Breaking the Mold (for the most part) - Another Essay from the Nigerian Museums Guy

About a week ago, I wrote a blog with the click-baity title: Trying to get a 7 when you could get an 8. It got lots of views, and it contained advice which isn't for every IELTS candidate. In fact, it's probably not good for most, as most can't get an 8 because of their level of English.

I was pleased to see the guy I was writing about drop some of the structural aspects that were holding him back.

The Rare Direct Question Essay! And the Even Rarer Goal of Band 9!

You don't see it very often.

Gender equality?

No, not that!

A very rare type of Task 2 question. They are called "direct questions". Sometimes, direct questions are paired with another type of question, such as a best way or advantage/disadvantage, to create a two part question.  It is rare that you see them all by themselves.

The Task Two Blues - Joko Sings the "Almost got an 8 in TR Blues"

Okay, this was one my weirdest ideas yet. It started with a realization I had about the structure of an IELTS Task 2 essay and how most modern songs are structured.

The first line of a verse is like the topic sentence of a paragraph. Each subsequent line of the verse plays a roll just as the sentences do in an essay. The whole thing is held together by a theme - the equivalent of the clear position throughout called for in band descriptors.

Causes and Solutions: Trying to get a 7 when you could get an 8.

My degree happens to be in sociology with a comparative cultural emphasis. At uni, I studied the cultures of different regions and  countries and learned how their particular development as societies shaped their values and approaches to life.

When I read and analyze students' IELTS essays, I can’t help but notice how culture influences how a person answers questions. As much as the trinity of IDP/BC/Cambridge does what they can to create questions which are answerable by people from all over the world, they don’t always do as good a job as they might. For instance, in one of the official books, there is a question about gap-year students, meaning students who take a year off between high school and starting university to work and travel abroad. When I present this question to my students here in Myanmar, they look at me aghast. Because of the culture, economy and other aspects of growing up in a least-developed country, the idea of young people doing this is completely foreign. They have never heard of such a thing!

I think the role of museums in a society is similarly very culturally subjective and different from place to place. 

Watch the video for details

Think of Your IELTS Writing Task 2 as a Song

Are you familiar with a Venn Diagram? It shows how groups of particular characteristics overlap each other. When I made this video, I thought that the idea that Task 2 was like a song was the most brilliant thing I’d thought up in weeks. When in reality, I understand my target audience was more like this->

Think about it. An IELTS essay is made up of paragraphs, each of which should have a particular purpose and message; a song is constructed in verses which serve the same role. 

Bar Graph Over Time - Looking for Trends and Comparisons, not Just Highe...

Support Your Support! Advantages Outweigh Disadvantages - Younger Population

Next up in our series of student essays, is one from an author we heard from just a few days ago.  She made an apparent improvement right away!

Good!

A Very Good Essay - Except for Answering the Question

This was submitted via the Temple's new Submit Your Essay For Feedback page located in the tabs
above.

This is an excellent model of an essay that uses a wide variety of sentence structures with just an occasional slip, shows good collocation with very few unnatural word combinations and is structured somewhat well.

It's weaknesses include not really having clear topic sentences, a couple of unsupported conclusions and spending too much time talking about things which don't really address the question.

Who Am I? Your IELTS Gurus! Jeopardy Template

Who Am I? Your IELTS Gurus! Jeopardy Template

Writing Task Opening Lines: Misconceptions About Paraphrasing the Question

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind.
Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful.
How true that is."
How former US Vice President Dan Quayle
infamously paraphrased the slogan of the UNCF:
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

 PARAPHRASING THE QUESTION

 

Does every sentence in your response to an IELTS writing paper count the same towards your band score? 

It should, but it doesn't.
The importance of first impressions aside, let's look at how to start an essay.

Addressing the task in TR requires that you show you understand the question, and that starts in the opening line. The CC criterion requires an essay show "progression" and that starts at the beginning.  Then we get to Lexical Resource, and that's where I think the misunderstanding starts regarding "paraphrasing the question". 

Of course, every IELTS expert has somewhat different advice about how tobe gin an essay. Here's some advice from Chris at IELTSadavantage:

The mental processes required to paraphrase will also help you to fully understand the question and this is one of the reasons I tell my students to begin all of their answers in the writing test by paraphrasing the question.

I completely agree with the first part of that advice. In fact, quite seperately, it's part of the advice I give in my video about the "to what extent do you agree"