How to score 7.0 and above in IELTS Academic/General Writing Task 02 -[ Part I ]

How to score 7.0 and above in IELTS Academic/General Writing Task 02

Firstly ,keep in mind that there are no much differences between Academic writing and General writing Tasks(Task2).Now let’s get into the topic .

You know good English , you can write what you have in your mind in English without grammatical errors ,that is not enough to score more than 5.5 in IELTS sadly.

IELTS Writing tasks pay full attention on the following areas of your work :

1.    Grammatical Accuracy (25%)
2.    Coherence and cohesion (25%)
3.     Lexical resources(25%)
4.    Task achievement(25%)

Key areas of IELTS Academic writing Tasks(1&2)  marking scheme are  given above.Mostly the people getting ready for IELTS are good in Grammatical Accuracy and Task Achievement ,when they are strong on these two areas they can score up to 5.0/5.5 only . If you score 6.0 and above it means you have started doing good in the other areas too.Thus if you have to go beyond 6.5 and 7.0 always keep in mind you have to play well in all sectors .

Coherence and cohesion

let’s see ,what is Coherence first . There are many synonyms for the word like consistency /unity /rationality  . let’s take more appropriate one ,which is “Logic” . You are required to write your essay with proper logics. You have to go with the flow and develop the sentences with  logical connection. As you write in a  logical(Coherence) manner at the same time your sentences ,phrases and words should have been put in a proper structure .this structure is known as Cohesion . Words like , therefore ,on the other hand, at the same time ,apparently etc.. gives the strength to the physical connection or  cohesion . This words are called cohesive devices

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Let’s take this question :

“With an increasing population communicating via internet and text messaging the face to face communication will become a thing of the past. To what extent do you agree ?”

For instance, after the introduction, you write the first paragraph and your sentences grow. ..

a)The technology available today made connecting people faster and simpler . b)Since communication’s speed increased ,percentage of miscommunication also increased . c)In most cases,whenever people get wrong information about others, d)they start to spread it via online channels like Facebook ,Twitter without verifying ,e)once they got to know that the information they have spread is utter false ,f)now the control on the information  is no more with them .

Here , do you see   logical connection between every sentences, phrases  ?

1.   Technology is speed today [a]
2.   People spread news faster (because technology is faster)[b,c,d : Emphasis of the thought ]
3.   No time to verify the information as they want everything faster[c]
4.   Since it is not verified ,chances are their to be false information ,Once they realize the faultiness of their message..[e]
5.  Undo process is almost not possible online .[f]

Now let’s see this answer for the same question  :

a)The technology available today made connecting people faster and simpler .b)Ancient people used to communicate using fire and other means . c) Facebook ,twitter are very popular among today’s teenagers . d) I strongly believe that a speedy communication is a must for everyone . ,e) Meeting people to have a social chat is obsolete today  ,f) now our communication priorities are decided by the devices we have .

Here ,have you  seen connectivity ,or any logical order among the sentences ,but the words and the grammatical structure are good. (5.0)?

Now you have understood what is coherence and cohesion and what impact those have on the IELTS Academic and General Writing .

To be continued ..:

S.Manimaran MBA(UK),B.A(Hon),TESOL
KU Education-IELTS Centre in Jaffna.
http://edu.kugroup.info
http://facebook.com/kujaffna