Task 2 GT - Opinion

It's been a year or more since I've reviewed a Task 2 IELTS essay from a random source, but so much of the analysis you're about to see represents common misconceptions about what to do in Task 2. As is true more often than not, it's in Task Response where this candidate misunderstands what to do.  

It's a GT opinion question, NOT a discuss both views. In fact, the idea that is presented as the thing that needs agreeing or disagreeing with is itself quite extreme and without nuance. No need to hedge on this one. 

Let's Dust off the Temple for some general writing advice.

 First post of 2025!  

Nowadays, I don't have the opportunity to do much IELTS feedback, paid or volunteer. Instead, I'm teaching at an international high school, where English is spoken all the time, and the way I teach English would vary somewhat from what I do for IELTS candidates. 

That said, one thing that isn't all that different about the English I look at now vs. in the past is in the most common errors that are made. Teenagers make the same kinds of language mistakes as adults, and there are a few general types of errors that show up consistently and over time. 

The Big Four:

1. Article errors (a/an, the, Zero)
2. Repetitive structures (overuse of "be")
3. Plurals - (subject/verb agreement primarily)
4. Countable/Uncountable Nouns

I throw a fifth one in here - spacing of punctuation marks - but that seems to mostly be a Myanmar thing. 

How better than to communicate these trends than to "monsterify" them into creatures with a little help from generative AI. 




Once I  had created this menagerie, I had to let them speak for themselves.

10 words to avoid

 

ENjoy

Tutoring Now Available

 You may notice in several places on this blog it states that my IELTS advice is provided free-of-charge and that I do not accept paying customers.

I suppose I should take that wording down.  The content here now is still free and always will be, but what has changed is my ability to accept individual students for one-on-one mentoring and essay corrections. Our interaction would be online but comprehensive and thorough. This opportunity is available now, but for limitations. 

Reimbursement for the tutoring would be different and on quoted on a case-by-case basis.  If you would like to learn more about how IELTS Temple can help you, please complete the info in the form linked below, and I'll get back to you promptly.

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Repetition, Repetition and Repetition

 

How I Learned to Love Generative AI

Lately, I've been working on finding a systematic course-like way of sharing the core knowledge I've gathered over the years that would be useful to candidates taking the IELTS. This is not a simple task, as there is a lot to know about what is for many a significantly life-altering English test with a lot of complexity and nuances. 

I'm certainly aware that my specialized knowledge on this topic isn't necessarily special or superior to the thousands if not tens of thousands of individuals out there who deem themselves knowledgeable enough about IELTS to teach it. This blog is barely a drip in the ocean of IELTS advice online.

If only there was a program that could scour the web in its entirety, analyze the content and come up with  a shared wisdom based on thousands of sources. Well, nowadays, that exists - I'm talking of course about artificial intelligence. Generative AI is the ultimate summarizing tool and given the plethora of sites online promoting their IELTS content, AI should be pretty good at condensing what the field agrees upon into digestible bits. 

As an IELTS teacher, I welcome this tool and do not feel it might take away my role. Instead, I look at it as having been promoted from a member of an orchestra to the conductor. Without the skill and knowledge gained from learning my instrument, I wouldn't be a very good conductor. Now, however, I can produce my 'music' from a higher level. Like many, I'm still learning how to keep my unique voice while conducting this powerful orchestra of AI. 

Still faced with the daunting task of turning what I know into communicable elements, I changed tactics.  As a single-page topic, focusing on common misconceptions is well suited to a more limited scope. So I asked Chat GPT to list the top five misconceptions held by those preparing for IELTS.  I changed 2 of them, edited the piece as a whole and came up with this, which I can say without reservation uses generative AI.

Sure enough, as you will see in the next post, these bugaboos rear the heads quite often. 

Percentages are not populations -

Forget WHat You THink You KNow

 

Support your Positions - Stay within the Question

 It's 1 November,  My thanks to the candidate who offered up material to present a lesson. Important lesson here for Task 2 writing.

2023 so far

 Here are some recent candidate writings I've reviewed with some lessons included.

The first of two videos based on the same question about risk
RISK

 

A rare Task 1 process diagram

 We got a map in here
 

And the 2nd risky report