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.