Writing longer sentences in your response is problematic for 2 reasons. The first is it heightens the chances of errors related to coherence. The second is it makes it more difficult for you to control the grammar of the sentence, leading to silly grammatical mistakes. Too often, students receive disappointing marks on their IELTS essay simply because their long sentences led them to issues with coherence and grammar.
What I always suggest to students is to commit many of these phrases to memory and learn how to use them properly. When you get to your examination, you can use these phrases with confidence, which will not only save you time but also reduce the chances of grammatical mistakes.
Our third C is coherence, which is the notion that all ideas you present in your essay should be easily understood by your reader. As you can probably guess, using the cohesive phrases above correctly can really help to boost the coherence in your essay as they clarify your ideas. Coherence is also greatly improved by proper grammar, so make an effort to brush up on this prior to your examination.
Our final C, composition, refers to employing a proper essay structure. This means including a thesis (in the case of an argument essay), at least 2 supporting ideas, real-life examples, proper discussion of those examples as well as some kind of summary and finally a reasoned conclusion. To break it down, an argument essay is most likely going to contain 15 sentences partitioned into 4 paragraphs and follow a pattern something like this:
Introduction paragraph
- A background sentence giving some background information on the essay topic.
- A more detailed sentence linking the background sentence to the thesis.
- A thesis that presents your point of view on your given topic.
- An outline sentence declaring the 2 points you are going to use to support your thesis.
Supporting paragraph 1
- A topic sentence illustrating the first point you will be presenting to support your thesis (this point taken from your outline sentence).
- A sentence showing a real-life example of this topic in action.
- A discussion sentence that shows how your example links or proves your topic sentence.
- A conclusion sentence that links this entire paragraph back to your thesis.
Supporting paragraph 2
- A topic sentence illustrating the second point you will be presenting to support your thesis (this point taken from your outline sentence).
- A sentence showing a real-life example of this topic in action.
- A discussion sentence that shows how your example links or proves your topic sentence.
- A conclusion sentence that links this entire paragraph back to your thesis.
Conclusion paragraph
- A summary sentence that briefly states the 2 points you discussed in your supporting paragraphs.
- A restatement of your thesis using different words.
- A prediction or recommendation based on the topic you have been given.
By employing a logical structure like this you fulfill your essay’s requirement for proper composition.
If you need some help with IELTS Listening, Reading or you’re looking for a way to improve your IELTS score, this post is for you.
Quite often on IELTS-Blog.com we publish advice from successful test takers, and many of them mention podcasts as a useful tool to improve their Listening skills.
So here is an opportunity for you to work on Listening and learn new IELTS tricks at the same time.
As you know the Listening test consists of 4 sections. Before each section you will hear some instructions and there will be some time to look at the questions. Then the recording will begin playing and you will need to listen and write down your answers. You will be writing the answers right in the Listening booklet, next to the questions they belong to.
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