hi there my name is Emma and in today's
video I'm going to teach you something
very important for if you're taking any
type of test that has a writing
component so if you are taking the IELTS
the TOEFL the cell pip even just a
university test it can be any type of
test but if you're asked to write
something like an essay or a paragraph
this video is for you
okay so I'm going to teach you a very
important skill that will help improve
your marks when it comes to writing on
tests so let's get started so I have
here an essay question this question is
actually I've seen it on the IELTS you
know you have similar types of questions
on the TOEFL sometimes in university the
question is this education is the single
most important factor in the development
of a country do you agree or disagree or
maybe to what extent do you agree or
disagree so this is an example of a
question you might be asked now a
problem a lot of students have is in
their answer to this question they see
this and they think okay education is
the most important factor in the
development of a country yes I agree so
then they or I disagree and they start
writing and what do they write usually
the very first thing students will write
is this I agree that education is the
single most important factor in the
development of a country because so what
is the problem with this is there any
problem to start off your essay with
something like this or to start off your
answer there's a big problem so I want
you to take a moment and think what
could be the problem with starting your
essay off with this sentence okay well
if you noticed you have here the word
education education is is the single
most important most important factor if
you notice these are the same they're
the exact same except for I agree that
and because
the student here has used the exact same
wording that is in the question so if
you do this on the IELTS and many
students do this same with on the TOEFL
you actually will lose marks and same
with in university because you're not
showing your abilities you're just
copying what somebody else has said or
what the essay question is so in this
video I'm going to show you first off
first off I'm going to tell you don't do
this don't copy and I'm going to teach
you ways in order to improve yourself
and your answer by changing this wording
how can you change your introduction so
it's different than what the question is
okay so let's look at how to make these
changes okay so what we are going to do
in order to change the question into a
proper answer that doesn't just copy the
question is we are going to paraphrase
so the word here is paraphrase this
might be a new word for you what does it
mean to paraphrase something well when
we paraphrase it means we take a
sentence but you know we take somebody's
else's sentence and we change it into
our own words okay so we change the
words of a sentence
we also change maybe the sentence
structure but we keep all the same
meaning okay so the meaning from the
sentence you copy it stays the same same
meaning but different words and
different sentence structure okay so
it's in your words but this other
person's meaning so we are going to
paraphrase this example of a question
into our own words and so first we're
going to look at how to do that using
vocabulary and synonyms so we have here
the same question education is the
single most important factor in the
development of a country how can we put
this into new words or our own words
that keep the same meaning well we can
use synonyms so this might be a new word
for you too a synonym
synonyms are words that have the same
meaning but are different words so for
example big and large they have the same
meaning
just like huge enormous these are
synonyms of each other same meaning but
they're different words so you need to
use different synonyms so you don't just
copy these words you use synonyms to
have words that have the same meaning
but are different words so let's look at
an example our first word here is
education what's another word we can use
instead of instead of education well
there's different words we can use maybe
one could be schooling okay so we could
change this word to schooling schooling
is the single most important factor in
the development of a country what's
another word we can change
well maybe most important instead of
using the word most important maybe we
could use most significant or most
essential okay so essential significant
there are many words you can use but the
point here is find a word that has the
same meaning but is a different word
okay here's another word factor can you
think of another word for factor well
sometimes factor it can be an aspect or
an element okay
you can even say sometimes a significant
role okay or a part so there's different
words we can use that have similar
meanings in terms of the word
development we can change the word
development to advancement a progression
evolution okay and in terms of the word
country another word for country is
nation okay so these are all synonyms
and this is what you want to do when you
look at the question think about some
new words you can use that have the same
meaning this is also important
throughout your essay because one
problem a lot of students have is they
keep using this
same word again and again and again in
every sentence this does not help you
with your marks it's better to use
different words that have the same
meaning at the same time you have to be
careful here because some students they
find a new word they think it's a great
word but there is a little bit of a
difference in meaning so you need to be
really comfortable with the words you
choose and you need to know what it
actually means so it doesn't sound
strange ok so if we wanted to change
this now instead of saying education is
the single most important factor in the
development of a country our paraphrase
our first step in our paraphrase could
be changing these words to schooling is
the single most significant element in
the advancement of a nation ok so that's
just one example so now let's look at
another thing you can do in order to
paraphrase the question on a test or
exam ok another way we can paraphrase is
by changing the structure of the
sentence so for example you might have a
verb and you know which is an action and
you might change that into its noun form
so for example if your verb is
developing you might change that into
development you might change similarly a
noun into a verb ok so for example we
just said development is the noun it can
turn into develop or developing you can
also change things into adjectives so if
for example you're talking about
technology which is a noun you could
change this into the adjective form
which is technological so changing the
form of the word can help you with
paraphrasing also changing the placement
of the words can help you out so for
example in our original sentence or the
question was education is the single
most important factor in the development
of a country so I've now changed some of
the wording as well as the order
okay so here education is at the
beginning in my sentence the most
essential element of a nation's
development is education I've changed
the order of the sentence so now
education is at the end instead of at
the beginning I've also started out with
the most essential as my beginning
whereas here it was in the middle
you'll also notice we have here in the
development of a country I've changed
this to nations development I can also
also change this to countries
development instead of the development
of a country so changing the order of
the sentence and changing some of the
structures can really help you in terms
of paraphrasing now let's learn one
other way in which we can improve our
marks by paraphrasing okay so the last
tip I have about paraphrasing a question
is using concessions so what is a
confession well I want you to look at
what the question actually says and my
new answer to it the question again same
question as before education is the
single most important factor in the
development of a country my answer okay
so I've changed some words and I've also
changed the structure of it but there's
one other thing I've added although many
would argue that the economy is the most
important factor in nation-building I
think education has a far greater impact
so what I've done here is I've added a
concession a concession is where you say
what the opposite opinion is and then
you say what your opinion is so you're
giving two opinions you're giving your
opinion and also what other people might
think this is a great thing to do
especially in essays and this is
something you can do at the beginning of
your answer so we use here the key word
although ok and you'll notice that this
has two clauses
I don't want to get too technical with
grammar on you today but what I mean is
if you see we have the red part although
many would argue that the economy is the
most important factor in nation-building
and then we have a second part so we
have two parts to this sentence I think
education has a far greater impact so
the first part of the sentence is in red
and it's the although part and the
second part of the sentence is in purple
okay and that's I think education has a
far greater impact and there's separated
by a comma so a concession has two parts
to it you say what the other people
think first in this case although many
many meaning people we could also say
many people although many would argue
that the economy is the most important
factor in nation-building okay so this
is what some people would say now I'm
going to say what I think I think
education has a far greater impact so
why is this a good idea well one reason
is because when you write a concession
when you're showing what the opposite
opinion of yours is you're showing that
you've thought about the issue okay
you're looking at both sides you're not
just looking at your opinion you're
looking at both sides and then you're
you're making a judgement so this shows
that you're thinking about the question
and you're really giving it some thought
and by representing both sides you're
really showing critical thinking so this
is a very good idea to do okay so the
three things we've talked about today in
terms of paraphrasing the question is
changing the words using synonyms we've
talked about changing the sentence
structure and we've also talked about
adding the other perspective using
concessions okay so these are three
things you can do in order to change the
question so you're not just copying what
is on your test paper again great thing
to do if you're writing a high school
University essay TOEFL IELTS cell pip
all of these things this skill will
really come in handy for you now you
might be wondering okay this was great
but I don't know any synonyms or I you
know I don't know much about this well
what you can do is you can come check
out our website at WWE video you can
find a lot of other resources including
improving your vocabulary we even have a
video on how to make concessions you
know we have videos on sentence
structure too so there's a lot of videos
you can check out and a lot of resources
you can also come visit our website
where you will find a quiz and by taking
that quiz you can actually practice your
paraphrasing skills so you can see you
know am I doing this right is this you
know is this the right way to do this
and get more practice so I hope you've
enjoyed this video and until next time
take care