Hi! It's Asiya. Why is it so difficult to achieve anything about 6.5 in IELTS
Writing? Today I want to compare what it means to get a band 8 and a band 8
score. Basically, we're going to take all the requirements that IELTS examiners
use and compare them. I think by the end of this video, you will see
much more clearly what you need to do in order to get a band 8 rather than
a band 6. I know that most likely you are looking to get a 7 but I've chosen
to compare a band 6 with a band 8 for a reason. If you do everything very well in
your essays and you fulfill all the requirement,s you're going to get an 8.
It's almost a perfect score. It's just that the complexity in your essay
is not quite at the level of a band 9, the perfect score. And if you make some
common mistakes, which are not obvious to many many people, you're likely to get a
band 6. A band 7 is just in between: you can still make some minor
mistakes and can have some imperfections but you're already on the way to
achieving a band 8. Okay, ready? Let's get started/1
I have a list of requirements here and let's start with the first criterion
it's called task achievement in task 1 and task response in task 2 and it
measures how well your essay answers the question and in order to get a band 8
score you need to fully answer the question and if some parts of the task
are not fully covered you're only gonna get a band 6 or an even lower score let
me show you an example question and you'll see what I mean some people think
that it's necessary to spend large sums of money on building new railway lines
for fast trains between cities others believe that the money should be spent
on improving the existing public transport discuss both views and give
your opinion so there are several elements you must cover in your essay
first of all view one the government should spend money on building new
railway lines but then view 2 money should be spent on improving existing public
transport then you also need to give your opinion because this task asks for
your opinion you must give it and on top of all that you need to address every
point mentioned in the task what are those let's have a look at the first
sentence it's not just about building railway lines right it's about spending
large sums of money on building railway lines and not any lines
but lines for fast trains between cities and that's exactly what you need to
discuss in your essay in order to achieve a band 8 or a band 9 score for your
task response in order to get a band 8 score for your task response in task 2
you all your ideas must be relevant and well-developed
well relevant ideas of those that answer the question we've just discussed that
so what are well developed ideas actually if your ideas are not well
developed you're not gonna get more than a band 6 for your task response so I've
written a little example of not well developed ideas trains are a great way
of transportation because they are safe moreover with fast trains people can
easily commute to work in another city however train tickets are expensive
basically I don't develop any idea I just name several ideas and it's not
gonna bring a high score what you should do instead is you take one idea and then
you provide some explanation and some examples let me show you with fast
trains people can easily come you to work in another city that means those
living in less developed regions of the country can still get a job in the
larger city for example in the UK it would be possible to live in Birmingham
and work in London actually I have a separate video about how to develop
ideas and how to write high scoring body paragraphs I'm gonna link it here there
are all the things for which you list points in your task response score for
example if some of your ideas are unclear or some of your ideas lack
focus basically everything you write every sentence should answer the
question if it doesn't it shouldn't be in your essay otherwise you're losing
points you also lose points if you over generalize if you start talking about
the topic in general rather than giving exact arguments to answer the question
we were talking about task response and task to you in order to get a band 8
in task achievement in task 1 you need to clearly present all the key features
in IELTS academic and all the key bullet points in our general training and again
you may be losing points if your details are irrelevant
basically you talk about something that is not that important you're losing
points or details are inappropriate you're talking about something you
shouldn't be talking about for example you're giving your opinion in IELTS
academic task 1 when you shouldn't you must not do that so you will lose
points for that or if your details are inaccurate let's talk about the next
criterion it's called coherence and cohesion so what is coherence that's
how well your essay is organized your essay structure is extremely important
and in order to get a band 8 your essay must be logically organized if you're
taking IELTS academic that means that in task 1 you should have an introduction
and overview and two body paragraphs and in task 2 both academic and general
training you should have an introduction two or three body paragraphs and a
conclusion that's a logically organized essay
what's more each paragraph should have a central topic that means that you should
only have one idea per paragraph when you start discussing the next idea you
switch to the next paragraph and if your paragraphs are not always logically
organized it's a sign of a band 6 for coherence and cohesion that may happen
if you started discussing one thing in your paragraph and then you switch to
the next idea inside your body paragraph or you continue discussing your idea but
you started a new paragraph so the examiner can see you that you're
trying to split your essay into paragraphs but it's not always logical
so you're not gonna get more than a 6 for your coherence and cohesion we've
discussed how to make your essay coherent so how to make it cohesive ok
a cohesive essay is the one where all sentences are linked together and that
would be a sign of a band 8 and of course you may be losing points if you
make some of the mistakes for example you use too many or too few linking
words you need to use just the right number to link sentences but so that
linking words were not attracting attention you will also lose points if
some links between or within sentences are faulty or mechanical well links are
faulty if you just use the linker when it shouldn't be there and they are
mechanical if you insert too many linking words and it's not quite natural
so you're losing points for that you will also be losing points if your
referencing isn't clear let me show you an example listen to this global warming
causes droughts this problem is especially acute in Africa so which
problem global warming or droughts it's not clear that's an example of unclear
referencing the next criterion is called lexical resource or simply your
vocabulary in order to get a band 8 you need to show that you have a wide
range of vocabulary you know many words and you also know the precise meaning of
words so you know exactly what each word means and if you have an adequate range
of vocabulary but that's a sign of a band 6 score one of the signs that you
don't know enough was if you repeat words unnecessarily you should avoid
word repetition if possible of course some words have to be repeated in your essay
that is not a problem but some words have synonyms you should use them you
could also describe the word instead of repeating it or you could change the
form of words I have a separate video about how to avoid word repetition
you will also be losing points for inaccuracies in style or collocation
what is inaccuracies in style let's for example even task 2 which should be
quite formal you use informal words slang or idioms you'll be losing points
for that or if you're taking IELTS general training and you're writing a letter to
a friend and you write something very formal which would be more suitable to
workplace not a letter to a friend again you'd be losing points for inaccuracies
in style and of course inaccuracies in collocation that's if you use together
words which are not commonly used together when you learn a new word you
should use the oxford dictionary to check which other words this word is
commonly used with and of course errors you're only allowed to make rare errors
in order to achieve a band 8 if you make some errors in what choice or collocation
or spelling there's a sign of a band six and you can make occasional errors and
achieve a band 7 I actually have a separate video about how to achieve
about a score for your vocabulary which I'm gonna link here and the last
criterion is grammatical range and accuracy or your grammar in order to
achieve a band 8 score you need to do two things so first of all you need to
use a wide range of grammatical structures these are complex sentences
of course compound sentences different verb tenses modal verbs
gerunds just try to use a variety of different sentences in your essay to
achieve a higher score at the same time it's very important that you have no
errors in order to achieve a band 8 score you're only allowed to make rare errors
in your grammar so what can bring your score down to a 6
well that would happen if you use too many simple grammatical forms so you
should use more complex sentences it doesn't mean very long and
complicated sentences no no IELTS examiner's consider certain
grammatical forms to be complex and I actually have a separate video about six
types of sentences you should use in your essay and those sentences are not too long and
not too complex I'm gonna leave a link in just a second
but another side of a band 6 for grammar is if you make some errors in your
grammar or punctuation you should really try to avoid errors okay here is
a link to the video thank you so much for watching me today we've covered all
the main differences between a band six and the band eight I hope it was helpful
good luck with your preparation and exam bye