One of the writing questions on the Duolingo English Test is to write about a photo in
one minute. And this is challenging for a lot of students, because writing about a photo is simply
just hard. And you've got to do it in one minute. So extra hard, but there are actually just four
simple things you need to know to describe a photo effectively. So in this video, I will show you
these four simple things, and I'll give you a bonus tip at the end. So the first thing you need
to know is how to begin your answer. And I recommend you start by using a general summary
where you write one sentence describing the photo. In general, this is quite simple and a good way to
start your answer. Let me show you an example of what I mean. So we'll use this photo. And the
general summary looks something like this. This photo shows a teacher teaching a group of young
school students. Another example. This is an image of a group of students and a teacher in a modern
classroom. These general summaries are a great way to begin your answer, because they're fairly easy
to write. And it means that you can write one sentence quite quickly. And we usually use the
present simple or present continuous to do this. There are lots of ways to begin your general
summary in these two examples are used this photo shows and this is an image of but there are more
ways you can begin, let me show you here. You can say this is a picture of this picture shows this
image depicts in this photograph there is or there are, I highly recommend that you memorize these
statements and you practice typing them quickly. Remember, you only have one minute to do this
question type. So if you practice typing these statements out quickly, then when you take your
real Duolingo test, you can do it and save some valuable seconds. Now let's move on to look at how
you can write some more details in your answer. To get a good score, you will need to put some
details in your description. And there are a few ways to do this. So let's take a look at these
now. One way to add detail to your answers is to describe the actions of the people or the subjects
in the photo. Most photos will have a subject either a person, an animal, a vehicle, something
like that. Let's take an example with this photo. Here. The main subject is the teacher. So I will
describe what he's doing. He is standing in front of an interactive screen and gesturing politely. I
might also want to talk about the students, I could say the students are listening carefully to
what the teacher is saying. Even though this photo was taken in the past, when we describe it, we
typically use the present tenses and when describing the actions of the people or subjects
we will use the present continuous like in this example, I said he is standing in front of an
interactive screen and gesturing politely. In this sentence, I use the present continuous tense. So
describing the actions of the people or subjects in the photo is one way to go into detail. But
it's not the only way. The next way is to describe the location of things, this is a great way to add
detail to your answer. And to do this, you're going to want to use prepositional phrases.
prepositional phrases are good to include in your answer because they are quite an advanced grammar
type. Let's take a look at an example. The teacher is in front of the students who are sat in rows,
and there is a large interactive screen behind him. In this example, the two prepositional
phrases are in front of and behind. Another example, there is an interactive screen to the
left of the teacher and a whiteboard directly behind him. So you can see how describing the
location using prepositional phrases can add lots of details to your description. There are lots of
prepositional phrases you can use. Here are a bunch of examples. I recommend you take a
screenshot of this and study these and practice using them in your descriptions. But that's not
all. You can also do one more thing which is quite advanced to describe your photo. And this is to
make a speculation or to make a guess. So making a speculation on the photo means that you're
guessing what is happening based on the photo. So for example, here is my speculation. He must be an
effective teacher as the young students are focusing well on the lesson. So do I know 100%
That he is an effective teacher? No, I don't I'm just guessing or making a speculation based on the
photo. But as I mentioned, your speculation or your guests should be closely related to what's
happening in the photo. Here's another example. There is a large interactive screen behind the
teacher that is likely being used for an educational game. Again, I don't know what 100%
That is being used for the educational game. I'm just making a guess or a speculation based on the
evidence in the photo. There are lots of ground structures you can use to make a speculation. And
a good thing is that typically these grammar structures are considered quite advanced. So if
you use them well in your answer, it could boost your score. And here are some of these grammar
structures. So to make a speculation about why is something happening now, so in the present, you
can use modal verbs like must, may, might or can't be, you can also use other words and expressions,
you might also want to speculate about something that's happened in the past, but effect in the
present. In that case, you can use might have, must have or could not have. These are some
examples of modal verbs. There are more but these are the basic ones. So those are things you can
write about in your photo. But now I have a bonus tip for you. And it is to always try to use
descriptive language words like adjectives, adverbs and prepositions. Using these words will
give you extra points because vocabulary is on the scoring criteria. And in my examples, so far, I
have used lots of these words, but let me show you one more time to remind you. So this is a full
answer and the descriptive language or descriptive words are in orange. So we have young in front of
politely effective Well, these are all adjectives, adverbs and prepositions, which you can use to
describe your photo in more detail. Another example here the descriptive language is modern in
front of large behind educational, again, useful descriptive words to describe a photo and boost
your score for this question type. So that's how you describe a photo but now you need to practice
so I recommend you watch this video here to see lots of photos with sample answers. This will be a
great way to practice so I'll see you in this video. Hi, friends. This is part two of the
describing the photo mini series I'm doing here on YouTube. This is for the Duolingo English test. In
my last video I described lots of strategies you can use to describe a photo effectively and get
the highest score you can for this writing question on the Duolingo test. And this video is
all about practice. So I have prepared seven photos for you to practice with within the one
minute time limit and after the one minute I will show you a sample answer. I highly recommend you
use this video and write your answers below in the comments. Because of the short time limit for this
question type of practicing doing it a lot is really really helpful. And we will start this
practice in one second but very quickly in case you missed the last video, here is a brief summary
of the strategies I taught. So this is how you describe a photo you should begin with a general
summary basically describing what the photo is about. Then you can describe the actions of the
people or subject by using the present continuous tense you can also describe the location of the
items in the photo for this you should use prepositional phrases. And lastly, you can also
make a speculation. Use modal verbs or other phrases to do this and to boost your score you
should use lots of descriptive language adjectives adverbs for example now of course you don't have
to do all of this in your answer Remember you only have one minute but these are some guidelines for
you to follow. Okay, then well let's start with a practice and I'll see you at the end
of the video. By the way if you want to learn about how to describe a photo in a lot more detail
than I do have a full writing course covering this question type. You will learn everything you need
to know about how to describe a photo well and I give you lots and lots of practice questions. Also
included in the same course is the writing about a topic and 50 words or more. Again in this one I
show you how to structure your answer effectively and how How to use complex grammar and good
vocabulary to get a great score. If this is something you're interested in, there's a link
below in the description. Okay, here's photo number Two
Okay guys, well done. You just practice seven photos. If this was helpful put a heart emoji
below in the comments to let me know. And now I recommend you watch this speaking video here
because on the Duolingo test, you also have to speak about the photo. It's almost the same as
writing but it is a bit different because you have longer to do it. So this video here will help you
with this speaking question. Okay, I'll see you here. Bye