Are there any questions before I keep going about anything that I've said, about anything that I've
said so far in terms of attacking the rubric?
If there are no questions about that, I'm going to keep going forward.
But you really want to make sure that you understand how to attack the rubric.
That's really, really important.
How do students ruin their score before they even start to write?
Very often this happens by a failure to understand the question or to do a proper outline.
Maybe about 50% of the students actually seriously understand the value of those first two steps, properly
analyzing a question so you know how to answer it and then properly being able to outline the question.
Those first two steps set up everything else for getting a great score.
So very often.
We'll see.
Poor question analysis.
Like here we have four questions and each one of these four questions are on the same topic.
Question number one says, although there is a lot of translation software available, learning the
language still could be advantageous.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
That's that first question.
Question to say, as people are using a lot of online language translation apps, do the benefits of
this outweigh the disadvantages?
Same topic.
Different type of question.
Number three says nowadays it is possible to use computers and mobile phones for automatic language
translation and there is no need for human translators and interpreters.
Do you agree or disagree?
And number four says some people prefer to use language translation apps to aid them at work.
Others prefer to learn the language themselves for work purposes.
Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Each one of these questions is on the same topic.
Of language translation applications.
But you have to be able to answer each one of these types of questions.
You have to be able to answer the essay within the context of the question.
You have to know the difference between to what extent the outweigh normal, agreed, disagree and discussing
both discussing both views.
Very often what happens is a student will read a question and they'll say, okay, so they're talking
about language translation apps.
So I'm going to write an essay about language translation apps and they write about the topic and they
don't answer the question.
That very often leads to scores that are below a 6.5, definitely below a seven.
And then, of course, you have poor outlining which can be a problem.
Right.
So here it says, every year we get reports of dwindling natural resources on Earth.
Choose one resource should be one resource.
Choose one resource and explain why you would want why you would choose to save that resource.
What's wrong with this outline?
Can anybody tell me what's wrong with this outline?
Right.
If you know what's wrong with the outline.
Type it in the chat box, please.
Who can identify what is wrong with this outline.
There's a problem.
You should be able to quickly identify what's wrong with the outline.
No.
Life benefits are fine.
That's absolutely fine.
As a native speaker, I understand that perfectly.
No one knows what's wrong.
There is no paragraph.
So the paragraph is not cohesive.
No resource was mentioned?
No.
Who was that?
Maybe.
Sharma?
No.
So.
We know the resource because the person said forest.
So we know the resource they want to save.
They want to save forest.
The problem is that they don't have a controlling idea.
For their first body paragraph.
They have their choice forced and their controlling idea of forest as the as the as the as the controlling
idea of their choice.
And controlling idea number two is fine.
Number two is absolutely fine because their controlling ideas, life benefits, that's the reason why
they that's one reason why they want to save the forest.
This first one does not state a reason why they want to save the forest.
There is no controlling idea.
And so that's something that you should have seen automatically, that there's a missing controlling
idea.
So what this person is about to do is they're about to write an incoherent paragraph.
And it's that easy, right?
They'll have one body paragraph that's coherent and that is actually answering the question.
And then they have this other body paragraph because of a bad topic sentence, they don't have any coherence.
You see that the two most important sentences in a whole essay.
Number one, the thesis statement because it controls the entire essay.
And number two, the topic sentences because they control each body paragraph.
If you can't write a top thesis statement correctly, or if you can't write a topic sentence correctly,
you will have coherence and cohesion problems.
Is that simple?
Yeah.
Of course.
The first one could be something like avoid global warming, but it's missing a controlling idea.
Right.
There's no controlling idea for that first one.
And that's what everybody should have seen.
I think one person saw it.
That's all.
Right.
So again, we have a this is an example of poor outlining.
And it doesn't matter matter whether you do it on paper and write it down or if you try to keep it in
your head, which which I never suggest you do.
I don't know why people try to keep an outline in their head.
It just gives you more to think about and remember it interferes with good writing.
But what's wrong here?
What's the problem here?
Why is this outline wrong?
Who knows why the outline is wrong?
See, if we can't answer this question, then we have a problem.
All right.
If you understand writing, you should be able to see why this is wrong.
Does anybody know what's the problem here?
No one knows.
Ezra Thank you, Ezra.
Thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
Ezra The question does not ask why it's happening.
Where does this question tell you to explain why it's happening?
You should see that immediately that that's a problem.
Number two is a reason why to save it.
But the question doesn't ask why it's happening, right?
It doesn't ask why it's happening.
This is an example, everybody of poor progression because the answering of the essay stops.
None of this paragraph is answering the question.
And very often students go into the essay, go into the exam, and then they they'll they'll write me
and say, I did a great job on my essay.
And I'll say, Well, what did you talk about in your essay?
And they'll show me something like this.
Then I'll say, Well, one of your body paragraphs is completely wrong, and they're in shock and don't
realize, you know, these are these are mistakes that you make.
The the the question analysis part is extremely important.
Outlining is extremely important.
Students that do those first two steps very, very well always do a great job on the exam.
Right.
They always do a great job on the exam.
But yeah.
As follows.
Right.
Question doesn't ask about why it's happening.
So why are you talking about it?
You have to stay inside the box of the question.