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Best wishes
Fiona
IELTS preparation made easier
If I unfortunately give one step wrong then how much it will influence my score?
Hi Sheikh
It depends what you mean by getting one step wrong (send me an example if you can).
The Band 6 descriptor for Task Achievement says : ‘presents and adequately highlights key features/ bullet points, but details may be irrelevant, inappropriate or INACCURATE’.
So if, for example, you said ‘The diagram shows how leather goods are recycled’, you might get a lower score because it is inaccurate, but you’d still score well in grammar.
I hope that helps,
Best wishes
Fiona
Hi Fiona,
I have attempted to make a shorter version for one of the sample tasks given in your site. as it is much shorter, i was wondering if i ran the risk of missing out some information in the chart.
i would be grateful if you could tell me how i can boost my score.
many thanks in advance.
The bar chart compares the highest temperatures in three Australian cities in 2016. The data were recorded in degree Celsius.
Overall, the temperatures in the three places showed changes over the months, albeit with similar pattern. However, Darwin’s temperature was consistently higher than the other two cities.
In detail, from January to May, Darwin saw a mild fluctuation in its temperature, which dropped to its bottom in the next two months, standing just over 30 degrees. The following months, nonetheless, experienced a slight recovery to around 33 degrees.
There was a significant drop in temperature in Perth over the first six months before almost leveling off in July and August. The figure was highest in January at 28 and lowest in July at 18.8 degrees. It then reversed the trend and nearly reached the greatest level.
Finally, showing a similar pattern to Perth, Melbourne was the city with the lowest temperatures throughout the year, reaching its peak of 25.8 in the first two months and bottoming out in July at 13.4 degrees which was similar to the other two. This was also the bottom record among all the cities.
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Hi Hoang
Sorry I can’t mark everyone’s writing on the site but you are welcome to join the Members Academy to get feedback,
Best wishes
Fiona
Hello Fiona,
thanks a lot for your valuable sharing about the writing tasks and how we – test-takers – can touch up our writing.
i find the task about the lifecycle of a butterfly is rather challenging as there is just little information to include in our writing. I therefore gave it a go.
if possible, could you just give me some advice on how i can improve this piece.
TASK
The illustration shows the different stages through which a butterfly goes.
Overall, the five pictures depict significant transformations from an egg to an adult butterfly. It is noticeable that the body of the final insect is completely different from the shapes of itself in its many stages of changes.
In detail, the initial phase of this cycle commences with the production of an egg which then turns into a caterpillar. From the pictures, it can be seen that the environment for these early living forms is on trees’ leaves. Following that, a chrysalis is formed. Inside this develops a young butterfly.
The next step stage involving the breaking of the outside layer of the chrysalis and the appearance of an adult butterfly. Even up to this period, the predecessor of the fully-developed butterfly still relies on leaves of trees. This whole process, however, is complete when the ultimate creature leaves its habitat.
hi Fiona it is very useful thanks ) I have a question I have an exam after 10 days in university which enables us to pass to the second term So it is very important for me And I have many difficulties in task1 (bar chart, line graph, process) I do not know which material I should use to improve them. Can you give me advice please I don’t know where I should start(
Hi Fizza. I’m not sure how much you will be able to cover in 10 days but my IELTS Task 1 Bootcamp would be perfect for you.
Hi ms, in the 2nd paragraph, why we use the word “onto trucks” but not “into”.
Also, ‘ the “skin” is air-dried before being loaded onto the trucks”. “skin” is not plural?
Hi Han. Many thanks for your questions. You could say ‘into’ trucks too. Check out both examples on this fantastic website Ludwig.guru (click here – I did the search for you).
If you jump back up to Point Number 2, you can see that ‘skin’ can be uncountable, when you talk about it in build (like ‘chocolate’) or countable when you talk about it in individual pieces (like ‘chocolates’).
I hope that helps,
Best wishes
Fiona
I had a query about writing task. I repeat atleast one word like 6-7 times and always i see it after completing the entire task. Can you tell me how will it affect my score? and how can i improve this? also is it ok not to paraphrase the terms given in the process diagram, like can i copy the exact words from the process diagram?
Hi Aishwarya and many thanks for your question. 1. The ‘Lexical Resource score is based on RANGE (variety) and accuracy, so if you use the same word many times, this will lower your score. The only way to stop doing this is to build your vocabulary so that you have more range to choose from when you’re writing e.g instead of repeating ‘important’ you can say ‘siginificant’ or ‘essential’. 2. It is not always possible to paraphrase the terms in the process diagram, so it’s fine to copy the exact words in your writing. However, the examiner will look for instances of where you have used your own words e.g. ‘The diagram shows how plastic bottles are recycled’ = ‘The diagram shows how plastic bottles are processed so that they can be reused’. I hope that helps, Best wishes, Fiona.
Can I write in two paragraphs:
Paragraph 1: Introduction and overview
Paragraph 2: Describe the process
Yes absolutely! The Overview can go at the start with the introduction or at the end as a separate paragraph. Both options are fine. Thanks for your message.