E2 IELTS Writing | How to score 8+ in Writing Task 2 with Jay! - YouTube

Hello, everybody, my name is Jay, I'm one of the  expert IELTS teachers here at E2Language, what  

we're going to do is not write an essay, instead,  we're going to look at some top tips. One tip  

in particular, which I'm afraid to say will come  right at the end of this presentation. But I need  

to take you through this presentation so that that  tip at the end really makes sense to you. And so,  

you fully utilize it to your benefit. So, what  we're going to do specifically is look at real  

tips for how to score an eight plus in writing  task two. Okay. Let me first tell you my little  

experience maybe you've heard this before,  maybe you haven't. I'm an English teacher,  

obviously, I'm a native English speaker,  I had to take the IELTS four times,  

before I got a decent score in writing, I could  get nines in reading, listening and speaking,  

not no problem was still challenging. But  writing I got stuck on 7.5 three times. And so,  

I did some investigation into why it is that I  got stuck and why so many people get stuck at  

sort of 6.5 to 7. And it turns out that there are  certain ways that you need to write your essay in  

order to boost your score. So, one of those ways  is looking at grammar. And that's what we're going  

to look at here. These ugly looking things are  what the examiners use to mark your writing.  

And there's one here which focuses on two things,  grammatical range, and grammatical accuracy. Okay,  

these two things are key for boosting your score.  The first one grammatical range means variety of  

sentence types. Okay, you need to use a variety of  different sentence types to boost your score and  

grammatical accuracy. Well, it means grammatical  accuracy that your sentences are correct and  

accurate. And there is s on the end of plural  nouns, and you use articles properly and your verb  

tenses are straight, etc. Have a look at these two  paragraphs. These two paragraphs have perfectly  

accurate grammar. Okay, so I mentioned that you  wrote these two paragraphs, and everything you  

wrote was just 100% accurate. However, there's a  big problem here. And that problem is range. These  

sentences are all simple sentences, or compound  sentences. There are no complex sentences.  

There are no modal verbs. There are no question  sentences, there are no conditionals. They're all  

just simple sentences. So, what score Do you think  you would get for grammar? You would get a four.  

Because here in the criteria, what the examiners  look at, it says, rare use of subordinate clause,  

I'm going to show you what a subordinate clause  is in a minute. But the maximum score you can get  

the maximum score you can get if you do not use  a variety of sentence structures is four. Okay,  

so even if your accuracy is nine, but your range  is four your score for grammar will be four.  

That's the highest you can possibly get. So, let's  say then, let's say you wrote perfectly on task,  

and you answered the essay question, and the  examiner gave you an eight for that part.  

And the way that you structured the essay and  structured your paragraphs, the examiner gave  

you an eight for that part. And your vocabulary  was excellent. It was very wide ranging. So,  

the examiner gave you an eight for that part.  But the examiner gave you a four for grammar,  

because your range was limited. In that case,  the average for your total writing band score  

would be seven, because the four brings it down to  seven. And let's say the same thing happened here,  

you got seven for tasks seven for structure, seven  for vocab and four for grammar. The maximum score  

you can get for writing then because of the  grammar score is six, right. So, the super  

tip is this, you need to use a wide variety of  sentence types in your essay. And if you don't,  

the same thing will happen to you that happened  to me and your mark will get stuck on something  

poor. Okay. So, what we're going to do in this  lesson is we're going to look at different  

sentence types. I'm going to show you seven,  seven. I can't remember six or seven different  

sentence types. But we're specifically  going to focus in on complex sentences,  

and a particular type of complex sentence called a  subordinate clause. Don't worry, it sounds crazy,  

but it's pretty easy. You probably already  know it. So, let's have a look. So, in fact,  

I want to show you six different sentence types.  First of all, let's start with simple sentences.  

These are obviously quite straightforward. So,  a simple sentence has one idea. Let's use the  

question prompts Let's say the question prompt  said something about the government should tax  

sugary drinks. That's your writing task two essay  prompt or part of it. So here are three simple  

sentences. This is 1, 2, 3. Sugar makes people  unhealthy. Okay, it's got it's got a subject,  

it's got a verb, and it's got an object here,  or people gain weight from sugar. Okay, again,  

subject verb object, sugar harms people's teeth.  These three are examples of simple sentences,  

you should definitely include simple sentences  in your essay, but again, it's about variety. So,  

let's look at compound sentences. compound  sentences are when you have one idea plus another  

idea. For example, let's say the question prompt,  again, is government should attack sugary drinks,  

you say sugar makes people unhealthy, and it harms  their teeth. So here, we're using a conjunction  

like; and, for yet, but, so, or, or nor, there's a  few different conjunctions or different ways that  

you can create a compound sentence. Fine. These  ones are the critical ones, you need to include  

what I'm about to show you into your essay. And  I suggest you include at least five, at least  

five of these complex sentences using these words.  These are the words that the IELTS examiners look  

for. These are the sentence types that create  subordination, which I'll show you in a second;  

after, although, as, because, before, even if,  even though, if, in order that, once, provided  

that, rather than, since, so that, then, that,  though, unless, until, when, whenever, where,  

whereas, who, whether, while, and which. Okay,  so let's have a look at some examples here. So,  

what a complex sentence does, it coordinates  two or more ideas into a single sentence. So,  

the prompt is the government should tax  sugary drinks, my complex sentence using the  

connector while is this. While some people will  support the tax, others will be against it. So,  

let's remove this and let's have a look at let's  say it just said some people will support the tax  

full stop. Others will be against it. So here  I've got two simple sentences. But if I use one  

of these subordinate clause type words, like while  I can create a complex sentence, okay, and these  

are the sentences that make you win in IELTS  writing. So, what I did on my fourth attempt,  

after I investigated and did all this homework  and realize what was going on, and actually had  

a meeting with the IELTS, people. When I wrote  my fourth attempt, I thought, okay, usually  

when I write essays or emails, or whatever, I  like to write short, simple sentences, because  

I believe that they're clearer. But that's not  what you should do in the IELTS, you need to use  

a variety as I said, so what I did on the fourth  attempt was, I use a whole variety of different  

sentence types. I use complex ones and compound  ones and simple ones, I even put questions in  

made sure they were passive. I use modal verbs,  that dah, dah, dah, dah, but I made sure that I  

had at least five of these complex structures. Now  I want you to try to write a few. Okay. I'm going  

to give you two minutes to write three complex  sentences. The prompt is the government should  

tax sugary drinks. So your complex sentence will  go although dot dot dot dot dot comma dot dot,  

dot, dot, dot full stop, or dah dah dah dah, dah,  so that da da da, da, da, because dah dah dah dah,  

dah dah dah, dah, dah. So, try to fill these gaps  with some information from the prompt. You have  

two minutes to write three complex sentences to  increase your IELTS band score. Starting now.  

Okay, maybe you need more time. Seeing people  sort of still on the first type of sentence.  

Let me push on. What I want you to do, if you  haven't finished, I want you to pause the video,  

go back and finish those three sentences. Okay.  I'm going to show you mine. But if you haven't  

finished, please go back and do that. Now. Let  me show you mine. Okay, here are my examples,  

although people will benefit companies will  suffer. Again, let's look at this because  

what's going on? Let's say we get rid of this.  And we've said people will benefit. Companies  

will suffer two simple sentences. Or I can make  a complex sentence using this powerful word  

here. What about so that the government should tax  sodas so that the public becomes healthier. Okay,  

again, I've got two simple sentences, but I've  created a complex sentence using so that . What  

about number three, using the word because at  the beginning of the sentence, because people  

are becoming more obese, the government should  tax sugary drinks. There you go. It's actually  

I shouldn't say it's not that hard. It's hard  to get these accurate and you definitely need  

to practice them. Because as I said, without them  four is the maximum score you can get in grammar,  

okay. I seriously mean that you can double check  the criteria if you want. They're extraordinarily  

important sentence types. So, the big take home  message is this you need to use complex sentences  

in your writing task. One and two, by the way,  use it in both of your writing tasks. Let's have  

a quick look at the other sentence types before  we finish, so passive sentences. So, the prompt  

again, the government should tax sugary drinks.  Well, a passive sentence is when you reverse the  

order of the subject and the object. For example,  here's the active sentence. Food scientists know  

that sugary drinks are addictive. Let's say  we want to reverse this order. And we don't  

want to talk about food scientists we can say  sugary drinks are known to be addictive. Okay,  

so I've created a passive form from the active  form there. So passive sentences are also  

important in your writing to show variety. Let's  have a look at a question sentence. But what is  

sugar tax really work? My suggestion here is to  use one question in your essay. I think they work  

really well if they're placed properly, okay.  They can work really well if I put one in my  

last one where I got the 8.5. And I think I put  it in the introduction. But it was just a short,  

simple sentence as a question type. And it just  created a nice sort of narrative voice for the  

essay. And it just added to my variety. So do  think about putting perhaps one question into  

your essay there because it can work well. The  last one is conditional sent. Last one is our  

conditional sentences. These are somewhat complex.  These are conditional sentences or sentences that  

start with if; if sentences. So, if the government  had text sugary drinks earlier, then we would not  

have an obesity issue now. So how do you strike a  balance, between grammatical range and grammatical  

accuracy? Because perhaps if you're attempting  to use a wider variety of sentence types,  

your accuracy will go down. Or maybe if you're  trying to be very accurate, your grammatical range  

will go down. So how do you strike that balance  between variety and accuracy? That's a critical  

question. The question is, do you need to strike a  balance? Here's the thing, if you do not attempt,  

if there is rare use of subordinate clauses, in  other words, you rarely use complex structures,  

then you will get a four. Okay. But if you attempt  complex sentences, even if they're less accurate,  

remember, this is the same thing that the IELTS  examiners are looking at the end when they're  

marking your writing, you can get a five. Of  course, if you're even if let's say you're  

a native English speaker, so your accuracy is  nine, you should definitely try to attempt a wide  

variety of different sentence structures, because  then we'll just boost your score. But even if your  

English is quite poor, and you're worried about  accuracy, at least try to use a wide variety. So,  

the takeaway message, the key point that I wanted  to talk about right at the beginning, which I led  

you through is. Variety, sentence variety is  more important than sentence accuracy. So,  

on test day, you should attempt to use a wide  variety of sentence types, including the six  

that I showed you, in this live class. And even  if the accuracy is not 100%, doesn't matter, it  

will increase your chances of scoring better than  if you are conservative, and just attempt simple  

structures. That my friend is the end of that  presentation. If you need help with your IELTS  

in any way speaking, listening, reading writing,  check out E2Language.com sign up for free. And you  

may want to think about upgrading your account  for one-on-one tutorials, writing feedback,  

lots of practice questions, sample essays,  overview lessons, methodology lessons like this  

one that take you through everything the course  can last Well, there's a lot of material, it can  

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a week to get the main stuff there. So do check  out that website. If you have any questions, do  

check out this one here. Go to help.E2Language.com  help.E2Language.com. So, it's the same as this but  

help.E2Language.com ask your question. We'll get  back to you with an answer. Okay, cool bananas.