Watch me do an IELTS Writing Test

hey everyone chris here from ielts advantage hope that you're all doing well and in this video we're going to focus on writing and it's quite a unique video because instead of what i do normally which is look at students work and then give feedback on the students work we're going to flip it we're going to do a role reversal so what i've done is i took a whole writing test and task one on task two questions that i've never seen before and i did it under exam conditions in the same way that you guys um would write your essay and then i would like you to watch me writing it and then give me feedback so what that will do is it will force you to think more like an examiner and if you think like an examiner on test day you're more likely to get a higher band score because you'll be able to look at your own writing and give yourself feedback on test day so it's highly valuable for a student to think more like an examiner and that's what we try and do with our vip students and that's why they are so successful on test day and then the second reason and to do this is i've talked you through my thinking what i'm thinking while i'm writing that i couldn't do that 100 because the essay would have been terrible if i was just focusing on teaching rather than focusing on writing but i've tried to have a balance between talking you through my thinking and my writing and writing a good essay bonus points for the people who can spot the two grammar mistakes that i made while i was writing at the end i made a big mistake what i did was i focused on a detail that wasn't important at all and i didn't check my work properly at the end and that is a massive strategic error and something that i would really criticize a student for and i did it so that shows you that you know even ielts experts or so-called experts are human too and we all make mistakes so hopefully this video is useful watch it feel free to give me feedback in the comments and if you can spot those two mistakes you'll get bonus points okay so i have two tasks here task two is worth double task one so i'm gonna start off with task two so the first thing i need to do is just read the question and understand it so let's move this down here so we can just focus on this one some people say that now is the best time in history to be living what is your opinion about this what other time in history would be interesting to live in okay so i've understood all the words i understand the sentences i understand exactly what they're looking for and understand what type of question this is this is a double question they're asking me two separate questions okay so now that i've understood it what i need to do is plan it out so what i'll do so i'm gonna paraphrase i'm going to disagree because of social media and what other time in history would be okay so it doesn't really matter what i choose here it's just something that is easy to write about it's easy to write about why social media makes this not the best time to be living in history i also need to make sure that i reference other times because really what what it's asking us to do is compare now with all the other times in history so i'm just putting that in just as a quick note other time 60s because of music now i could have chosen world war ii because i know a lot about that period um but it's a bit difficult to say why that would be interesting because a lot of people were dying and the 60s i know a lot about music in the 60s so i'm not picking the definitive answer this is not a intelligence test or a general knowledge test this is a writing test so i'm just going to be writing about something that's easy for me to write about so the best time keyword there is best and keyword there is interesting so it's about the best time and an interesting time okay so that's my introduction planned out and basically this plans out then the rest of my essay just keep an eye on the time i think i started at about 5 past okay so i've got okay main body paragraph one topic sentence disagree because of social media okay so why why does social media make it not the best time to be living um okay why being constantly connected to other people what what is why does this make it a bad time to live okay i'm happy with that one let me just go back i'm just adding little ideas that are popping into my head but i'm constantly going back to the question okay so why is it interesting well before the 1960s music was very boring was very conservative um and then the beatles happened so i'll talk about the beatles and what they did to music um and then an example i'll use one of the songs um and talk about why that's interesting again it doesn't have to give a definitive history of the 60s just has to talk about what i think is interesting about it okay i know what i'm going to put in the conclusion so i'm not going to spend too much time okay how am i for time that took me about seven minutes so i think i'm just looking at the watch on my wrist to try and make it realistic um okay i'm taking the question down again because i'm paraphrasing this okay many many believe that the modern era is the is the most optimal time to be alive very kind of up optimal is a very scientific techie word um but right now that's the best i can think of what i'm not going to do is spend five minutes trying to worry about one word and so let's move on you you okay so let's check that many believe that the modern era is the most optimal time to be alive i strong strongly i've turned off spell check to make it hard i strongly disagree with this statement due to the stress social media causes on the 1960s would have been more interesting decade to live through so i missed out the reason so i want to state my reason here because what i want is for the examiner to read this and know exactly what i think about the question and then this also presents a little plan for me i'm gonna read it one more time because i made a few mistakes there many believe that the modern era is the most optimal time to be alive i strongly disagree with this statement due to the stress social media causes and the 1960s would have been a more interesting decade to live through because of the musical revolution okay why did that automatically i thought i turned that off i thought i turned the automatic spell checker off apologies i don't know how to turn it off um okay that's cheating you you um i you okay let's read this the current time is one of the worst times to exist due to the omnipresence of social media app these sites reduce quality of life for millions of people because modern humans can really switch off and relax it is important for people to have time alone in order to refresh themselves and look after their mental health constant notifications increase anxiety and make people feel inadequate due to the impossible task of competing with everyone so i need to explain this a little bit for example instagram portrays impossible beauty standards which make many young men and women feel they are less than those they follow okay so for example instagram portrays impossible beauty standards which make young men and women feel they are less than those they follow so my main point is about kind of never being able to switch off and connect is this is is this a okay this is related but is this more peer pressure and comparing yourself to others rather than let's change this a little bit for example i know i've repeated the word attention twice i know many of you are freaking out don't worry all right the current time is one of the worst times to exist due to the omnipresence of social media apps these sites reduce quality of life from millions of people because modern humans can rarely switch off and relax it is important for people to have time alone in order to refresh themselves and look after their mental health constant notifications increase anxiety and make people feel inadequate due to the impossible task of competing with everyone else in the world for example instagram notifies you when someone likes your picture and many young people feel stressed if they do not get enough attention but also can't stop checking their phones um i'm just changing the vocabulary a little bit sharpening it up um you know check their feeds this isn't like check is a simple word there is a simple word but feeds is a very topic specific word um and to use this correctly um indicates to the examiner that you know you really know this topic you know social media and if you have the ability to use this type of vocabulary even though it's not a very long complicated word it is very topic specific okay so i am 20 minutes in and i'm halfway through i might have made some mistakes here i don't know but i'll check at the end at what other time you okay the sixties would have been a fascinating time to experience because of the innovations innovation there there were many innovations in music before then music was quite boring and there was little experimentation bands like the beatles completely transformed the cultural landscape by introducing a completely new sound this would have been extremely exciting because there are very few times in history when someone can experience something completely unique for the first time for instance their album excuse me i don't know if it was sergeant pepper's that had indian like the sitar and stuff i'd definitely know that they used the sitar um and that was quite revolutionary for western audiences um so but it doesn't matter because it's not a beatles or a music test so um it just matters that we're able to explain to the examiner what we think so the 60s would have been a fascinating time to experience because of the innovations in music before then music was quite boring and there was little experimentation bonds like the beatles completely transformed the cultural landscape he knew sound this would have been exciting because there are very few times in history when someone can experience something completely unique for the first time for instance the sgt pepper's album forge new grind in production when people with people hearing pop songs fuse with traditional instruments from india for the first time okay so we've gone about 12 minutes left so i better finish this up you i was going to write incessant but i don't know how to spell incessant 100 so i'm not going to take the risk um because i believe it or not i'm not checking the dictionary or anything like that and i have a pretty good idea how it's spelled but i don't want to take any risks constant i've used that incessant i don't know how to spell it omnipresent if already you and i could have talked about how terrible music is these days but i don't have time to do that it is truly terrible so um all right in conclusion although this current time has experienced many technological breakthroughs in the digital space companies like facebook and twitter have a detrimental impact on our mental health making it one of the worst times to be alive so i'm linking it back to the question i would have preferred to live through the 1960s because of how exciting new new music was back then so interesting exciting okay let's check the word count so i've got about seven minutes to check this so on time 308 so sweet spot is kind of between 260 to 300 so i'm a little bit over and but that's not not a big deal at all um once you're going much over 300 then you get into problems but you know eight words over 300 is not a huge deal what i'm going to do is read it all again because it's very difficult to spell check grammar check for cop check whenever you're thinking about writing at the same time so what we like to do is just focus now on not writing the essay just checking the essay you um okay i hope i haven't missed anything or made any mistakes i'm sure i'll be told it's social me one of the detrimental effects of social media is nasty comments so hopefully i haven't made any mistakes but i'm sure you'll tell me if i did um all right i still have five minutes so what i want to do is just go through this and look for are there any improvements that i could make to the vocabulary um so okay social media so social media let's say social apps just showing the examiner i'm aware of this collocation okay i talked about facebook and twitter instead of social media so that's fine um 1960s 60s the 1960s i don't want to change it to the 60s even though in common you know it's common knowledge that if you're talking about the 60s it's probably the 1960s but i don't want to give the examiner any any excuse to mark me down because it could have been the 1860s or 1760s i don't think that's a huge deal but um [Music] quality of life notifications optimal time fascinating time current time so good time a lot but it's not just time time time time time it's a lot of collocations so current time fascinating time um interesting time interesting decade fascinating and stuff like that for the first time current time so the the examiner's not go hopefully the examiner is not going to look at this and go you repeated time you know four times or whatever they'll look at it and think okay collocation collocation collocation mental health well-being music there's no other rope can't think of any other way of saying you could talk about songs like but it's not really you know it's music is what we're really talking about here musical i mean i'm i'm just changing stuff for the sake of changing it i don't think that improves the essay but i just know that many of you will be screaming oh you used the word music four times what do you call the name of the producer george someone might remember it later on it's like a really simple name but the beatles would not have been the beatles without their producer let's put george we'll come back to that if we go um if i don't remember it i'll just remove it um okay so i'm running out of time i've spent about 40 minutes my watch is saying 45 you know 6 45 a.m i started at 605 a.m so we just need to move on and if we spend too much time on this we're not going to have enough time to get this done so what i do is i first read this your friend has been offered a place on a course at the university where you studied he or she would like your advice about finding a place to live okay so i'm going to use my real university where i actually studied and what i'm going to do is just use this as a plan so these are going to be my four main body paragraphs i'm going to check the tone your friend so i'm going to say dear will my little boy is called william so i'll imagine i'm writing to him um you so it's very informal just dropping you a quick note to let you know a little bit um about the best place to stay in bristol okay when i was there i lived in clifton it's famous for the beautiful suspension bridge and for its little artisan shops but it's also the most expensive and very efficient to live there because of the cost of living describe where you lived when you were a student at the university okay recommend the best way for him or to look for accommodation again i'm using informal language because it's a friend i reckon the best place for you to look is on the university of bristol's website because it will let you know about staying in halls halls is a british irish way of saying dormitories like where students live i reckon the best place for you to look is on the university of bristol's website because it will let you know about staying in halls dell give you a few different options and then you can visit them in person to get a feel for where they are and what they'd be like to live in so i'm using lots of contractions they'll they'd i'm because it's an informal ladder recommend the best way for him to look for accommodation warn him her mistakes students make when choosing accommodation you okay it's just an informal sign off all right so i've got that took me oh nine minutes so probably a little bit too fast actually um so probably made a few mistakes um dear will i don't know when i'm writing letters i don't normally do this but some examiners think that this is important so i'm just going to play it safe i'm just dropping you a quick note to let you know a little bit about the best place to stay in bristol when i was there i lived in clifton it's famous for the beautiful suspension bridge and it's a little artisan shop so i'm adding in you know little um [Music] adjectives this is a way that you can you know expand your vocabulary quite easily as long as you know what they mean and you know how to spell them um and they are appropriate but it's also the most expensive area of the city and very few students live there because of the cost of living okay i reckon the best place for you to look is on the university of bristol's website because it will let you know about staying in halls they'll give you a different they'll give you a few different options and then you can visit them personally get a feel for where they are and what they'd be like to live in the biggest blunder i made was choosing to live in the posh part of tarn on my own not only was i skinned for most of the year after paying my rent i didn't really get to make many new mates because i didn't get to live with other students halls are cheap and you're guaranteed to meet new people okay so i'm gonna have a bit of time left but this is all true um and it's easiest to just write about something that is true um i went to the university of bristol i lived in clifton it was too expensive i lived on my own that was a mistake um so this is easier to write but just trying to make it a little bit more informal and this is only like a three letter word but only you know very high level english learners or native english speakers would really know how to use that word so just demonstrating that it's not about using big long complicated words sometimes you know a three-letter word can be way more impressive than a big long complicated word it's a little bit long i think i'm just edit so the the more i if i'm right write a very long essay or a very long letter like this i can just edit it down and and that reduces the chances of making any mistakes freshers freshers is like um new people first years freshers they have parties well everyone has parties at university um but i'm just trying to add in as much topic specific vocabulary as possible alls are cheap and you're guaranteed to make friends at the epic freshers parties just sign off give me a bell again just adding in a little bit of extra a few final flourishes um [Music] give me a bell means call me so in a formal letter it would say you know please phone me if you need anything else in an informal letter you can do something like that so we're all done i think um five minutes early we still can't think of that name producer george martin i think it is i knew it was a really simple name let's check beatles producer george martin got it all right i forgot to check the word count for this one 193 so that's perfect and the sweet spot for these is kind of between 160 and 200 um and it's much better to write a essay around that kind of word count and spend a lot of time thinking about it and shortening it and maybe not shortening it but just tightening it up and improving it and i'm sure that i've made some mistakes in here um remember to get a bad nine you're allowed to make some slips so please don't look at this if i have made some mistakes and go you're a terrible teacher you don't know what you're doing hopefully that was useful um [Music] apologies that i couldn't talk you through absolutely everything but i wanted to make sure that it was a good essay at the same time as it being educational so apologies if there was a lot of dead and dead noise where i wasn't actually talking um but it's difficult to write and talk and think all at the same time hopefully that was useful guys and it was definitely useful for me to kind of see what the challenges are for students and do this um myself and put myself under pressure and and let's see if there's any negativity hopefully not hopefully it was useful thank you [Music] you

Channel: IELTS Advantage

Views: 26,267

Keywords: IELTS, IELTS Writing, IELTS Essay Writing, How to write an IELTS essay, Band 9 Essay

Id: TLua55aJ4Ig

Length: 59min 9sec (3549 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 13 2021