Sunday, March 10, 2019

Writing Task 1: How to Craft the Best Overview

A three part series on crafting the best overview.  Part 1 and 3 are in a lecture format, recorded at a seminar hosted by my school.  Part 2 is from my computer, discussing the parts that get left out.


What is the main feature of this Pizza? 





 



My friend, Band 8, noted to me the other day that the Task One writing paper is the ukulele of the IELTS world. Like the uke, it's thought of as easy and cute,  and it certainly doesn't get enough respect in the IELTS instruction community compared to it's brother the Task 2 guitar. 

I'm here to stand up for Task One just like I do for my beloved ukulele!  Honestly, I find some task one's fascinatingly complex. They're multi-layered puzzles which often hide information
from plain sight. I enjoy looking for that information that only shows itself after some consideration and more importantly, combining.

Task One is a kindly, but tricky old man. He dangles bits of data out there, "oh look, a highest and a lowest! A big margin!" on which the Band 6 select for their overview. The kindly old Task One plays the ukulele and wants to make sure that every one gets a feeling of (task) achievement. Good student, that's appropriately selected. Thanks for addressing my requirements. Now take your Band 6 and sit in the highest or the lowest corner.

The Band 7 student notices this bad behavior by the strange old Task One, and yells, "Aha! You're just like my Grandfather! I have made a comparison, didn't settle for just appropriately selected info, so I've got your requirements covered! Give me my seven!"

Band 8 scoffs at 7's comparison, accusing him of just throwing it in to score points. It's not main info. So the requirements are ALL covered. Band 8 boasts of making the ukulele comparison in the first place." 


Band 5 stumbles in mechanically and asks where is Band 9?

Then they hear. He's in the IELTS Temple playing ukulele with Task One.


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