hi aubry hi jessica how are you i'm hot i am yeah we're here oh not that kind of hot i mean both i
mean let's be honest no uh listeners i'm kind of joking but it is really hot here in portland
there's an excessive heat warning i like this adjective though we can learn from this phrase
excessive because that's an uncommon adjective that students don't use
high level though what does excessive mean yeah it's a synonym of overly so like too much
right if there's too much heat it's excessively heat hot then yes it means it's overly hot
it's more than you want of something exactly it's too much anytime you want to say too much no more
than i want or need you can instead say that is excessive very nice adjective and there's
a very high level noun to throw this out to um excess to say like he lives the life of
excess would be so impressive on ielts instead of just saying he's wealthy he buys a lot of things
this and i never hear students use that so so many words that can come from excess and excessive
that is true he lives a life of excess i love it because if you're asked questions about um
capitalism business buying habits right that stuff comes up in ielts part three in writing task two
remember that whole phrase actually because then you're you're sure to use it with a connotation
sorry a collocation that is very high level living a life of excess oh my god and that's not even
what we're talking about today we just you know wanted to share some awesome stuff with you here
at the donating bonus bonus everywhere bonus bonus everywhere guys we're talking about writing task
two today we have a couple questions um what kind of essay do i write these questions look different
but i think it's the same what do i do so we're gonna dive into this guys cause really you need to
know exactly what the examiner wants to see if it is an agree disagree question an opinion question
like how does that what does that uh mean for you and your score so that's what we're talking about
today yes but speaking of what the examiner wants to see we want to make sure you guys are aware we
have a free e-book if you go to euler's english dot com slash new ielts you can check it out
jessica luckily has kept in touch with current examiners and ielts is changing there are a
lot of differences that you need to know about so you know exactly what to expect on test day
so this ebook gives a lot of these recent changes check it out don't miss it all there's
english.com new ielts thank you aubrey what a what a great segway in there you're fabulous
all right so this first question is from mata from iran she wrote us an email she
said i have a question in writing task two i don't know how to answer this type of question
that asks you to quote discuss both views and give your opinion i confuse it with an agreed disagree
agree question or a give your opinion question i want to know what's the difference this is great
now this is not a case of thinking too much sometimes we're like oh don't stress about
these details but this however super important because a lot of your task score depends on you
answering that question exactly addressing everything in that question directly so it
is important to think about this all right aubry take it away yeah this is interesting
i the first thing that came to mind imagine the test two question you know many people believe
that failure is helpful right um others believe that failure just causes problems discuss both
views and give your opinion if you try to answer this as an agree disagree and you just
agree that failure is good and don't really share the other side at all this will be a very low
task score it is vital when the question says discuss both views and give your opinion you
have to do an argument essay where you very fully address the one side in your first body paragraph
and then very fully address the other view the other side of the argument in that second body
paragraph and if you try to do an opinion essay if you try to just sort of agree with one side and
don't fully dive in to both sides separately you cannot score higher than five on your task score
yeah because you're missing out on a whole half of that question um here are the two mistakes
that students make with us they they look at um an agree or disagree question and so they
only talk about agreeing or they only talk about disagreeing or um they never give their opinion
right i think those are the two biggest mistakes students make with all of these actually
is only talking about one side or not giving their personal opinion at all because if you if
you approach an agree disagree question or discuss both sides question and you do discuss both sides
but you never say which side you are on that's still a five because you never gave your personal
opinion so those are the two biggest mistakes that students make with writing task two that keeps
that task scored a five and they're easy to make if you don't have advice from insiders like us
ally is english.com new ielts baby um so here's the long and short of it right um for all of these
questions agree disagree how to what extent how far or do you agree or disagree um discuss both
sides and give your opinion it's asking you to write the same type of essay okay an argument
essay four paragraphs don't think about it too much you don't have to we're telling you this is
what you do right introduction is paragraph one second paragraph you talk about that other side
right that you don't agree with third paragraph you talk about your opinion the side you do agree
with and then you have your conclusion bing bang boom that's the perfect way to talk about all of
those question types yes and one thing to keep in mind i think this is what throws students off
is that some of your topics right in the topic it says and share your opinion and some of them don't
but the instructions for task two all are going to say that it's required to share your opinion
but that's what's tricky is you guys know that sometimes it's said again in the topic sometimes
it's not you've got to remember that for every task too it's in the instructions it's a vital
that you share your opinion and very clearly share it in the introduction restate it again
when you share the side that you're agreeing with in your body paragraphs and then summarize it in
the conclusion or you cannot get seven or higher you can't even like you said you can't get higher
than a five if your opinion isn't clear exactly exactly um yeah this is why templates are so
useful templates designed by examiners right like us because um we know exactly what it takes to get
a seven or higher it's it's math that's all it is like we're looking at these scored numbers
what they mean and then we tell you how to meet those requirements nothing more nothing less
why learn things you don't have to why put things in there that don't raise your score you know i
why don't you do it waste time um you need every word and every minute to get that seven or higher
if that's what you're aiming for which you are so again this is why templates are so important guys
um so you know where to put your opinion where to put the one side where to put the other side
um okay so argument essay uh template answers both of those questions now if it just says give your
opinion if it's just an opinion essay um then you can just write about your side your opinion but
here is the the little niggly bit that sometimes can get overlooked if there are still two sides
mentioned in the question you still need to cover both of those things in your essay so again
an argument essay does just that guys okay so whenever you're unsure write an argument essay
exactly yep that you know you're going to get the highest scoring essay that way
right okay we have another question very related guys this was in our three keys facebook group
raheel gave us this question he said in agree and disagree questions ielts task two
although the question is not asking for my opinion or to discuss both sides can i completely agree
or completely disagree throughout the essay will discussing both sides hurt my score
now we definitely hit on this right because they're very related you're get you guys are
understanding like yes right argument essay is always the best option share both sides
the only thing to keep in mind here really is if you do decide to write an opinion essay
you can if it's agree disagree you ca if you can't think of a really good strong
reason or two for the other side you can of course write an opinion essay you have to have
a concession if you are totally unfamiliar with what that is we've done a few episodes about it
search concession on our blog alliersenglish.com to get a real deep dive into what does that mean
to share a concession this is giving one reason for the other side even if you don't think it's
a strong reason just to have covered both sides to have covered the entire topic otherwise the
examiner's gonna look at that and say we're not we're not covering the whole topic here and it's
still a five or a six right yeah exactly um at the end of the day you have to trust yourself and your
knowledge of the scoring system like at the most basic thing that you need to take away today guys
is um read that question carefully and you have to talk about everything mentioned in the question
if you're gonna get a seven or higher like that's it even if you're not quite sure
this template that template argument opinion blah blah blah you know what focus on the question okay
if you're addressing everything in there if you're giving your opinion then you're on your way to a
seven or higher right that's the first step and then to to level that up a bit to extend that into
an entire essay that's where we get into templates okay but like aubrey said we've talked about
various templates argument essays opinion essays so come back to aliasenglish.com
search argument essay search opinion essay you can get some other free lessons that we've done
there um and remember guys to subscribe or follow the allers english podcast um because
that's the other dangerous thing about these questions is what if you don't have any ideas
what if you don't what if you've never thought about this and you don't actually have an opinion
um we talk about culture and opinions about culture new society all the time over on all your
english so in the search bar guys wherever you're listening type in all there's english look for the
yellow and hit follow yes awesome i'm over there quite a bit lately so if you like me you'll like
that podcast so if you like this girl okay who has two thumbs and hosts all year's english not me
you okay guys if you're seeing this on video that's way funnier if it is funny i just want to
point out it's so funny you guys gotta check out the youtube video because jessica whenever you do
like you're counting one or two on your fingers most people do it here low like by their chin
you go up here like above your forehead maybe it's to make sure it's in the screen you're like
this first one i was thinking about the video i was like i have to you frame see
my my finger tattoos that's what it is i just want to show you my sweet sweet
knuckle tats anyway you guys gotta go check it out on youtube ielts energy tv baby i'm gonna
say that all day that's my catchphrase maybe okay guys uh see you on the next episode bye aubry bye
you