Academic writing practice for ielts

ACADEMIC WRITING PRACTICE FOR IELTS

"Published by IntelliGene"

"All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, taping, photocopying, recording, web distribution, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author."

"This edition is published in Vietnam under a copyright transfer Agreement between Author Sam McCarter, UK and Nhan Tri Viet Co., Ltd. Vietnam in 2006. This edition is for sales in Vietnam only and may not be bought for export there from."

Tác giả Sam McCarter giữ bản quyền

Không phần nào trong xuất bản phẩm này được phép sao chép, lưu giữ hoặc đưa vào hệ thống truy cập, hoặc được truyền tải, dưới bất kỳ hình thức nào hay bằng bất kỳ phương tiện nào, điện tử, cơ học, ghi âm, sao chụp, thu hình, phân phát trên mạng, hoặc các hình thức khác, mà không có sự cho phép trước bằng văn bản của tác giả.

Ấn bản này được xuất bản tại Việt Nam theo hợp đồng chuyển nhượng bản quyền giữa Tác giả Sam McCarter, Anh Quốc và Công ty TNHH Nhân Trí Việt, Việt Nam vào năm 2006. Ấn bản này chỉ được bán tại Việt Nam và không được phép xuất khẩu.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the following colleagues and friends for their help and support during the writing and production of this publication:

Micky Silver, Roger Townsend and Maureen Sorrel.

I would also like to thank the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) for the permission to reproduce the writing answer sheet in the Appendix.

I would also like to say a very special thank you to Drs Gill and Bruce Haddock for their support and forbearance.

About the author

sam McCarter is co-author of A book for IELTS and IELTS Reading Tests, the author of a book on writing, BPP English for PLAB and Nuffield Stress Tests for PLAB. He has also co-authored several other publications and edited a range of health publications.

Sam is a lecturer in academic and medical English at Southwark College, where he organises IELTS courses for overseas doctors and other health personnel, and courses in medical English, including preparation for the OSCE component of the PLAB. He is also the creator and organiser of the Nuffield Self-access Language Project for Overseas Doctors and is a freelance consultant in medical English, specialising in tropical medicine.

Future Publications by IntelliGene

IntelliGene will be publishing a major book on communication skills in medicine by Sam McCarter.

This book is for students preparing for the Writing Test in the Academic Module of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), which is administered by the British Council, the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) and IELTS Australia.

The book is aimed at those candidates aiming to achieve a Band Score of 6 or more in the Academic Writing component in IELTS. The book contains six sections: Section 1: Writing Practice for Task 1; Section 2: Writing Practice for Task 2; Section 3: Checking and Editing; Section 4: Practice Writing Tests; a Key; and an Appendix.

All the graphs and the texts in this publication have been created by the author with the exception of the drawings in Section 1 Exercise 20.

The spelling in the book is British English.

All of the names in the publication are fictitious.

The book may be used as a supplement to A Book for IELTS by McCarter, Easton & Ash, IELTS Reading Tests by McCarter & Ash, a book on writing by Sam McCarter, or as a supplement to a course book, or for self-study.

So that you may repeat the exercises in this book, I would advise you to avoid marking the text.

Sam McCarter

Introduction

The IELTS Academic Writing Section

The academic writing test in the IELTS exam lasts for 60 minutes.

The writing test contains two compulsory tasks, namely Task 1 and Task 2. In Task 1, you are asked to describe graphs, bar charts, pie charts and diagrams and in Task 2, you are given an essay title on a fairly general subject.

Task 1 assesses your ability to analyse data objectively without giving an opinion, whereas Task 2 usually requires a subjective piece of writing on a fairly general topic. In addition, it is worth noting that the exam is not testing - knowledge of English language, but rather competence in using English. In other words, it is not testing memory. Awareness of this might help reduce some of the problems that many candidates have in the IELTS exam.

Word length and timing

In the exam, the minimum word limit for Task 1 is 150 words and you are advised to spend 20 minutes on this part of the test. For Task 2, the minimum word limit is 250 words, on which you are advised to spend 40 minutes. In both Tasks, there is no upper word limit.

Candidates frequently exceed the minimum amounts by a very wide margin, which creates several problems. Rather than concentrating on producing a good essay, candidates write beyond what is necessary, thinking that they will gain extra marks by writing more. This is usually not the case.

It is very important that you aim for the respective word limits, and perhaps write just a little more. You could write between 150 and 180 words for Task 1 and 250 and 300 for Task 2. While practising for the IELTS exam, count the number of words you write per line and then work out how many lines you need to reach the 150/250 word limit. It may surprise you how little you have to write! You could draw a line to mark the word limits when you are writing your homework. This will help train you to keep to the limits and help you to focus on where you are going and what you are aiming for.

One important reason for writing just a little more than the word limit is to give yourself enough time to check your work for mistakes.

Task 1 or Task 2 first? Students frequently ask whether they should do Task 1 first or Task 2. This obviously depends on the individual. It is probably wise, however, to do the shorter task first as then you have the satisfaction of having completed one task.

Note that the value of the marks given to each Task is reflected in the time. Task 2 carries twice the number of marks as Task 1.

Note also that you cannot go below the word limits as this will probably affect your score band.

The aim of this book is to help make students flexible and competent in their writing so that they can write on any subject in the exam. There are many texts in the book, both essays and paragraphs, but rather than learn these by heart it is better if you can learn the mechanisms, so you can apply them in any situation.

Section 1 contains 20 practice exercises for Task 1, which aims to make you more flexible when you are writing under pressure. Section 2 contains 25 exercises aimed at increasing your flexibility in writing for Task 2, focusing first on connections within the sentence, then between sentences and then in a paragraph. Section 3 contains a number of exercises on checking and editing. These are skills often neglected by candidates in the exam. Of the 20 minutes for Task 1 and the 40 minutes for Task 2, you should leave yourself two or three minutes in each task to check and edit your work. This is one reason why you should not write above 150/250 words.

The fourth section contains 10 practice writing tests, some of which have sample answers in the Key. In some cases, there are several sample answers for a task with different possible scores.

The last section contains the Key and the Appendix contains an example of the answer sheet which is used in the exam.

Many students preparing for the IELTS examination learn model or sample answers by heart. They then go into the exam and either reproduce these answers, usually with lots of mistakes, or they try to fit them into their essays. Some students learn, for example, a model about technology and then try to fit it into a similar, but different question in the exam or do not even bother to try to fit it in, they just regurgitate it. Unfortunately, with the mistakes and the fact that the answer does not quite fit, candidates end up with a score lower than they are capable of achieving.

It is better to learn the mechanisms that will increase your competence and flexibility in writing and use the models or samples as standards against which you can measure your own writing.