Hi! It's Asiya and today I want to dispel some dangerous myths about IELTS
Writing. In simple words I'm going to tell you about some ideas that many students
believe in which are actually incorrect. Some things you're going to hear
about in this video may surprise you and some advice may go against things you've
learned from other sources. But I want you to believe me; I've checked
everything I'm going to tell you many times. Ready? Let's get started!
myth number one I must not use personal pronouns such as I my you we our in
the task 2 essay and many many people believe they should not or even must not
use personal pronouns but that's actually incorrect if you have a look at
the IELTS official guide that's the book or the official IELTS practice
tests you'll find plenty of examples with personal pronouns or essays either
written by examiners or essays that achieved about 7 or a higher score with
personal pronouns so it's alright to use them I still think that your essay
looks more sophisticated more formal if you don't use them too much but if you
need a personal pronoun in order to express your idea
go for it so all that is about task - what about task 1 well if you're
taking IELTS general training you're writing a letter of course you're gonna
use personal pronouns if you take IELTS academic in task 1 you need to
write a report describing a chart table or diagram so you will not use personal
pronouns there but there will be no need for them either myth number two I must
not use examples from a personal experience in task 2 essays again that's
incorrect if you read the task it actually says include any relevant
examples from your own knowledge or experience it means you can include
things you know or things you've experienced yourself if that's not
enough you can open the official guide to IELTS page 120 and then you read you
can include examples from your own personal experience but these must be
relevant to the question of course you should only
include information that is relevant to the question but otherwise I hope that
was convincing enough myth number three I must use a linking word in each
sentence indeed you need to use linking words in your
essays these are words like however furthermore although despite and maybe
you need to use more linking words then you would do in your writing because
typically people under-use them but then when they start preparing for the
IELTS exam they learn they need to use linking words and they started inserting
them into each sentence but that looks wrong that looks fake remember that a
sign of a band 9 is if your linking is natural and
attracts no attention remember there are all the ways to link sentences you can
use pronouns you can refer to previous sentences for example in your sentence
while you are talking about global warming and then in the next sentence
you say this problem arose because and people know you're talking about the
global warming sentences are linked but there is no linking word and of course
you need to use formal linking words not just and but or and maybe you need to
learn some of them I have a separate video about synonyms for the most common
linking words which I'm gonna link here and in the video description box below
myth number four I should learn some big words and insert them in my essays to
get a higher score videos like ten words you need to learn to achieve a band
nine score or seven words you must use in every essay are extremely popular on
YouTube they seem to offer a solution which in reality doesn't work the truth
is when IELTS examiners assess your vocabulary they check if you know what
you use if you know the precise meaning of each word if you know
collocations or you combine words into phrases correctly and these are the things
that are going to bring you a higher score you should really concentrate on
learning how to use words correctly and I have many videos about IELTS vocabulary
but they all contain common words which you may not know yet not some extra
difficult words that native speakers don't use those are not gonna help you
honestly okay and we're going to continue talking about IELTS vocabulary
in the next myth I must not repeat any words in my essay
of course IELTS examines are going to check
how wide your vocabulary is and in order to get a band seven score you need to
show that you have a sufficient range of vocabulary and not repeating words helps
but it should be done wisely you need to distinguish between words you can replace
and words you can't if you're writing an essay about a school you should not say
a school and then a college and then a university because these are different
things but some words have many synonyms such as to increase to grow to rise so
you should use them you can also change forms of words for example you say
unemployment to employ to be employed even though the root of the word is the
same words look different so it's not a repeated word what I would say is always
use of the best word for the situation don't force paraphrasing and try not to
repeat whole phrases either within your essay and especially don't take whole
phrases from the question that's more important and have a separate video
about how you can achieve a band 8 score for your vocabulary I'm gonna link
it here and in the video description box below next long essays achieve a higher
score that's not necessarily true the task is to write at least
150 words in task 1 and 250 words in task 2 and if you write fewer words
you'll be penalized that's true but if you write long essays you're not
gonna automatically get a high score for them absolutely not
but the longer essays take more time to write when I say long essays I mean more
than 200 words in task 1 and more than 300 words in task 2 I would not write
more words than that unless you're a really fast writer and you're very
confident in English otherwise I think it's better to write essays which are
not that long and instead leave yourself some time to check your essays and make
sure you don't have any silly mistakes in them
here is another myth if I can't achieve the score I need I should prepare for
the IELTS exam even more many people take the IELTS exam time and time again
and they still can't achieve the score they need and the truth is there is only
that much you can do in order to prepare for the IELTS exam once you know all the
strategies you know how to fulfill all the requirements you take the exam
don't achieve the score okay you retake the exam if you don't
achieve the score again then probably your English skills are not up to the level
yet and I would suggest leaving the IELTS exam on the side and taking an
intensive English course work on your grammar learn new words learn
collocations listen to different accents read articles and in a few months of
such preparation you'll be able to achieve the score you need next I need
to write long and highly complex sentences in order to get a band 7 score
it's true that IELTS examiners are looking to see complex and compound
sentences in your essay you can't get a high score with only simple sentences
but you need those even to achieve a band six score and a complex sentence is
a certain type of sentence in English language and IELTS examiners are looking
for a much wider range of grammar they check if you use different verb tenses and you
use them correctly if you use modal verbs and gerunds
and even for sentences they are looking for a range of different sentences in
your essay and I have a video about six types of sentences you can use to
achieve a band 8 score for grammar and all those sentences are not very long
and not too complicated either I will link the video on the screen if
you'd like to watch it and all other videos I have mentioned in this video
will be linked in the video description box below thank you so much for watching
me today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye