21/09/2020
7 steps to IELTS 7: Improve your IELTS Writing score!
Know the IELTS Writing criteria
Your IELTS Writing score is all about meeting the criteria..
Oh dear! Band descriptors, aren’t they mysterious? Well, they’re much easier to understand if you get help from an expert who can clarify the differences between low-scoring and high-scoring writing. Understanding the band descriptors will guide your writing so you can fulfill the requirements of each marking criteria.
The four criteria
Task Achievement (or Task Response, for Task 2), Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Scoring band 7+ means fulfilling the requirements in all 4 criteria, so you really can’t afford to be flying blind when it comes to the band descriptors.
So, what’s the best strategy? What is IELTS looking for? For Task 2, in terms of content, one of the best strategies is to make your writing original and authentic. How to go about this? Write about realistic situations that you have experienced or that relate to real facts as examples to support your ideas. So, once you have the original and authentic idea, all you have to do is write about it, right? Yes, and you do this by including details – this is one of the key elements in your writing that can make the real difference to jump from 6 or 6.5 to 7.
Don’t follow the crowd. Use your own experience and knowledge to write something original.
What this looks like in practice
A well-structured paragraph can have 4 to 7 sentences:
Sentence 1: Topic sentence
Sentence 2-5: Reasons/ Examples (Supporting sentences – an example is extended and detailed)
Sentences 6 -7 Summary and/or paragraph conclusion
Immunising children is an important tool to improve public health. Since it was mandatory for many decades, it has helped to eradicate diseases, as there were no hosts available for them to develop. This way, smallpox does not exist anymore, and poliomyelitis is bound to follow. Looking at common childhood diseases, they may seem harmless and parents may think that it is not necessary to vaccinate their children against them. This is wrong though, as these diseases can have severe complications; measles, for example, can cause encephalitis, with severe consequences for the child. Vaccines have helped drastically to improve communal health overall by reducing the number of patients of such diseases. In short, to reduce the possibility of contracting a disease or even eradicating it, parents should be obliged to vaccinate their children.
Read below the sample paragraph divided in sentences with explanations.
Sentence 1- Topic sentence: Immunising children is an important tool to improve public health.
Sentence 2 – Reason: Since it was mandatory for many decades, it has helped to eradicate diseases, as there were no hosts available for them to develop.
Sentences 3 to 5 – Example and supporting sentences (extended and detailed)
Sentence 3 – Example: This way, smallpox does not exist anymore, and poliomyelitis is bound to follow.
Sentence 4 and 5 – Supporting sentences: Looking at common childhood diseases, they may seem harmless and parents may think that it is not necessary to vaccinate their children against them. This is wrong though, as these diseases can have severe complications; measles, for example, can cause encephalitis, with severe consequences for the child.
Sentence 6: Summary sentence: Vaccines have helped drastically to improve communal health overall by reducing the number of patients of such diseases.
Sentence 7 – Concluding sentence (paragraph): In short, to reduce the possibility of contracting a disease or even eradicating it, parents should be obliged to vaccinate their children.
Developing a strong paragraph in which all the criteria requirements are fulfilled includes extending and supporting your ideas. If you just to put lots of ideas down without extending and detailing them – you’ll be stuck at 6 or 6.5. You’re better off writing fewer ideas that are explained properly with reasons and examples
