After you finish the listening and reading sections of the exam, you're then going to go ahead and
move forward and tackle the writing section for the Isles exam.
This involves two writing tasks and the first one is academic writing and task number one.
In this lecture, I'm going to go over the basic information of that task.
We're going to go over the following aspects of writing task number one.
First, of course, you're going to get an introduction.
After that, we're going to give you a rubric explanation.
This is really, really important because many students are stuck on a six or 6.5 and they won't be
able to score a 7 to 7.5 or eight on the writing section.
It's very important that you understand how to attack the rubric.
Next, we're going to go over the question types and the standard strategy.
Following that, we're going to take on each individual question type, where I'm going to walk you
through step by step of how to do these questions.
For academic task number one.
I want to mention a couple of basic things to you.
Number one, you have to be able to write this task in about 20 minutes.
That's all.
20 minutes to do a complete report.
Task number one is factual in nature.
What I mean by that is you are not allowed to give your opinion or to do any type of interpretation
of a graph chart process or a map.
Finally understand the scoring system.
Task number one is only worth 33% of the writing score.
Task number two is worth 66% of the writing score.
So both writing tasks are not graded equally.
It's very important that you understand that you need to make sure that you do a great job on task number
two because it's worth double the points.
A little bit more information about the scoring and grading criteria in terms of the writing scoring
system.
If, for example, if task number one is worth eight points and task number two is worth six points,
your final score would be a 6.5 because that means you'll have a six plus six plus eight, which when
you add all three and divide, it will equal a score of a 6.5.
Whatever score you get for task number two, you have to add that score twice.
That's what gives you your overall writing score.
Now, with this in mind, some students like to go ahead and start with task number two.
They'll start with task number two, write task number two, and then go back and write task number
one.
In regards to the grading criteria.
There are four aspects.
Number one is task achievement, which is where they're looking at your use or writing of the specific
details and overview and the key features.
The next grading criteria is coherence and cohesion, then grammatical range and accuracy and also lexical
resource.
Now you're graded on a score of 0 to 9 in each one of these aspects.
Here are some important tips and advice regarding academic task number one.
First of all, what I want you to do is make sure that you separate your writing into four separate
paragraphs, four separate paragraphs, not two or three for separate paragraphs.
This really helps out your organization coherence and cohesion.
Next, always favor quality over quantity.
The minimum writing word count is 150 words.
Typically, you should you should end up right around 175 to 225 words.
You don't want to write 300 350 words for academic writing task number one.
You're not supposed to.
Most of the time, students get in a lot of trouble when they write too much, because really, you
just end up showing more and more mistakes.
Always favor quality over quantity.
Next.
Typically, in a full report for academic writing, task number one, you're going to write about 9
to 12 sentences.
That's all.
I normally end up writing about 9 to 10 sentences.
If you're writing those high quality sentences, meaning compound and complex sentences, you're going
to end up probably around 9 to 10 sentences.
Next is very important that you learn the different question types.
Generally speaking, there are about seven different types of questions.
You have the bar chart, pie chart line, graph table, two different charts, a diagram for a process
and a diagram for a map.
Now, this is really critical to understand.
The same strategy is used for all question types is the exact same strategy.
There is no specific strategy for a process in a specific strategy for a line graph.
It's all the same writing strategy.
Here are a few more high scoring tips for the academic writing test.
Number one that I want you to keep in mind is critical that if you plan on scoring a seven, eight or
nine, that you have a lot of sentence and vocabulary variety.
Number two Write in your own words.
Don't copy the summary that they give you for task number one.
Try your best to use your own words.
And then finally, if you want to get a score of a seven or eight, you have to be able to write mistake
free sentences.
Examiners love mistake free sentences by students.
If you're making mistakes in every sentence or every other sentence, it is very difficult to move from
a six or 6.5 to a seven, 7.5 or eight.
Now, if you want to have a great performance, you have to have great time management.
That means that when you're practicing at home that you are practicing with an 18 minute clock.
I know you have 20 minutes, but I think you should practice with an 18 minute clock so that you can
simulate the pressure of the exam.
Number two, simulate the exam.
Really use everything the same way the exam does.
What I mean by that is try to sit in a room with other people.
Don't sit in solitary confinement in your room, whereas nice and quiet and there are no distractions.
Simulate the real exam always in terms of simulating the real exam.
Use the real answer sheets.
If you're doing the written exam, not the written exam the paper exam, use the real answer sheets
to practice your writing.
That way you get comfortable using it.
Number four To get a great score, you must attack the rubric.
What I mean by that is you have to have really clear understanding of what does it take to get an eight
in grammar, an eight on vocabulary, eight in coherence, and an eight on task achievement.
And then when you're writing, you have to make sure that you attack those aspects.
You have to include those parts in your writing to be able to get that score.
If you're writing is only showing the level of six or 5.5 or five, if you're writing is only showing
that level, that's the score you're going to get.
And then finally, keep in mind that this is a formal language exam for academic tasks.
Number one, no slang, no street language, use very formal language.
This is a very formal report that you're going to write.
Now some mistakes that I want you to avoid.
Number one.
You must be able to paraphrase the introduction.
If you don't paraphrase the introduction, if you copy it verbatim, you're going to hurt your score.
Number two, avoid writing about every aspect.
To do well for academic writing.
Task number one, you're not supposed to write about every aspect on the graph or chart.
Number three, poor organization, no logic, no sequencing will equal a low score.
Number four, you have to always use the proper verb tense and have the proper word form, choice and
order.
If the chart has dates between 2000 and 2010, you're going to use the past tense.
If the chart has information and data in 2025 and 2030, you're going to use the future tense.
If it's a diagram or a process that does not have dates or it's a graph, or if it's a graph or a chart
that does not have dates, then of course are going to use the present tense.
You want to make sure that you avoid vocabulary, repetition and using basic level vocabulary.
And finally, don't describe the items mechanically in the next lecture, when I really go over how
to really succeed in regards to the rubric, I'm going to explain that a little bit more.
But so many students lower their score by just describing items very, very mechanically, which is
a big, big mistake.
All right.
And coming up next, we have a lot of great information for you.
You're going to first get some rubric advice and then I'm going to go over the question types and general
strategy.
Thanks a lot.
I'll talk to you soon.
Have a great day.