See How a Student Scored a Band 8 on the IELTS Essay

hi everybody welcome to write to the top I'm Adam in today's video I want to share with you an essay written by one of your own someone just like you who has been working for a long time and working very hard to get his writing level up and this is an example of his essay after a long time of working and he finally got to the point where he's writing a tab and eight level so that's what we're gonna look at today we're gonna look at an essay assessment for IELTS and I want to show you basically this example I'm going to show you this essay is a textbook example of what to do and that textbook means as an adjective means exactly the way it's supposed to be done the way they show you how to do it in textbooks that's why we call it a textbook example so this student worked a long time but he got the all the parts of the essay all the scoring criteria met again not a perfect essay but you don't need a perfect essay and 8 bann will get you if I mean overall aid band and IELTS will get you pretty much into any program you want so I'm gonna walk you through the essay but at the end I want to give you a few key takeaways a few key points to help you with your preparations okay so let's get started we're gonna look at the task first so some people I had to make a bit of adjustment just for you I can't copy exactly some people believe that our personalities are predetermined as a result of our genes before we are born and there is nothing that can be done to alter our character traits to what extent do you agree or disagree it's very important that you understand the task if you don't understand the task it's very hard to answer it obviously there's a few words here that you need to know predetermined means determined before so basically in our genes before we were born our personality has already been set and altered like this word alter means change right so to change your character so you're born with your personality and there's nothing you can do to change it do you agree or disagree and don't forget to what extent do you agree or disagree very important that you answer this piece of the question so next here's the full-si now you don't need to read it here if you want you can press pause and try to read it you can go through my website right to top calm this essay is there as well as the edited version so you can go slowly on a bigger screen look at it carefully I just want to show to you what it looks like generally what an essay should look like at this length 271 words and I'm gonna talk about the length a little bit after because it doesn't have to be a long essay to get a high score so here it is so now we're going to go part by part again back to the task itself and the introduction paragraph so many people hold now hold is actually a very good word basically you hold an idea you hold a belief you hold an opinion you can just use hold for short so good use of a common word in an uncommon situation or context so again start thinking a lot of people I find have difficulties paraphrasing the expression some people believe so this is one way hold but here's today's challenge for this video in the YouTube comments are on my Instagram page or Facebook try to think of other ways to introduce an opinion or things that people believe using different expressions and I'll let you go at this for a little while and then I'll give you a few examples as well so many people hold their character traits are predefined by hereditary before birth so here's a little bit of a problem hereditary this is a good word he's using it as an adjective but it doesn't work with by right so you need a noun so you can add a noun by let's say hereditary links may be you can say links or just change it into the noun heredity by hold that predefined by heredity basically by our genes before birth therefore changing them here therefore not used correctly what you want to say here is so therefore is a conclusion so is a result two different things and you can't have there for between two independent clauses it's not a conjunction you have to remember that remember therefore I'm going to come back to it again I do not completely agree not completely that's your extent to what extent part with this notion because I believe genetic makeup is not the only determinant of human personalities so I don't completely agree I mean I agree a little bit but not completely there are other reasons that we can or that other things that shape our personalities that can change so we're gonna get to that very good introduction two sentences paraphrases the task gets to a very clear thesis statement don't completely agree because other things also shape our personalities very good introduction let's go through that first body paragraph now together with heredity now it's not clear to me if he was trying to use heredity or he just made a spelling mistake with hereditary either way it's the second use of the same word also misused that's gonna cost points in the lexical resource but together with hereditary with heredity there are other shapers and personalities including culture and education excellent topic sentence yes there's heredity but there's also culture and education and he's gonna talk about culture and education in the rest of the body paragraph so very clear general topic sentence in specific not really a collocation specifically cultural values affect the way people behave under certain circumstances while educational knowledge acts as a foundation where people build and develop their own set of personal traits I'm not gonna get into the little details now but basically culture has an effect education has an effect so he's elaborating it's a what we build our personalities on in certain contexts the interaction between genetics and these factors might make a person alter his personality so here these things will also help him change so he's going back supporting his thesis for example support right now leaving support for his argument a person might be genetically predisposed to being shy so somebody is born shy shyness is not a choice nobody chooses be shy but they can choose to not be shy or to be less shy more extroverted say or and simple-minded you know not too great but living in a high highly interactive and well-educated community now here I would recommend giving it a more specific example of this type of community such as a cosmopolitan city for example might lead him to be more confident so if he's around people and talking it doesn't matter if he was born shy he'll become a bit more confident and intelligent even if you're simple-minded if you're surrounded by smart people you'll still learn things you can't can't really help that and then in general cultural and educational environments are the real keys to the personality change so a summary sentence connecting back to the original thesis to close off the paragraph so very good paragraph here a few mistakes love vocab and grammar but we'll talk about that after okay so so far so good good introduction good first body paragraph let's go on to the second body paragraph of course the role of genes and the development of personality is also undeniable so don't forget the task the task is do you think that genes are the are set and you can't change so of course he's going back conceding that genes are important but they're not the only thing right but again good transition to a new focus and giving a concession many research findings suggest that most genetic traits that we have are emotional patterns again research findings suggest not a bad thing to say it gives a little bit more weight to your argument but there are patterns and natural states hardly change throughout ones lifetime so certain parts of your character are just not going to change and that's a fact and that's fine and then he gives an example of this and based on research some people are naturally more fearful than others even when they reach adulthood such as hormone and they still have and even when they reach adulthood they still have phobias and tend to avoid scary things such as horror movies so phobias or phobias that they don't go away again you can learn to deal with them you can learn if you're in a culture that likes horror movies you'll accept them more but you're still going to be afraid of them you're still gonna have nightmares and horror movies giving a more specific example of a phobia however switching back to support his thesis that other things also affect as mentioned above genes are not the only one crucial factor in personality forming not the only factor in forming personalities therefore again misuse using it like a conjunction I'll show you how to fix that it is unlikely that inherited personalities will remain fixed and stable throughout life so again there are enough other influences that it's not gonna it's not gonna stay the same throughout your whole life certain things or patterns will stay other things will change again closing off the paragraph by going back to the thesis to support the thesis it's a very good second body paragraph and the conclusion first of all notice it's one sentence a bit long but clear in conclusion although genetic makeup has an immense influence on the development of personalities this is not a sound reason to argue that our characteristic traits will never be changed basically giving a summary of the whole paragraph and a little bit saying again what was in the introduction so perfect in job sorry perfect conclusion here to finish off the essay so again textbook very clear introduction paraphrasing the task very clear thesis with the answering the extent don't completely agree because here are the reasons paragraph one focus on those two reasons good topic sentence argument elaboration example and closing statement switch focus good transition into the second paragraph go to the other side for the concession don't forget to come back to support your thisis close it off with a summary conclusion so textbook example of an essay and a god and eight so now a couple of little pointers I want oh okay they're edits are here you can see all these specific edits on my website they're all there this was supposed to pop up like this a little bit okay so now let's look at the specific scoring criteria remember there are four things you're being marked on task response did you answer the question did you give concrete ideas and convincing ideas and were you on topic could here's an incoherence see see that everything floated sentences connect the paragraphs connect did ideas connect that was an easy to read basically that's what this means lexical resource vocabulary basically knowing different words having a variety of words knowing the usage knowing the parts of speech avoiding redundancies like making sure you don't need to have extra words etc and grammar grammatical resource and accuracy how good is your grammar so the task response was perfect everything was exactly as it was supposed to be he'll lose a little bit on the CC on the cohesion and coherence because of the therefore twice misused the in specific incorrect a couple of little things you needed a little little when when they reach so for example when they reach more of a grammar issue so I didn't count it here it'll be a symbolic point loss for the connections because therefore is a transition that's part of CC but most likely they will count these misused words as part of the lexical resource because there are other problems with the vocab hereditary should have been a noun and ready Thierry whatever was misspelled educational knowledge knowledge redundant education includes the idea of knowledge the only one factor one is unnecessary only means one so you don't need the extra word one at the end there at the bottom characteristic traits characteristics or character traits try not to mix words when they don't work together and and a few other little things here and there so basically this is where he lost the most points but notice even though he lost points in the get vocab he still got a high overall score because of the TR score brought it up keep that in mind GRA again a few different mistakes now he has a lot of good sentence structure aiyah T of sentence structures everything more or less works well but there are enough mistakes even though they're small there are enough of them to be distracting so the examiners have to take off some points but still got an 8 because of the good structures instead and whatnot overall 8.25 rounded down to an 8 again depending on the algorithms depending what other people are doing that day on the test it could go to an 8 point 5 most likely it'll go down to the 8th ok and again you can see all these edits on my website so now the key takeaways what are the most important things I want you to take away from this example 1 the essay does not have to be long so his original essay was 271 words that's just 21 words above the minimum generally I recommend aim for around 300 words but that is because most people don't develop their ideas enough so if you use a few more words at least you have a chance of developing your ideas more the longer you go with oh the more chances for grammar and vocab mistakes so make sure you have a good balance there 271 though if you if all your sentences are tight if all your ideas link and they're very clear to you and to the reader you don't need to write a lot it's possible to get an 8 bed or a 9 band essay writing 251 words if you know how to make the sentences very tight a lot of information in those sentences using fewer words to express more ideas but again that just takes time and practice speaking of ideas don't need too many a lot of people try to throw in so many ideas into their body paragraphs that the body paragraphs don't have any central focus and then you're losing a lot of points for your CC score and your TR score if you're not on topic right if you go off on a tangent if you're going off and saying things that are unconnected to the topic to the task you're going to lose points have one idea in the first body paragraph one solid idea in the second body paragraph develop them fully and that's enough notice that you can make mistakes in grammar and vocab and still get a high score and this is where a lot of people make a mistake they they think that IELTS is an English test which it is but it's not English is not only about vocabulary and grammar it's all the test is about English communication it's about making ideas making arguments clear and that takes idea as an arguments that has to be fully developed so keep that in mind idea as an organization are very important it's not all about overcoming grammar so that's basically good to go together make sure you're getting all four scoring criteria and make sure you know what you're looking for is it scoring criteria and I'll make a video about that as well but one more very important improvement takes time and practice don't think that you can improve your writing score in a week or two weeks this particular student sent me essays for quite some time his first essay or first couple of essays were like six or maybe even 5.5 now he's writing at 8 he learned he practiced he built his vocabulary he studied his grammar and now he's writing much better he knows exactly what it needed that's what you need to do first of all find out what you need to do in terms of a scoring build your vocab basically get a good handle on the grammar and make sure you get feedback on your writing make sure you know what mistakes you're making so you don't repeat them and repeat them and repeat them now I'm not actually doing assessments at the moment but I am work on an e-book and a little mini course to help you guys self assess you are writing and I will let you know when that is available okay and that's basically all there is to it don't forget you can go to my Instagram page my Facebook page you can write comments here in YouTube get engaged start writing I also have the reading and writing club on my Facebook you can watch the video up here to learn more about that don't forget to work on your idea Bank and there's a video about that that you can watch practice and time and patience that's all you need and everybody can get to any band anything okay there's no reason you can't do it if you work hard enough and that's all I have to say about that anyways if you like this video please give me a like don't forget to subscribe to my channel and click on the bell to get notifications when new videos come out and come back next time and I'll have some more vocab and grammar lessons for you and hopefully more good samples to share with you see you then bye bye

Channel: Write to Top

Views: 19,570

Rating: 4.9556899 out of 5

Keywords: IELTS, TOEFL, English writing, writing skills, language test, English grammar, English vocabulary, how to write an essay, essay writing, English test, vocabulary, word choice, English skills, IELTS high score, TOEFL high score, lexical resource, how to write in English, IELTS writing, TOEFL writing, academic writing, academic vocabulary, writing samples, IELTS prep, IELTS test, TOEFL test, IELTS exam, learn ielts, teacher Adam, ielts success, ielts task 2

Id: i1uj0N017Ig

Length: 18min 36sec (1116 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 02 2020