IELTS writing Task 2 – What are the examiners looking for?
This was a question from a member in our private IELTS Facebook group. You can join it here. It's free. One of the IELTS writing examiners that works here answered this one. The criteria (not the examiners) is looking for a number of things but here are probably the most important ones. Task Achievement Support for your ideas. If you just list ideas in your body paragraphs, you aren’t developing your ideas. Just add one idea to each body paragraph and support...
Memorizing phrases in IELTS speaking
We received this question from a member of our private Facebook group (feel free to join). You can ask us any questions you like there of contact us and ask us. We are always happy to hear from you. How can I prepare for the IELTS speaking? I’ve seen the website saying memorizing answers lowers the score. Is that true? How should I refer to model answers on the web? One of the IELTS writing and speaking examiners answered this one. What you...
An Interview with an IELTS writing examiner (Part 2)
This is our second interview with an IELTS writing examiner. The first one can be found here https://upmyielts.com/an-interview-with-an-ielts-writing-examiner/ We asked members in our private Facebook group IELTS writing and speaking support (Feel free to join) for questions and these are the questions that we got. A lot of them were similar to the previous interview, but a lot were new. If you have any more questions, you can post them in the comments here and we will answer them for you. What mistakes...
Advanced IELTS vocabulary for your writing and speaking
This blog post comes from a question we received in our private Facebook group IELTS speaking and writing support. Feel free to join. The question was "Can you give me some advanced vocabulary for IELTS writing?" One of the examiners had this to say. No. Stop. Learning from word lists is the worst way to learn a language, especially for IELTS. Why? Because English is very very highly collocated. You cannot just interchange words for others in English as it will more than likely...
What should you avoid doing in the IELTS speaking test?
An IELTS speaking examiner explains. There are a few things that you need to avoid in the IELTS speaking test. Understand that it isn’t a 2-way conversation. The examiner has a script to follow. They can’t deviate from this script until Part 3 so don’t ask them any questions. The exam is strictly timed so control your speakingso you don’t go off on a monologue. The examiner has a number of questions they have to get through and they will stop you...
I think I’ve messed up Part 2 in the IELTS speaking exam!!
The speaking exam gets more difficult so Part 3 is harder than Part 2. It may affect your score but it also may not. Candidates that struggle to speak for 2 minutes when talking about themselves (The easiest thing to do in a foreign language) tend to struggle when it comes to talking about more abstract things in Part 3. However, you are marked over the whole test. If you think that Part 3 went well then you may be fine. You...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...