How To Write Perfect IELTS Essays

The next step to rise your score to band 7 is to focus on the main body paragraphs of the essay.. For example, your idea is "money is important because it helps people meet their basic n

Table of Contents

I Introduction 1

II The Marking Criteria And How To Score Band 5, 6, 7, 8 For Each Criterion 4

1) Task Response 4

2) Coherence and Cohesion (C&C) 5

3) Lexical Resource 7

4) Grammatical Range and Accuracy (GRAA) 8

5) Band Score Calculation 9

III How To Perfectly Fulfill Each Criterion Of the Writing Test 10

1 Task Response 10

a Basic Knowledge 10

b Brainstorming Techniques 11

c From Plan To Paragraphs 16

i Writing An Introduction 16

ii Writing A Conclusion 21

iii Writing Main Body Paragraphs 22

1) Ideas and idea development 22

2) Application of idea development techniques 25

2 Coherence and Cohesion 28

a Basic Knowledge 28

b Common Cohesive Devices And The Relationship Between Linking Devices And Idea Development Techniques 29

c Natural linking devices 32

3 Lexical Resource 34

a Basic Knowledge 34

b Topic Vocabulary 35

1) Populations and Accommodations 35

2) Advertisements 36

3) Education 36

4) Jobs and Careers 37

6) Environment 38

7) Globalisation 39

8) Health 39

9) Technology 40

10) Transport 41

4 Grammatical Range and Accuracy 41

a Basic Knowledge 41

b Producing complex structures using cohesive devices 42

c Applying simple and complex structures to writing an essay 43

IV Sample Essays And Essay Analysis 45

1) Agree/Disagree Essay (balanced opinion) 45

2) Agree/Disagree Essay (Strong opinion) 48

3) Other Sample Essays (without analysis) 51

i Discussion Questions 51

1) Advertising 51

2) Animal Testing 53

3) Economical Air Travel 54

4) Crimes 56

5) Education 57

ii Advantages/Disadvantages Questions 59

1) Taking A Gap Year 59

2) Unpaid Work 60

3) Tests And Examinations 61

iii Agree/Disagree Questions 63

1) Newspapers And Online News 63

2) Gender And University 65

iv Causes/Solutions Question 66

Housing Shortage 66

v Positive/Negative Question 68

Globalisation 68

1) Child Education 69

2) Unlimited Car Use 71

3) Children’s Lifestyles 72

4) Fashion 73

I Introduction

About the author

When I was in high school, I found

it extremely challenging to learn English At that time, my knowledge of the language confined

to simple words and I could only construct simple sentences After I graduated from high school, I intended to study at RMIT which is

an international university My university requires an IELTS certificate with an overall band score of 6.5 in order to be qualified for bachelor programs I therefore spent two months preparing for IELTS I used to think that it is impossible for a person like me to achieve band 6.5 for IELTS within only two months But finally, I did My writing score at that time was 6.0

Actually, I was not good at writing at all Because of this, I faced various problems with writing reports in my university I also struggled with the final exams when I had to think and write quickly As a result, after my first semester

in university, I spent three weeks learning academic writing I chose to study IELTS writing because I think it can help me with any kind of academic writing After a period of working hard and being determined, my writing skills significantly improved One month later, I took IELTS again My overall score was 7.5 with writing being 8.0

My writing style is concise and effective I do not try to use uncommon words in

my essays, but I focus on the real content instead Also, I always try to make my essays as easy to understand as possible The reason for this is that I believe that the primary purpose of writing is to communicate something to someone, so we need to make sure that our readers understand what we write Finally, I believe that my approach to writing is suitable for many learners, because they do not need to learn so many difficult words and phrases but they can still get a high writing score

What is the purpose of this book?

Writing is considered by many IELTS learners as the most difficult skill in the test In IELTS writing (Academic), candidates are required to complete two tasks The first one is to write a report to a university lecturer, and the minimum length of the report is 150 words The second task requires candidates to write an essay about a given topic, and the minimum length is 250 words

This book is a complete guidance as to how to achieve a high score in the writing test The focus of the book will be on Task 2 The reasons for this are that Task 2

is worth more marks than Task 1, and that learners often face more difficulties in Task 2 than in Task 1

Who is this book for?

Since this book specialises in IELTS writing, all IELTS learners can use it However, the book is especially useful for those who want a band 6.5 or higher

in writing For those whose target is below 6.0, it is recommended that you try to improve your overall level of English first

The brief content of the book

Currently, there are many approaches to IELTS writing, but this book introduces

a totally new and simple approach to the readers

IELTS learners usually hold various mistaken beliefs as to how to get a high score in writing Some of them believe that we will get a high score if we use a variety of academic words, while others think that we need to have a complete masterpiece if we want a really high score for writing

This book will address all of these beliefs and prove that achieving a writing score higher than 7 is not that difficult All you need is to meet all of the requirements of writing These requirements include a fully developed response,

a good essay structure, a sufficient range of topic vocabulary, and a number of error-free sentences The book will show you how to fulfill each of these requirements

II The Marking Criteria And How To Score Band 5, 6,

7, 8 For Each Criterion

It is true that a large number of IELTS learners have problems with writing, even when their grammar is relatively good During the time I learned about IELTS, I realized that many people do not thoroughly understand the IELTS marking criteria, and even people who scored 7.0 for writing face this situation This section will help you have a better understanding of the marking criteria and what you can do to get a high writing score

*Note: you can find the complete IELTS Writing band score descriptors on the official web page of British Council

1) Task Response

First, you need to clearly understand the topic and make sure that you are directly answering the question If you can do this, your score for Task Response will be band 5 or above So what can you do next to increase your score further? The answer is that you should clearly express your opinion For instance, the question asks whether you agree or disagree with an opinion, and you responded that you completely agree with the opinion, so throughout the essay you have to show your "agreement" to the readers If you said that you agree that playing games is good for children, but then you gave many harmful effects of playing games, then your essay would lose lots of marks After you complete the main body paragraphs, you will reach your conclusion In the conclusion, you should again clearly state your opinion so that the readers will not be confused

After you are confident that you answered the question directly and your opinion

is clear, you can get band 6 for this criterion The next step to rise your score to band 7 is to focus on the main body paragraphs of the essay We will take an example of a discussion essay where you are required to discuss both views of the topic Assume that you have two main body paragraphs, and you talk about one view in your first paragraph, and you talk about the other in the second paragraph In the first main body paragraph, you should have one or some supporting ideas for the first view For each of the ideas, you should fully, specifically and logically develop it So what can you do to make your idea specific and fully developed? For example, your idea is "money is important because it helps people meet their basic needs" Clearly, the readers can ask you that ‘what are basic needs?’ So in this case you need to give an example of basic needs Basically, for each idea, you should try to analyse it carefully, until it is so clear that no further analysis is needed This means it is not necessary to give examples for every single idea

So what is the difference between band 7 and band 8 for Task Response? The answer to this question is simple People who score band 7 did not fully follow

my instructions above This means they have tried to give supporting ideas, but some of the ideas might lack focus or not sufficiently developed

To sum up, you will be likely to get a band 8 for Task Response if you fully follow the above instructions

2) Coherence and Cohesion (C&C)

Coherence is the way you structure your writing In other words, it is about how many paragraphs you have, and what the purpose of each paragraph is The

examiner assesses your coherence in terms of whether you structure your essay logically and whether the essay is easy to follow With regards to cohesion, it deals with your ability to connect different ideas in a paragraph

If you write an essay without paragraphing, your essay will be considered to be incoherent To get a band 5 for C&C, you have to separate your response into different paragraphs Band-5 writers usually cannot link ideas skillfully, they can just use simple linking devices like ‘therefore, however, as a result’ to link ideas together They also tend to use these words wrongly or repetitively because they

do not know other linking devices

In order to reach band 6, writers have to clearly separate their essay into introduction, main body and conclusion The body also needs to be divided into two or three paragraphs (but my advice is that you should divide your main body into two paragraphs only) In terms of cohesion, band-6 writers have the ability

to link the ideas quite effectively, and their use of linking words is usually accurate However, they tend to over/under-use linking devices, or some uses may be inappropriate

 Referencing and Substitution: Using linking words is not the only way to

link ideas together, because you can use more advanced techniques to link your ideas Two of them are called Referencing and Substitution These are often known as natural linking, and they will be discussed in the next sections

People who get band 6 for C&C usually do not know how to use Referencing and Substitution, or they tend to use them inaccurately

In order to achieve band 7 for C&C, the writer needs to use paragraphs effectively, which helps readers understand the purpose of each paragraph

clearly In each of the paragraphs, the writer should have a clear topic sentence so that the readers can understand the main idea of the paragraph even when they do not read the whole paragraph In terms of cohesion, band-7 writers are able to use linking words skillfully In this band score, only a limited use of referencing and substitution is needed

To increase the score for C&C to band 8, you should be able to do all the things that band-7 writers can do Besides, you should use linking devices flexibly, meaning that you should not use the same linking word so many times (overuse) Occasionally, you should use referencing and substitution instead of normal linking words However, you do not need to use referencing and substitution too often, just using them sometimes is enough

People getting band 6 for LR are those who can use a sufficient range of topic vocabulary to answer the question However, the range is still limited, and normally they will make mistakes with word choice and collocations, because they try to use so many uncommon words

To reach band 7, the writers need to be able to use lexical items more naturally and accurately, and collocations are used skillfully and nearly similar to native speakers They will make fewer mistakes than those who get band 6, but they will still make some errors with word choice, word formation and/or spelling

For band 8, the writers need to use lexical items accurately and appropriately, and the range of vocabulary is sufficient to communicate information to the readers There will be some flexibility in the use of words, meaning that they use synonyms to express the same idea, or they can change the same word to a different form They also rarely make errors, and these are just minor

4) Grammatical Range and Accuracy (GRAA)

Grammatical range is your ability to diversify the sentence structures you use, and grammatical accuracy is your ability to control the number of errors you make

People who get band 5 for GRAA will make many mistakes with grammar, and the number of structures they use will also be limited Punctuation is also an important part of an essay, since it can assist the understandability of the essay Band-5 writers tend to occasionally make mistakes with punctuation

The main difference between band-5 and band-6 writers still lies on the number

of errors they make When we read a band-6 essay, we can easily see that it contains fewer errors than the band-5 one People who achieve band 6 also know how to use a mix of simple and complex structures, but some of them are erroneous However, these errors are quite small and do not affect understanding

To reach band 7, the number of errors made will be significantly lower than that

of band 6 Band-7 writers will be able to use relative clauses, ‘if’ clauses and

other complex structures effectively The majority of their sentences are free, and the errors they make are minor, such as misuse of prepositions, articles and/or countable/uncountable nouns

error-Band-8 writers make almost no error However, one or two minor error is still acceptable in this band score, such as misuse of prepositions or articles Also, it

is worth remembering that one minor mistake will not affect your score, but many minor mistakes will

5) Band Score Calculation

The examiners will give you a score for each of the four components These four scores will be used to calculate the average score This average score is the overall band score of your essay There will be no half band for each component score It is only the overall score that can be in half bands For example, if your component scores are 7 7 8 8, the overall band score will be 7.5 And if the component scores are 7 8 8 8, the overall score will be rounded up to 8.0 Similarly, the overall score will be rounded up to 7.5 if your component scores are 7 7 7 8

III How To Perfectly Fulfill Each Criterion Of the

Writing Test

The previous section gives you a basic understanding of what you can do to reach your desired band score Now, this section will specifically give you instructions on how to write a good essay The instructions will be based on the IELTS marking criteria In this way, after this section, you will be able to meet the IELTS examiner’s requirements, and in turn you will get your desired score

1 Task Response

a Basic Knowledge

First, in order to get a high score for writing, you definitely should not go topic Going off-topic means you write something completely unrelated to the topic that you are required to write about

off-In IELTS, if you write a response that is off-topic, the examiner will judge that you did not directly answer the question and complete the task Therefore, the first important thing that you need to do is to read the question carefully to understand what you are required to do

*Important note: You should pay special attention to words and phrases like:

 ‘money is important’

 ‘a job with a high salary is important’

 The phrase ‘money is important’ means that you should focus on the importance of money in general In this case, you should tell the readers how money is important

 Meanwhile, ‘a job with a high salary is important’ means that you should concentrate on why the job with a high salary is important For example,

you can say something like ‘A well-paid job gives people incentives to work hard, and it reflects people’s qualifications’

Second, you need to make sure that your opinion is clear throughout the essay For example, if you state in the introduction that you totally agree with a statement, you cannot change your opinion to ‘disagree’, or you will lose marks for this section

Finally, remember that you will get a low score if you just keep giving ideas without any explanation Your ideas must be developed and supported with relevant explanations and/or examples

b Brainstorming Techniques

A common problem that many learners face is that they do not have enough ideas

to write, or they are unable to develop their ideas As a result, they write about the same thing from one sentence to another, and no new information is given The failure in developing ideas will be addressed if you have a good essay plan

In IELTS, there is no limit on the number of ideas that you use in supporting your view However, you need to remember two things First, you must have enough ideas to address all parts of the question For example, if you are given a discussion essay, you have to use enough ideas to discuss both views (i.e at least one idea for each view) Second, remember that you need to develop your idea in depth after stating it

For these reasons, I recommend that you have two ideas for each of your main body paragraphs If you have one idea for a main body paragraph, you may face the situation where you cannot develop your idea further, and as a result you will talk about the same thing throughout your paragraph The following is an example of this situation:

‘Writing is the most challenging skill in IELTS Many students find it difficult to write an essay This skill is extremely difficult for us to master We may face various difficulties in writing an essay.’

If you have three ideas for a main body paragraph, you may face the situation where you have so many ideas but none of them is fully developed

Before you start writing the essay, you should firstly plan your ideas A good essay plan often leads to a good essay The following are the techniques that you can apply to brainstorming your ideas

In IELTS writing, you are asked about topics on human beings and society Therefore, a good way to think about ideas is to think about the effects of something on humans and society as a whole Another method is to think about the nearest and simplest things around you Remember that you will not get additional marks for good ideas, and the examiner only concerns about your level

of English Therefore, simple and easy-to-develop ideas would be the best choice

if you want a high score

Technique 1: think about the effects of something on humans (e.g you, your family) and society

Topic: In some countries young people are encouraged to work or travel for

a year between finishing high school and starting university studies

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decide to do this

Clearly, this topic requires us to analyse both the advantages and disadvantages

of taking a gap year, so we will think about the advantages first

You can imagine that you are in this situation If you work or travel for a year, what do you think you will gain? You will need to gain two things, which represent two advantages Logically speaking, if you go to work, of course you will gain an amount of work experience Another thing that you may gain from working is improvements in soft skills If you travel, you will have a chance to broaden your knowledge about the people and cultures from different parts of the world In addition, you will be able to significantly improve your foreign languages if you travel abroad

These are four possible advantages for a person in this situation You may list all

of them on a piece of paper, but you will just need to use two of them in your essay The criteria for choosing the appropriate advantages are that whether you can extend and develop the advantages you choose, and that whether you have a sufficient range of vocabulary to develop them well

After listing the advantages, now we continue with the disadvantages Again, suppose you are a student in this situation When you are allowed to be off from school for one year, what will happen to things around you (e.g your knowledge, your academic skills, your incentives to study)?

For me, if I took a year off, I would forget some of my academic knowledge And if I worked for a year, I would gradually lose my incentive to pursue my study Travelling for one year can also make us feel lazy with work and study These are three possible disadvantages, and again, you will just need to choose two of them to include in your essay

This is my complete essay plan for this topic:

 Advantages

 Acquire soft skills => example: communication skills

 Improve language skills =>explain: be better at listening and speaking in English

 Disadvantages

 Forget some academic knowledge => example: be slower at calculation

 Lose incentive to study =>explain: because of earning money

As can be seen, my plan is short and succinct, and it is enough for a good essay You may notice that I always add an example or an explanation after one idea You will not get a high Task Response score if you only give ideas, but you have

to develop them Therefore, you should develop your ideas either by giving an example or by explaining them

Technique 2: think about things around us

Some people believe that money is the most important factor for achieving happiness However, others believe that happiness has nothing to do with money To what extent do you agree or disagree?

This is an opinion question For this question, you can either use a strong opinion

or a balanced opinion to answer In this example, I will use a balanced opinion to answer the question We will learn about how to answer this kind of question later Up to now, you just need to know that a balanced opinion allows us to write about both sides of the argument

Before I plan my ideas, I intend to write a 4-paragraph essay In the first main body paragraph, I will talk about how money is important for achieving

happiness In the other main body paragraph, I will talk about how other things are equally important for achieving happiness

For this topic, you can firstly think about yourself How can you feel happy in your life? Are you struggling to earn money in order to buy things you want? Or

do you prefer spending time with your family? If you are happy in a way, there are many other people who feel happy in the same way as you So you are now able to talk about one side of the argument

Now, you continue to think about others around you How do your friends feel happy? Do they feel happy in the same way as you? If yes, think about another friend who is different from you Again, there are many people who feel happy in the same way as your friend So the way that friend feels happy allows you to talk about the other side of the argument

For me, I find it happy when I am able to spend time with my friends and family, and I believe that many people also feel happy in that way So in one of my main body paragraphs, I will support the idea that ‘money is not the most important factor for achieving happiness’

Some of my friends, on the other hand, are trying to work hard to earn money, so

I will also support the idea that ‘money is important for achieving happiness’

This is my complete essay plan for this topic:

Partly agree (money is important, but other factors are equally important)

 Money is important

 Helps people to meet basic needs => example: buy food, pay for bills

 Makes life easier => explain: we can use money to pay for healthcare, high-quality education

 Other factors are equally important

 Some people feel happy when they can pursue their passion => example: artists

 For some individuals, relationships are more important than being wealthy

This essay plan allows me to mention both sides of the argument, and this is called a balanced opinion

c From Plan To Paragraphs

In this section, we will learn how to write a complete essay using our essay plan Because of this, the section will be divided into a number of sub-sections

i Writing An Introduction

In IELTS, we have various types of questions Therefore, the introduction for these types of questions is different from each other But basically, we need two sentences in an introduction The first sentence will introduce the topic, and the second one will directly answer the essay question Now we will learn how to write an introduction for each type of question

 Opinion question (Agree/Disagree)

An opinion question may be answered by two main ways which are strong opinion and balanced opinion You have a strong opinion when you say that you totally agree/disagree with a statement/opinion You have a balanced opinion when you say that you partly agree with a statement/opinion Regardless of how you answer the essay question, you have to make your opinion clear throughout your essay The introduction for opinion question comprises of two sentences The first one will paraphrase the question in order to introduce the topic, and the second sentence will be the writer’s answer to the question given

 Use a strong opinion to answer the question

After stating the topic in the first sentence, you will express your strong opinion

in the second sentence by using adverbs such as totally/completely/fully Your answer to the question will be something like ‘I fully/totally/completely agree/disagree with the idea that…’, or ‘I fully/totally/completely agree/disagree with this idea (if the idea is already mentioned in the previous sentence)

- Example

Topic: Many high-level positions in companies are filled by men even though the workforce in many developed countries is more than 50 per cent female Companies should be required to allocate a certain percentage of these positions to women To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Answer: In many organisations, it is common practice that the majority of important positions are held by men Personally, I totally agree/disagree with the idea that companies should allocate a number of these positions to women

To sum up, in order to write a strong-opinion answer, we need to find two pieces

of information in the question The first one is the topic, and the second one is a view/statement Our task is to paraphrase the words in the question to state the topic, and then we will state that whether we totally agree/disagree with the given the statement Sometimes the topic and the view are the same thing, so you should read the question carefully before you write

 Use a balanced opinion to answer the question

A balanced opinion is used when the writer both agrees and disagrees with a statement There are two ways of expressing a balanced opinion

One way is to use the structure ‘While I accept that/agree that…, I believe that/think that…’ to mention both sides of the argument This is applied when you did not mention your view in your first sentence of the introduction In this case, the first sentence of the introduction is a mere introduction to the topic without any mention of your view

Another way is to use the phrase ‘I partly agree with this idea’ This is applied when you have already mentioned about one view of the argument

*Personally, I prefer the first approach to expressing a balanced opinion, since you can make it clear that you will talk about two sides of the argument

Method 1: People have different views about whether money is the precondition

to experiencing a happy life While I accept that money is a vital part of human life, I believe that other factors are equally important for people’s happiness

Method 2: Many people argue that money is the key factor for us to enjoy a happy life Personally, I partly agree with this idea, because I think other factors are equally important

 Discussion question (discuss both views and give your own opinion)

Basically, discussion question is very similar to the balanced-opinion answer to agree/disagree question The only difference is that we have to discuss two views

but we have to choose only one view as our opinion This means that we have

two views, one is other people’s view, and the other is our view In

agree/disagree question (using balanced opinion), by contrast, we discuss two

views and both of them are our view

For discussion question, we can use method 1 in expressing a balanced opinion

to write an introduction, meaning that we will apply the ‘While’ structure The only difference is that one of these two views must be other people’s view, and the other view is ours Therefore, the ‘while’ structure should be changed to

‘While some people believe/think that…, it seems to me that/I would argue that/I think that…’

 Problems/Solutions question or Causes/Solutions question

This question requires us to identify problems or causes of something and then suggest some solutions

Like other types of question, we will have two sentences in the introduction We just need to say that there are some causes/problems, we do not need to specify the causes/problems, and then we will say that there are some solutions

 Advantages/Disadvantages question

For this type of question, you are required to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of something Some questions also ask you to decide whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages You can answer this type of question

simply by firstly stating the topic, and then saying that there are advantages and disadvantages and decide whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages

- Example:

Topic: A number of tertiary courses require students to undertake a period

of unpaid work at an institution or organization as part of their program What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of course requirement? Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

Answer: Some programs in universities often require students to work in an organization without being paid While this has a number of advantages, I believe that these are outweighed by its disadvantages

ii Writing A Conclusion

A conclusion is written by simply paraphrasing your answer which is the second sentence in the introduction The following are some examples of writing a conclusion for the topics in part i:

1) Some people believe that money is the most important factor for achieving happiness However, others believe that happiness has nothing

to do with money To what extent do you agree or disagree?

In conclusion, while I agree that people have to earn money to meet their basic needs before they can live happily, I believe that other non-financial factors can also contribute to their well-being

2) Some people argue that teaching children of different abilities together benefits all of them Others believe that intelligent children should be

taught separately and given special treatment Discuss both views and give your own opinion

In conclusion, while some people think that we should educate prominent children separately, it seems to me that all students should have equal opportunities

3) Many high-level positions in companies are filled by men even though the workforce in many developed countries is more than 50 per cent female Companies should be required to allocate a certain percentage

of these positions to women To what extent do you agree or disagree?

In conclusion, I fully support the view that women should hold some of the level positions in companies, and it is necessary to provide employees with equal promotion opportunities

high-iii Writing Main Body Paragraphs

Main body paragraphs are the most important part in an essay, so writing them is

a complex process We will lean about various writing techniques in this section

sub-1) Ideas and idea development

A good essay should normally have a number of paragraphs, and each paragraph has a big idea We make the readers understand the topic of each paragraph by giving them a topic sentence A good topic sentence should contain a clear controlling idea A controlling idea is an idea that makes readers ask a question For example, when we say that ‘there are some reasons why people smoke’, the readers will immediately wonder ‘what are the reasons?’ Another example is that you say ‘playing games is harmful to children’ Immediately, the readers

may want to ask ‘why is it harmful?’ Therefore, normally each of your paragraphs talks about one controlling idea

After giving a controlling idea, we need to support it using a number of ideas called supporting ideas In an advantages/disadvantages essay, for example, each advantage/disadvantage should represent one supporting idea

Supporting ideas need to be developed and extended, and you will get a low Task Response score if you just give ideas without any explanation Therefore, while there is no limit on the number of supporting ideas you have, you should aim at two or three supporting ideas for each controlling idea For an essay with 250 –

300 words, I would recommend that we should have two supporting ideas for each paragraph, because in this way you can explain your ideas in depth If you have three ideas, your essay will be very long Having one idea for each paragraph is still fine, but it will be difficult for you to explain it, because you may face the situation where you talk about the same thing again and again The following are the techniques that you can apply to explaining your ideas

 Technique 1: Ask yourself ‘why?’

Whenever you give an idea, you should always ask yourself ‘why?’ so that you can make your idea clear For example, you say that ‘studying in English-speaking countries is the opportunity for us to improve our English’ After reading that sentence, the readers may want to ask you ‘why does studying in English-speaking countries help us improve our English?’ In the real exam, you should be able to ask yourself questions like this You should make sure that after reading your idea, the readers feel so clear that they have no more questions to ask In our above example, we will make the idea clearer by explaining that ‘This

is because we can chat with native English speakers everyday whereby we will improve our listening and speaking skills’ Now, the readers will not ask ‘why

does chatting with native speakers help us improve our listening and speaking skills?’, because this is so obvious already Therefore, your idea is now fully developed and extended

 Technique 2: Ask yourself ‘so what?’

Another technique is to ask yourself ‘so what?’ after you give an idea This means that you show the readers the result of something In this way, you will communicate what you mean by your idea, because if you just give your idea without stating its result, your idea will make no sense to the readers For instance, you say that ‘Children nowadays play video games too much’ The readers in this case may want to ask ‘so what? What will it lead to?’ In the real exam, again, you should be able to ask questions like this We will answer that question by saying that ‘Therefore, they may be addicted to games, and in turn they will have less time to spend studying’ By saying this, the readers will completely understand your idea, and therefore it is a well-developed idea

 Technique 3: Give examples

Examples are used when your idea is unclear, and the readers are still not convinced Giving examples is a very important technique in IELTS writing, because it helps your ideas be more evident Although every learner knows that, many of them find it difficult to give good examples, or they may not think about any example while they are taking the exam Before you think about an example, remember that your example does not need to be 100% correct You can say that

an event happened in 2010 despite the fact that it happened in 2007, because examiners do not care about these facts, they just look at your ability to use English

A good way to think about examples is to think about a country An example of over-crowded population would be China, and an example of a busy lifestyle would be Japan

Another point to remember is that your example does not need to be really specific, meaning that it is fine to give a general example such as ‘developed countries’, ‘children who play games excessively’, ‘students who study finance’ and so on Therefore, if you are unable to give a specific example, you can think about a more general one

In addition to the above techniques, you can also give personal examples to support your idea For example, you can say something like ‘For instance, my younger brother spends six hours per day playing computer games, and this makes his academic results worse than before.’

2) Application of idea development techniques

This part will show you how you can apply the techniques in the previous section

to an essay

Topic: Some people believe that money is the most important factor for achieving happiness However, others believe that happiness has nothing to

do with money To what extent do you agree or disagree?

For this question, I use a balanced opinion to answer, saying that I think money and other factors are equally important for people to achieve happiness The following is my first main body paragraph for this question

‘On the one hand, money is important for people to achieve happiness because of several reasons One reason is that people have to fulfill their personal needs

before experiencing a pleasant life If people do not have enough money to make daily purchases, they will find it extremely difficult to support themselves and raise their families For example, as everyone has to buy food, pay for bills and housing throughout the course of their lives, they cannot live happily without having much money In addition, life would be easier if the majority of people were wealthy This is because money helps them pay for healthcare, healthy meals and high-quality education, which may promote people’s welfare.’

(113 words)

 Application of technique 1: ask yourself ‘why?’

The sentence which begins ‘In addition ’ is my second supporting idea In this idea, I say that life would be easier if the majority of people were wealthy After giving this idea, I ask myself ‘why would life be easier?’, and then I answer that question by saying that money helps people pay for healthcare, healthy meals and high-quality education The idea is now clear and the readers will have no more questions to ask

Now, we will continue with my application of technique 2 and 3 in developing ideas

Topic: Some people believe that the advent of economical air travel has been very beneficial by making international travel more accessible, while others argue that it has had a very negative impact

Discuss both views and give your own opinion

*note: economical air travel means cheap flights

This question requires us to discuss both sides of the argument The following is

my first main body paragraph discussing one view of the argument, which is the benefits of economical air travel

‘On the one hand, I agree with those who believe that cheap air tickets benefit people in various ways Firstly, low-cost flights allow people to travel abroad easily Therefore, from the economic perspective, the development of the aviation industry can be extremely positive since it facilitates trading activities between countries whereby economic growth is improved Secondly, thanks to accessible flights, people can travel with a significantly lower price than before For example, in the past only wealthy people were able to travel to other countries on holiday Today as air tickets are more affordable, many people can enjoy a holiday in other countries This implies the living standard has increased considerably.’

(111 words)

Here, my controlling idea is the benefits of cheap air tickers My supporting ideas should therefore be these benefits In this case, I choose to give two benefits representing my two supporting ideas

 Application of technique 2: ask yourself ‘so what?’

My first supporting idea is that low-cost flights allow people to travel abroad easily Readers in this case may want to know the result of the ability to travel easily In other words, they may want to ask ‘so what?’ Therefore, I need to explain the result of this in order to make them convinced Right after giving the idea, I continue with the result that cheap flights can facilitate trading activities between countries My idea is now so clear that the readers become convinced

 Application of technique 3: give an example

My second supporting idea is that cheap flights allow families to travel with a lower price than before After giving this idea, I think that it is not clear enough for the readers to become convinced Therefore, I give an example of a real

benefit of cheap air tickers By giving an idea with an example like this, I have succeeded in supporting the idea that economical air travel is beneficial

2 Coherence and Cohesion

a Basic Knowledge

If you can divide your essay into separate paragraphs, your essay will become more coherent Each of your paragraphs should hold a clear purpose which may also be known as a big idea For example, if the big idea of your first body paragraph is the advantages of something, you have to talk about them

throughout the paragraph, and of course, no disadvantage should be included in

that paragraph

While you can have any number of paragraphs that you want, my recommended structure is to stick to an essay with 4 paragraphs The structure includes an introduction, two main body paragraphs, and a conclusion The reason for this is that by sticking to the 4-paragraph structure, you will not have to decide on how many paragraphs you should have whenever you read an essay question This can save you a lot of time during the exam

As explained in section II, cohesion refers to our ability to link different ideas together Some people believe that cohesion is just about our use of linking words, but it is not simple as that The ideas should really be related to each other, because in some cases, even when we have already used a linking word, our ideas are still unrelated The following is an example of this

‘The lack of care from parents may influence their children’s behaviour For example, some parents nowadays spend most of their time working.’

The first sentence is the idea, and the second one is an example for that idea But the problem is that the example is totally unrelated to the idea The sentence states that the lack of care from parents may influence children’s behaviour, so

the readers in this case would expect to see an example of how this lack of care

affects children Therefore, I will correct these two sentences like this: ‘The lack

of care from parents may influence their children’s behaviour For example, children will be likely to commit crimes because they cannot distinguish between right and wrong without being educated by their parents.’

b Common Cohesive Devices And The Relationship Between Linking Devices And Idea Development Techniques

This part will show you some common linking devices that you can use in writing an essay More importantly, you will learn how to apply these linking devices to developing your ideas

 Expressing a result or a consequence

 Therefore

The word ‘therefore’ is a synonym of the word ‘so’, but it is more formal and is often used at the beginning of a sentence Despite this, the word ‘therefore’ can also be put at other parts of a sentence It can be put right before the verb of the sentence, such as ‘my father therefore gave me a bicycle’ We can also put the word ‘therefore’ after a comma, such as ‘I understood the lessons deeply, and therefore I passed the exam’

 As a result

‘As a result’ is also a very common linking device, and its meaning is the same

as ‘therefore’ We usually put this phrase at the beginning of a sentence, but it is still fine to put it at the end For example, ‘children nowadays spend too much

time playing games, and they will have less time to spend on their study as a result’

 Normally, you will just need to use these two devices to express a result of something Remember that linking words only help organise the essay, and they do not help increase your vocabulary score You can use these devices when you develop your idea by asking yourself ‘so what?’ Specifically, after giving an idea, you can use the word ‘therefore’ or the phrase ‘as a result’ to explain the result or a consequence of your given idea

 Expressing a contrast

 However

The word ‘however’ is a synonym of the word ‘but’, and it is often put at the beginning of a sentence You can also put this word between the subject and the verb of the sentence For example, ‘My friend is very lazy He, however, got the highest score for the final exam’

 Expressing a reason for something

 Because/since/as

These three words are used to connect two separate clauses that depend on each other You can either put them at the beginning or at the middle of a sentence After the word because/since/as, there should be a clause with a subject and a verb

 Giving examples

 For example/for instance

These two phrases are the most common device which is used to give an example These phrases can be put at the beginning or at the middle of a sentence

 When your idea is still unclear, you can use these devices to give an example as an illustration of your idea

 Sequence of ideas

 For a paragraph with three ideas, you can use ‘firstly’, ‘secondly’, and

‘finally’ to discuss each idea If you only have two ideas, just use

‘firstly’ and ‘secondly’

 Apart from using ‘firstly’, ‘secondly’, ‘finally’, you can also use ‘one (e.g reason, advantage, disadvantage etc) is that…’,

‘furthermore/additionally’, and ‘another (e.g reason, advantage, disadvantage etc) is that…’

 These linking words help you to sequence your supporting ideas in a logical order

c Natural linking devices

Linking ideas is not simply about using linking words In fact, there are more sophisticated ways to link ideas together, and they are called natural linking Native English speakers do not often use linking words, but they usually link their ideas naturally

 Use simple linking words

One way to link ideas naturally is to use simple linking words such as and, or, but, so, etc These words are also known as conjunctions which connect two ideas in the same sentence

Apart from conjunctions, we can also use other cohesive devices such as firstly, secondly, finally, for example, for instance, etc

These linking words are so common that they do not attract much attention from the readers, so they are used to link ideas naturally

‘He studied really hard Therefore, he achieved good results.’

Instead of using the word ‘therefore’ to express a result, we can use the word

‘this’, and the sentence will be changed to:

‘He studied really hard This helped him achieve good results.’

Besides, referencing can also be applied by using the word ‘they’ to refer to a plural noun in the previous clause For example:

‘My friends never go to the cinema alone They feel lonely when doing so.’

We can see that with referencing, we can avoid repetition and also increase our score for Coherence and Cohesion

 Substitution

Substitution is the use of synonyms to substitute for something This skill is more difficult than referencing, because it requires the writers to have a wide range of vocabulary and they also need to use words and phrases flexibly For example:

‘Famous people nowadays appear too much on TV, because teenagers tend to concern about the life of celebrities.’

Here, ‘famous people’ is substituted by ‘celebrities’ Similar to referencing, substitution helps avoid repetition and increase the score for Coherence and Cohesion

 Note: In order to get band 9 for Coherence and Cohesion, we need to use cohesion in such a way that attracts no attention This means that we should not use any linking word, and instead we need to link ideas naturally Applying the above techniques well may help you reach band 9 for Coherence and Cohesion

3 Lexical Resource

a Basic Knowledge

It is commonly believed that we need a wide range of academic vocabulary if we want a high score for Lexical Resource While I do not believe that academic words help your vocabulary score, I think that there are a few things to know

In academic writing, you should use a language different from the one you use in daily conversations The difference is that the language used in academic writing needs to be formal and objective In order to make your essay formal and objective, you should use serious language You should not use idioms like ‘let the cat out of the bag’, since words like ‘cat’ or ‘dog’ make the essay like a daily conversation Also, you should not ask questions in your essays, and you should not use contractions such as ‘I’m not’ or ‘I don’t’ Speaking of pronouns, it is totally fine to use ‘I’ and ‘we’, but you should avoid pronouns such as ‘you’, ‘he’

or ‘she’ Apart from these things, you do not need to care much about academic words and phrases

A good user of a language is the one who possesses vocabulary of a variety of different topics Because of this, IELTS examiners expect to see the ability of the candidates to use a wide range of vocabulary related to their given topic Therefore, if you want a high vocabulary score, you need to learn words and phrases of different topics rather than general phrases like ‘it is a widely debated issue’ Also, in a language, there are some groups of words that usually go together, and they are called collocations In English, there are many collocations, ranging from common ones such as ‘for example’ to less common ones such as ‘have an impact on’

b Topic Vocabulary

This part will provide you with some words and phrases related to common IELTS topics When you practice writing an essay, it would be a good idea to look at this vocabulary list and find some relevant lexical items to be included in the essay

1) Populations and Accommodations

- Housing shortage/housing crisis: the situation where there is a severe lack

of houses

- Demand for accommodations/shelters: our need for a place to live

- A significant increase in population: the situation where the population increases too much

- Life expectancy: an average measure of how long a person may live

- The quality of healthcare: how good the medical services are

- Housing demand places a burden on housing supply: the situation where the demand for houses is higher than the supply

- An apartment: a suite of rooms forming one residence, typically in a building containing a number of these

- Skyscraper: a very high building

- Vertical city development: a city that has many skyscrapers

- Horizontal city development: a city that has low buildings, developing based on the space of the land

- Restrict the increase in population: slow down the speed of the rise in population

- An excessive demand: the demand for something is extremely high