IELTS Writing Task 2 - Super Strategy! with Alex

Hello, everyone, my name is Alex and I'm one of the expert IELTS teachers here at e2, language welcome to our first ever on-demand class. In this session, I'm going to be showing you the writing tasks to that. You voted for in our Facebook and Instagram polls. I'M gon na walk you step-by-step through planning and writing a high-level essay we're going to review the marking criteria if you're aiming at above 6.5. I'Ve got some important information for you and at the end, of course, I'm going to work on editing and some error correction. So, let's get started, I'm going to take you through four simple steps to plan and write this essay and step one. It'S a really simple one. We are going to read the question carefully. We always have the same instructions here they are. You should spend about 40 minutes on this task, write about the following topic, and here is the topic that you voted for. Nowadays, people waste a lot of food that was bought from shops and restaurants. Why do you think people waste food? What can be done to reduce the amount of food they throw away and underneath this is the instructions that come with every task, to give reasons, for your answer include relevant examples from your knowledge experience, write 250 words now you'll notice, here that there are actually two Questions one two and this makes it really easy when it comes to planning, because we've got two distinct questions, so this is step two we're gon na plan, our four paragraphs. We always have the introduction and the conclusion and body one and two: we need to generate ideas for these by the way guys our YouTube videos are just a tiny part of what we do here at e2 language. So, if you're after more personal feedback, particularly for your writing, then make sure you check us out, we are 100 % online, so you can study whenever you want, wherever you want, submit work for feedback. Take a one-on-one tutorial, join our live interactive classes, catch up with recorded classes anytime that you, like so just put the work in now so that you can conquer your IELTS and get on with the rest of your life. Isn'T that what it's all about? So, let's get back to planning the essay for today. Here are two questions, and you can see here that we've basic got a cause and solution. Si I'm gon na start with the first question: why do you think people waste food now when it comes to generating ideas for your essay? Sometimes it helps to start from a really personal point of view so think about. When was the last time that you wasted food or you left some food in a restaurant, why did you do it and build your essay from that personal standpoint? So for me, I think that people tend to waste their food, basically because they have more money, which means that they're not so concerned about wasting it so losing a few dollars here, and there doesn't really make a difference. Some people, some lucky people - might know $ 2,000 disposable income for the month, much more than in the past. So a little bit of that on wasted food doesn't really impact them. The other factor is the modern throwaway culture. This is kind of the idea that everything is disposable, so people would chuck out a TV, the washing machine computers, so wasting food is just a symptom of this mindset, so you can see here for this question. I'Ve got two distinct ideas, so I'm gon na put these into a double idea: paragraph basically I'll, stick a topic sentence on the top and then develop each of those two points. So, let's move on to the second question: what can be done to reduce the amount? We throw away here we're dealing with solutions, but the question doesn't explicitly ask me for solutions, there's no plural in this question, which means that I can use a double idea, paragraph if I have two solutions or just one. If I have one solution - and in fact I can just think of one thing - which is this - the public's mindset needs to change. So how do we do this? How do we change the public mindset? Well, education campaigns and awareness raising a couple of ideas. Can I give an example or evidence of this? Yes, I can, for example, in Australia, the ABCs war on waste project, which was a TV show podcast. The website did a really good job to raise people's awareness and bring about some drastic change. So all of this can help to teach people practical ways to reduce the food that they waste. Here is a single idea, paragraph now, in the real test. Your plan might be much simpler, much shorter than that. It may only take a minute to generate those ideas, but, as you prepare for the test, investing time in a plan is a really good idea. It helps you it'll help, make life easier on test day, so we're on to step three now, probably the most important one. Let'S write, here's our topic again, just to refresh your memory and we're gon na get started with the introduction. Now, generally, we follow the same pattern for the introduction and it always begins with a neutral background sentence just setting the scene. He is mine in some parts of the world, food is still highly valued next sentence and reword the question in urban areas, however, particularly in the developed world, food waste, is becoming a major concern, so we're really zooming in on the actual question the actual task here, The problem of food waste and last segments of the intro we're gon na tell the reader the main idea of the body. This says they will examine the causes of this problem. It'S just ways that people can curb the amount they discard. Next up is body 1. So I've got my plan in mind. If I'm in the tests, I've got the plan in front of me. I need to start with the topic sentence. https://sourceforge.net/p/instagramstalker/blog/2021/08/instagram-stalker/ is a double idea, paragraph. So check these guys out lets the reader know that two things are coming. Two main factors are behind the rise in food waste, the first one. The first is of rising incomes of the population, which has meant higher disposable incomes and then my reason or examples or evidence my extension, in other words, whereas 50 years ago the average family had around 50 dollars per month to spend on food and entertainment. Now the figure is more like two thousand, and so the idea of buying something and not consuming it is remarkable on to my second point. The second factor linked to the first is the modern throwaway culture in which all products are treated as disposable and the extension of this idea, since it is not uncommon to find valuable household items thrown in the bin. It is also unsurprising to see half the family's grocery beamed without concern. This is a really strong paragraph and I want to draw your attention to what makes it a good paragraph and also some of the dangers, some of the reasons why you might be scoring six or six point five. So this is the marking criteria for writing. Task. 2 and in IELTS writing everything comes down to this criteria, so your work is marked by an examiner and they actually give you four separate scores, one for a task response, one for coherence, cohesion. This is linking a paragraphing one for lexical resource or vocabulary, and grammatical range and accuracy range and accuracy now down the left. You can see the scores bear, nine is the top expert user, and actually it goes right down to zero, but for this today I've just gone to bed. For now, let's say you score Ben seven in task response: seven in coherence, cohesion, seven in vocabulary, but up six in grammatical range and accuracy. You know, unfortunately, this will bring your score down to six point: five, which is a place --. A lot of people get stuck, so I want to look at this criterion. The grammatical range and accuracy criterion and just show you a couple of things to be careful with. If we zoom in here on band seven, the first bullet point says uses a variety of complex structures. This is really important variety of complex structures, and we can contrast this with and four which says: users only a very limited range of structures, with rare use of subordinate clauses, rare use of subordinate clauses and what is a subordinate clause? The big word. Basically, it's two things: either clauses with subordinate conjunctions. What is that it's worth like, although as when, while and it could be sentences or clauses with relative pronouns like who, which that, when let me show you a list of some subordinating conjunctions, so they're, actually pretty common words? You'Re, probably very familiar with these, like, although since when, while and it's important that you get these words into your writing in order to score above, been for and hopefully up at band seven. So here's my paragraph again and let me just highlight some of the complex structures here got which, whereas the subordinating conjunction linked to the first, this is a reduced relative clause in which, and since so all of this makes my writing more complex. And it's very important. In order to score above six or six point, five in grammar, let's go on to writing body two now so on to the solutions topic sentence. As always, tackling this issue involves altering the public's mindset. The rest of my paragraph is just supporting this and explaining how and with an example, so this needs to happen via awareness-raising campaigns. The ABC, for instance, launched one such initiative with the war on waste TV series and website in 2016, which relative pronoun presented troubling facts on the effects of our consumption and waste. Given the profound impact of this series on the Australian public, it would be worth expanding. It on a global scale, so we should go worldwide with such campaigns. In addition to warning people about the environmental impact of food wastage, such projects could also educate them better. On practical matters such as shopping, smarter historian, feed correctly. So, let's have a look at another criterion in another place where people often drop down to a band six from a band. Seven I'll show you how to beware of that. So I'm looking here at coherence and cohesion, the second column and if we zoom in here at band six you'll, see uses cohesive devices effectively, but cohesion with the nm between sentences made it faulty or mechanical linking may be faulty or mechanical. So what does that mean? Well, a faulty linker is when you're using a linking word like, although, however, while and the grammar around it is not right, this is a faulty linker. It will cost you and seven causing band six. What is the mechanical linker? This is something that we talk about. Quite often in our live classes so make sure you come along and learn what they are and how to avoid them. If we look down here now - and five we've also got linking problems now says too many, not enough or incorrect linker. So, are you over using Linkens? Are you overusing the word and or Bart or so are you using incorrect linkers? Are you using not enough link? It'S all of these things can drop your score down to band five. Another thing in band five is the word repetitive. Maybe repetitive because of lack of referencing and substitution. So if you find, as you've read, you've got the same word over and over and over. Yes, it's a vocabulary problem, but it's probably more of a coherence, cohesion problem. You need to use references, so let me show you my paragraph again and I'll point out some of the cohesive devices and the linkers I've got, for instance, given in addition to also such as so notice, they're, not too many, and they are not mechanical. They are not robotic referencing now referencing, so important, tiny little words, but they are like the glue that holds your essay together and you can see quite a lot of them. This issue this one such initiative, this series it such projects and them these little words - make all the difference they make this paragraph they make this essay flow really smoothly. So this brings us to the conclusion conclusion: pretty simple: we just go for two or three sentences. The first one broad statement about the topic - and I always start with in conclusion. In conclusion, and less efforts are made to shift the public consciousness, this problem will only escalate and a summary, while governments have a critical role to play, individuals to need to take responsibility for their shopping habits in order to cut down on wasted food, and that's it At the end of the essay, but there is one final step: one really critical step. It is time to edit. Now, obviously I have written this essay, I'm pretty confident it's perfect. So I'm gon na give you a challenge here. I'M gon na show you the full essay, but I've added eight mistakes and your job is to find those eight mistakes and correct them, and this is the process you should do with your own work when you finish, writing go back to the beginning and tell yourself There must be a mistake in here that I'm gon na find and I'm gon na fix, reducing your errors can lift your score. So here's the full essay please take two minutes to read through and find eight errors, either spelling errors or grammar errors. Good luck! So how did you go? Did you find all eight errors? Let'S have a look here. Is the error highlighted and here are the corrections becoming a major concern missing article two main factors: disposable incomes, not disposal items thrown in the bin? This issue involves subject, verb agreement problem. It would be worth expanding, educate them and, lastly, a spelling error that should be government's with them n I. So this is what our full sample essay looks like. Let'S review the four steps we went through to write it number one read the question or the questions carefully, step to plan your full paragraphs and think about whether you're writing, single or double idea. Once step three write, as you write, make sure you're getting in complex structures, subordinating clauses relative clauses and be careful with your linking and referencing to make your writing flow step 4 edit carefully. So guys, thanks for joining me today, and I look forward to seeing you at a two language, comm in a live class or one-on-one tutorial, make sure you check us out and get on top of your IELTS preparation. Thanks for watching you, [ Music ]