when you're doing this when you're deciding when you're deciding what kind of question it is okay remember what we covered earlier t o W and F think organize right and fix so you can decide which kind of structure it is how to present this answer so that's the so that's that that's the almost the end of this writing task to demonstration okay there's one last thing to talk about and it's something which I get a loss a lot of as teacher and I'm pretty sure other teachers who are maybe watching this are so maybe not in with agreement and they say what students were saying and clients were saying well how do we get the ideas that's a difficult one Cambridge a people as a school we can certainly help you with the structure the organization the grammar the vocabulary that's not really a problem what we have more difficulty with is the ideas I don't know what you the viewer know and I don't know what you the viewer don't know doesn't don't know doesn't know and that's a problem doing the writing it's much more than just a writing you need to have some good habits and what we have whatever what I'm going to show you now okay just bring into focus okay these are all suggested these are just some of the suggested recommended places that you can actually start to get the ideas from and we're all we're talking about here is again I'll make it very clear it's a regular reading habit a regular reading habit okay from from these websites these are all websites with all free of charge you can go get some great things from to help you to help you understand the question to improve your vocabulary range everything here can is very important and if you're going to university for those are doing undergraduate or postgraduate the masters or PhD the English that you're going to see here is in some ways actually easier than the English be reading in the specialized journals from reading these kind of places we can get we get our vocabulary from we can get our ideas from we can get structure from okay and also it helps if you're reading which is a completely free of charge you know how amazing is this now reading these things on a daily basis or every few days find something to read would actually help you improve your your reading so helps with reading helps way of the reading and the more you do this the more if we feel comfortable with reading and you feel faster as well and for those practice in the reading I'm sure you're all nodding the same the time as time is tough time is you know it's not enough time okay so a regular reading habit to get ideas to help you go writing test matters on this one side and so these ones here these are all newspapers okay on use place we find general news we have the BBC now which is fantastic oh I love the BBC we have the BBC which is very easy reading we have here was called AFP and voyeurs AFP in Reuters these are actually news agencies and news agencies they actually send out the reporters all over the world and they collect and use on a daily basis maybe in your country you've watched news and you've seen the AFP or the Reuters logo at the corner in the video or in newspaper it's because a lot of these news stations in most countries they by the museum here so AFP invoices are fantastic places we have the Sydney Morning Herald which is in Australia not just Australian use but there are good rioters and there are very clear simple writers we have the Washington Post which is the American version again it's a good reading Time magazine which is slightly political and slightly America focus now on the other side we have some more specialists once we have the new scientists we have nature now these ones are focused on science science comes up in IELTS a lot as we know wired and we have four here wired and the register these are technology based websites we have natural Geographic so this is about environment and also culture okay a fascinating reading natural Geographic is very good because it actually it actually has quite long articles so really a glorify candidate a lot of ideas here The Economist now for those who don't like money don't panic this is not just money The Economist is about finance business trade technology culture a very very very good read and one of the things we suggest our students to do in our school here in Cambridge is to take a subscription for the Economist because you can naturally get news download it onto your phone two or three times a day just three or four short articles and actually you can read those and actually learn about it and it's a good habit to have and the last one here again is this is more business focus this is the Wall Street Journal business okay we I don't know teachers don't know what you know and teachers don't know what you don't know it's up to you as the candidate the client the student sitting down in the test this directly gets this information and get the reading habit we've seen students who are great writers sit in the test and then looking over here they're looking over there over there going oh everybody's rioting I understand the question but I have no idea of the ideas so don't be that person don't sit there and face this problem if you have no ideas and then there's not really much unfortunately we can do in your test so ideas matter the vocabulary matters and a regular reading habit of every day if you can if you're not working or at least two or three times a week sit down have a good read with a good cup of tea maybe not British Got cup of tea and then actually enjoy it get something from it okay because this may come up in the test okay hey guys so this okay let's zoom out okay so this is the end of our presentation today okay if you have any questions now would be a good time to put those into the comments section okay so that's all of this will be available for you to download as images or slides about 10-15 minutes after we finish so you know keep on hammering the download button it will come up very quickly okay if you have any if you have any questions you have any comments then let me know and I'll be happy to answer those okay guys right so okay Saturday morning people are relaxing I can clearly understand so if you do have any questions it's important to get in touch okay you can email us you can contact us Cambridge ap at Cambridge Pats game JP comm you can get us on the website which is www.hyken.com okay guys so thank you very much for joining in it's been lovely to spend Sunday Saturday morning with you it's very cold outside but I can feel lots of lovely warmth coming from the screen okay stay in touch and I look forward to talking to you again next Saturday at 10 o'clock take care guys and have a nice week and don't forget 14 days to Christmas go take care guys bye

Channel: Cambridge EAP

Views: 38,421

Keywords: IELTS, Academic, Task 1, Writing, Exam, Cambridge, Introduction, Advice, Help, Lesson, Live, Stream, Structure, Grammar, Organisation, Chart, Bar, Pie, Line, Table, Map, Process, Diagram, Task 2, Agree, Disagree, Evaluation, Cause, Effect, Problem, Solution, Andi, EAP, Andrew, Argument, body, paragraph, sentence, grammar, vocabulary, lexical, resources, Conclusion, Technique, Coherency, Cohesion

Id: 3sOTyIBK-Hw

Length: 89min 0sec (5340 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 10 2016