IELTS band 9 writing sample body paragraphs this video is a complete and full analysis
of a body paragraph from a sample essay band 9 quality zero grammatical errors and zero
spelling mistakes and all of the language has been upgraded so we're using more sophisticated
less common vocabulary and we've paid a lot of attention to cohesion and coherence and
task achievement what we're going to do in this video is we're going to analyze the paragraph
analyze the question analyze the body paragraph but we're going to analyze it alongside the
official band 9 band descriptors so this way you can get a complete understanding of what's
required of your writing and hopefully you'll learn how to upgrade your writing skills now
this type of upgrading and these types of techniques that we’re using in this body
paragraph can be learned I teach them on the online course I have at ieltspodcast.com let's
jump into it straightaway and let's have a look of course we're going to look at the
question first so we have this wonderful question by the way this is a recent question I feel
like Donald Trump when I do this anyway this is a recent question and it's one that's been
seen on a recent exam paper so as you can see we have this wonderful copy of the band
descriptors this is a copy of the official one I just have to copy/paste it into a Google
Doc instead of using the PDF because the PDF would have trade marks on that I'm not allowed
to use anyway let's jump into it so task achievement cohesion and coherence lexical resource grammatical
range and accuracy these are all the four criteria that the examiner is going to use
to review your IELTS essay so we have the question we start off with a question and
what I always do and which I teach as well is to cut this question up and allocate a
paragraph to certain parts of the question and then we're going to construct that paragraph
in accordance to what's required from the question so it might say in this case discuss
both views and give your opinion so I'm going to allocate one view to one paragraph because
it's just easier one paragraph it says both views two paragraphs one and two both then
I'll probably finish with my opinion in the conclusion so let's get to it in this question
I decided to allocate one paragraph to women are equal okay I simplified it I got rid of
the nuance I simplified it down women are equal they should definitely serve in the
army and the police okay so I've got the idea now I've got my direction my argument I've
got my argument and my position now I'm going to back it up so as you can see here we've
got the paragraph I'm not going to focus on this but if you pause the video you can see
where I've upgraded the language and I've tried to make it more sophisticated using
more advanced structures we'll go into this in more detail later and using more yeah just
less common vocabulary or grammatical constructions so this is what I wanted to show you so we've
got task achievement I've highlighted it in purple here and obviously we can't fully satisfy
all the requirements of the task with just one body paragraph we need two body paragraphs
the introduction and the conclusion however we can develop a full-developed response which
is what I have done and I've tried to indicate where that fully-developed response is within
the essay or within the body paragraph specifically so let's have a look the question the task
achievement is very strongly related to the question obviously so let's analyze the question
first in some countries people think women should have equality with men in particular
equal rights to work as police officers or serve in the army this is entirely body paragraph
1 okay that's why I have left the rest as red for the time being now if we look through
this essay through this paragraph perhaps you want to read it countless women throughout
history have served pivotal roles in the shaping of societies whether…
good structure women should enjoy equal rights as men in this day and age is therefore a
rather redundant question here it's kind of a little bit aggressive but I'm taking a strong
position I'm just basically saying that this is redundant there's nothing no harm in doing
this it just shows a bit of character and it shows possibly a little bit of aggression
but I'm strong I just feel strongly about this so by making that by saying that that
question is redundant it's silly it's not necessary you can clearly infer that I'm not
in agreement with it so this is my response this is my part of my developed response and
it's clear now the yellow bits although traditionally okay roles such as security such as security
or positions necessitating aggression have often gone to men there is no scientific literature
or precedent stating women are less capable so you can see I'm talking although traditionally
the roles okay which is what we're talking about we're talking roles such as police officers
or serving in the army these are roles traditionally they have gone to men also you can see here
that it does say men and you can see as well in the earlier sentence I put whether women
should enjoy equal rights and there in the question it says in particular equal rights
so ideally I would use synonyms but it's not always possible to use synonyms because sometimes
they're just not there for example with women there's only so many ways you can say women
and likewise with equal rights you could say equality I think I've used that later on I've
definitely used it later on in the second paragraph but not always is there a vast list
of alternatives so just bear that in mind don't go emptying your brain and stressing
over it use the first one that comes to mind and only use it if you're confident if you're
writing essays and getting feedback by the way which is a service you can get at my site
that's the time to experiment experiment when you're getting your essays reviewed by an
expert essay corrector but don't experiment in the exam so as you can see all the parts
in yellow refer to the fully-developed response also refer back to the question because I'm
keeping on topic the green bit I'm talking about Peru it's talking about countries also
it says in the question should have equality with men and then here one way I managed to
say the same was difference between genders okay this just helps with lexical resource
but I’m keeping on topic I'm not using I'm trying to avoid using words directly from
the question but I'm keeping on topic also I'm using female soldiers so it's all related
to the question there's no way that I'm going off topic so task achievement is definitely
going to be answered there perhaps I could go into more detail about countries but nevertheless
that's very much on topic perhaps in the body second body paragraph I’d go into more detail
about countries just to make sure now let's move on to cohesion and coherence before we
get there it's important to look at the criteria okay uses cohesion in such a way that it attracts
no attention this is for a band 9 so it's difficult to actually see the connection especially
in a band 9 essay and also it says skillfully manages paragraphing so let's see uses cohesion
so served pivotal roles in the shaping of society what I did here sorry is all the parts
in orange refer to the parts or the fragments of the paragraph that are pulling it together
okay it's not the easiest thing to explain at this level at a band 9 level but the highlighted
parts are referring to other parts in the paragraph or in the essay so you can see here
have served pivotal roles in the shaping of societies pivotal roles refers back to these
kinds of roles in the army in the police and that's what I'm referring back to and I would
probably mention this in the introduction as well so you can see that this refers to
a point in the introduction and this is why it's coherent because there's the same thread
there's the same line of argument and topic going all the way through and it's going to
be not the same position but it's going to be on the same topic all the way through the
essay this is what makes it coherent and cohesive now then here we say therefore is a return
to the question so I'm referring back to the question which is also like we said the task
achievement but I’m keeping it compact in one kind of like line of thought also I'm
talking about traditional roles here perhaps that should have been highlighted as well
because we're talking about police officers we’re talking about the pivotal roles also
we got a tiny little bit of repetition there now also we're going to talk about scientific
literature stating that women are less capable okay which is what we've been referring to
before when I said they should enjoy equal rights whether women should enjoy equal rights
is a redundant question and then I'm saying that there's no scientific literature stating
that women are less capable so there is a connection there it's not obvious and that's
why it doesn't attract attention hopefully you'll be able to see the link here and then
we go further here we're talking about less capable and then we're talking about physically
weaker so again there is that link between different sentences and it's like the glue
of the invisible thread that's going through all the words just keeping the essay tight
and together now from physically weaker I move on to strength difference and therefore
strength difference I talk about that it can be negated through sports and then I'm talking
about that exact sports routine or training program I think I changed it to regime later
anyway I know it's there so anyway and then I'm going back to strength so hopefully you'll
be able to see here that there is a thread running through it and it all keeps together
okay and then at the end here I’m talking about thorough preparation which is what I'm
talking about here and then suitable for some positions which is what I talked about at
the beginning so you can see that it all ties in together to make a very coherent paragraph
now let's move on to lexical resource I personally think lexical resource is perhaps the easiest
one to focus if you're looking to boost your score and the reason for this is because there's
less risk involved with changing certain vocabulary terms whereas if you're experimenting or risking
changing things with the grammar structure it can have serious implications to the meaning
of the sentence and to whether you understand -- whether the reader understands it entirely
so let's move on lexical resource uses a wide range of vocabulary very natural and sophisticated
control of lexical features rare minor errors occur only as slips but there's no slips here
there's no errors and there is this I would say there’s definitely a sophisticated control
how many times did you hear pivotal last week not that many enjoy equal rights here we do
have equal rights here but instead of using should have equal rights I put should enjoy
equal rights it's more sophisticated also I’ve used rather redundant instead of a
very redundant question I said it's a rather redundant question so upgrading it that's
probably more for grammatical range and accuracy actually also I changed instead of needing
aggression I put necessitating aggression it means something very similar but I'm upgrading
it now the easiest way I think to upgrade your vocabulary is to use TSV something that
I've explained a lot about in other videos and I go into it in quite detail in the online
course I have at IELTS podcast but I'll just give you an example here so here we're talking
about equal rights so I'm talking about gender equality I’m talking about where is it the
difference between genders so I’m not constantly repeating equal rights or equality which are
terms from the question I've managed to find alternatives also I go on to talk about sports
and the army so obviously if I'm talking about the army I could have used instead in the
Peruvian military instead of using army okay that would be one way I could have improved
it also I’ve used soldiers which is topic specific to the topic of army also because
I'm going into sports I’ve use sports regimes yeah ruthless endurance program and also I’ve
used counterparts okay so instead of talking about genders or repeating the term genders
or equal rights between men and women I’ve used the male counterparts which basically
means like they are colleagues yeah they are colleagues or competitors just basically the
people next to them not the best description but you get the idea so yeah so these are
instances all the green highlighted parts are instances of band 9 vocabulary and especially
topic-specific vocabulary or better said sophisticated and accurately used vocabulary so there's
an extensive lexical resource there now moving on finally to grammatical range and accuracy
this is perhaps in my opinion the most challenging and also the most important and I'm saying
this is the most important because if your grammar is messed up there's no way that the
examiner is going to be able to understand your essay and determine if you've actually
fulfilled the task required so this is why it's fundamental that you get your grammar
under control and I'll go into this in a little bit in a second but you can see here that
the blue parts are where I’ve identified more advanced vocabulary unlike the other
one there's no slips and there's no errors so here I've used whether instead of if here
I’ve said pivotal roles in the shaping of societies okay I think also I'm using structures
such as whereby okay so we're just using these different structures to boost our score and
it's not the same grammar structures throughout the paragraph there's a wider range here I'm
starting with the gerund returning to the question posed it is now possible to state
that women so by the way that's a useful copy/paste sentence okay returning to the question posed
it is now possible to state that whatever anyway so I think the best way to show this
would be to go right to the top where I actually went through and I've modified it so instead
of saying have equality I put enjoy equal rights as men okay enjoy equal rights as men
in this day and age instead of have equality with men in this day and age is therefore
a rather redundant question okay traditional roles like security or positions although
traditionally roles such as security or positions necessitating aggression have often gone to
men there's no scientific literature where is it now okay so yeah it's just improving
the – it’s looking for opportunities to improve your structures there and introduce
more variety so let's just go back here and grammar like I said before is very important
because if we cannot understand the sentence that you’ve written then I can't tell if
you've actually answered the question because it's unclear a good analogy would be the difference
between running and walking through a lake a shallow lake okay if you're walking like
this it is difficult to get anywhere you have to go back you have to reread and also can
I even tell if it's coherent or not and then if the grammar’s messed up as well I can't
really get the idea of the sentence it makes it more difficult to get the idea of the sentence
which makes it probably more difficult to understand if you've actually used the right
vocabulary because I can't even get the idea right in the first place so this is why it's
very important to get feedback on your essay now if I were you I'd try and find well I'll
send a link where you've got this sentence and I'll put a link to the band descriptors
as well and it's useful to go through learn how to self-correct your own essay and I think
the best way to do that is to start -- I've got a few videos about correcting your own
essays it's a good skill to develop but also I think the fastest way to improve is to start
getting feedback so thank you very much for watching if you’re struggling with IELTS
you don't have to struggle there's lots of resources online and there's my site you can
get feedback you can get the online course there's lots of material out there to help
you and if you’re just at the beginning of this journey perhaps you might just want
to sign up for the IELTS materials that are free at ieltspodcast.com okay have a fantastic
day and chin up as we say in the UK chin up means chin up don't keep your head down you'll
get through this