IELTS writing bible by DC IELTS task 2

IELTS Writing Task May 2016 Tổng hợp giảng IELTS Writing Task thày Dominic Cole từ Facebook page Tôi điểm Viết IELTS IELTS Kungfu Contents Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Hãy nghĩ trước viết | Stop – think – write: a checklist for IELTS essays Sử dụng bảng checklist để kiểm tra lỗi | Improve your writing by using an IELTS essays checklist Cách bố cục luận Task | How to structure IELTS essays Hai cách để viết luận discussion | Two ways to write discussion essays for IELTS 13 Dạng balanced view | Writing balanced essays for IELTS 18 Dạng có câu hỏi | Dealing with double questions essay tasks 22 Quy trình viết luận Task | The process of writing an IELTS essay 27 Phân tích đề | Reading and understanding IELTS essay questions 31 Lập dàn ý | Planning IELTS essays – the thinking stage 33 Hướng dẫn viết Mở | The introduction – the link between the question and the essay 36 Hướng dẫn viết Thân | The content paragraphs – some checklists for before you write 40 Hướng dẫn viết Kết luận | The conclusion – a summary of the essay and an answer to the question 43 Hướng dẫn viết Kết luận (tiếp) | Essay conclusions 47 Kiểm tra lại viết | Reviewing your essay – part of the process of writing 50 Từ vựng cho luận | IELTS essay vocabulary 53 Từ vựng trang trọng cho luận Task | Impersonal vocabulary for academic essays 55 Quy trình lập dàn ý | The process of planning an IELTS essay 57 An example of the planning process 58 Điều xảy bạn không lập dàn ý | What happens if you don’t plan enough? 61 Bao nhiêu paragraphs đủ | How many paragraphs in an IELTS essay? 62 Hiểu yêu cầu đề | Understanding the task in IELTS essays 64 Ba dạng câu hỏi Task | The three different types of IELTS essay question 66 The discussion 66 The proposal 66 The argument 67 Tìm ý cho luận Task | Ideas for IELTS essays 70 Cách để tăng điểm cho luận | Improve your IELTS essays – ask yourself simple questions 72 Hướng dẫn viết Mở dạng đề discussion | Writing introductions to discussion essays 74 Phát triển ý theo công thức PEE | Paragraph coherence: the PEE model 77 Bài mẫu: Quá tải dân số | Sample IELTS overpopulation essay 80 Hướng dẫn viết CÂU ĐẦU TIÊN thân | Write better paragraphs – start with a simple sentence 83 Kết nối đoạn văn | Linking paragraphs in an essay 85 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Hãy nghĩ trước viết | Stop – think – write: a checklist for IELTS essays Further down this lesson you’ll find a checklist of some things to think about as you are writing an IELTS essay Before you get to it though, I’d like to explain how and why it may help you The basic ideas are: effective writing comes from effective thinking you need to think as you write not just before it – just “planning” is not enough it’s better to think before you write and not after it – you really don’t have time to draft and re-draft in IELTS the best time to think is before every sentence and every paragraph – they are the key units of your essay the best thinking is directed thinking – for that it helps to have some form of checklist Let me first explain a little below why I suggest you spend more time thinking It may seem that it will slow you down and most people want to write faster! It may to begin with But you should find that with practice you end up writing more efficiently – meaning you don’t just complete essays in time, you write better essays too Clear thinking makes better writing One – slightly simplistic – way to understand this is to see that 50% of IELTS scores come from Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion Those marks are less about language and more about thought and organisation Put another way, wonderful grammar and vocab only get you 50% of the way To get the other 50% you need thinking skills Just planning is not enough There is a limit to what you can plan in the exam room before you start writing Even if you are able to produce all the structure, language and ideas in your planning time, you still need to decide how it all fits together I have met very, very few students who are able to all that in their planning time One result of this is that a lot of people stop planning as they think they are wasting time That’s bad Much better is to accept that your plan is not the complete answer and you can refine that plan as you write Please note that ‘m not suggesting you don’t plan Indeed, for this thinking to work it is crucial you have an essay structure/ideas/language – that all comes from having a plan Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Don’t draft and re-draft – think before you write If you have trouble finishing essays in the 40 minutes, it’s quite likely because you make too many mistakes and end up crossing things out One way to avoid this is just to spend more time thinking before you write This is not “planning time”, but the time you spend thinking about the best way to say something If you are used to writing academic essays, you need to in this thinking time what you’d normally in your re-drafting time Think before sentences and paragraphs When I watch students writing, I see this go wrong lots and lots Frequently I see students pausing half way through a sentence – not knowing how to finish it This is very often when writing goes wrong – sometimes just because the two parts of the sentence don’t match each other! One way to think of a sentence is that it is a complete thought Only start writing when that thought is complete in your head and your writing may improve overnight Paragraphs? Well, they’re complete ideas (thoughts put together) It’ll also really help if you get those complete ideas together before you start writing Direct your thinking It’s all very well to suggest “thinking” helps, but what should you think about? This will depend on you, your experience, your level and the essay Below I make some suggestions My thinking checklist for IELTS essays What you will find below are a series of questions to ask yourself – feel free to amend it to your purposes There may seem to be a lot of questions – You may (i.e probably will) think that my grammar/vocabulary notes in particular are too simple I just find that the best way to get language is to think of ideas first! It may help to remember that essays are made up of related paragraphs and a paragraph is a collection of related sentences So when you start a paragraph you need to think of both the essay and the sentences Likewise, you need grammar and vocabulary and coherence/cohesion skills to write a sentence Paragraphs ideas/language Do I have enough language/ideas to write a complete paragraph? Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang What is the main idea of this paragraph? Can I put it in one sentence? essay structure Does that main idea fit into my essay structure? How does this paragraph relate to the other topic paragraphs? coherence/organisation How is the paragraph going to be structured? Do I have reasons and/or examples for the main idea? How many sentences should this paragraph have? Sentences coherence/cohesion What I want to say in this sentence? Can I finish the sentence in my head? Is this a main idea? An example? An explanation? Something else? How does this sentence relate to the previous sentence? Do I need a linking word? How else can I show how it links? grammar Am I sure about the grammar? If not, can I put it some other way? Is the grammar too simple/too repetitious? vocabulary Is the language precise? Do I want to borrow words from the previous sentence(s)? Do I need synonyms? Is this language the right register (essay language)? Further down this lesson you’ll find a checklist of some things to think about as you are writing an IELTS essay Before you get to it though, I’d like to explain how and why it may help you The basic ideas are: effective writing comes from effective thinking Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang you need to think as you write not just before it – just “planning” is not enough it’s better to think before you write and not after it – you really don’t have time to draft and re-draft inIELTS the best time to think is before every sentence and every paragraph – they are the key units of your essay the best thinking is directed thinking – for that it helps to have some form of checklist Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Sử dụng bảng checklist để kiểm tra lỗi | Improve your writing by using an IELTS essays checklist This is a very simple exercise to help you to improve the quality of your IELTS essays It is particularly useful if you are just starting out on IELTS or if you find you are not making progress The idea is that you learn how to check your essays as an examiner would by looking at the specific band score criteria To help you this, there is an IELTS essays checklist to download of the most important points an IELTS examiner looks for in your essays Using this checklist every time you finish your essay can help you   not to make “silly” mistakes that seriously affect your band score learn the correct essay writing process The IELTS essays checklist Essay writing checklist (47504) Be specific when you use the checklist The main idea of the checklist is that you are very specific what you check for and when you use the checklist you should try to underline or mark in some way something in your essay Don’t the lazy thing and just tick yes So if, for example, you are looking at the question: “Do my sentences link together?”, you might this: The first point to make is that politicians have a responsibility to spend public money on projects that bring a benefit to the general public This has not been the case with space research as most developments have been limited to helping astronauts in space or have been very specialised For example, it is not of great value to the general public that we now have pens and biros that can write upside down This does not merit the huge amount of money spent You now know that your writing is coherent If, however, you cannot underline something in the essay, you now know what your problem is and you should mark it in the “my mistakes” table How often to use the checklist You need to use the checklist on a very regular basis to make this work best If you fill it out every time you write an essay, then two things happen: checking your writing becomes an automatic process you learn what makes a good IELTS essay It may look boring, but you need to trust me here that this time boring is good Two of the main reasons why candidates badly are failing to find the time to check and not knowing what to check for You should also find that after you have done this 4/5 times, you become much more efficient when you check Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang What the checklist includes The band score criteria You will note that the checklist is organised according to the IELTS writing band score criteria The main point to note here is that each of these is equally important and all need to be checked It is not enough just to write an essay without “grammar” mistakes The writing process The section headed writing process asks you to note down how long you spent planning, writing and checking the essay It is a good idea to keep a note of this because: if you write down the time of the planning and checking phases, you will actually plan and check your essays – the chances are that if your essays score badly it is because you didn’t spend enough time planning and checking you learn how long you need for each stage in the exam when you are under time pressure you can check your progress on how long it takes you to write an IELTS essay I certainly don’t suggest you start by trying to write one in 40 minutes Your mistakes The “your mistakes” section is vital We all use language in our own way and we all make our own mistakes The idea is that you keep a record of the types of mistake you make so that you can check for those mistakes in the checking phase If you don’t have a teacher, you can always try typing one of your essays into Microsoft Word and using the grammar check feature: it isn’t perfect but it can help The checklist is too simple? If you think that the checklist is too simple for your needs I would suggest that you take a look at my sample essays and experiment by analysing them with this checklist – you should find that it works for them! But the smart learner is the one who adopts and adapts: so feel free to amend it to your needs Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Cách bố cục luận Task | How to structure IELTS essays This lesson shows you a simple way to structure IELTS essays Below I show a very simple method (with a downloadable resource) I use myself and also show my students in class Hãy đọc hiểu câu hỏi | Read and understand the question One key to it is understand the question and to be clear about what you want to say in your response Clear thinking leads to clear writing.As ever, the first step is to read and understand the question Here is the question today: Despite advances in medicine there are concerns that certain diseases such as diabetes are increasing and some people believe future generations will face greater problems with health and die younger than we today What is your opinion? This question asks you to: give your opinion – this must be clear in the introduction and the conclusion about whether health will be better in future – this means that you need to talk about the future and now – there must be some comparison about whether people will live longer – this needs to be mentioned to All these things must be included Think about the examiner – make your opinion and structure clear – give your essay a backbone IELTS essays get marked quickly You don’t want to allow the examiner to make a mistake So make life easy for him/her by showing the structure of your essay as clearly as possible There are places you this – what I think of as being the spine of the essay (your spine is your backbone – it’s what keeps you upright and gives you your structure) the introduction – that’s the first thing they read and where you make your first impression and first impressions count the first sentence of each paragraph (x2) – examiners are taught that each paragraph should have one main idea – show them what it is in the first sentence the conclusion – that’s the last thing they read and the first thing they remember! The key is link these things together so that   the introduction matches the conclusion – the opinion/point of view is the same: you just need to change the language the two body paragraphs link to the opinion/point view in the introduction To this try this simple essay structure plan It may just look like boxes on a blank piece of paper , but it might save your life! Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Download my plan to structure IELTS essays Structure IELTS essays plan (4198) Suy nghĩ thật rõ ràng quan điểm ý kiến bạn | Think clearly about your opinion/point of view Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Phát triển ý theo công thức PEE | Paragraph coherence: the PEE model Coherence is crucial to IELTS writing Why? It is up to 25% of your score: it is as important to your final score as both grammar and vocabulary So, as you prepare your writing, you need to think about it What I want to in this post is to show one relatively simple way to achieve it – in paragraphs Paragraph coherence is practical in that it will help not just to improve your score, but also make the writing process easier Paragraph coherence One form of coherence is coherence within a paragraph To achieve this you need to learn how to structure a paragraph with a topic sentence and to develop that sentence through the appropriate use of explanations and examples In this post I am going to suggest a possible model to help you this by teaching you to PEE – something everyone should be able to quite naturally It may help, however, first to think about how this works in the reading and speaking papers Understanding paragraph coherence – topic sentences – think reading In the IELTS reading exam, one very familiar task is to identify the main topic of a paragraph by selecting the correct heading from a list One way to complete that task is to identify one sentence that gives the main point of the paragraph – this is the topic sentence Your goal in the writing paper is to ensure that each of your paragraphs contains a similar topic sentence Learn how to write by thinking about reading Paragraph coherence – expanding the topic – think speaking You can also learn to write by thinking about speaking In the speaking exam, one of the goals is not to give very brief answers, but to give extended answers In the writing the same applies: it is important to expand on the topic to show you have sufficient vocabulary and grammar to say what you want The mistake is to write very short paragraphs or paragraphs which contain unrelated points If you don’t believe me, you should note that the question almost invariably contains these words: “You should use your own ideas, knowledge and experience and support your arguments with examples and relevant evidence.” This is telling you that coherence is important If you support what you say with evidence and examples, your writing will become coherent A model – Learn how to P-E-E One way to expand your topic sentences is to make the point (P) explain it (E) give an example (E) 77 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang How it works This is not the only way to be coherent, but it is a good model to folllow in the context of an exam essay for two reasons Firstly, it impresses the examiner It also makes the writing easier as most paragraphs can follow the same pattern and planning becomes much easier as you already know the shape of each paragraph before you start writing Some examples Read through these three paragraphs taken from different IELTS essays and note how they all have a similar structure:    Point Explanation Example This is a pattern you can follow in most essays to give coherence to your writing by expanding on one point I will add that this just a model guideline, it isn’t a rule There will be times when you not use examples for instance There are those who argue that the internet has had an extremely positive influence on communication They say this because in the past it was sometimes impossible to call people in other countries on the telephone, but now it is relatively simple to use a program such as Skype to talk to them for free or to send an email A good example here are the students who go to study abroad and are able to send messages home with no difficulty, when in past they would have had to buy stamps and go to the post office which was much harder and more expensive A strong argument can of course be made from the opposite position Part of this argument is that countries and nations need to preserve old buildings in order to preserve their heritage In addition, however, to this cultural argument, there are positive economic benefits in preserving old buildings An illustration here is Egypt once again, a country which depends on tourism for much of its national income simply because visitors pay to come from other countries to visit its ancient sites There are several reasons why it can be argued that television has a negative effect on cultural development Perhaps the principle argument is the lowbrow nature of many programmes, particularly sitcoms and soap operas People who watch these programmes not learn anything, they are simply entertained The other major argument is that because people watch so much television, they no longer take part in more traditional forms of cultural entertainment An example here is how traditional dancing and music is becoming much less popular because people are staying at home to watch the television A suggestion 78 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang If any of this is new to you, I have a suggestion For now, don’t practise writing essays: go back to the paragraph This may seem limiting, but again it is practical Once you can write a good paragraph, the exam essay becomes easy, for it is really little more than paragraphs and if you can write one paragraph, you can write 79 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Bài mẫu: Quá tải dân số | Sample IELTS overpopulation essay This is one of my model IELTS essays lessons where you can    read the essay a vocabulary exercise get a full lesson on how to write the essay Read the IELTS overpopulation essay One of the most pressing problems facing the world today is overpopulation What policies you believe governments should adopt to address the causes and effects of this problem? There is no doubt that the massive increase in the worldʼs population in the last 100 years has created a crisis In order to find a solution to this crisis, politicians need to deal with not only the immediate problems, but also the long-term causes if they want to rescue humanity Finding the right policies is not an easy task as it is a complex problem The first step is to recognise what the consequences of overpopulation are Only by doing this can we find an appropriate solution Perhaps its most important effect is the increased rate at which we are consuming the Earthʼs resources such as oil To combat this, governments need to more research on alternative and renewable energy supplies so that we not use up all the oil reserves Another negative effect of overpopulation is how some countries suffer from a lack of basic necessities such as food Here, an answer could be greater international co-operation so that countries with a food surplus donate what they not need to the less fortunate countries It is not quite so easy to decide how governments should deal with the causes of overpopulation The Chinese have adopted legislation that requires parents to pay a special tax if they have more than one child I doubt, however, whether this solution is realistic in other countries Another option would be to improve levels of sex education by explaining the difficulties caused by having too many children.Promoting contraception though may be problematic in many regions on cultural and religious grounds In conclusion, while it may be possible to find ways to address some of the consequences of overpopulation by international co-operation, it is harder to find policies to deal with its causes It might be that the only way forward is for different countries to adopt policies that work within their particular culture Understanding the IELTS overpopulation essay question One of the most pressing problems facing the world today is overpopulation What policies you believe governments should adopt to address the causes and effects of this problem? What does this essay ask you to write about? overpopulation the causes of overpopulation 80 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang the causes and effects of overpopulation policies to deal with the causes and effects of overpopulation It is of course If you try 1,2 or you will lose heavily This is an easy mistake to make and many, many candidates will just that The importance of the introduction If you want to avoid the mistake of not answering the question, you need to get the introduction right What you must is identify all the following: causes of overpopulation effects of overpopulation the policies to deal with causes and effects of overpopulation If you can that, the essay you write will almost certainly be on task You have set the “programme” for the rest of the essay Suggestion As a training exercise try and use these words from the question and write the introduction yourself     policy overpopulation cause effect If you that, you are almost certainly on task You may then look at my essay to see if you can find words/phrases to replace those words because in the ideal world you don’t want to repeat the language of the question too much Structure of the essay This time I am only going to highlight the all-important topic sentences I want you to see the structure The sentences    come early in the paragraph are short are clear You should also see that these sentences relate directly to the task of the question If yours don’t, you may well go off task Or be marked as not making the task response: “visible enough” One of the most pressing problems facing the world today is overpopulation What policies you believe governments should adopt to address the causes and effects of this problem? INTRODUCTION The first step is to recognise what the consequences of overpopulation are Only by doing this can we find an appropriate solution Perhaps its most important effect is the increased rate at which we 81 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang are consuming the Earth’s resources such as oil To combat this, governments need to more research on alternative and renewable energy supplies so that we not use up all the oil reserves Another negative effect of overpopulation is how some countries suffer from a lack of basic necessities such as food Here, an answer could be greater international co-operation so that countries with a food surplus donate what they not need to the less fortunate countries It is not quite so easy to decide how governments should deal with the causes of overpopulation The Chinese have adopted legislation that requires parents to pay a special tax if they have more than one child I doubt, however, whether this solution is realistic in other countries Another option would be to improve levels of sex education by explaining the difficulties caused by having too many children.Promoting contraception though may be problematic in many regions on cultural and religious grounds In conclusion, while it may be possible to find ways to address some of the consequences of overpopulation by international co-operation, it is harder to find policies to deal with its causes It might be that the only way forward is for different countries to adopt policies that work within their particular culture 82 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Hướng dẫn viết CÂU ĐẦU TIÊN thân | Write better paragraphs – start with a simple sentence Part of your job in answering IELTS essay questions is to give a clear answer that the examiner can follow One way you can that is by following this simple tip keep the first sentence in each topic paragraph simple – don’t try and say too much too soon Why is this a good idea? Typically, it is a good idea to go from the general to the particular – first of all make it clear what you want to say generally, then add details/explanations later It can also actually be easier to write this way in the exam when you are under pressure It really can help to follow this sort of routine: What I want to say? – general idea How can I explain it? – reasons Can I think of any examples? – examples Problems often happen when reasons and examples get put in the first sentence when you try to explain your idea without saying what it is first See two examples To see what I mean, take a look at these two paragraphs below They are both about complex topics and express quite complex ideas They do, however, start simply Note how:    the shortest sentence in each paragraph is the first one (that’s not a rule!) I don’t give reasons (use “because”) or examples in the first sentence I use more complex structures (relatives and if clauses), but I keep them for my reasons and examples – once the examiner is clear about my point of view Do you believe that credit cards will replace cash payments? It is highly likely that credit cards will replace cash in the foreseeable future [Yes I think they will – simple] The main reason why this will probably occur is that it is cashless transactions are more convenient for both consumers and businesses.[Why?]Just one example of this is that individuals will not need to worry about exchanging currency when they travel abroad or purchase goods and services from another country [I explain more with an example] Likewise, companies are bound to prefer a cashless system in which they are able to reach an international market without the restrictions that cash payments can bring [Here’s another example and a complex idea explained even though I started simply] Who should look after the elderly? The government by providing care homes or families? There is a strong argument for saying that families should take the major responsibility for caring for their elderly relatives [I think families should it – simple] This is largely based on the fact that children owe a debt to the parents who brought them up when they young and it would therefore be 83 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang morally wrong if they abandoned them when they most needed care [Now the reason why – it’s about duty]So, the children of the elderly should be prepared to make sacrifices in their careers and home life to provide for their parents and this is especially true when they are sick and incapable of looking after themselves [A more complex sentence explaining the idea] How can you learn this skill? Practice helps of course But it may help you to ask yourself this question before you write that key first sentence: What I think? Only then you ask yourself the question Why I think that? A simple practice idea Go back over your old essays and copy out the first sentence of each paragraph Can you see what that paragraph was about just by reading that sentence? That’s good Does it have reasons and examples in it? That can be dangerous 84 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Kết nối đoạn văn | Linking paragraphs in an essay This is a quick lesson to remind you that linking paragraphs in an essay is a key skill in task The idea is that the examiner should immediately understand the structure of your essay as s/he reads it The skill you need is to show how your topic paragraphs relate to each other My tip is not to try to be clever, but make the obvious obvious Don’t let the examiner misunderstand you! How you this? I’ll give you three examples of my own below But first here are the key skills you need: make it clear what each topic paragraph is about use simple language to express the main idea re-read your first topic paragraph before you write the second borrow language from one paragraph in the next Make it clear what you want to say in BOTH paragraphs The first skill you need is to make it clear what you want to say in each paragraph Normally, you want to this in the first sentence of the paragraph The reason for doing this is that it allows the examiner to follow the structure of your argument Look at one of my examples You should see immediately what the paragraphs are about and how they relate to each other One reason why the loss of print books would be a step backwards is that people would probably just read less A second reason for believing that it would not be beneficial for the internet to replace traditional books relates to quality I hope it is clear that the two paragraphs balance each other by giving two different reasons why the internet should not replace books How have I done this? I kept it simple – all I’m trying to here is be clear about what I will say Don’t be afraid of using simple language to express the main idea In some ways this is just to repeat what I have just said But I want to emphasise how simple language can be very effective and get you band score 9.0 I have many different ways to talk about advantages and disadvantages But sometimes it is better not to show off Here all I’m trying to is show the examiner how my two paragraphs relate, so I use simpler language: The clearest advantage of this new technology is that it enables people to read at their own convenience and whenever they want There are of course some disadvantages to this technology This one is of course an advantage/disadvantage essay So here I just concentrate on showing the examiner what each paragraph is about and how they relate to each other 85 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Read your first topic paragraph before you write the second topic paragraph This is I believe a top tip It is very easy to get lost in writing your essay when you are under pressure I suggest you stand back a little – give yourself little breaks One time you could this is when you start a new paragraph Don’t start writing immediately Rather I suggest you go back and read what you have just written first If you this, you are much, much more likely to link your paragraphs together See this example: There is some reason to believe that newspapers and books will not survive into the future in their current form Despite this, it is still likely that traditional print media will not completely disappear for a variety of reasons This time I simply start my second content paragraph with a reference to what I have said in the first How can I that? By knowing what I have just written Don’t be afraid to borrow/repeat language This is where I believe some candidates – especially high level ones – go wrong They believe that they need to use new and different words all the time In fact, it helps your coherence and cohesion if you repeat words some of the time One place to this is when you are trying to show how your writing links together Look again at my first example where I repeat the word “reason” I this on purpose to show the examiner how the two paragraphs link One reason why the loss of print books would be a step backwards is that people would probably just read less A second reason for believing that it would not be beneficial for the internet to replace traditional books relates to quality An exercise in linking paragraphs in an essay Look at these very similar task questions They are all about the same topic, but the task in each case is slightly different What is the task in each case? Try and say in your own words what the question is asking you to Some people believe that the internet will replace traditional books in the future Do you believe this would be a positive or a negative development? As technology progresses, so has the way we read books and many people now prefer to read using new forms of technology such as e-readers What are the advantages and disadvantages of this new form of publication? Some people believe that newspapers and books will eventually be replaced by new forms of technology such as the e-reader and the internet What is your opinion? 86 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang 87 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Ví dụ cách kết nối đoạn văn | Model paragraphs showing how to link paragraphs together Some people believe that the internet will replace traditional books in the future Do you believe this would be a positive or a negative development? One reason why the loss of print books would be a step backwards is that people would probably just read less This is because there is good research that shows children who have been brought up in the internet age in fact read less than children who only read books in their early years This is probably due to the fact that it is easy for them to become distracted while reading online because the reading material is less attractive than the images, video and other media that are just one click away For example, a child is likely to be tempted to watch a video of the book on Youtube rather than turn the page A second reason for believing that it would not be beneficial for the internet to replace traditional books relates to quality While there are more books available online than ever before, it is much less easy to determine whether those books are of high standard because almost anyone can selfpublish in this digital age In contrast, traditional books are almost always produced by a publishing house that have a rigorous system of editing with the result that the reader knows that someone has carefully selected and improved the material before publication As technology progresses, so has the way we read books and many people now prefer to read using new forms of technology such as e-readers What are the advantages and disadvantages of this new form of publication? The clearest advantage of this new technology is that it enables people to read at their own convenience and whenever they want The main reason for this is that almost everyone nowadays has access to some form of digital reader either on their telephone, tablet or a dedicated e-reader such as the kindle More than that, it is generally true that they will carry this technology with them wherever they go and that means they can sit down and read anytime and they not have to remember to take their book with them This can be easily seen by the number of commuters that now read books on their journey into work; people that in the past may not have bothered to carry a book as it was too heavy There are of course some disadvantages to this technology Perhaps the principal problem is that not everyone is equally comfortable reading in a digital format and that some people, mostly the older generation, still find the technology a barrier It is certainly true that the so-called digital native generation who have grown up with computers as part of their everyday life are typically much more confident users of these e-books An illustration of this from my own experience is how my younger cousins had to teach my grandparents how to turn on their new e-readers that had been given for Christmas Some people believe that newspapers and books will eventually be replaced by new forms of technology such as the e-reader and the internet What is your opinion? There is some reason to believe that newspapers and books will not survive into the future in their current form The main evidence for this is that it is clear sales of books and newspapers have been plummeting for some time and that this is partially due to the advent of e-readers and the internet While it is not possible to make a completely accurate forecast, the probability is that this trend will continue and that traditional print publications will become increasingly less popular One explanation for this is how the younger generation typically prefer to read books or access the news using the internet or an e-reader Despite this, it is still likely that traditional print media will not completely disappear for a variety of reasons One reason is that some book lovers are often traditionalists who dislike innovations and that these people will continue to buy books in their printed format, albeit in reduced numbers In the same way, many academic institutions depend on printed materials for educational purposes as they are seen to be more reliable and they too will help maintain the print industry Finally, we are not yet at the point where everyone 88 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang has access to digital technology and that may never happen, with the result that the print industry is likely to survive 89 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang 90 Facebook Tôi điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang 91 [...]... interaction because emails, texting and social networks enable us to maintain friendships which might otherwise be lost (27 8 words) 26 Facebook Tôi được 9 điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Quy trình viết bài luận Task 2 | The process of writing an IELTS essay The key word in the title of this lesson is process The idea is that if you want to write a successful exam... concentrate on the question in front of you and organising your language and thoughts in answer to that question 21 Facebook Tôi được 9 điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Dạng bài có 2 câu hỏi | Dealing with double questions essay tasks One common but tricky task in IELTS is when you get an essay that combines two different questions This can cause problems with essay structure... much thinking time before you start writing as your own opinions only come in the conclusion – personally I don’t believe that that’s a good thing 17 Facebook Tôi được 9 điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Dạng bài balanced view | Writing balanced essays for IELTS This lesson talks you through an approach to writing balanced essays in IELTS This is one form of essay you... think about, but the message is largely the same 32 Facebook Tôi được 9 điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Lập dàn ý | Planning IELTS essays – the thinking stage A key stage in writing the IELTS exam essay is the planning stage Very often whether you write an effective essay depends on how well you think before you start writing The trouble is that often it does not get... your writing may not improve but stay the same 1 analyse the question – find the task The idea here is to break the question down into parts and look at what is the task and what is background information only Typically, IELTS essay questions come in two parts: the first part introduces the topic/background information and the second part tells you what you have to write That second bit is the task. .. 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Hai cách để viết bài luận discussion | Two ways to write discussion essays for IELTS This lesson shows you two different discussion essays for IELTS Part of the idea is to show you that there is always more than one way to approach an IELTS essay I also want to show you what you need to consider when you write discussion essays for IELTS This means first... own head, then your writing almost certainly won’t be Clarity is key to a good IELTS essay -without it you’ll lose both on Task response and Coherence Skill: Try doing the Twitter thing and summarising your point of view to the question in 140 characters before you start writing It need’t be 140 characters of course, but if you can’t write a short summary statement before you start writing, then quite... believe works for IELTS essays You may be familiar with other processes That’s fine The smart candidate will adapt what they read here to themselves Why writing should be a process – avoiding two very common problems 1 incoherence – essays that do not fit together If you think of your writing as a process, then you are much more likely to go through all the stages of an essay (step 1, step 2 step 3 etc)... understand the question Many “good’ essays go wrong simply because they don’t answer the question that is being asked All IELTS essay questions have a precise question that needs to be answered If you fail to give time to 27 Facebook Tôi được 9 điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang reading and understanding the question, you are most unlikely to answer it well A possible... back at the question (to make sure that you are writing about the right thing) and forwards towards your answer (that anyone reading knows what you are talking about)   Common problem to be avoided You don’t identify the question correctly It’s not clear what your position to the question is 28 Facebook Tôi được 9 điểm Viết IELTS | 0904 98 0083 | http://ieltskungfu.wix.com/vuhaidang Stage 4 – develop