IELTS Advice

IELTS Advice: more about clear thinking

let's look at some reasons why students don't write clear, coherent essays:

1-They don't have a mental picture of what they are aiming to produce.

2-They don't take the time to think about the question before they start writing.

3-They don't spend enough time planning. A few ideas are not enough; a good essay plan should be detailed and organised. Do some "clear thinking" before you start writing!

4-They are thinking about the big words, complex grammar and memorised phrases that they hope to use in the essay, instead of thinking about how to answer the question. You can't think clearly about the question if your brain is focused on these other things.

5-They are thinking clearly in their own languages, but they are not able to translate these ideas into 'natural' English.

❗️Can you see how important 'clear thinking' is? Everything that you write is a manifestation of the thoughts in your head. In other words, your writing demonstrates exactly how clear your thinking is.

#WritingTask2

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IELTS Reading: start with the 'general' test

I recently spoke to a student who was completely new to the IELTS test. He had never tried or even seen an IELTS reading test before, and he asked me how and where to begin. My advice to the student was this: start by doing a 'general' IELTS reading test.

💥There are three reasons why I tell new students to start with the general test:

✔️because it's easier
✔️because the question types are the same as those in the academic test (gap-fill, multiple choice, T/F/NG etc.)
✔️because you can practise exam techniques that you'll be able to use when doing the academic test

#Reading

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👂🏻IELTS Listening: 1882 or 1892?

Someone recently asked me about test 2, question 27 in Cambridge IELTS 7. The answer to this question is "1882 to 1883", but the student thought he heard "1892 to 1893". Students in my classes have often made the same mistake.

So, why do people hear 1892 when the speaker says 1882?

✔️The reason is that you hear the letter 'n' at the end of '18' e.g. eightee-n-eighty-two. If the speaker is talking quickly, it might sound like the 'n' is the first letter of the number that comes after 18.

However, you should ignore this 'n' because it is simply the last letter in the word "eighteen". Instead, you need to hear the "ei" vowel sound in "eighty" instead of the "ai" sound in "ninety". For me, the difference between 1882 and 1892 is very clear, because I hear a completely different vowel sound.

#Listening

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پاسخ نمره 9 به سوال فوق:

In the modern workplace, dress codes are changing as employers focus more on results than on the rules that employees must follow. While I agree that the way people dress should be seen as irrelevant in many work contexts, I believe that dress codes still exist for good reason in certain professions.

On the one hand, many employers have stopped telling their staff how to dress, and I see this as a positive trend. Some of the most successful companies in the world, including technology giants like Google and Facebook, are famous for the relaxed office environments that they try to create. Employees are encouraged to dress casually, and even the company executives and leaders are rarely seen wearing anything other than T-shirts and jeans. However, while managers and programmers are free to dress how they like, they are expected to produce work of outstanding quality. It is clear from the performance and global dominance of such companies that strict dress codes are completely unnecessary in the technology sector.

However, I would also argue that rules regarding employees' clothing are still relevant in other work situations. We expect certain professionals, such as nurses, police officers and airline pilots, to wear uniforms. These uniforms may have a practical or safety function, but perhaps more importantly they identify the person’s position or role in society. Similarly, a lawyer, politician or school principal may choose to wear formal clothing in order to portray an image of authority, trustworthiness and diligence. I believe that most of us prefer to see these professionals in smart, formal attire, even if it is not strictly necessary.

In conclusion, I support the trend towards relaxed dress codes for workers, but I do not see it as applicable to all occupations or sectors of the economy.

(298 words, band 9)

#WritingTask2

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IELTS Writing Task 2:

Some people think that employers should not care about the way their employees dress, because what matters is the quality of their work. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

#WritingTask2

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IELTS Speaking: how to prepare

Here's a quick summary of advice for IELTS speaking preparation.

📌Part 1

Make yourself a list of part 1 questions. Practise going through the full list, giving a simple one-sentence answer for each question. Record yourself and listen to your answers. Aim to answer without hesitation to demonstrate fluency. If you repeat this process every day, you should see improvements.

📌Part 2

Prepare sample answers in written form for the six main topic areas. Ask a teacher or native English speaker to help you to improve your descriptions, by correcting mistakes and adding better vocabulary ideas. Practise those six descriptions until you can 'perform' them without needing to read your notes. Record yourself, analyse your performance and keep practising and perfecting until you have really mastered the six topics. Then move on to other less common topics and try to do the same.

📌Part 3

Make yourself a list of part 3 questions. Practise going through the list, giving 3-step answers. Force yourself to give a direct answer, explanation and example every time. When this way of answering starts to feel easy and natural, because you've created a habit, you can experiment with 4-step answers. Record yourself, analyse your answers and repeat the process. Don't move on to any new questions until you feel that you've 'mastered' your original list.

#Speaking

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💥📝پاسخ نمره 9 به سوال فوق:

The bar chart compares the number of visits made by people in six age categories to hospital emergency wards in Northern Ireland in the December of 2016 and 2017.

It is clear that elderly people and the youngest children were the most frequent visitors to A&E (accident and emergency) departments. Also, there was a slight increase in the rate of emergency care attendances among all six age groups from December 2016 to December 2017.

Looking first at the older age groups, roughly 65 people, per 1000 population, aged 75 and over attended A&E wards in December 2016, and this rose to almost 70 attendances per 1000-population one year later. Interestingly, those aged 65 to 74 were less than half as likely to require emergency treatment, with around 30 attendances per 1000-population in both months.

At the other end of the age scale, the figures for A&E visits by under-5s rose marginally from around 50 to approximately 52 per 1000-population over the one-year period. Children aged 5 to 15 made the fewest visits, at just over 20 per 1000-population in both months. Finally, there was almost no difference in the figures for emergency care attendances among people aged 16 to 44, 45 to 64 and 65 to 74.

(217 words, band 9)

#WritingTask1

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IELTS Speaking Part 2:

💥Describe something important that you learned in a maths lesson at primary school.

And here's my sample answer:

I’m going to talk about learning the multiplication tables for the numbers 1 to 12, which I remember doing in the penultimate year of primary school, when I was maybe 9 years old. As children, we called these the ‘times tables’.
As far as I remember, we started with the number 2, and we learnt to multiply this number by each of the numbers from 1 to 12. Our teacher taught us to go through the tables speaking aloud; for example: 1 times 2 is 2, 2 times 2 is 4, 3 times 2 is 6 etc. We gradually worked our way through the tables for all of the numbers, and we learnt the answers by heart. I think the teacher also gave us regular tests to make sure that we had learnt the tables properly.
I’m not sure whether I really understood at the time why it was important to learn the ‘times tables’ by rote. But I think I enjoyed the challenge, and I was keen to get good marks in our tests. I also liked my teacher and wanted to do well for her.
Many years later I realise how important it is to have the basic multiplication tables ingrained in my mind. It’s useful to be able to do quick calculations without having to think. Recently, for example, I needed to multiply 6 by 7 for some reason - I can’t even remember why - and the answer 42 just popped into my head. Another instance that I can think of is when I’m calculating bill payments, earnings and savings over a 12-month period, and I find myself using the ‘12 times table’. In these situations, I’m glad that my primary school teachers were so insistent about learning to multiply by heart.

❗️Note:
I didn't have the full question, so I decided to tell a story in my own way. Did you learn any useful words or phrases from my description?

#Speaking

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IELTS Advice: 'tighten up' your writing

💥I often use the phrasal verb 'tighten up' when I'm talking about improving essays. Here's what I mean when I use this verb:

- Make your writing clear, concise and succinct
- Remove anything that is irrelevant or vague
- Avoid unnecessary repetition
- Check that each sentence follows on logically from the sentence before it
- Make sure that your sentences move your paragraphs forward

Think about the job of an editor (for a newspaper, magazine or book publisher). Editors check other people's writing and "tighten it up" so that it's easier to read. This is what you should try to do with your own writing.

#WritingTask2

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IELTS Advice: paragraph 'movement'

💥The fact about 3 distinct ideas for each paragraph means that the paragraph "moves forward". Many students seem to get stuck on one idea, and the paragraph has no development or “movement".

💥This is something that I often see in students' essays: they go "round and round" explaining the same idea for a whole paragraph. Look carefully at your own paragraphs to see whether this happens to you. If it does, here are 2 possible solutions:

Spend more time planning, and try to think of 3 distinct ideas or points before you start writing. When you've written about one point, leave it and move on to the next one.
Spend more time planning, and develop your idea (if you only have one idea). Make sure you don't just explain the same point in different ways. Instead, try to "move the idea forward" by thinking about reasons, consequences and examples. You could even consider alternatives e.g. what the opposite of your idea would be.

#WritingTask2

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IELTS Writing Task 2: rewriting

💥Instead of writing five different essays, have you considered rewriting one essay five times?

Most people don't like rewriting essays because it seems boring. And the people who do rewrite essays usually only do this because they need to correct grammar mistakes.

But good rewriting is about more than just grammar corrections; there are many other things that you could improve, such as:

✔️how well you address the question
✔️clarity of your position
✔️sentences or phrases that are vague or irrelevant
✔️level of detail in your explanations
✔️overall paragraph structure
✔️paragraph movement
✔️coherence between neighbouring sentences
✔️repetition and variety of vocabulary
✔️use of connectives to link sentence clauses
anything else that 'tightens up' your writing
Imagine how much you could learn if you rewrote one essay five times (or more!) to address all of these areas.

🔴Warning 1:
You'll need help from a teacher to do this properly. Show him or her this lesson so that you both understand what you're aiming to do.

🔴Warning 2:
This is the kind of hard work that most people aren't prepared to do. But it's the kind of work that yields real results!

#WritingTask2

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