IELTS Writing Task 2 - Essay writing tips. Various types of introduction for a topic.

 

Levels of depression and antisocial behavior in children have increased dramatically in modern societies. This situation has led many people to believe that childhood itself is in crisis. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this view?

1. General Introduction: In contemporary societies, a surge in the prevalence of depression and antisocial behavior among children has prompted widespread concern. This phenomenon has sparked a debate regarding whether childhood is facing a crisis. This essay explores the extent to which I concur or differ with this notion, delving into various aspects of this complex issue.

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3. Thesis-Centric Introduction: The escalating rates of depression and antisocial tendencies observed in the youth of today have ignited discussions about the state of childhood. While some contend that we are witnessing a crisis in the very nature of childhood, I hold the perspective that this assertion needs a nuanced examination. This essay will examine the multifaceted factors contributing to these trends and provide an evaluation of the crisis premise.

How to write IELTS Writing Tsk 02 essays - a complete video guide by KU Education - Jaffna .

 Whether you take IELTS Academic test or the General Test, you have to approach your writing task 02 in a sane way. I teach many techniques of writing tasks during my classes, but this brief video guide will help you to grab the idea of writing an attractive and  9-band scoring essay in your IELTS exam.

Watch the new IELTS writing Task 02 guiding video - updated on 2023 below !

Band 9.0 level IELTS vocabulary list free download !

Want to Score a band of 7.0 and above in IELTS?

When I was browsing the internet I found a couple of valuable recourses for IELTS and just thought to share them with my students and visitors of this IELTS blog.

People who have started improving their English knowledge recently suffer a lot with the required range of vocabulary during the IELTS examination. A moderate English user tends to have words and phrases that can be used for day-to-day communication. But if your goal is scoring band 7.0-9-0 in IELTS academic or General tests, you definitely should possess a huge range of vocabulary that is used in academic and professional communication. 

Vocabulary for IELTS - Tips to understand the sujbect areas of your IELTS Exam - General Module and Academic Module in 2023

 

Topics and Vocabulary frequently used in IELTS exams.

After years of researching the IELTS exam patterns, we have identified the following subject areas that IELTS exam really wants to test the students on:

 Exposure to English words widely used in :

1. Advertisement/Marketing/Media, 
2. Business, Office/work environment
3. Words used in corporate Companies
4. Culture/society/Communities and their norms 
5. Environment- Pollution
6. Family/Children and healthy living
7. Parenting and related issues 
8. Fashion

Let's listen to Arun - IELTS 7.5 band scorer from KU Education, Jaffna. (2022-08-19)

KU Jaffna has been producing so many successful IELTS test takers for years. The most recent great achiever is S.Arun Kalastan from Mannar. Arun got an Overall 7.5 band score for his IELTS (Academic). KU Education congratulates him on his great achievement. We got 12 students who achieved 6.5 BS within the last 2 months. Generally, most of the students used to take the paper-based IELTS exam. But Arun took the computer-based IELTS exam and is highly vocal about his experience with the computer-based exam after practising paper-based tests in the classroom. 

Arun says :

Computer-delivered IELTS exam is very convenient for the following reasons : 

What is Coherence in IELTS Writing Task 2 ? - understanding coherence "Visually"

There are many frequently discussed terms roam in the  mind when we start exploring IELTS . Some terms are little bit tricky to be understood clearly .Coherence and cohesion is one of the four elements assessed  in your IELTS writing task 2 (General and Academic) and widely spoken about, in various IELTS mentoring sites . Let me take "coherence" for this post today.

Coherence

If you want to know in a nut shell ,I would say coherence is "Central point of the paragraph " . You build a paragraph on one main idea and maintain it properly with carefully developed phrases ,words and examples .

For instance , let's see the following task on a "Coherence Map" which is  invented and illustrated by Knowledge Universe for the first time(2016)

Should I have a lot of creativity to score more in IELTS ?

Obviously not. You need just  a bit.:)

If you think that you  need it a lot ,then only some cinema directors,creative writers,poets can get through the IELTS exam .But that is not the case.

An Animal ,that you have never seen in your life ,drawn by my students

Language is not all about science and scientific methods  ,it is an art . Art has lot of connectivity with your thought process ,inner mind ,imagination and creativity . So you can't just memorize everything like memorizing formulas for maths and science .

Many of my students ,specially medical doctors ,used to ask me "Sir if you say us to write a medical reference letter ,or something related to our work ,we would write perfectly ,but you ask us to write things that  we have never come across in our life "

To have an interesting conversation with anyone ,you need a bit of creativity . For instance , Imagine you   had an ice cream at a new shop in the morning and it was very tasty . Really you felt very good about that food .

Now you want to tell it to your friends : You may say it in many ways :

Most common topics of IELTS writing task 2 (Essay Questions)

As I keep on insisting ,reading a lot on various topics would definitely improve your writing and reading skills .Many students used to ask me the secrets of doing IELTS  writing and reading well . Some suggest them to memorize  essays and phrases as many as they can . Few of my students tend to write essays without any logical connectivity and jump  here and there suddenly even in a single paragraph .Grammar goes to a worse situation  .

But when I asked them to write essays about their family /village/university life etc (familiar topics) they used to do miracles  . Hence the topic  is well known ,writing skill of students boosts ,but when you are not familiar with the topic your energy level goes down an makes you under-perform .

Thus ,reading a lot on the following areas definitely would help you to score more on writing task 2 as well as reading task.

How to write effective introduction for IELTS writing Task 2(Academic and General ) – IELTS tips #2

 Writing  introduction is a vital part in Task 2  of your IELTS exam(For Task 1 you are given with some key points to write but in Task 2 you have to come up with your own ideas and need to be more creative )

Important things you have to keep in mind :

1.   A good introduction is important ,but spending a lot of time for introduction is not a good idea . If you happen to spend  more than 3-5 minutes in generating  an  introduction give it  up and start writing the first paragraph and continue .
2.  So what happens  for the introduction ? –leave a space for it (to have 3 to 4 sentences )and write the rest of the essay. Once you finish it go back and write down the introduction . As you write the essay you get many ideas and you can do a better introduction now .
3. But  writing a constructive introduction firstly,  is the very common practice and possible for many students .I have given above tips as I have been seeing many students in my class  struggle a lot to write introduction and waste a lot of time in it .But most of them are able to identify the key points of the task and write the paragraphs comfortably .

So how to construct your introduction ? :

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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