What book would you recommend for IELTS writing?
This is a question we get asked a lot. One of the IELTS examiners at upmyielts gave this answer. To be honest, most of them are pretty poor. They contradict each other and give some poor advice. 9 times out of 10, what stops people getting higher marks is accuracy and it is nearly always grammatical accuracy. It is surprising the number of people that write sentences like “Many people don’t buy mobile phone and use same phone for long time” When it should...
How can I deal with a lack of ideas when doing IELTS writing?
It sounds like you are over-complicating IELTS writing. It’s probably easier if we look at an example together. The IELTS questions pretty much cover the same topics so let’s look at this one as it’s very simple. So, all you have to do is read the question and think, do I agree or not? In this case I agree. Don’t try to balance your position unless your English is a very high level; it is much more difficult. Essay structure. Introduce the...What actually are Coherence and Cohesion?
We get asked this a lot by both students and IELTS teachers. Coherence and Cohesion is one of the 4 criteria that you are marked on in your IELTS writing. But what are they? We thought we would show you in a clear way. IELTS writing is like a river, with a start and a finish. Coherence is like a guide boat on the river that is showing you the way. There is a clear start and finish clear paragraphing a logical structure Now Cohesion is...
IELTS writing and body paragraphs
We receive questions about writing a body paragraph in IELTS and sometime we see candidates try to squeeze too much in them. A body paragraph is like a carriage on a train. This is a common question we get. "How many ideas should I include in a body paragraph in Task 2? Some say one is enough others say you should include 2 or 3 even if the question is in singular? Also please describe in details what a developed idea...
Can I use contractions in IELTS writing?
This is a question that came form a memeber in our private Facebook group (Feel free to join). "Are contractions allowed in both the General Training and Academic task 2 IELTS writing?" Yes, Yes, and Yes again. In Task 1 in the General exam, if you have to write a formal letter then try and avoid them. To be honest, the idea that contractions aren’t used in formal writing is very old-fashioned and old-fashioned teachers love to cling on to the idea...
Where should I get my IELTS writing questions from?
This question comes from a few questions that we have come to us recently from people using our writing service. We see a lot of people use IELTS questions that are not IELTS questions. But what does this mean? Well, it means that the questions are not up to IELTS standard. Let’s look at a couple of examples. This is one that someone who used our IELTS correction service used recently. Now, IELTS avoids issues like sex, religion, abortion etc because they are...
What are memorized phrases in IELTS writing?
This is a something we see a lot and a lot of candidates use memorized phrases. Some examples of what we see are below. Why we recommend you don’t use them is that accuracy drops considerably when you have to write something in your own words and this is very very noticeable for us (the examiners). This is the question we received from a member of our private Facebook group (Feel free to join) What sentences or phrases are considered by...
How can I improve my lexical resource in writing?
This is a good question that we reveived from a member in our private Facebook group. Feel free to join. This examiner had this to say. Generally, the best way to improve your vocabulary is reading. Read a newspaper online for example, and make a note of the vocabulary that appears that you don’t know. Don’t just copy the word but copy the whole phrase. Why copy the whole phrase? Well, the people that lose Lexical Resource marks are the ones that do one of...