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4 Steps to improving your IELTS Part 2 Writing scores.
a year ago4 Steps to improving your IELTS Part 2 Writing scores.
Your reason for learning English may vary, maybe you want to travel, study, or simply improve fluency, but mostly it has become apparent that most people learning English today, do so in order to take the IELTS test or other English tests in order to study or to immigrate to an English speaking country to improve their lives. Whatever your reason, it is vital to get a good writing score as well as a good speaking and reading score, and for most people, the area they want to improve is in the second part of the IELTS writing.
Most countries or Universities require between a score of 6.5, 7.0 or even 7.5 depending on the University or the company they are applying to, and for many people it seems impossible, jumping from a 6.5 to even 7.0, even taking the test multiple times, wasting a lot of money trying to achieve this feat, with very little improvement.
You may have thought to yourself, what should I do, or what am I doing wrong, even when practicing every day for hours on end, still not getting any results, well I am here to say it is possible, you just have to simply and if you follow the few strategies that I will mention in this article, you may just achieve your objective.
Step 1. Are reading and answering the question correctly in the IELTS writing task?
Many people may find this strange or even impossible, but most candidates are not reading and answering the questions properly, they often go off track and this becomes a problem. The first thing the examiner is looking at is whether the candidate has achieved the task or ‘Task Achievement’. This means that most may have misread and or answered the question incorrectly or only partially.
It is important to understand what the question is and what you are required to do, following the instructions properly and reading it at least twice before starting your writing. There are a number of different types of questions, and it is important to understand them all. Just simply generally writing about the topic and not giving a good example will lose you marks, so it is important to understand the question, and only do what you are instructed to do.
Take a minute to plan your writing, create a short diagram and use this as your structure, keeping in mind, that there is a heading, mostly paragraphing the question, a body or an argument or view being discussed, a second body part where you give opposing, or different, personal views based on your own knowledge, focusing on what you are asked in the question. Then closing with a short summary of the writing task.
Here are some of the most common types of questions asked:
- To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Here you are asked to point out or give a personal opinion on to what extent you agree or disagree, but keep in mind you should be very careful how you answer this, as there may be two options, and it is important to give an opinion on both of them and not simply just answer on the one you agree on.
You should give a reason for both views.
It is very tempting to answer this question by simply listing all advantages or disadvantages to the question, and if you did this, you are not actually answering the question, but simply diverting the question, so you will then lose marks in this task achievement. You could agree or disagree with both parts, but you must give a reason for your opinion for (BOTH) parts.
- Problem solution, or discussion question.
In this type of question, you are given a problem and asked to explain what the problems are and to give suitable suggestions as to how to resolve these issues
Be aware that there are in fact two parts to this question, cause and solution, and you must write about both. The language that you use in this type of question is quite specific.
To state a cause you can say:
Causes..., is caused by..., results in..., is the result of…
Some solutions can be made by using,
“The government/people should…”, “If people did X, then....”, “By doing X, we would/could…”
- The argument question.
Within this type of question, you will be given a statement with two or more sides or views and asked to give your opinion on them, that is to state which side is the best or say what the advantages and disadvantages are, and it would be good for you to make your argument balanced, looking at both sides of the issue, and discuss both sides to the problem, and give the appropriate opinions for both equally.
Understanding the question properly and taking the time to understand what you are tasked with, make your position on the question clear and present developed and extended ideas, give reasons for your answer, and use examples to explain what you mean and extend your answers. As you will see, every question instructs you to support your answer with examples and relevant evidence, and candidates often forget to do this, resulting in lower scores than expected.
Step 2, Does your Essay make any sense?
The next criteria the examiner will use when marking your IELTS task 2 writing is Coherence and Cohesion.
Coherence means how logical your essay is, whether you have used paragraphs, whether is there progression from one paragraph to the next, is your ideas are clear and precise, is your paragraphs logical, and have a suitable topic sentence that introduces the topic of each paragraph. The other sentences must logically describe that subject and should not be all over the place and go off topic, or create multiple topics.
Cohesion is the glue that sticks your sentences, ideas, and how you sequence or structure your sentences together in the paragraph. There should be a natural flow in your sentences, using cohesive devices, for example, conjunctions, like, however, in addition, because, as a result, etc, followed by a comma, keeping in mind to be careful not to overuse these cohesive devices, making your writing sound unnatural.
Another area the examiner will be looking at when it comes to cohesion is for referencing words. These words that you use refer back or forward to other words.
Now that we understand this, we are halfway now, as the next few steps are the ones you think of the most when doing an essay, and are in fact just as important as the two previous steps.
Step 3. Using a range of vocabulary
The next criterion is the lexical resource section, and in order to score a higher score in this section, you may have to use a variety of vocabulary accurately. This also means that you should use vocabulary you are familiar with, and even thou learning new vocabulary or more coplexed vocabulary is a good thing, it may not always be the case when writing an essay.
Why I say this is, that even though you may want to show off your impressive writing skills, you may have problems with correct sentence structures, but with this said, this is where your long hours practising and reading and making notes and learning new vocabulary can also pay off. Try paraphrasing, as the examiner wants to see you using synonyms, and collocations and finding different ways to say something, thus also avoiding repeating the same sentences or words over and over again.
Again a word of warning try not to overuse ways of saying the same thing, as it will sound very unnatural, one or two should be enough.
Be flexible, and ask yourself, what else can I do to make my writing more interesting " Use a range of vocabulary by using different forms of the same word bases, or word groups that work together, (collocations) to demonstrate your flexibility.
Another thing you should take into consideration is, that you think about what form the new words take, by this, I mean, does it take the -ing form, are you describing verb tenses or gerunds, are you using infinitives? Ask yourself these questions when you are structuring your sentences using new vocabulary, and you will greatly improve your ability to use them correctly, thus improving your scores.
Now last, but not least…
Step 4. Using a range of grammar.
The Grammatical Range and Accuracy Criterion is the area most students worry about the most, to get a higher score in this area, check your writing and see if you have used the following grammatical structures.
This is probably the area that students worry about the most. To get a high score in the ‘Grammatical range and accuracy’ criterion, check that you have used a good range of grammar. As you are writing, and when you are checking your writing at the end, see if you have used a few of the following grammatical structures:
tenses – present/past simple/continuous, present perfect, past perfect, will/going to passives relative clauses complex sentences e.g. As it was a cold day, we decided not to go swimming. compound sentences e.g. It was a cold day so we decided not to go swimming. modal verbs conditionals.
This is not a final list, but if you have a few of these structures in your essay, and you have used them correctly, your grammar will be more varied and you will be able to show that you can use more complex structures.
So by examining each of the criteria more carefully, you will be able to make progress, and following each of the steps above will help you improve your IELTS writing part 2 scores.
Keeping in mind, that Rome was not built in a day and things don't just happen instantly it does take time, you will just have to keep practising, as practice makes perfect!
