Transcript for:
IELTS Writing Preparation Strategies

you've just found the ultimate I preparation resource this is the longest most detailed most comprehensive I preparation course on YouTube it's going to help you be successful by giving you real band8 and N samples free practice tests and complete courses on reading writing speaking and listening so I success is just around the corner for you all you have to do is watch this video and be successful in this video I'm going to share with you 100 real band 78 and N essays these essays have been marked by real X examiners and the students that wrote them all went on to get either a b seven8 or nine in the real test but our goal is not to just give you a bunch of essays our goal is to help you improve your writing score so on top of giving you these essays what we're going to do is do two more things that are going to help you improve your writing scores using these essays so we're going to first show you what not to do when using these sample essays number two most students are unaware of great strategies and techniques that they can use so we're going to share with you 10 strategies that you can use that will help you use these samples to improve your writing skills and improve your writing score to make sure that we're only helping the students that want help and want to improve you will only get access to these essays by watching the whole video there is no special link to click and we're going to show you in the whole video how to access these sample essays so let's start off with five don'ts these are five things that you should not do when using any ielt sample essays number one is the most common one which is don't use fake sample essays I i' say that more than 95% of the supposed band line essays that you'll find online are not anywhere near band n and if you are reading and copying people that have never even got close to the score that you're hoping to get then you're learning lots of bad habits but don't worry we've solved that for you by giving you these real sample essays and we'll show you how to get those in the rest of the video number two don't just pick up the essay read it and think that you will magically through osmosis become better at writing you cannot read an essay and become better at writing by just passively reading it I think a lot of people have been convinced that all you have to do is read the essay and some magic thing will happen in your brain and you will improve that is simply not going to happen if you don't believe me think back to last month when the World Cup was on I think something like more than a billion people watch the World Cup final were any of those people better at football after the World Cup final after watching two of the greatest footballers that have ever lived no you would think that that's ridiculous but thousands of students every single month fail the test because they believe all they have to do is just read lots and lots of sample essays it is not going to help you but the good news is is we're going to give you these 10 strategies these 10 techniques that will actually help you in the rest of this video another thing that you should not do is look at the essays and try and figure out why you're better than the students in some way or why these students are not good or these students are not high level let me tell you a little story about a trick that I used to play on my students in the British ccil so on the first day of a new class with new students what I would do is I would give them band Six essays Bond seven essays Bond eight essays and b nine essays and I wouldn't tell them which were which and I would put them around the room and i' ask the students to go and look at these essays and give them a score and every single time and this is like hundreds and hundreds of students every single time they thought the band Six was band nine and they thought the band nine was ban six you are a student you are not an i examiner if you had the knowledge of an i examiner you wouldn't be watching this video most students look at a band 6 essay which normally has lots of complicated words and complex language and think that it is very very high level most students look at ban n essays and think that they are lowlevel ban N9 essays are actually quite simple and easy to understand and very very clear most students look at b seven essays and think there's lots of grammar mistakes there's lots of vocabulary mistakes this must be a really low-level student b s essays have mistakes in them please do not waste your time and your energy trying to find out why you think these are not good if you were an expert you wouldn't be watching this video the fourth thing that you should not do is look for things that you can copy from these essays and there's a very simp simple reason for that number one you are not doing a memorization test I know many of you come from educational backgrounds where the emphasis in your education system is just on memorizing things and that's how they test intelligence this is not a memorization test this is a writing in English test this is a can you communicate clearly in English test you cannot memorize words and phrases and chunks of essay days and hope to just put those in on test day and get a higher score that is not how it works you can use these to improve your grammar and your vocabulary and we'll show you how to do that in the rest of the video but don't just memorize them it is not going to help you and number five this might sound really silly but a lot of students do this do not copy the entire essay and put it in to your response on test day a lot of students believe that if they copy a highlevel essay and then just put it in no matter what the question is that they're magically going to get a high score I don't know why students do this but they do please do not do this I don't want to be responsible for students failing the test so please please please do not do those five things it is a waste of your time and it is a waste of money these days the is test cost a lot of money don't throw it away by using these incorrectly but there are now 10 ways that we're going to show you that you can use them correctly to improve your writing skills and improve your writing score so this is how to find the 100 sample essays on our website I've purposely hidden them so that only students that are serious about getting the scores that they need will find them first thing you want to do is go to Google and type in ielt writing task 2 it will bring up a list of different websites and what you want to do is find the I Advantage One it might be number one it might be somewhere on this page just click on the ielt advantage one that should bring you to this page on our website ielt writing task 2 in 2023 that's step one now continue to watch the video and I'll show you in step two how to find the essays so I'm going to give you these 10 things that you can do these 10 techniques but you don't have to use all 10 of them what I would recommend doing is watching them all and picking the one that you think is your biggest weakness that's what you should always start with not just for writing but for all areas of the test don't work on things that you're already comfortable doing don't work on your strengths work on your weaknesses I know that's tough and I know as human beings we don't like to do difficult things but this is the best way for you to pass the test as quickly as possible and then move on with your life and you never have to think about this silly test again so I'm going to go through these 10 now watch them all and then pick the ones that you think are most difficult for you or you think that you need to work the most on so the first thing that we're going to teach you is how to use sample essays for improving your idea generation a lot of students uh really struggle with this area and once you start to see what really B 7 8 and N ideas look like it removes a lot of the stress because what you will notice is most of them are a lot simpler than you think you don't get extra marks for coming up with complex ideas you get extra marks for thinking of ideas that answer the question that are relevant to the question and most of the time these are going to be simple ideas so the first thing that you can do to improve your idea generation is don't look at the answer to the question don't look at the actual essay take each one and cover up the actual essay and just look at the question and what we've done here is we've limited the number of questions we're giving you like a 100 essays but I think there are only like 10 questions um so that will mean that you see a wide variety of different ideas so what you're going to do is you're going to look at the questions and think of ideas yourself so what I would recommend doing is not brainstorming what I would recommend doing is simply look at the question and think what is the simplest idea that answers this question what is the most obvious idea the most straightforward idea if I asked a 100 people this question what would be the most popular answer and if you write down a few of them and then look at the answer identify the main ideas they will normally be in the introduction and they will be in the main body paragraph and they will be normally in the conclusion identify those main ideas and then compare with your ideas if you're getting similar ideas to these students that got band S8 and N then you're probably on the right track if you have different ideas that doesn't mean that you're wrong doesn't mean that your ideas aren't relevant but think about whether they are relevant or not are are you getting different ideas because they're just different relevant ideas or think about whether your ideas are relevant or not if there're you think about them and you compare them and you're like actually my ideas are completely irrelevant that might mean that you didn't understand the question so you have to work on that more or it could mean that you're just complicating everything and making your ideas way more complicated than they need to be so that's Technique One the second thing that you can work on would be idea development so so this is taking ideas and developing them into mainbody paragraphs so step one look at the question understand the question and then identify the main ideas so for this person focus on their careers idea number one and have more time for themselves idea number two so there's two benefits two advantages here and then what you do is you do not look look at the main body so you just identify those two main ideas and then what you could do on this blank piece of paper you could pick one so for example you could write an explanation you could write an example and then you could compare that with what the student has done in this essay so here focus on the careers this is because they have less responsibility and distractions in their lives compared to the couples that have a child so if it's the same then you're probably on the right track but you could also make this better you might think well I could maybe explain this a little bit more again you're not looking for exact matches what you're doing is thinking about what they have done and what you have done and this is just one essay you might look at five six seven other essays for this question and then look at all of the explanations and compare those with your explanations compare those with your examples and then that's going to help you develop your own the next thing you can work on is is structure so what you can do is read the question read the whole essay and then think about the structure that they used so for example this is their introduction this is their main body paragraph one this is their main body paragraph 2 and this is their conclusion so what we're going to do here is discuss both views and give your own opinion this is the type of question that we're talking about here so they're using this four paragraph structure but then within each paragraph what are they doing so here in the first sentence what they have done is they have paraphrased the question they have given their opinion here they've talked about the first point here and they've given the reason for the lad Point here so what you could do is look for more or discuss both views essays for example this one and you could compare them so are they using a similar structure here well seems like they actually are they've paraphrased the question in the first sentence here they've given their opinion and they've said why they believe that here they are slightly different but again if you look at 7 8 9 10 of those you'll be able to see similar structures and then that is going to help you write your own structure so what you could do is actually go through them all if you wanted analyze the structures and then look at all of the differences between the different types of essays so you could go and look at for example here we have a causes and solutions essay where do they put the causes where do they put the solutions what do they put in their conclusion are there any similarities between the different students answering this same question and you'll start to learn the different structures and then use them yourself it's a great way to actually learn structures rather than just looking at them as if you give students just a bunch of structures they tend not to be able to use them on test day but if you do it this way it kind of internalizes it a lot better and they're able to use them rather than memorize them okay so when you're on this page what you want to do is scroll down there's a lot of information on this page so keep scrolling keep scrolling until you get to here sample essays now we have a lot of different options here continue to watch the video and I'm going to show you which one to click in step three the next thing you could do is work on your coherence and cohesion by identifying linking words or coh hesive devices some people call them cohesive devices some people call them linking words so for example with this one you could identify that there are only really four linking words or cohesive devices here in other words for example for instance an in conclusion if you were to look at another 10 band 7even 8 n real essays and you only seen linking words are used very sparingly there are not that many then that would be a clear indication that that's what you should do most of these essays are not going to have lots and lots and lots of linking words in them because lots and lots and lots of linking words actually lower your score they don't increase it another thing that you could do is think about why they used each cohesive device so for example why did they use that well they were giving an example did they use it correctly well in this instance they seem to have that is helping you understand okay if I'm giving an example that's what I should use or you might Identify some linking words that they used incorrectly that is going to help you improve because identifying other people's mistakes is helping you improve your knowledge and your use of linking words as well remember these are real essays which means that they have mistakes in them they are not perfect perfect essays are not actually going to help you as much as real students that are at your level and have got the scores that you need and that brings us on to number five which is identify grammar mistakes as I've just said one of the best ways to improve is to identify other people's mistakes so what you would do is you would go through and highlight any mistakes that they have made so for example this one you could write here this is an article mistake here's another article mistake so by identifying these mistakes and correcting them you can think about the rules of Articles and your knowledge and your ability to use them correctly will improve not just articles but any mistakes so identify the mistakes and then think about why those mistakes were made or categorize the mistakes into is it a preposition mistake an article mistake a punctuation mistake then you will improve too the sixth thing you can do is also related to grammar and thinking about the different grammatical structures and tenses that were used in the essay and why they were used so for example if we take this essay obtaining this type of information in most cases means breaking the law why did they use obtaining in Unbreaking ing rather than furthermore to obtain this misinformation in most cases means to break the law and this will force you to think about whether this is correct or incorrect if you think that it is incorrect what is a better way to use it and why do you think that or if it's correct why did they use that here's another one however not only are Paparazzi hired to invade properties belonging to Pol politicians to take photos without their permission but also not only but also what does that not only but also grammatical structure AOW this student to do why did they choose this grammatical structure what were they able to do is it correct could you use this grammatical structure in your essay again not copying it not blindly copying this and inserting it into your essay but adding tools to your toolbox the more tools that you have in your toolbox grammatically on for vocabulary then the better able you are able to build your essay on test day yourself number eight is vocabulary and improving the range of your vocabulary and you can do that simply by reading the question reading the essay and identifying any unknown vocabulary or vocabulary or collocations or phrases that you're unsure about you're not 100% sure what they mean or how to use them in a sentence so for example you might see the collocation discover their talents what does that mean to discover their talents here's another one potential talents what's the difference between discovering your talent and a potential Talent what do potential mean what does potential Talent as a collocation actually mean so you would note down those words or phrases or collocations and then you would guess the meaning from the context so you would read the whole sentence read the whole paragraph and try and guess what that word means that is going to help with your reading skills it's going to help you identify and understand unknown words in the reading test and it will also help you improve your vocabulary because you can take those new words or phrases put them into a vocabulary book add all the new information like the meaning the synonyms the example sentences and then after a while if you do this you're going to have have a massive Bank of new words and new phrases and then if you review those and use those in your own essays then you're improving your ability to write essays another thing you could do with vocabulary number nine is identify any vocabulary errors so for example in this essay if we look at this sentence recently the pictures of a famous politician of Milan while playing football with local children were published in many newspapers and he instantly became famous so there's a problem here because it's saying a famous person became famous well they were already famous so either there is a meaning error here with this word or we need to change this word to something different another thing that you could do is look for repetition are there words that are maybe repeated a few many times and then you could try and change it to a synonym that means the same thing but has u a different you know a different word that means the same thing and last but not least number 10 what you can do is look at the question write the whole essay and then compare your essays compare everything with what the students have done but I wouldn't recommend doing that right away what I would recommend doing is use you know one or two of the other nine techniques work on your weaknesses and then once you are more confident then you can write the whole essay and then compare it with what the other students have done and but please please please don't think that if your essay is different that it's wrong there are hundreds of different ways that you can write a bond seven or a bond eight essay it is not mathematics it is not you know there's only one answer to the question so don't look at these essays and think that you're on the wrong track just because yours are different what you're looking for is are the main things like the ideas are they relevant is the structure similar did you develop your ideas in a similar way if you focus on those big things then your essays will be fine and you will really really improve okay so you should be here the one that you want is this one how to use task two sample essays if you click on that you will get access to 100 B 78 and9 I writing task 2 essay samples it will introduce them it will tell you how to use them and then it will give you all of these samples so thank you very much for watching the video and I hope that you enjoy using these samples and they help you improve your score so now you know how to find those samples and how to use them to improve your writing but you need to know how to write an introduction a main body paragraph and a conclusion but don't worry what I've done is I have added to this video a full IELTS writing course not only are we going to teach you how to write those paragraphs we're also going to give you homework tasks and feedback for free so coming up is ielt essay Builder it's going to teach you exactly how to write a bad 78 or9 essay and build your essay up sentence by sentence paragraph by paragraph enjoy I's essay builder in this lesson we're going to look at the first building block of your essay which is how to build an introdu ction but before we look at the detail of this lesson let me just tell you what we're going to do in this course so there are seven steps to this course the first one is today it's an introduction lesson so it is not an introductory lesson it is a lesson all about how to write introductions then the second lesson I'm going to give you Global feedback on introductions so we're going to look at some common problems some common successes so that you can compare your introduction uh with some really really good introductions and some introductions that need a little bit of work and then the third step is we're going to look at how to write our main body paragraphs the fourth step giving you feedback on your main body paragraphs fifth conclusion lesson and writing a whole essay and then we're going to give you Global feedback on conclusions and give you some sample essays to look at so you can learn from them and then finally we'll be looking at how you can take it to the next level if you need more help or you need help with other types of essays or with anything else at all we will be helping you take things to the next level if you choose to do so okay so what are we going to look at today today we're going to look at a quick outline of what is happening this week so we've already done that then we're going to look at the question the type of questions that we're going to be looking at this week then we're going to look at how to write an introduction so we're going to look at how to analyze the question plan generate ideas paraphrase and the essential elements that you should include in your introduction so you're going to learn everything you need to know about how to write an introduction and then you're going to be set a homework task and do the task right guys I know many of you are busy and ILS is not the the most exciting Topic in the world but imagine the difference that it's going to make to your life when you get this score I work with students every day and and so many students come come to me and say you know I failed this test five six seven eight times I'm I'm wasting so much money I'm wasting so much time and it's stopping me starting my future life my life in a different country with a better job and different prospects for me and my family um you will hear me a lot talking about this because it really does mean something to me it's a reason why we do these things it's the reason why we help people with this um one of the main main ways that you will improve is by doing the things that we teach you this week so please do look at the homework tasks complete the homework tasks and they'll only take you 10 or 15 minutes and then look at the feedback and and improve CU all I want guys is is for you guys to improve and get the scores that you need Okay so this week we won't be focusing on every single type of task 2 essay there's a very obvious reason for that is a we don't have time to look at every single type of essay um if we did that it would be this lesson would be you know five or 6 hours long um and I don't think many of you have that that amount of time and I certainly don't have time to be creating lessons that long and also um if we try to do everything in like if I tried to show you how to write introductions for every single type of of question in 45 minutes I wouldn't be able to really teach you properly so what we're doing is we're going to focus on one type of question to really dive deep into that type of question because that's how I teach I don't teach people on a surface level I teach people how to do things properly or not at all so there are five different types of task two question opinion questions discussion questions causes and solutions or problems and solutions questions there are different types of advantages and disadvantages questions and there are double questions double questions are in one task there are two direct questions and that's what we're going to focus on this week we're going to only look at double questions but don't worry too much guys the reason why I chose double questions is they translate very well to the other types of questions uh so you'll hear me talking a lot about double questions and you'll hear me talking a lot about this is only for double questions etc etc but a lot of the things that we'll be doing this week will be applicable to all of the different types of questions for example in this lesson we're going to be looking at paraphrasing you can use that for any different type of question but what I will do throughout the course is highlight when this is only for double questions and you need to look at other stuff um that that that you need to go deeper on the other types of questions if that's applicable okay so what are double or direct questions so these are normally two questions in one task so you'll get a background statement and then you'll be asked two different questions in the one task and normally these are both direct questions they are asking you directly what you think about something and as I've already mentioned these questions translate very well to the other types of task two question so here's an example of a double question so we have the background statement here nowadays more tasks at home and work are being performed by robots so this is just giving you the background information and then these are your two direct questions why do you think this is happening is it a positive or negative development so we have to answer both of these questions in one essay and these questions are I've noticed that they are becoming increasingly more common um I'm not suggesting that that you won't get another type of question you you very well might get a discussion question advantages and disadvantages opinion question but I've noticed these he getting a little bit more um popular and but this doesn't mean you're guaranteed to get this please do not think that all you have to do is just study double questions and then you can go and do the test it's not like that um but they are becoming more popular okay so just to give you an overview before we look at the introduction before before we get into the detail of the introduction let's look at the overall paragraph structure of double questions so there are four paragraphs introduction is your first paragraph then your second paragraph which is your first main body paragraph is you're going to answer the first question then your second main body paragraph surprise surprise answer the second question and then your last paragraph is going to be your conclusion so keeping everything as simple and as straightforward as possible guys this is something that is really a a Hallmark of of my teaching or something that I'm I'm known for something that my VIP students experience a lot is we take a subject that is seems very complicated seems very complex and what we do is we simplify it as as as much as we can we can't simplify it into you know baby steps one 2 3 ABC but one of the goals with this course is to show you that much many of your issues are related to you over complicating things or maybe you have a teacher who doesn't know how to simplify these things um as much as I do I'm not saying I'm the best teacher in the world or anything like that but one thing that I am good at is simplifying things so this means that you will find it easy to understand and easy to do on test day okay so here's what the structure would look like introduction so the introduction is basically let's break it down into simple language the introduction is saying to the reader saying to The Examiner this is what this essay is about this is what I'm going to talk about then your first main body paragraph here's the answer to the first question second main body paragraph here's the answer to the second question and then your conclusion is here's a summary of what I just talked about so introduction here's what I'm going to talk about main body here are here's what I think about these two questions conclusion here's a summary of one I just talked about and if you break things down in in that way and make them simple and easy to understand they're simpler to to do on test day and that's my goal for you guys this week okay so let's now break down the introduction let's think about the different different stages of writing and introduction so the first stage is thinking about the question analyzing the question understanding the question it's impossible to answer a question if you don't understand it that that sounds very very obvious and very um simple but it's so true I you know I look at 20 30 40 50 essays some days um and I've been doing that for years and and one of the main problems is not that students don't know how to write although that is a problem sometimes but many of of your problems stem from the fact that either you don't take enough time to understand the question or you don't spend enough time or you don't follow the steps to analyze a question and fully understand it so once you've done that then you need to decide your answers so before you you start writing you need to really have it clear in your mind what you are doing and before you start writing because if you don't your your essay is going to be a bit of a mess then we're going to think of ideas so we're going to develop our ideas and you'll notice that these three stages these are stages without you having a pen or a pencil in your hand you know you can have a pen or a pencil in your hand and and making little notes but really this is all just mental process this is you really just thinking this is the thinking stage stage that many of you neglect because you feel that you're under pressure you feel that you don't have time but it's an absolutely crucial essential stage then we start picking up our pencil or pen and start planning we start writing things down so we use the structure we use the paragraph structure we use the sentence by sentence structure for each part of the the the essay to to take our ideas the things that we have been thinking about and putting them down on paper into a plan and and then once we have done that once we have developed a a road map for our essay then we can start writing our introduction so steps one to four are before we start writing our essay and then Steps step five once we have a plan then we can start writing okay so the first stage is question analysis thinking about the question the writing test is not just a writing test it is a thinking and writing test if you immediately open your paper and start writing immediately because you think that you're going to run out of time you are going to get in a lot of trouble you need to dedicate some time at the beginning to think about the question plan your answer and then start writing think about it this way if you were going to New York City tomorrow you're going for a job interview in New York City and you you're playing lines you get to the airport um would you find your destination quicker with Google Maps or without Google Maps imagine if you just left the airport and started running towards New York City would you get lost pretty quickly but if you had Google Maps or you had Uber for example um they'd be able to take you directly to where you need to go pretty quickly this is the same as someone who doesn't think and doesn't plan versus somebody who does think and does plan thinking and planning is like having Google Maps for your ielt essay that's it might sound like a silly um analogy but my students seem to to really like that analogy and it and it does make sense so the first stage is understanding what the question is about that might sound very very simple but just think about what the topic is and then go a little bit deeper and think about what the specific things they want you to talk about within that topic so for example you might get a question about the environment so the topic would be the environment but then once you look at it deeper they don't want you to just talk generally about the environment they might want you to talk about a specific thing related to air pollution for example so air pollution would be different from water pollution for example so thinking about what the general topic is and then looking a little bit deeper what the specific um content is what they want you to write about and then looking at the instruction words what is it that they want you to do do they want you to give your opinion do they want you to discuss the advantages and disadvantages do they want you to talk about problems and solutions you must do what they ask you to do so let's look at a at a at this question to analyze this question so if I was analyzing this question the first thing I would think about is okay what topic is this about okay robots working okay so it's generally about technology but I just don't write everything I know about technology what I do is I have a look at it okay what are the more specific keywords okay so it's about robotics okay so it's about robotics doing work for humans basically um so that's what they the specific things they want us to talk about okay so I've understood this now I need to think about the instruction words what do they want me to do with this statement well there's two things they want you to do they want you to answer this question why do you think that is happening so you have to clearly State why you think this is happening but it doesn't stop there they want you then to say if you think it's a positive or negative development so once we've understood the question and we've understood what they want us to do the first thing that I always get my students to do is to make a decision on their answer make a decision about how they're going to answer this question so how do we do that so make a decision early on this will mean you think and you plan clearly one of the worst things that you can do guys is start your essay without having a clear idea about how you're going to answer it many of you many of the students that I work with they they email me after their their test and they say oh I changed my answer halfway through like is that okay will will I be okay it's like no you've probably failed because you didn't decide early on you didn't make a concrete plan you should never start your essay without knowing what to do it's it's like you know running into New York City without having any idea where you're going you're going to get pretty lost and a writing is a reflection of your thinking so I stole this quote from somebody called Tim Faris who I follow online and and he's a writer and he was he he he said this and it really resonated with me because the students that I work with who are very confused about what they think about a question question always write a very confusing essay students who think clearly about what they're going to write write a very clear easy to understand essay and a huge part of your overall Mark is coherence and cohesion and and answering the question clearly and so that's very very important here are some things that you should consider when deciding how you should answer keep it simple guys um do not over complicate things do not as say your writing is a reflection of your thinking if you over complicate everything and and your thoughts are very very complex then you're going to write an overly complicated confusing essay the simplest most straightforward answer is the best one of the things that I find very difficult to convince students of when we start working together is that the simpler you make your essay the clearer it becomes the better it becomes the higher marks you're you're going to get many of my students find that very difficult to accept because when you fail something or when you get a low score you automatically assume that you need to complicate things or make things more advanced or make things more complex when the opposite is really true and I guarantee many of you right now are thinking that doesn't make any sense how could making something simpler get me a higher Mark guys I wouldn't lie to you I gave this advice to my wife when she was doing um ielt test I give this advice to all of my VIP students this really does work many of you won't believe me that's fine but once you start realizing this then it it is really powerful it's more powerful than anything else and also when you're deciding your answer write about the things that you can write about remember that you're going to have to take these ideas and explain them support them with examples don't try and think of a really complex idea if you can't explain that idea so if I was deciding my answer for this one what I would do is I would think why do you think this is happening and and I would try and think of an idea right now for this one that's not the the one that we really need to worry about for this one is it a positive or negative development this is the one that we really need to decide our answer on pretty quickly um because if you go into the essay thinking oh I don't know if it's positive or negative or you know some of it's positive some of it's you're going to get very confused pretty quickly for this is it a positive or negative development just pick one just pick one this is positive or this is negative if you do that you you're making your life so much easier and so so much simpler um so pick one side and go with it and just pick the side that you would find easy easiest to write about that's all you have to do so for me for example I think this is positive and I have a really good idea about why I think this is positive and I'm able to support that idea I would go with that one okay so now we've analyzed the question and we've decided our idea now we need to think of ideas you've already primed your brain to think of ideas in a logical way that will lead to clear ideas so by deciding what you think about these things by deciding your answer you've already started on the path to thinking about a clear idea however many of you mess up when you get to this stage because you've been taught a technique for thinking of ideas that is completely wrong and is the worst thing that you could ever do this area is taught incorrectly by 95% of I teachers again I'm not saying I'm the bests teacher in the world but when I see something in a textbook I don't take that thing thing and just automatically teach it to my students if I see something in a textbook or in a in a in a book or a blog or anywhere I think about it and think is this actually effective is this actually a good way to teach students and the best example of that is brainstorming brainstorming is the worst thing that you could do why do most teachers teach brainstorming because they just look at uh at a textbook or they just Google hard to think of ideas and 95% of the stuff out there just says brainstorming why is brainstorming so bad complete waste of time uh brainstorming you write the you know you write the thing in the middle of the page and then you draw a bubble around it and then you draw arrows and you don't have time to do that you don't have time to think of 16 different ideas and even if you do think of all of these different ideas most of them are not specific they don't answer the question they're not specific they're not relevant so what happens at the end of a brainstorm session is you've got a bunch of ideas that are not specific to the question not relevant to the question you've just wasted a huge amount of time and then you have to to waste even more time going through all of these ideas stop it stop doing brainstorming it's really really bad idea instead we should just keep it simple the most obvious ideas are normally the best ones this simplest most straightforward ideas are the easiest to understand and the easiest to write about there are no extra marks for Amazing Ideas many of you think that there are you know two or three ideas for each question that get you a band n or band eight it doesn't work like that it's not like the examiner has a list of ideas and if they follow those ideas um you know they'll automatically get a high score doesn't work like that it works by are your ideas relevant to the question do they answer the question and how well do you develop and use those ideas so how can we think of simple straightforward ideas that we can use in our essay the answer is the direct method ask yourself direct specific questions about the question being asked this will generate specific relevant ideas in a very short amount of time the first ideas you think of are normally the best so many of you are very intelligent people like doctors Engineers lawyers and throughout your life throughout your studies you have had to think of complex complicated ideas your whole life so when you do the I test you tend to do the same thing other people have been taught by teachers that you know complex high level ideas are a good good idea many of you just assume that you would get more marks if you think of more complicated ideas um the opposite is true a so what is a good idea a good idea is easy to understand it's relevant to the question answers the specific question and is easy to explain it's easy for you to take that idea bring it into your main body paragraphs and develop that idea so many of you are probably thinking what is this direct method how do we use it so let's look at a question nowadays more tasks at home and work are being performed by Rob B so the direct method is where you take the question and you ask yourself a direct question to develop an idea so why do you think this is happening how would you think of an idea for this in the most obvious way is you would just think why is this happening you would ask yourself that question so instead of you know drawing Bubbles and arrows and all of these different my maps and all of these different things it's not hard when you just ask yourself the question for this one is it a positive or negative development so let's say we decide that it's positive how would you use the direct method you'd very simply say why is this positive and and instantaneously your brain should be able to help you think of an idea if it doesn't wait you know think about it a little bit more this really does work and when students start using this like why did I waste so much time brainstorming and why did I why did I do that for so long um this is just one example and you can apply this you know keep it simple mentalities keep it simple methodology to pretty much everything on the IELTS test and you know reading listening speaking writing when you stop over complicating everything um then everything becomes much much much easier I keep saying that ielt is an easy test over Complicated by students it that and that's really really true so let's just recap what we've done so far you understand the question first you've decided how you're going to answer it and youve thought of relevant main ideas so as mentioned before this is just a thinking stage all right so it's taken you know 30 minutes to get to explain all of this but you should be doing this in the real test in one or two minutes this should be really really easy for you to do once you practice doing it you can't just take all this information and automatically start doing it you it's like any skill you have to practice it but once you practice doing it in this way it becomes automatic just like riding a bike or tying your shoelaces it was difficult in the beginning you had to think about it a lot but then becomes automatic so let me do a quick demo of those three stages with this question so nowadays more tasks at home and work are being performed by robots so I would I would look at this I would understand it the words that I've highlighted in red here are the specific keywords okay I know what this is about then I'd look at the first question what I would do with the first question is understand what it's asking me I would think about it I would decide it and then I would ask myself a direct question and I would think of an idea and my idea is advancements in technology second question is it a positive or negative development I decide okay it's positive why is it positive because it reduces amount of work we have to do so I did that in you know one minute in in the in the real test that would take me 30 seconds to do that you won't be able to do it in 30 seconds and but many of my students can do that consistently um in in less than a minute in less than 2 minutes some of them take a bit longer but I hope that you can see how effective that would be imagine opening your your paper on exam day and being able to do that in one minute and then you can start your planning so now let's look at what is an introduction okay so an introduction tells the reader what to expect all right always think of the reader so an introduction is just helping the reader understand what the essay or what the whatever whatever you're writing that could be you know a journal or a dissertation or anything like that the introduction just helps the reader understand what you're going to write about and it helps the reader follow the rest of your essay again always think of the reader many of you when you're doing the the ISS test you're not thinking of the reader at all you're thinking how many fancy words can I put in here how many fancy grammar structures can I put in here without really thinking am I clearly communicating with the reader because the main reason why you write anything is to communicate you communicate with the person reading and it also helps you get your thoughts in order so think of it as a mini plan that will help you write a better essay so people who write very very clear introductions normally write very very clear mainbody paragraphs and conclusions if I see an introduction I can pretty much predict what the rest of the essay is going to look like a very good introduction is a good indicator of what the rest of the essay is going to be like don't worry examiners don't just look at the introduction they'll always look at everything um but people who write bad introductions normally write bad main body paragraphs and conclusions people who write very very good introductions write very good main body paragraphs because it's kind of like a little mini plan they know exactly what they're going to write about also what is an introduction not so it's not a chance to show The Examiner how amazing your language is do not insert lots of fancy words and memorized phrases and all of these different things if you can use highlevel language be my guest use it but if you don't know how to use it don't stick it into your introduction because you're starting your essay off in a way that makes it impossible to read Because The Examiner has no idea what you're talking about because the the collocations are wrong the meaning of the word is wrong the grammar is all wrong focus on Clarity it's also not a chance to hook the reader you do not have to hook the reader the reader is an i examiner who's being paid to look at your writing believe me they do not need to be hooked so don't be writing any hooks it's also not a chance for you to use memorize phrases or Proverbs or quotes or anything like that if you have a teacher who is telling you to memorize Proverbs or quotes to put into your introduction or any part of your task 2 essay run very very very far away from them because they they do not know what they're talking about so three elements to a double question introduction this is something that is specific to double question introductions um if you want help with other introductions obviously you need to go a little bit farther and this only applies to double question introductions so number one paraphrase the question statement and then number two briefly answer question one number three briefly answer question two so there are not three separate paragraphs there are three elements so for a double question if you do those three things and write them clearly so that it's easy to understand so it helps the reader you're you're off to a great start with your essay so let's start off with the how to paraphrase and then we'll look in more detail at how to briefly answer both questions so paraphrasing so paraphrase is you state the same ideas but using different words so how would you say it in your own words so when you paraphrase something it must mean the same but you're using different words to express the same meaning and we can do that in many many many different ways I'm going to show you two ways um I'm not going to show you six or seven different ways because we've already been talking for about 35 minutes or something like that um and that would take way too long so I'm going to show you the two most effective ways or the two most common ways the number one way is to use synonyms so synonyms are words that mean the same but different words or we can use this by changing the structure of a sentence we can flip the Clauses around or both I'm going to show you how you can combine both to paraphrase effectively but let's look at some common errors these are really really really really important um most of you are not paraphrasing effectively because you're doing things that maybe you've been taught incorrectly or maybe you just have a a wrong idea about what paraphrasing is and what it isn't and the different rules um and requirements for ISS so the the most common problem is people trying to change every single word sometimes there will be some words that either are impossible to change for example a date you can't change a date or you know a place name or a person's name you simply can't change those words or sometimes you'll get a word that you don't know how to change so if you see a word and you don't know how to change it you can either just guess and try your best and 99% sure you're going to make a mistake or you can repeat that word there is a huge stigma incorrect stigma about repeating words I don't know where this comes from but many many teachers teach their students that you can never repeat a word let's think about how ridiculous that statement is um think about articles and prepositions um think about you know the word and or the or of uh some teachers teach their students that you can't repeat those words that's ridiculous um think look at any good writing and there will be several words that are repeated maybe even in the first sentence also as we've just mentioned there are some words for example dates times place names company names uh people's names you know many many nines that you just cannot change um you should vary your language as much as you can to demonstrate to The Examiner that you have a wide- ranging vocabulary that's absolutely true but many of you actually fail the test because you are so afraid of repeat repeating a word um many many many times students have argued with me about this and say oh you don't know what you're you're doing you repeated a word yeah that's totally normal um to repeat a word the word the rule is vary your language as much as you can but not to the detriment of your overall score changing words incorrectly so this comes from people fearing repeating words um so they try and change words as many times as possible and and most of the time when they're doing that they're doing it incorrectly so the meaning could be wrong the collocations could be wrong spelling could be wrong um the the grammar could be wrong don't change a word unless you know how to change it properly because all of those mistakes add up if you're making mistakes in most of your sentences it's impossible to get a seven or above impossible um if you look at the marking criteria also not thinking about grammar um when you change words it changes the grammar within the sentence and you need to be aware of that again if most most of your sentences have grammar errors in them it's impossible to get a seven or above to get a seven or above most of your sentences need to be error free no errors in them at all think about that for a second think about your writing do you think that you can produce an an essay where the majority of your sentences have no errors in them at all that's a standard you need to get to for many of you um it's not that you have problems with vocabulary and grammar it's because you have been taught silly rules like you cannot ever repeat a word and that's causing you to get a low score because you're making so many mistakes as a result so let's think about synonyms be very careful here your synonyms must match and make sense just because they are synonyms does not mean you can automatically use them so one of the biggest problems when people paraphrase is when they're practicing especially the they'll see a word and what they'll do is they'll Google that word or look that word up in an online thesaurus and when you do that it will show you you know 20 or 50 different synonyms I some of those synonyms you can use most of them you will not be able to use just because a word is a synonym doesn't automatically mean that you can use it when you're paraphrasing let's look at an example so imagine you seeing in a question rich country so if you Google rich and look up the synonyms of Rich you might see decadent as a synonym of rich and it is Rich and decadent are synonyms do they mean the same thing no not at all someone can be very rich but they can't be know they they're not decadent at the same time Look up the meaning of those two words and you'll see it means different things country and Kingdom so a country yes country and kingdom are synonym can you use them when you're paraphrasing no some countries are kingdoms most of them aren't all right so this is to show you that you can't just look something up and automatically use it as a synonym also when you're just when you're in the test and you're thinking of synonyms don't just write down the very first thing you think of that Loosely relates to that word a more accurate way would be to use synonyms that actually mean the same thing rich and wealthy mean the same thing country and nation mean the same thing they're synonyms they are close synonyms they're not loose synonyms like these ones and you can use those so be very very careful other thing when you're paraphrasing is you can change the structure a little bit so most of the time what you'll do is there will be two or three Clauses in the background statement and what you'll do is you'll just flip the Clauses around so the last Clause becomes the first clause and the first clause becomes the last Clause but when you do this be very careful that your new sentence makes sense grammatically all right let's look at an example so many developed Nations have opened their doors to refugees recently so if we wanted to change the structure what we do is we just take the second part of this um open their doors to refugees put this at the beginning and then many developed Nations put this at the end um but when you do this um you have to be aware of grammar because when you change words around the grammar changes and you need to be very careful so I had one student um on on my VIP course and when they tried to do this this is what they wrote recently refugees go to develop Nations who open their doors and I said to them okay think about the meaning of this sentence think about the grammar and then try to fix it fix your problems and they changed the two recently refugees have been taken in by many developed Nations so when they became aware of the grammar and became aware o of meaning they changed it so that it means um that it's grammatically correct okay so an effective way to paraphrase is to use synonyms and combine that with changing the structure slightly you don't always have to use this um but it is an effective method again there are four or five other ways that you could do this and four or five other ways that you can paraphrase um we don't have time to go into those um right now but let's look at how to do this so you can combine these Tech two techniques to paraphrase effectively so let's take this question and I took a a real student example um from a student who I'm working with at the moment and let's show you what she wrote in recent years refugees have been taken in by many countries in the developed world so the reason why I've highlighted these two is I want to highlight something for you so when she first sent me this she made a big um error here she used a different word she actually used the word fugitive and I said okay so why did you use fugitive and she said I I looked it up on Google and I Googled it and fugitive is a synonym of of um of refugee and I didn't know any other way to write it and I said okay so you don't know any other way to write it fugitive is wrong so you've just lowered your score why not just repeat the word and she said well you can't repeat the word you're not allowed to do that my old teacher told me not to do that I said it's it's fine you don't have to change every single word when you're paraphrasing if there's just one word um that you can't change keep it you know it's better to keep it and repeat it than it is to make a big big error because fugitive just doesn't make any sense whatsoever um also what she did here and she made a mistake here and I I said to her again why did you make this mistake and she she said oh again I don't want to repeat the word developed and I said well you're not actually repeating it if you changed it to developed world you're changing developed Nations so if you think of developed Nations as a collocation as a unit of language you've changed that collocation to a different collocation two words that work together so you've repeated the word developed but you've not actually repeated it because you've combined it with correctly combined it with world so that is fine to do that because you've actually demonstrated to The Examiner that you know that developed Nations and developed worlds are the same thing and they go together and they collocate well together so in recent years refugees have been taken in by many countries in the developed world if we put that together does it mean the same thing as this yes is it grammatically correct yes is it varied as much as we can vary it yes so that's a very very good paraphrase that she produced so let's look at this question nowadays more tasks at home and work are being performed by robots so here are two different ways that you could paraphrase this robotics increasingly play a role both in the home and the workplace and Robotics increasingly carry out jobs both in the home and in the workplace so again asking yourself these questions does this mean the same as this yes are they grammatic correct yes have they varied them as much as they can yes are there some words that they have repeated yep home home that's fine the obviously the is is an article um and you know we can't change and you know it's fine just to to repeat these words but we have varied it as much as we can so if a student wrote this I'd be very very happy with this so next we need to briefly answer each question so why do you think this is happening advancements in technology is it a positive or negative development it's positive because it reduces the amount of work so this would be the plan we would be looking at our plan and then we we can write a sentence like this this is due to advancements in technology and it should be seen as a positive development because it reduces a person's workload so we've taken our plan and we've put uh converted our plan into a sentence and then we can put this all together into a nice introduction so this is our introduction the part in red is our paraphrase and then the part in blue is our us answering both of those questions so this is something you should probably pause have a look at think about it think about how all the different stages all the different steps that we took brought us to this paragraph and then think about how easy it would be to start the rest of our essay by following what is in this introduction so and think about how easy it would be for the reader and for yourself um to to to understand what what you are going to write and then what you write in the rest of your essay is going to be very clear and easy to understand so let's summarize what we did in this lesson we analyzed the question we planned our answer we paraphrased we briefly answered answer both questions and then we put it all together this is your task so pause the video and write this down or pause the video and take a screenshot or whatever look at this question follow the steps outlined in this lesson andw write an introduction do not write a full essay just write an introduction we looked at lesson one and this is the feedback on lesson one so if you have not completed lesson one go and do that and complete your introduction and because if you haven't completed your introduction this video will not make sense at all um so what we're going to do in this video is we're going to give you feedback on your work so we're going to look at some checklists that you can use to help you improve your own introductions we going to give you some samples that need Improvement and I'll talk about why they need Improvement so you can learn from them and then we'll look at some good samples from uh students that have produced good samples and then we'll look at some VIP samples from my VIP group okay so first of all it's amazing to see so many of you taking action to improve your lives and the only way that you're going to improve your I scores is by taking action by learning what to do by doing that thing and by getting feedback on your work so well done for doing that and if you didn't get the work done don't feel guilty and give up like things happen happen you know life gets in the way and go back and and complete it and then you'll be able to make progress so first of all I want to talk about criticism so I'm going to give three feedback lessons in this course and most of it will be criticism it will be mostly me saying this isn't good you need to do this to improve and the only way you will improve is to seek criticism and to use it to improve and and we only actually work with students that have this attitude because it's so key you cannot improve your scores unless you have a very positive attitude to negative criticism and none of the things we say are a criticism of you as a person they're just designed to help you improve your writing so you can improve your life so that's our main goal is just to help you get the scores you need and then you can move on and improve your life in whatever way I scores will help you do that so is feedback important yes it's the most important thing the lessons and tasks are just the first steps however they are a complete waste of time if you do not take action on your feedback so many people when we've done courses like this before what they'll do is they'll just look at the content videos they won't actually do the tasks and they especially won't look at the feedback videos cuz they think that they're not that important but let's look at how important it actually is so the first thing you need to do is you need to look and think it is essential that you understand the feedback provided and think deeply about how it applies to your work so we cannot give individual feedback on this course we do that on other courses but not on this course because there just it's a free course and there's so many people but what you can do instead of getting individual feedback is you can understand the general Global feedback we're giving today and think about how it applies to your own work then you can apply that as I've just said honestly apply what you've learned to your own work and think about how it might apply to your work in the future and then finally adapt your work in accordance with the feedback and improve it and repeat that cycle and if you imp repeat that cycle then you're going to improve so here was your homework task and what I asked you to do was complete an introduction so there were three things that you needed to do you needed to understand the question you needed to paraphrase the question and you needed to briefly answer both questions so here's a little paraphrasing checklist we'll look at the first thing that you needed to do you practically needed to do first so first thing you need to do was does the sentence mean the same as the question are there any vocabulary errors and is the sentence grammatically correct so if you can answer affirmatively to those questions if you can say yes it does mean exactly the same as a question no there aren't any vocabulary errors my vocabulary is good and yes the sentence is grammatically correct then there's no problem with your paraphrasing so let's look at each of these does it mean the same thing so the question said nowadays artificial intelligence is being used to drive cars and this one this is a student sample nowadays automobile Industries are growing rapidly in these competitive markets with Advanced Technologies and artificial intelligence now the question doesn't say anything about automobile Industries or about them growing rapidly or about competitive markets so this doesn't mean the same because they've included things that just aren't included in the question do not include things that are not included in the question let's look at this one doesn't mean the same due to our a rapid life movement the complexity of our life and the high technology that we Face nowadays so it's in a question doesn't say anything about your life it doesn't say anything about complex life or fast-paced life or any of those things so why would you include this this is just them showing off or copying someone else's answer um which is not the thing that you need to do does this mean the same so the automotive industry is rapidly developing for the last decade nope and one of their latest inventions is utilizing artificial intelligence for car driving in order to make it safer and more convenient for people to travel so does it say anything about safer and more convenient in the question no so why would you include it in your paraphrase does this mean the same thing artificial intelligence is the fruit of human beings much toiled work no it's nothing to do with it and you might think that I've went and you know picked some really really bad examples these are very very common examples these are not extreme these are not you you know and things that you don't see that often you see these things over and over and over and over again the other thing that you need to do is you need to change your sentence enough a lot of the things that we see are people taking words and phrases from the from the question and putting them into their paraphrase now you can include some things but you know more than 50% of the sentence is directly copied from the question you know if you copy one or two words that's fine but overall you know you shouldn't copy like more than 50% of the question Also let's look at vocabulary artificial intelligence has expanded its plethora and utility vehicles nowadays now what this student has done is they've memorized a list of vocabulary often you'll get websites and you know you'll see it on YouTube and Facebook and places like this where someone will say you know if you memorize these words and use these words you'll get a high score this is not true you need to use these words effectively you need to use these words appropriately just putting them into a sentence doesn't mean that you're doing anything correctly artificial intelligence to drive vehicles is getting more trendy in the world of advancement so again they're trying to use this word trendy um trendy is not really appropriate you use the word trendy to talk about fashion or to talk about Trends in the world you wouldn't really really talk about it in this context so these are examples of of words that students are using because they think that it will impress The Examiner but they don't know enough about these words they don't know the meaning they don't know the context they don't know the use they don't know the cations they don't know how to use them in a sentence basically don't use words you don't understand recently automobiles are driven by robotics so uh robotics kind of related to artificial intelligence you can have a a robot that has artificial intelligence but most robots don't have artificial intelligence robotics is not really precise enough in this context so don't think about what word kind of means the same you need to use words that mean exactly the same cars are driven with man-made techniques or functions um again this isn't really that accurate you need or that appropriate again four wheelers H four-wheelers all right I know what you mean I know you mean a car but you would never call a car a four-wheeler like I would never say I'm thinking of getting a new four-wheeler you would say a car car is a car like keep it simple in Modern Life self-driving cars are popular to Transportation so you'll see a lot lot of people trying to change the wording and change the vocabulary but you need to remember that the grammar needs to be correct as well grammar is 25% of your total Mark motorized cars controlled by artificial intelligence can be seen in modern days again just small grammar errors can add up if every single one of your sentences or most of your sentences have small grammar errors and even though you think they're just small ones like you know punctuation mistakes or article mistakes or preposition mistakes these add up and these can lower your score again have a look at this the artificial intelligence based on car driving is getting increased popularity in many countries this days again just small grammar errors but they will add up same with this person this person needs to work on articles to make a computer software where as the intelligent hum but the really great thing about this person is their main problem is just articles so your main problem could just be one area of grammar or maybe two areas of grammar maybe like punctuation and verb tenses or prepositions and articles so this is great for this person because they know what to focus on and they know that they can um you know improve that area by giving it um their time and their focus so let's look again at the paraphrasing checklist does the sentence mean the same as the question are there any vocabulary errors and is the sentence grammatically correct so apply that to your own sample that you have posted and correct it and it will help you so let's look at some good student examples in recent times it is not uncommon to see automobiles being D driven my artificial intelligence so does it mean the same yes are there any grammar errors or vocabulary errors no good doesn't need to be fancy doesn't need to be showing off how amazing you are just needs to be effective so now you need to write your outline so here's a checklist for your outline did you clearly answer both questions are your ideas relevant and specific and are there any linguistic errors so let's have a look at this and tell me what the problem is so have a look at it pause the video and think about what the problem is with this one so the problem with this one is is there's just way too much detail you don't need to give this much detail you need to be getting to the point you put the detail in your main body paragraph the introduction is really just introducing them to what is going on you're not adding in all this detail so again have a look at this one and tell me what you think the main problem is so pause the video and have a look and think about the main the main problem so the main problem is is there's way too many ideas there should be two paragraphs two main body paragraphs each paragraph is going to have one main idea so you're going to have two main ideas not more than that so again have a look what's the problem again too many ideas your introduction needs to match up with the rest of your essay so you can't have you know three four five main ideas in your uction and then only two in your main body you know that's the way it should be so the main problem here is it's difficult to understand and remember the purpose of writing the purpose of writing is to convey a message to the reader the person reading it needs to understand it if they can't understand it then there was no point in writing it in the first place what's the problem here pause the video and think about it so problem here is this way too vague you do need two specific ideas you're the purpose of outline sentence is to give two ideas so they should be specific so let's look at a good student example this is done in order to reduce costs associated with employees in the transport sector so very specific clear easy to understand idea and should certainly be seen as a negative development as it will reduce jobs available for the population so again clear easy to understand two main ideas that are clear it's not perfect um you know it is a student example um but it's it's much better than you know 90% of other answers here's another one artificial intelligence increasingly plays a role in driving Vehicles good paraphrase this is Judo advancement in technology and it should be seen as a positive development because it reduces the chance of road traffic accidents again not perfect but very very very good let's have a look at one of our VIP students who I was teaching and they provided this one recently self-driving cars have become increasingly common this is because AI has reached a point where it can safely control a vehicle and this should be viewed positively due to the reduction in traffic accidents so the good thing to remember here is this student was in the exact same position as you were they didn't know how to paraphrase they didn't know how to use vocabulary and grammar effectively they didn't know how to outline anything they didn't know anything and we were able to take them through show them exactly what to do and this just proves that anybody can learn this so apply that to your own work apply what you've learned today and you'll will really really see an improvement and then move on to video three which is showing you how to write a main body paragraph so welcome to lesson two of I essay Builder so in lesson one we looked at how to write an introduction and now we're going to look at the next building block of your essay how to build your main body paragraph so what are we going to look at today we're going to look at how to use our introduction as the foundation for the rest of your essay so it's the as I said on Monday the introduction serves as kind of like a mini plan for you and so we're going to talk about that and how you can use your introduction to start writing your main body paragraphs and then we're going to get into main body paragraphs we're going to look at the Essential Elements we're going to look at topic sentences explanations examples we're going to look at how you write these show you examples of how to write these um and then we're going to finish off with our homework task so just a reminder guys we're focusing on just one type of task 2 essay um please just remember this you can't just look at all of the stuff that we've done this week and then hope that you're lucky on test day and that you'll get a double question doesn't work like that also as I already said the double questions a lot of the stuff does translate to these other types of questions but I would look into these you have to study these properly many of you um have been emailing me messaging me and saying can you just give us some quick tips or quick structures for the other types of essay that's kind of like saying you know at the end of your driving test can you give me some quick tips on how to ride a motorbike or how to fly a plane or how to drive a train um quick tips and shortcuts don't work you need um to go into things on a very very deep level which is what we're doing with double questions this week okay so let's remind ourselves about the the four paragraph structure for double questions introduction which we've already done then our first main body paragraph which is going to answer the first question then our second main body paragraph which is going to answer our second question and then our conclusion so let's review lesson one a little bit let's look at the introduction and the question um that we wrote Because this is very very important that we understand how we use the introduction to then write our main body paragraph So this was the question that we were using nowadays more tasks at home and work are being performed by robots why do you think this is happening is it a positive or negative development so the introduction that I showed you was robotics increasingly play a role both in the home and the workplace this is due to advancements in technology and it should be seen as a positive development because it reduces a person's workload so this is the question that we're going to use today and this is the introduction that we're going to use today and we're going to use this introduction as like a mini plan that's going to help us write our main body paragraphs so how does that work so if we break it down um the bit in red here is our paraphrase and then the two bits here these are our two main ideas so this is going to be paragraph number one main body paragraph number one due to advancements in technology and then paragraph number two is going to be about this one so as you can see our main body one is going to be our first main idea this is occurring because of advancements in technology and Main body two is going to be about this idea and it should be seen as a positive development because it reduces a person's workload so this acts as both a help to the reader because the reader knows exactly what is coming up in the main body they know exactly what this essay is about you've introduced them to these topics and then you're going to take these ideas and you're going to develop them in your main body okay so let's look at what is a main body paragraph because it became very clear um during Monday's lesson that many of you didn't really understand what an introduction was and what it was supposed to be many of you have huge miscon conceptions about the test especially the writing test so much of this course is really just removing those misconceptions and and teaching you exactly what you're supposed to be doing and the principles the fundamentals of what you're supposed to be doing so this is the most important part of your essay think of it as the meat in the hamburger imagine getting a hamburger and going into McDonald's and getting a hamburger and only the the bread or the bun um come comes out you wouldn't be very happy that actually happened to me in Vietnam in McDonald's in Vietnam before um and I certainly wasn't very happy um and this doesn't mean that the introduction and the conclusion are not important but the mainbody paragraph is the most important part this is where you'll make your detailed argument this is where you will prove your point so before I was an English teacher I used to be a lawyer and what we would do is we would go to court and we would argue and an argument a legal argument is not like an argument where two people are shouting at each other it's two people two lawyers trying to prove their case trying to prove their point so think of your mainbody paragraphs is where you will do this it's where you will explain why your points are valid and support those points with examples to help you prove what you are trying to write about or what you're trying to say in your essay so this is where you set out your main points and develop them fully all right one of the the Hallmarks one of the ways that the examiners will know if you know what you're doing or whether you should get you know one of the higher marks one of the the sevens the eights and the nines is whether you fully developed your points so you haven't just listed as many different ideas as you can what you've done is you've taken relevant specific ideas and youve fully developed these art so how do you do that so there are three elements of a main body paragraph not three sentences um three elements all right three things that need to be in your main body paragraph first thing is a topic sentence second thing is an explanation and a third thing is an example every single main body paragraph you should write should have a topic sentence should have an explanation and should have an example if you do that you're going to write a much much better better um main body paragraph than somebody who like many of you what you do when your mainbody paragraphs is you include like three different ideas um and no explanations no examples no topic sentences and it's just like I call it a shopping list main body paragraph it's just a a list of ideas it's not actually a real paragraph So now let's look at each of these elements cuz once you understand how to write each of these elements then you can put them together in a main body paragraph So topic sentence this tells the reader what the paragraph is about so very much like your introduction in your introduction what that an introduction does why do we write an introduction to help the reader why do we write a conclusion to help the reader why do we write a topic sentence to help the reader why are we helping the reader so much because the main purpose of writing think of the main purpose of writing writing is the main purpose of writing to show how many big words you know is the main purpose of writing to show how many different grammar structures and tenses you know or is the main purpose of writing to clearly communicate with the reader the more that you help the reader the more that you clearly communicate with the reader your better your writing becomes once you start to realize that then you become a better writer and it's essential for task response task response is basically Al did you answer the question task response is 25% of your total Mark did you answer the question a topic sentence helps you make it very clear to The Examiner I've understood the question and here is my answer here is how I'm answering the question but it's also important for coherence and cohesion so coherence and cohesion another 25% of your total Mark coherence is it clear and easy to understand topics sentences make your main body paragraphs clear and easy to understand topic sentences should be short and simple they do not need to be com long complex sentences just short and simple just this is what the paragraph is about many people worry about repetition here and this is a huge problem a huge problem is that I don't know where this came from and it's particularly prevalent in certain countries I'm not going to name the countries um because I don't want you to think that I'm picking on certain countries or but in certain countries for some reason it's a very very popular idea amongst I teachers or so-called ielt teachers that repetition you cannot repeat anything so that means that you cannot repeat anything in your that is in your introduction in your main body paragraph and you can't repeat anything that's in your introduction or your main body paragraph in your conclusion think about that for a minute if you couldn't do that then your introduction your main body paragraph and your conclusion would be three completely different things about three completely different topics ideas whatever that would be a completely incoherent um answer that lacked any sort of cohesion um and will mean that you know you get yourself in all sorts of TR where does this come from this comes from people teaching I that don't really know what they're doing they haven't put the time in to understand their craft they haven't put the time in to understand what they're really what what this is really about um and what they do is they see that you should avoid repetition in in the is essay you lose marks for repeating words or phrases too many times but not ideas ideas should be consist consistent throughout your whole essay so the ideas in your introduction should be consistent with the ideas in your mainbody paragraphs should be consistent with the ideas in your conclusion if you do not believe me go and look at a real academic Journal so an academic Journal go into you know you can Google this on you know and find it in any University or go into any University library and look at quality academic journals produced by very high level academics look at the introduction look at the main body paragraphs and look at the conclusion and you will see that the introduction says this is what we're going to talk about these are the ideas that we're going to talk about and then they develop those same ideas in the main body and then what they do is they summarize those same ideas in the conclusion if you want to listen to your local IELTS teacher who is is pretending to know what they they um that they pretending to know what they're doing for a living um you want to believe them rather than me every single examiner who works on my team every every high quality a teacher I've ever spoken to if you still believe that stop the video and go back to your locals teacher if you want to get the scores that you need keep watching so what how are you going to vary your language so you should shouldn't be using the same words and phrases over and over and over and over again but you have to use the same ideas and how you do that is you paraphrase again now when I tell students this they say oh but I can't paraphrase I don't know how to paraphrase I don't know how to vary my language um to get a seven or above which is what most of you want you have to be able to paraphrase multiple times throughout the essay basically if you're saying I can't do that you're saying I'm not ready to get a seven yet that's basically what you're saying because that is what is required so topic sentence let's look at my topic sentence so this in purple this is the question in blue in purple this is what I wrote in my introduction so what all I do is just take this and then paraphrase it say it in different words so that it means the same thing and this is going to become my topic sentence so this is my topic sentence in red people rely on machines because of the latest developments in machine learning okay so what I've done is I've just taken this and I've put it into my own words again you're going to have to do this if you want a seven or above you have to learn how to paraphrase you have to have a wide vocabulary you have to your grammar needs to be good enough does that mean that you'll never get there no I've helped you know thousands of students get the scores that they need but you need to change your mindset from I just need to memorize lots of words and phrases and insert them into my essay to okay I actually need to learn how to write properly I actually need to learn how to use grammar and vocabulary properly and when you change your mindset then it becomes your progression you will progress very very quickly and get the scores that you need so now we're going to look at explanations so explanations are very very important and I'd say that out of all the elements in your essay most you know there's none that are unimportant I don't want to you to assume that some things are not important but explanations I would say are the most important thing and because only good students can clearly explain what they mean it's it's a skill that is very hard to acquire um and and you probably are not even good at this in your native language um and it's it's not saying I'm not criticizing you in any way but in general people are not very good at taking ideas that are in their head and clearly explaining them on paper and it's something that is quite difficult to do because it's something that many of you just never practice using um but it's something that is quite easy to learn and we're going to talk about this briefly here so never assume that the reader knows what your topic sentence means or that they know how it answers the question so bad communication um most bad communication and and this happens I do this sometimes when I'm talking to my team my team does this sometimes when they're communicating with me and the reason why they they might send me an email or a message and it's not very clear is they assume that I know what is in their head they assume that I know exactly what they are thinking and they so they don't don't explain fully what the problem is or what they need help with or what what the the context of the message the reader can't ask you any follow-up questions so you must explain everything so think about the difference between speaking to someone and writing to someone and I don't mean writing on WhatsApp or you know sending text messages or or even emails um think about writing a book or think about writing a academic Journal think about writing an ielt essay the person reading that cannot ask you any follow-up questions so the skill that you need to learn is to anticipate what they might be thinking and what they might need you to explain and explaining that to them pretend you're explaining it to someone who knows nothing about the topic a very common error that I see is students say to me oh well the examiner knows about this or the examiner knows everything or The Examiner is really intelligent okay so um you cannot assume that you and you're that will lead to very poor communication because you always will assume that the person knows what you're talking about explanations help you communicate clearly and you need to um explain it in a way that you assume that the person knows nothing about what you're talking about one really good way of writing explanation is what my old English teacher um or my old science teacher as well and when we would be writing in school my old English teacher and my old science teacher he would walk around the classroom and he would look over your shoulder and they would say so what so what so they would look at your the sentence that you were writing and they would say so what what does that mean give me more they in other words they were they were saying develop it explain it what does that actually mean mean so a number of the the successful students that I've had um what they when we do success stories with with our students and we post them online we post the videos online a lot of them will say that when they were doing the test they were imagining me saying so what so what develop your answer explain what you mean and that seems to really work another way of thinking about explanations is how would you explain this to someone who knows nothing about the topic so imagine you were explaining this to a 10-year-old boy a 10-year-old boy who knows nothing about this how would you explain that to them another way is how would you say or or what would you say to an alien from a different planet somebody who knows nothing about our planet imagine aliens come down how would you explain this thing to them and that will help you um develop your answer and fully explain what you mean so this is my topic sentence people rely on machines because of the latest developments of machine learning learning now if I just write this um it's not very good because there's I'm not explaining any what it means how it answers the question so if someone was reading this what questions would they be asking themselves or let's imagine that I am speaking to someone in a normal one-on-one conversation and I say this what would they be thinking or what follow-up questions would they be asking me well they probably say what is machine learning what developments how have those developments allowed this to happen why what's the result what are the consequences so you're not going to be writing about what is machine learning and then write about what is the developments and then write about this and then why and then result and it that's not how you're going to do it what you're going to be doing is you're going to be preempting what the person reading this might be asking themselves or might be asking you if they were to be able to speak to you and and these are not you know who what why where how some when I say that to some students what they do is they write you know one sentence about who then one sentence about what and then one sentence no these are just to give you ideas so that you can think about how you would clearly explain this and then you can write your explanations so this is my explanation so this is my topic sentence at the top here and then this is my explanation this is because Big D and the fact that we are all connected via the Internet means that algorithms can learn basic tasks as a result software does not need to be programmed but can learn from millions of other devices around the world for example and we're going to look at the example in a moment but what hopefully what you've been able to see here is what I've done is take this sentence and fully develop it answer all those questions that somebody might ask me about it and de develop it in a way that it clearly helps to answer the question it helps me to prove my point and then once you've done that then you can move on to the example so examples the examiners want you to demonstrate that you know how to use examples the examiners don't want you to demonstrate that you have a you know an unbelievable memory and you can memorize lots and lots and lots of different news stories and facts and figures and stuff like that all they want you to do is to demonstrate that you know how to use an example why because that's a very useful skill to have imagine you are a doctor or a nurse or an engineer or a lawyer and you move to a new job in London um or Toronto or New York City and part of your job will be writing to someone or speaking to someone you should be able to use basic examples to help you prove your points to help you prove what you you are saying it's it's a very very basic skill to have um and if if you're not able to do that then you're really really are going to struggle in the workplace um and you're definitely going to struggle if you're a university student because you're going to have to do this all the time when you're writing essays and things the examples must support or prove your main point so the example must be directly linked to your main point the the purpose of an example is to prove your main point so what you do is you look at your main point and think how can I use an example to prove this think about when you're arguing with someone and you use an example to help win the argument and you probably do this all the time imagine you're fighting with your siblings or your husband or your wife um like let's say for example my wife says to me um like you left the ice cream out last night and it melted all over the place and I'd say well so what so then she would explain to me why that's a problem well you just wasted lots of money and there's ice cream all over the floor and I have to clean it up and I don't have time to do that and it's not nice to have you know um ice cream all over the floor then I would say really did that happen and she yeah like you you did that last night um I had to clean it up this morning look at the floor it's got that's her example she's proven her Point that's a very simplistic example of like a husband and wife having having an argument um but you can probably think of hundreds of of um debates or arguments that you've had with people in the past and using an example is very very very strong um because it just it blows people out of the water they can't argue back if you have a concrete example that that proves your point so it's really really important you know how to do this and it's very useful for arguing with people um someone like me who constantly um post stuff online um you know 5% of the comments will always be people arguing with me and all I have to do is just go well here's an example that proves my point Thank you which is very very useful okay so examples do not need in in the context of the IELTS test the IELTS writing test examples do not need to be true but they must make sense so you're not expected to have like an encyclopedic knowledge of you know data research and all of these different things that you need to do um it's not like that and and you don't it's not a lie detector test it's not a a truth test you can make things up to to fit in and help you prove your points but they must make sense they must be believable um you can't just make stuff up you know out of thin air and it sounds totally implausible so two ways that you can easily create examples so there are there are hundreds not hundreds actually there you know 10 or 20 different ways that I teach people how to write examples um on on my course but let's just show you two two very very simple ones that you could use in your writing so the first one is Recent research concluded that plus what you're trying to prove or a recent study find that plus what you're trying to prove now for your purposes don't don't worry about percentages and data and all of those different things just put a recent research concluded that plus what you're trying to do or a recent study find that plus what you're trying to do what you're trying to prove so let's look at that what those would look like you can also use newspapers magazine stories a clip you saw on YouTube or a news story or something like that personal experiences personal examples are okay but you need to be very very careful I would avoid personal examples part personal circumstance I'm not going to get into why or why not cuz it just takes too much time to explain um they're okay but I would generally um not use them again think about explaining it to somebody who knows nothing what would you use to help illustrate this to an alien from a different planet so before we get into look at the full main body paragraphs and and to show you full examples on all of those different things um many of you might be a little bit overwhelmed um at the moment do not worry this if this is not making complete sense right now um many of you have a mindset where you want to just get some quick tips some shortcuts and understand things immediately and then get the score you need um that's not going to happen um it will take further imp mation further practice for you to fully understand and be able to do these things like imagine learn wanting to learn how to drive a car in one day or wanting to learn how to ride a bike in one hour um you can learn how to ride a bike pretty quickly you can learn how to drive a car pretty quickly but not in an unreasonable amount of time you need further implementation you need further practice you need further feedback um this is just the first stage of your preparation um don't worry if this is you're going like how am I going to do this this seems very very complicated you will get it you do not worry about this so like for example in my VIP group we do a whole module a whole module on examples plus we look at each of the different five essay types individually for all of these different things and we also have like Facebook live videos on example exles in the VIP Facebook group we constantly give people work to do they do them they practice them we give them feedback on them and that's how they learn and that's how they get it so if you if you're not fully understanding all of this or you you get your feedback later on um tomorrow and you're not you're not perfect yet you don't need to be perfect it is a process and you will get there eventually so let's look at our paragraph so this is because big data and the fact that we are all connected via the Internet means that algorithms can learn basic tasks so this is our explanation I haven't put the topic sentence in here as a result software does not need to be programmed but can learn from millions of other devices around the world so the bed in purple that is my explanation all right and then here is my example for example Tesla cars now come with autopilot which drives the car itself and shares the data with all other Tesla vehicles so this is a perfect example because it's a real car that actually drives itself all right so if if you know of an example that perfectly supports your main idea then that's great use that um I'm I really love Tesla cars I read about them quite a bit um but you don't need to use a Tesla car um as an example it fits perfectly here but there are you know 100 different other examples that you could use so this is the full um paragraph so you can pause the video and you can have a read of this but let's just talk about it uh briefly for a moment we have the topic sentence in the first sentence here what what does the topic sentence do it says hello Mr reader hello Mrs reader whoever's reading this is what I'm going to talk about then the next two sentences and it doesn't have to be two sentences you're explanations could be one sentence three sentences four sentences do not worry about number of sentences really or number of words really focus on the actual quality of your work rather than how short or how long it is um what this does is it explains fully what I think about my main point how it answers the question and approves my main point and then the example helps support my main point so think about this as an argument if somebody if I was to make this argument um it's very very strong it's very clear it's easy to understand the reader knows exactly what I'm talking about paragraph two is it a positive or negative development so this is the second question so this is going to be our second main body paragraph main idea because it reduces workload explanation so I this would be my uh plan explanation AI does boring repetitive tasks freeing up time to do other things examples Google home Amazon Alexa I don't know whether you've heard of those before um pretty big in the UK and the US uh they're basically smart devices and they're devices that you have on your home and you can talk to them and they use AI to answer questions and do tasks for you um in the home um Uber Uber uses um AI um within its app net fli uses AI to learn your viewing preferences and many many many many many thousands of other examples and am I am I going to use all these examples in my main in my essay no this is show to show you what I would write if I were planning this out and I would quickly just jot down some examples I would write very brief explanations my main my main idea would be very very clear and then what I do how easy is it going to be to write a mainbody paragraph when you have thought clearly about this you've got it all planned out and don't worry about time guys this will save you time um if I was to just starting to start writing a main body paragraph it could take me let's say if I'm an average student it could take me you know 10 minutes or 15 minutes let's say 15 minutes to write a main body paragraph but if I spend two minutes or one minute and um writing all this out it reduces that time from 15 minutes to you know 5 to 6 7 Minutes something like that so putting in the effort to plan things out really does make a huge difference when you're starting to write your main body paragraphs so let's have a look at this automation should be welcomed because it frees people from the drudgery of everyday Judy so this is my topic sentence so it's saying it's a good thing because it means we do less work all right that's basically what it's saying um so then I have to explain this point our day-to-day lives are dominated by menial repetitive chores that take up much of our time automating these is possible and techn technological solutions allow us to focus on more meaningful activities then I need to explain this for example there is now a robot that both cuts grass and Hoover carpets and the manufacturers estimate that this will save the average person 3 weeks per year okay so what I've done is I've said it saves you time here's how it saves you time here's an example of it saving you time and then what I've done is I put a little further explanation onto the end here just to show you that what a lot of students do is they think that there's only one way and when I when I teach them um how to do anything they're like okay I'll stick exactly to that or some other students say well can we write three explanation sentences can we write one of the ends can we write like you can do pretty much do what you want guys um and this is to show you that if you wanted to add a little bit of explanation at the end to to Really solidify it you can do that also owners are free to choose what to do with these extra hours instead of being forced to carry out routine work so it's just a further explanation um it's not a conclusion statement or anything like that it's just a further explanation don't over complicate this and be like do I have to do that do I not have to do that as long as you have have the three Essential Elements the topic sentence which always be first because it's a topic sentence then you have your explanations then you have your examples that is going to help you write a clear main body paragraph that will help you and prove your point help you demonstrate that you know what you're doing okay so now you're going to do the same thing for this question so you're going to look at the question below and follow the steps outlined in this lesson to write a main body paragraph so take a screenshot of this or write it down whatever you have to do and pause the video and and you can have a look at this you already have your introduction so what I would suggest you do is if you're very happy with your introduction use that if I highlighted some things in the feedback yesterday that means that you need to redo your introduction redo your introduction and then use your introduction as kind of a mini plan that will help you um write the rest of your essay so let's look at um some checklists some things that you guys didn't do so well how you can improve and we'll look at some VIP samples as well you probably have noticed that I'm a little different from your average teacher if you're looking at these lessons and looking at the feedback that I give you one of our main principles in our company so we have 10 key principles is that that we treat everyone how we would want our loved ones to be treated so if my wife was doing the I test or my son was doing the I test how would we treat them that's one of the reasons why we've been so successful we're not just putting stuff out there um and not really caring about it we deeply care about you guys and about the the stuff that we put out there and we really care that you get the scores that you need so would I want to teach her to lie to my son or lie to my wife no so some of you have have said that you know you're very negative when you're always criticizing us and you're always telling us that um you you we're not good enough um I I don't want to lie to you guys I don't want to tell you that you know you're doing a good job and then you go and do the test and fail I'd rather be very very honest with you and point out your mistakes and point out your weaknesses so that you can improve however what I want a teacher to be negative all the time no I I don't think that I should be negative all the time and I'm not negative all the time especially when um you work with me on a daily basis or work with me more closely but do realize that um I have to be a little bit negative um during these feedback sessions I believe in being compassionate so caring about the person that that you're you're teaching but many of you need the truth and looking at your work many of you are going to fail there's no and I I'd say that the vast majority of you if you continue down the road that you're go you're going on and do not improve then you're going to fail I'm just being honest with you because I care about you and I I don't want you to fail and I want you to start taking action but you will pass you will get the score you need if you change but if you do the same things you will get the same result if you just keep doing the same things over and over and over again you're going to get the same result fail fail fail fail fail you're going to have to make some big changes guys and you're going to have to start doing things in a different way but if you do those there is a light at the end of the tunnel so let's look at all of the the common mistakes that I picked up from looking at all of the writing that you guys submitted um and what I want you to do is think about your own writing and if any of these things apply to your own writing and then you can go back and apply that and improve so many of you just did not follow the basic structure so for example with this one so no real topic sentence and putting the example straight in there not clear where topic sentences the explanation and the example um as I said yesterday in the feedback it's it's totally up to you how you structure your own essay you're an adult it's it's it's totally up to you how you want to do that I'm just telling you based on years and years and years of experience helping people get get the scores they need that the structure that I suggest is does work and it is very simple and easy to understand so I would strongly recommend that you follow that if you don't want to do that that's fine but I would strongly recommend doing it same same with this one so let's have a look at this one the benefits are numerous and it h enhances the transportation system of the country thereby reducing Road accidents and ensures proper conditions of cars okay so I kind of know what you're saying here but where your explanation where are your examples where is the the topic sentences again you might say oh but this just does the job right and this says what what I want to say but you you have to give the examiners what they want all right so you have to understand what the examiners are looking for and then give the examiners what they are looking for if you don't do that you're going to really really struggle a lot of you just didn't have any paragraphing whatsoever um this is a real uh these are really easy marks to throw away and the simplest marks you you're going to get are showing paragraphs and it doesn't matter if you skip a line or you indent it or you skip multiple lines all you have to do is just show The Examiner here's where one paragraph ends and here's where the next paragraph begins that's all you have to do and there are multiple ways that you can do that but what you've done here is you've said to the person reading this your time is not as important as my time I didn't have the time to put in a paragraph I don't care about you my time is more important than your time so I want you to spend the time trying to figure out where one paragraph ends and where the next one begins you're throwing away easy marks and you're making it more difficult for the reader if you follow just one rule make it easy for the reader make it easy for the reader to understand your main points and how they answer the questions and your structure and all of those different things um that's what WR good writing is it's making your message very clear to the person reading it again no paragraphing here whatsoever there were multiple ones like that some of you just copied my sample so um let's talk about copying for a minute um the IELTS test is not a memorization test you cannot look at lots and lots and lots of sample answers which is many of you have asked me for many of you have been asking you know can you give me lots of samples and what you're really saying is can you give me lots of samples so that I can copy them so that I can copy what you do and put it into an essay now I Els know that you're doing this so they have they haven't made the test a memorization test they've made the test a writing test they've made the test a thinking test they need you to like do things like analyze and evaluate your own work and to create you create ideas and explain those ideas and and respond to the specific question being asked you won't be able to do that if you're memorizing stuff and that also includes memorizing vocabulary memorizing grammar structures all of those different things um you have to start to to operate individually and independently a lot of you just didn't have a position um didn't so a position what I mean by position is that you just didn't um State what you think about it so let's have a look at this one the world has experienced a huge unprecedented advancement in technology in recent years particularly in the automation industry so this really isn't a topic sentence what this is is just a paraphrase of of the actual question there's no position here there's no opinion here there's no main idea here vehicles are manufactured with the technology of AI for self-drive again just repeating the question no position whatsoever taking an example of vage cars which are made in China they have devices that are enable to be remote controlled and hence self-driven due to this they are best s cars in China okay so this is a very very common mistake um and and I think it comes from in a lot of cultures CU I've taught in many countries where this is the case and I and I have students from all over the world in many cultures it's not taught that you should take a very strong position on something um it's not within you know in the education system children are just not taught to take a very strong position you kind of dance around things rather than being direct um you are very indirect and and this is what can happen so what this person has done is they've just wrote everything they know about automated car like AI cars the the the task being set is not right everything you know about the topic the task is respond to the specific question being asked to show how you understand the question and how you can clearly convey what you mean in a piece of writing um so that should be your goal not write everything you know about the topic also there were many of you and this is very very common a very common mistake um massive uh focus on vocabulary so your vocabulary Mark is important but it's 25% of your total Mark what some the person who wrote this thinks that vocabulary is the most important thing driverless vehicle technological lift automation sector computer manageable programs interpret humanlike sensitivity invest in further control like all of these things they're they're showing off they're trying to impress The Examiner rather than just answer the question and a lot of this vocabulary is wrong so what's happening here is a you haven't answered the question so youve got a low Mark for task achievement B your answer is not clear so you get a low Mark for coherence and cohesion and C you have made lots of vocabulary errors so you get a low Mark for vocabulary and also D you might make lots of grammar errors because you don't know how these words operate in a sentence so this is many people will look at this and think wow this person knows big words they must be really good actually it's one of the worst ones that we saw um be very very careful about showing off um how amazing your language is again this is not your fault this is related to the fact that many of you have gone to I schools or have I teachers that tell you all you have to do is you know insert lots of big words and you'll get a high score now if that were true then all of you would get a really high score because that's what a lot of you do um most of you don't get a high score why do you think that is do you think think it's a good idea to keep doing these things that all of your teachers and websites and YouTube videos tell you to do or do you think that you should maybe change the way you do things and do start doing things effectively a lot of you had a lack of cohesion um in your um in your samples so some of you U wrote your introduction and and included your introduction with your main body paragraph which was great to see because one of the things that examiners will be looking for is um do that your ideas your outline of your main ideas and your introduction match your main body paragraph So this person has said this is due to um the advancements in technology okay so that's fine no problems there however that needs to be in your main body so their I their main idea here is manufacture more efficient cars than in the past that's two different things so what you said is to the reader you've said I'm going to talk about advancements in technology ology so they're expecting that and then you talk about something else so it's kind of like going into a restaurant and the waiter saying yeah our special today is steak would you like a steak you're like y you're you're sitting there you're expecting a steak and then they bring out a bowl of ice cream it's like there's no cohesion there there's no congruence there um why do we write an introduction we write an introduction to tell the the reader what's going to happen that needs to match up with the main body so be very careful there that they all match up also a lot of you had very very vague topic sentences um for example it is irrefutable fact that a human has made a huge progress in technology very vague background statements don't write a background statement write a topic sentence there's a massive difference between topic sentences and background statements background statements will always have words like nowadays um improving day by day in Modern Life in the modern world um they very very rarely um actually State your main idea topic sentences are simple just write this is my main idea and write that Dar also a lot of you had explanations not answering the question so if you have a look at this one you'll see why so if we have a look at the explanation here the cars with this technology have automatic break and in case of Crash danger automatic uh temperature adjustment and self-driving by driver choice now that's telling me everything this person knows about what they know a um about an AI controlled car but the question wasn't what is an AI Control car if the person if the question was what is an AI Control car then this would be great but the question is not what is an AI Control Car so you have to answer the question that is actually being asked another common problem was example not proving main point so let's have a look at this so this person is talking about Cristiano Ronaldo so what so just because Cristiano Ronaldo drives a you know an electric car um an AI Control Car what has that got to do with your main point what has that got to do with the question um you know make sure that your example actually prove your main point if they don't prove your main point then why did you write them in the first place there was also other examples of of pure examples let's have a look at this one for example my uncle owns a self-driving car and he is Amazed by the Precision and accuracy of these automated systems adding to the mental rest of not driving when the road is really congested so just because your uncle drives a a car that doesn't mean anything that's just one person so be very very careful with using personal examples like I could say something like my grandfather smoked 20 cigarettes a day and he lived until he was 100 therefore smoking doesn't cause cancer would that be true so yes it's true that my grandfather smoked 20 cigarettes a day but that doesn't prove that smoking isn't harmful to your health because it's just one person so don't use one person to prove a general Point all right uh because there are always an anomalies all right so be very very careful with those uh personal examples let's have a look at this example for instance recent news uh update has it that one of the richest man in Africa has seen was seen in a sophisticated software installed car okay again one guy one guy does not prove anything um you need to use something that proves the general point that proves the overall point not one guy okay so what do you do now do you say oh no I'm going to fail like just because you you made a mistake doesn't mean that you're going to fail if you continue to make these mistakes you will fail but what you need to do is look at these common mistakes and then honestly evaluate your own writing and look at it and then correct it and work on it um and continue to think about these common mistakes if you do that that you're going to improve if you don't do that you won't improve it's very very simple um you'll hear me saying this a lot like keep it simple it's very simple I try and think of things in in as simple terms as possible and now let's look at some of the samples from our VIP students so I asked them to create some um some samples for you guys so that you can see the difference and so that you can see an effective main body paragraph okay here is a VIP sample and what I want you to to do is just look at each sentence um and think about what that sentence does so let's look at the first sentence artificial intelligence is being introduced to many vehicles to reduce the number of road traffic accidents so do you know what this person thinks about the question absolutely it is very clear and easy to understand if you read this um main body paragraph would you find it easy to understand it from the first sentence absolutely so it's very clear what their main idea is their next job is they need to explain how this main idea answers the question next sentence this is because thousands of people are killed on our roads every year and AI can control cars better than human beings so what this is doing here is Imagine they're explaining this to somebody who knows nothing about the topic like a 10-year-old boy who knows nothing about AI or cars or anything like that the 10-year-old boy would say well how is a I going to reduce the number of road traffic accidents here it is okay this is how it does it then the 10-year-old boy might say well how does it do that the software scans oncoming threats using a variety of sensors and can even anticipate collisions before they happen oh really okay I totally understand why that is I understand why AI is being introduced and I understand exactly what's going on but can you give me some evidence to to help that okay for example ex Le Google has developed a driverless car and after testing it on public roads it has only had one accident while driving millions of miles the same number of miles driven by humans would have resulted in many more serious injuries and fatalities oh okay I know exactly what you mean then also look at the the the vocabulary it is high level without showing off they're not inserting words randomly they're using vocabulary effectively and appropriately look at the grammar they're using a mix of complex and simple sentences they are using a a range different range of grammar and all of it is correct there's no grammar errors in it this is the level that you want to get to so this is one student let's have a look at another student this should be seen as a negative development because of the number of jobs that will will that will be lost so this is a different student answering the second question so do you understand whether they think it's negative or positive yes do you understand why they think it is yes because of the number of jobs that will be lost well what question would that 10-year-old boy be thinking now how will AI cause jobs to be lost let's see if they've answered that question automation will always be more attractive to companies and consumers because it is much cheaper than human labor drivers account for a large proportion of the workforce in any economy and removing them will result in mass unemployment because they will be replaced by machines oh okay so it's cheaper to have machines so people are going to lose their jobs I understand that do you have any evidence for that for instance Uber is developing new driverless taxis that will not require a person to operate them and it is estimated that this could lead to around 300,000 taxi and Uber drivers losing their livelihoods in the UK alone so this was a newspaper article um that that was in the the times I I believe not so long ago um one of the things we do with our students is we encourage them to be reading the news every day and then that's where you know a lot of you were asking yesterday what happens if I know nothing about the topic well you shouldn't know nothing about the topic because you should be reading in English every single day so let's have a look now at a checklist here are some things that you should have in your main body paragraph some things you should be thinking about so does my main point match what I stated in the introduction it should is my topic sentence clear does my explanation actually explain how my main point answers the question it should does my example make sense it should does my example directly support my main point why would you write it if it doesn't number six have I use vocabulary in a way that makes my writing easier to understand L more difficult to understand is my vocabulary accurate in other words do you understand how to use the words and do you understand the meaning and the collocations and everything about that word before you put it into your writing is my grammar accurate can I understand what I've just produced if you can't understand it nobody else is going to be able to understand it is it clear where one paragraph ends and the other begins paragraphing and if you can answer those and I've just made it really really simp simple for you guys it's it's so easy to understand this now like literally you just need to apply this to your own writing and you will get better so today we're going to look at what is a conclusion and we're going to look at how to write a conclusion then we're going to look at proof reading and checking um these are two slightly different things we're going to give you um a checklist of things that you need to um have done in your essay and you can do this at the end of of your test and we're also going to look at time management a little bit going to look at a demo going to show you what to do and then it will be your turn to write your full essay so we're going to give you a completely different question to do um a double question but on a different topic so that you can apply all of the different things that you have learned this week and that you can activate that knowledge do the thing and then I'll give you feedback later today okay so what have we achieved so far this week we've looked at how to write an effective introduction we've looked at how to write effective main body paragraphs and now we're going to complete our Essay with how to write a conclusion and check our essay at the end so let's have a look at the question nowadays more tasks at home and work are being performed by robots why do you think this is happening is it positive is it a positive or negative development and this was the the introduction that I showed you um just to clear something up many of you said why did you use robotics when you told us that robotics was not allow um you couldn't change AI to robotics um I'm not changing AI I'm changing robots to robotics so again guys be very careful to understand the actual question and read the question um before jumping to conclusions all right so what is a conclusion this is where we State our opinion so before we we we we move on many of you might be like what opinion we're not doing opinion essays what is he talking about don't worry we'll discuss that this is where we summarize our main ideas so the two things the two primary things that a conclusion is is it's a summary of your main ideas and it's a clear statement of what you think about the question your opinion or another way to say your position so the conclusion is your position plus a summary of your main ideas read any academic paper any academic journal and you'll be able to find the main points in the introduction and the conclusion the best advice that I ever received from a teacher was from my old high school um science teacher and he used to give us he was a an amazing teacher and he was always pushing us to go further and to learn more and he's a very inspirational Guy and um taught me a lot about science and about teaching and he used to give us University level um academic scientific academic journals and we would look at them and say like oh these are like the thousands and thousands of words long how will we ever learn this um his name was Mr rafy and he said easy what you do is you read the introduction then skip everything else and then just read the conclusion by reading the introduction and the conclusion you will understand everything in that journal article because that is where everything is summarized and stated and everything is very clear and easy to understand and you don't need to read the rest of it and that was the best advice I ever got because it meant that I did really well in University because when I looked at uh Journal articles I would just read the introduction read the conclusion and it was very easy for me to understand everything in it um this is why you need to write a good introduction and conclusion because that's what they're supposed to do they're supposed to the introduction is hello Mr reader Mrs reader this is what we're going to discuss conclusion hello Mrs reader M Mr reader this is what I just discussed a summary of everything but there's no opinion so many of you might be asking like we didn't do opinion questions we just did double questions so if you think about it every single question on the ielt writing task 2 paper is asking for your opinion asking for your position on something let's think about this for a second imagine you get a question that says what are the advantages and disadvantages what they're asking you is asking you what do you think what do you think the advantages are what do you think the disadvantages are in other words what is your opinion on the advantages and disadvantages if they ask you what are the problems and solutions what they're asking you is what do you think are the problems what do you think are the solutions so every single question might not be asking you for your opinion so asking you you know in in my opinion I think this by stating what you think the advantages and disadvantages problems and solutions answering the the um the the double questions you're stating what you think about something and that's what you need to do in your conclusion if you get got a double question like this why is this that's asking for your opinion is it a positive or negative development that's asking for your opinion it's asking for your position on do you think this is a positive or negative development so once you start to understand that the questions become much easier and more straightforward so there's three elements to a good conclusion a cohesive device which is a a linking word your opinion in other words your position what you think about the question or questions and a summary of your main ideas that's all it is okay so let's look at each of these um elements in more detail cohesive device you're only going to write one conclusion in your is writing test so learn just one way to start your conclusion some students that I that I work with say you know can you give me 10 different ways to start a conclusion like why why that would be a complete waste of your time and waste of you know your brain can only store a certain amount of information and you're only going to write one conclusion so just learn one or two ways to start your conclusion and those are in conclusion to conclude you don't get any extra marks for writing anything fun ier than that um so why would you learn 10 or 12 different ways to write you know in conclusion also don't ask me in the comments how about this way or how about this way or can we do it this way can we do it that way the reason why I'm saying don't do that is you only have a certain amount of time before you start writing your test the clock is ticking between now and you doing your test don't waste time on things that don't matter the other 10 ways that you can start your conclusion do not matter just focus on what actually matters and and ignore all the things that do not matter and that will mean that you're spending all your time focusing on things that will actually improve your score and you're not wasting your time on anything else now you're going to reiterate your opinion reiterate means State again because you've already stated your position or your opinion in the introduction now you're going to State it again number one do not worry about repetition many of you have been saying to me over and over and over again my teacher says you can't repeat anything my teacher says you can't repeat anything okay if they say that to you number one say why does Chris get all these really really high marks um are they fake is he lying to us um or maybe maybe you have not understood the official marking criteria this is the official marking criteria this is what the examiners use in every single country in every single sentence or Center sorry um and what does it say here presents a clear position throughout the response throughout presents a clear position in other words opinion throughout the response so not just in one place throughout the response so maybe your teacher is correct and I'm wrong and the official iil marking criteria is wrong I'll let you decide which one is who is correct and who's not correct so paraphrasing do not worry about repeating your main ideas again but this does not mean that you can copy the same word so you have already stated your position in the introduction if you don't understand this go back and look at the introduction module the introduction video so we take our main ideas from the introduction and we paraphrase them this makes it extremely simple to write a conclusion and ensures that your position is clear throughout the whole essay and again some of you might be saying but I don't know how to paraphrase if you don't know how to paraphrase yet you're not ready to get the score that you really want yet you will get there eventually um but saying you know I want a high ey score but I don't want to paraphrase um you know it's like me saying I want to buy a Ferrari but I don't want to spend any money you know what you want and the price that you have to pay um you have to you have to pay a price for everything you want that price could be money like if I want a Ferrari I have to pay money um for you guys the the what you want is a high is score the price that you have to pay is work and effort and sometimes money by seeking out someone who can show you exactly what to do there's a price to be paid for everything summary of main ideas someone should be able to read your conclusion only and tell you what your main ideas are so some somebody should be able to look at your writing your your essay ignore the the introduction ignore the mainbody paragraphs and just focus on the conclusion and tell you exactly what you just you just wrote about exactly what your main points are exactly what your whole essay is about again don't worry about repeating your main ideas but you just paraphrase you must paraphrase this will make the conclusion easy to write and ensure you summarize your main ideas so here's a demonstration of that okay so here is my introduction robotics increasingly play a role both in the home and the workplace so that was the question being paraphrased okay that was the very first sentence this is a occurring because of advancements in technology so that is my opinion plus my main idea this is occurring because of advancements in technology that's my position on the first question and that's my main idea also and it should be seen as a positive development that is my opinion because it reduces a person's workload that's my main idea so what the question is about my position on it my main ideas are all in the introduction now we need to just take this and we need to create at a conclusion let's see how we've done this in conclusion machines are machines carry out tasks for us due to the fact that engineers and computer scientists are pushing the boundaries of science and engineering and these Innovations should be welcomed because they emancipate humankind from routine toil I used a lot of really high level vocabulary in there guys because many of you were asking for this and saying that the stuff that I was writing was too simple um the reason why another reason why I don't use like really really really high level vocabulary is it makes it really difficult for you guys to understand it um many of you might be looking at this and going like routine toil hum emancipate what does that mean I mean you do you this is Way Beyond a band nine you do not need to use um vocabulary at this level but for you guys that are are complaining that my work is too simple there you go um always check the question again so you should be going back to the question you should be thinking about the question you should be thinking about your introduction does it match up does it answer the question then your conclusion okay does it match up with the question does it match up with the introduction does it mean the same thing and then you're done remember the examiner should be able to look at your conclusion only and understand that you've understood the question that you have a clear position and what your main ideas are to support that position do that and you'll write an excellent conclusion but that's not the end of your journey you need to proof read why do you need to proof read number one everyone makes mistakes guys everyone I every single time I write an essay I make mistakes every single time I do a lesson like this one I make mistakes I have to proofread it every single person on planet Earth has to proofread um so if if you know if Oxford professors or Cambridge professors need to proof read and then you probably need to do that too I make crucial errors every single time I write something you make multiple crucial errors in multiple sentences every time you write this is not a oh I'll do this if I have time this is not an option it's an absolute necessity you need to do this if you're going to get a high score so how to proof read you should proof read three times once at the end of each sentence then once again at the end of each paragraph and then once again at the end of each essay so when you write your sentence full stop read it is it grammatically correct is the vocabulary correct that's what you should be asking yourself we're going to talk about all the other things you need to worry about at the end um that's what you should be thinking about then once you finish your paragraph skip a line and look back at your paragraph how's my grammar how's my vocabulary does it make sense then at the end of your whole essay read it all again check it all again so many of you might be thinking I don't have time to do this Chris I barely get you know you said that I have to you know plan everything then write everything then check everything then proof read at the end I just don't have time to do this um unless you have time to do this um you won't be able to get the score you need um you're not going to be able to do this through time management tips or time management techniques or anything like that have a look at this look at the guys look at the behind you saying bolt look at how bad these guys are at time management all right so do these guys need time management tips or do they need to run a bit faster this is exactly like this is someone getting a b nine and this is everybody getting you know 6 6.5 you do not need to work on your time management you need to work on your grammar your vocabulary your task response your coherence and your cohesion you need to work on task one you need to work on task two you need to work on introductions main body paragraphs conclusions planning proof reading all of these things once you master all of these things you'll be like usin bolt until you master all those things you'll be like these guys struggling to catch up is this impossible no it's not impossible as you've seen all the results that I just showed you every single one of those people that are celebrating today that because they got the results that they they needed all of those people were in exactly the same position as you are today they had the same fears they had the same doubts but the difference between them and all of the people today who failed is they actually took action and improved themselves so how are you going to proofread as with everything I teach you should be thinking of one thing and one thing only what does the examiner want you should only be looking for mistakes that the examiner will pick up on as with everything I teach you should also be thinking strategically focus on your areas of weakness and get proper feedback on your work so we've had lots of students over the years and every student is different everyone has different strengths and weaknesses some students might really need work on articles another on prepositions another on tenses another on vocabulary collocations another on spelling another on introductions another on on any you know combination of those things becoming aware of the main reasons why you are getting six or 6.5 and not getting the score that you need is the the most important first step to proofreading your essay because if you don't understand those things you don't really know what you're looking for um if you have an expert giving you feedback on your writing you know the things because they'll constantly like when I send back essays our VIP students is just a sea of red they just see red everywhere you know fix this do this this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong um and that's not me being overly critical it's just to to be honest with them and open with them and show them these are the things you need to improve and then when they're in the real exam they'll be looking out for those things so here are some of the things um that you should be looking at when you're proof reading word kind did you go over the word kind did you answer the question is your message clear is what you how you answer the question what you think about the question your position is it clear are your points consistent in other words does your introduction main body paragraphs and conclusion do they match up is your position clear throughout the essay did you develop your main ideas or do you just have lots of ideas that are undeveloped how's your grammar range and accuracy how's your vocabulary range and accuracy how did you use cohesive devices how's your paragraphing these are just some of the things that you should be thinking about these things should be at the top of your mind so what you're actually thinking about when you're preparing when you're practicing when you're planning when you're writing when you're proofreading so it's not proofreading starts you know months before you even think about booking your test because you want to minimize the amount of proof reading you have to do and you do that by starting today by preparing properly and then when you're practicing think about your weaknesses when you're planning on exam day think about the things that you need to do when you're writing think about what how do I give the examiner exactly what he or she wants and then when you're proof reading your proof reading is easy guys cuz you're just looking at it and going okay just checking off of done I've I know that I've prepared properly and I practiced and I've got feedback on my work and I know exactly what to do and yeah good I'm going to get the score that I need move on with my life and forget about this forget about Chris P and I and all this silly stuff so that you can just you know move on with your life and get over this obstacle um and leave me to to worry about I all right guys so this is your turn to uh put into practice everything you've learned this week artificial intelligence will soon replace teachers in the classroom do you agree with this statement what is an alternative to traditional face-to-face teaching write the whole essay using everything you've learned to write a bond seven essay hello and welcome to the final lesson of ielt essay Builder well done for making it this far and what we're going to do is give you your final feedback and do this through a live demo so what we're going to do is I'm going to do a a full demo lesson so what I'll do is I'll share my screen and I will do the question myself and what I'll do is I will take you through how I would think about the question how I would think about writing it and and write it live on the screen for you so this will bring together all of the things that we have leared um throughout this course and so that you can learn from it and compare your own writing and compare your own thinking also what we'll do is we'll talk about how to take things to the next level we do have a very small number of places available on our VIP course and I'll tell you a little bit about that at the end of this video okay so hopefully you can see this this is a um a document on Google Docs and what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at the question that you have already attempted and I am I haven't looked at it I haven't prepared an answer or anything like that and I'm going to just do it as if I was a student and doing the test obviously I have to talk you through it um because you can't read my thoughts um but I'll I'll try and talk as much as I can about how I'm thinking about the question and as I write it now because I'm doing it live I will make small mistakes and that's all part of the process and I'll go and edit it at the end um as you would do in the real exam now let's start so the first thing we need to do is we need to understand the question so artificial intelligence will soon replace teacher teers in the classroom so artificial intelligence AI you know uh deep learning Computer Learning whatever way you want to put it um will replace teachers in the classroom so this is going to understand this I need to think about teachers and education um so what we're going to have is we're not going to have teachers instead we're going to have artificial intelligence so students will be learning by looking at computers or speaking to you know an robot or something like that and it will be in the classroom so I understand that and that's going to be in the near future so it hasn't happened yet but it will be in the near future so in the in the test the first thing I would do is just sit cly and and not try and think of any ideas or not trying to think of how to answer the question at all do one thing at a time and just think about what this means because if you don't understand what it means then you're not going to be able to answer the question the next thing I'd do is I'd look at the type of question it is so we have two clear uh questions here so it's a double question so I understand what that one is so what what I would do now is I would just separate this out most people are not good at multitasking um what you want to do is give each question just Total Focus so I'm going to ignore this question for the time being and I'm just going to look at this one so do you agree with this statement so there's only two uh possible answers to this again as I always say keeping it simple there's only two possible answers yes artificial intelligence will soon replace teachers in the classroom or no they won't now you could give your personal opinion but the best way to answer this is just which one can I easily write about which one is the easiest to think of an idea explain that idea and to support with um an argument um support with evidence and I think the easiest one because it's the near it's the near future you're not talking about 100 years and no I don't think that they will replace teachers the reason for that is I can think of you know immediately two or three really good reasons why it w't they won't and I can think I can explain that and I can support that with evidence so I'm going to think no for this one so what I need to do now is think of an idea so I would just think if imagine I'm sitting with a friend and they said to me do you think that artificial intelligence will soon replace teachers in the classroom no so why would I think that what would what would be the first reason to pop into my head another way to think about it would be if this question was has asked if 100 people were asked this question just randomly what would be the most common reason um I'd say there' be two most common reasons would be uh teachers are needed for support so that's things like you know feedback and um [Music] discipline things like that so you know a computer can't really provide feedback it can't really get um you know control children especially young children so that's would be idea one um alternative idea would be AI is not Advanced enough um AI just isn't smart enough um yet to um to really teach children and or teach anybody um it's not just children so it's talking about the classroom but you know adults are in the classroom too so it wouldn't just hone in on children so what I do here is kind of put these together and put AI is not Advanced enough to [Music] provide to educate um I'll just put some ideas here cuz remember it's just the um it's just the the ideas fears we're not we haven't begun writing yet and and obviously you wouldn't take this amount of time I'm explaining this and talking through it and you know in the real test I would do this in you know one or two minutes um so what I'm going to do is I'm going to keep that one um how would I explain this so a teacher needs to give feedback and support and discipline again just very basic notes I know that that's not grammatically correct or anything like that it's just just doing quick notes um I think example I would use for this would be Google translate so if you look at Google translate it it has two major flaws uh the first major flaw would be it's not very good at translating language demonstrating that AI is not Advanced enough and the other thing is that like a program like Google translate obviously can't uh you know identify strengths and weaknesses you know provide practice things like that so this is a very you know an example of AI an example of a computer program that does isn't a tool that is involved in education but it's just not there yet maybe in 20 years it will be but not there so we already have like the bones of the structure of an argument here um you wouldn't go into too much detail just very um brief notes and then what what you would do is just stop thinking about this one and move on to the next one and again it's taken me I don't know how long to do that um but in the real test it would be you know a minute or two just a not down these things so what is an alternative to traditional face-to-face teaching okay so idea that will pop into my head would be an online course um because I run an online course but online course um a teacher can remotely do all of the things that uh a regular teacher can also do um also access to the best teachers in the world you're in your local area you might not have access to um really good teachers but if you're using an online course normally you know you could have access to literally the best teacher in the world um and they could be on the the other side of the planet um example so a lot of the best universities in the world have online courses now where they record um the lectures and they put them online and then they they they they provide um like individual classes and practice activities and all of these different things um so already I have this is my paragraph all right um so to check back always check back to the the question so this is good do you agree no I don't here's my reason what is an alternative here's my alternative here's an explanation about why you know why is it a good alternative um and then an example here I could use my own course but I'm not going to okay so this is my argument now what you could do now is you could do a full so let me just obviously you won't be able to color code in the real test but just it'll make it easier for you to understand this um main body paragraph one let's put soft I'm not going to get into an argument about what soft skills are but just for the sake of in the in the test if I know if just to encapsulate what that is um and let's put so that's my main body here main body [Music] to online courses that could be two separate ideas and two separate explanations um what I tend to do when I'm planning stuff out is I don't really delete stuff if I have like a couple of ideas or a couple of explanations or a few different examples um I normally just uh keep them in here so that that gives me the freedom when I'm um let's put that in there just in case I do use that because when you start writing ideas pop into your head and you can go in different directions so it's good to just have a few different options here um conclusion summary of above so what this does so now we have our our complete plan and what this does in the real test is it allows us to be certain about what we're doing because if you don't have a plan you don't know where you're going like and there's there's a quote I think it's Warren Buffett said who's you know was the richest man in the world an idiot with a plan can um Can outperform a genius without a plan um and and the same is true for this like someone with a very very high level of English um who just starts writing without any plan might not do as well as someone who is is more organized and has the plan down because what happens is you start to write without a plan and then you change direction and you get lost and then you have to start again and time is running out and you're in all sorts of trouble so doing something like this and again in the real test this would take me you know you know just a few minutes but it is an investment of time we know exactly what to do now okay so now we're ready to start when you are paraphrasing always have this with you so let's say so normally you wouldn't just abbreviate words like I've shortened artificial intelligence to AI you know um let's say FBI everyone knows that that's the Federal Bureau of Investigation CIA everyone knows that's the Central Intelligence Agency um if it's commonly known everybody knows that AI means artificial intelligence so if it's a common thing then that's no problem but you couldn't you know replace replace teachers with rt like that's not commonly known BBC British Broadcasting Corporation you know you you can do that um so just be careful with shortening stuff but um for this for the purposes of this this is fine so AI could okay so AI artificial intelligence could take the place of will soon replace could take the place of teachers I'm going to keep teachers um because in in the test what might happen is when you're paraphrasing you might be like teachers teachers teachers teachers I can't think of anything oh I can't think of it and then you're wasting time and then you panic like if you have to replace one word or or you can't replace one word that's no problem um they're not going to Mark you down for that in the near future we'll soon replace it we'll soon in the near future so that's fine I'm happy enough with that also like students get so obsessed with not repeating words for key words that have no that that are have no or very limited ways of of changing them it is fine if you do repeat them you should change them as much as possible but only as much as possible there's there's just there's a limited um number of ways that you can change teachers teachers you could have Educators education you know people that teach things like that and we'll try and do that as much as possible but remember the purpose of the test the purpose of the test is to assess what whether you can clearly communicate in English through writing an essay if you repeat a few words that's not going to be a big big problem the big problem is the big the bigger things involved in like the accuracy of your vocabulary the appropriacy of your vocabulary your grammar your coherence and cohesion your task achievement so let's remind ourselves of the question do you agree with this statement so this essay disagrees with this statement because computers which is kind of a cat all term for AI are not Advanced enough yet and second question always refer back students can effectively use online courses okay so what you want to do is you want to instead of immediately jumping into the next paragraph read this and make sure that it makes sense there's no mistakes you're going to make mistakes everybody makes mistakes I I'm doing this live I will probably make a series of mistakes um AI could take the place of teachers in the near future many believe that say say disagrees with the statement because computers are not Advanced enough yet and students can effectively use online courses instead of attending class very clear like if you gave that to someone they would know exactly what I thought about that and uh two very clear reasons okay so um so Computer Learning is not at the stage yet where it can do the job of an effective educator okay so I'm saying that they're they're not Advanced enough yet exactly what I said up here um this is so I need to explain it this is because students require many things do it's because students require many things that a computer cannot provide such as feedback emotional support and assessment these soft skills the teachers have are absolutely essential for the proper education of a child or adult uh there is no computer [Music] program that can compete with human beings and there is no computer program that can compete with human beings at this level okay let's read this computer learning is not at the stage yet where it can do the job of an effective educator this is because students require many things that a computer cannot provide such as feedback emotional support and assessment these soft skills are absolutely essential for the proper education of a child or adult and there is no computer program that compete with human beings in these areas okay for example so I'm not going to use I know up here we put translate but just as I was writing I was thinking of a better example that is linked to this cuz we want to link all this together with the example um and that's grammarly grammarly you can check it out it's um it's a tool that checks your English checks your grammar um but it has some major weaknesses so that's so it's perfect for this for example grammarly is a program an application that can check for grammar errors but it falls short for English Learners because it cannot tell someone what the main weaknesses are or explain why the mistake was made or how it can be fixed so for example grammarly is an application that can check for grammar errors but PA short for English Learners because it cannot tell someone what they're m weaknesses are or explain why the mistake was made or how it can be fixed okay so I'm happy enough with that and we can move on to the next one so remember alternative check back here however online courses can be used by teachers to improve upon to proove lessons for okay so just explaining how does how to do online online courses make education better so you know compare I is a really good example compare your local ISS teacher who maybe doesn't know much about I you know but is working out of their their local school and compare that with the very best in their field who can record lessons um and and through things like Skype provide interactive feedback or through online course platforms provide practice activities and it just enhances the whole experience [Music] um right for example the very best universities in the world and I offer online learning platforms that allow anyone in the world to learn to let put enjoy their courses for free and also have the option of having feedback sessions with their tutors through Skype okay let's have a read of this however online courses can be used by teachers to improve lessons that is to say that they can enhance their ability to teach by using technology this allows the very best in their field to reach anyone in the world to record their lessons and provide interactive feedback for instance the very best universities in the world namely I offer online learning platforms that allow anyone in anyone to enjoy their courses for free and also have the option to of having feedback sessions with their tutors through Skype okay I want to link it back to the question a little bit this does not replace the teacher but makes them even more effective and available to a wider number of pupils okay so I'm happy enough with that now I can do the conclusion so the conclusion what I'm going to do is look up here at the introduction and I'm just going to paraphrase this so Alo neural they've not reached the point where they can educate on effective level you to lacking pedagog pedagogical is a fancy word for education so although neural networks have made great strides in the past number of years they have not reached the point where they can educate at an effective level J lacking however teachers I know I've repeated teachers many times I'll I'll explain this in a second all however teachers can I have a probably repeated technology as well don't be freaking out don't be like many people do um teers can use technology okay okay so I mentioned vocabulary there and repeating words so what I found with both students and myself is often you'll get to the end or even in the at the beginning or it doesn't matter where but particularly at the end you'll get and you'll be like oh i' I've used this word so many times or I've used this word so many times and it actually stops you thinking and writing and what you need to do is you need to write you need to think you need to get the answer on the paper so a lot of people think that it is a vocabulary test instead of a writing test so it's better to repeat some words and then what you can do is you can go back and look and see you know have I repeated these words is there any way that I can vary them um at the end because it's very very difficult to think of vocabulary writing ideas all of these different things at the same time um it's better just to focus on one thing at a time so need to read this although neural networks have made great strides in the past number of years they have not reached the point where they can educate on an effective level due to lacking pedagogical skills however teachers can use these tools particularly online courses to enhance their teaching going to help even more people learn okay so now what I need to do is I need to read the whole thing again to to check grammar to check vocabulary to check all of these different things so let's read that many believe that AI could take the place of teachers in the near future this essay disagrees with this statement because because computers are not Advanced enough yet students can effectively use online courses Okay Computer Learning is not at the stage yet where it can do the job of an effective educator this is because students require many things that a computer cannot provide such as feedback emotional support and assessment these soft skills are absolutely essential for the proper education of a child or adult and there's no computer program that can compete with human beings in these areas for example grammarly is an application that can check grammar errors but it falls short for English Learners because it cannot tell someone what their main weaknesses are or explain why the mistake was made or how it can be fixed however online courses can be used by teachers to improve lessons that is to say that they can enhance their ability to teach by using technology with this technology because we're referring to online courses this Alles the very best in their field to reach anyone in the world to record their lessons and provide interactive feedback for example the very best universities in the world namely Harbor now I offer online learning platforms allow anyone to Joy their courses for free let's say [Music] lectures and also have the option of having feedback sessions with their tutters through Skype this does not replace the teacher but makes them even more effective and available to a wider audience although neuron networks help me a GD strides in the past number of years they have not reached the point where they can educate an effective level due to lacking pedagogical skills however teachers can use okay so now what you can do is you can go through and see if there are any ways that you can um improve the vocabulary a little bit so what you do is just check see if there are any uh words so teachers let's change that one to lecture because we're talking about universities is there any other ways to that teacher and you're not going to have time to really spend um you know an hour thinking about different ways to write teachers um let's put instructors just to keep to keep the vocabulary Nazis happy um online courses we did put for distance learning and there's no other way of saying that there's no without getting really contrived anything else we could so here we have computer computer one thing is to remember that you shouldn't just look and say computer computer you've you should look at the cocation so Computer Learning computer program that wouldn't be considered repeating that so don't worry computers plural form of it you know so don't worry about that you can drive yourself crazy with this and and really mess your whole essay up by changing things in a way that's just wrong feedback feedback sessions let's change that to evaluation [Music] and change this to competent okay so I'm happy enough with that um and if you had time you would give it one last check you know for any little grammar errors or anything like that um but what you would do is you use that checklist um that I gave you in the previous lesson to think about your own essay don't look at your own essay and be like oh I can never use grammar or I can never use vocabulary the way Chris does or anything I'm a native English speaker I was lucky enough to be born in an english- speaking country um it's also my job to teach English so you know don't think that you because your vocabulary or is not as advanced as mine don't think you're going to fail you only probably need a band seven um which is much lower than than the level of this essay um so don't worry about compare don't make too many comparisons um also don't worry if your ideas weren't exactly the same you can use different ideas what you want to be doing is thinking about the core things so did you paraphrase effectively is your introduction effective is your main body paragraph effective if is your other one effective is your conclusion effective is your grammar as accurate as it can be is your vocabulary as accurate as it can be are your main ideas clear and welld developed and have you clearly answered the question and if you can answer those those questions um then you'll be absolutely fine and way above what most people are and but you probably need a little bit of extra help unless talk about that now so taking things to the next level so if you need help with more help with writing help with task one t help with the other types of questions you need help with speaking reading listening anything you need is included in the most successful online or offline course in the world we have helped more students get the scores they need than anyone else in the world whether that's an offline or online course does it actually work well let me show you something so no other course in the world has this number of successful students we are not saying that we are the best in the world what we do is just ask people to judge us on our results and more importantly our student results as you can see here this is just one person after the other all out of seven or above you know if you if you look at these in detail you'll see that it's all life-changing stuff here and it's just one happy person after the other and if you consider that we only work with a very very very small number of people the number of happy students is unbelievable and then if you also look here you know a lot of other schools have testimonials no other school has oneon-one interviews with their past students every single one of these videos is a one-on-one interview with a past student all of them talking about how happy they are and how lifechanging it was to join ielt VIP so if you're ready to take things to the next level you need to be aware of a few things we only allow a very very small number of people to join our course it's a VIP course we're going to give you VIP treatment we cannot give that VIP treatment to everybody because it's just impossible to do that so we only work with a very small number of people and we have to keep numbers low to keep standards high and you've seen this week what happens when we don't so what's the difference between this like mini course this essay Builder course and the VIP course so this essay Builder course was good it's kind of like a Tuk Tuk it'll get you to where you're going but it's not obviously a Rolls-Royce VIP course is the Rolls-Royce of I courses it's going to take you by the hand and show you exactly what you need to do in order to get the scores that you need so what now so you can join here we have a few places available that you can join immediately but you can only join at this link this is special link just for you if you go to other links you will not be able to join it's closed to the general public so if you go to is advantage.com svip Academy you will be able to get in today if you have any questions you can email me Chris advantage.com and either myself or one of my team will get back to you um but go and have a look at this link we'll also email it to you there's a video telling you everything you need to know about what's included and how to join and pricing and all of those different things go to that link and then if you have any questions feel free to email me so now you know how to improve your task two writing and we're going to move on to speaking and help you with that one of the biggest challenges that students have when it comes to speaking is where to find real genuine questions and how to use those questions at home for free to improve their speaking that's exactly what we're going to give you we're going to give you more than a th real ielt speaking practice questions and show you how to improve your speaking at home for free without paying for a course or a teacher so without further Ado here's how to find those questions I'm going to give you hundreds of real I outp speaking questions but I'm not just going to do that I want to improve your scores not just give you a bunch of questions band nine speaking students and we worked with hundreds of them use questions very differently from students who struggle with the test so we're going to give you three things on top of giving you all of these questions number one I'm going to show you what band n students do not do with speaking questions there are some key differences between what they do and what they don't do so first of all we're going to go through the don'ts then we're going to show you how students actually do use these speaking questions to practice and improve and get the score that they need then finally I'm going to share a VIP strategy with you this is a strategy that we give our VIP students that uses AI to allow them to practice their speaking questions at home and actually get feedback for free so you can not only use these real questions practice and get feedback all of this is 100% free but we're not just going to give you a link so that you can go and look at the questions because that is not going to help you improve your scores you have to watch the whole video to get access to the questions so without further Ado let's get into it let's start off with the don'ts these are things that you should not do and these are things that band 7 eight and N students do not do when they're using I speaking questions number one don't get overwhelmed sometimes when we give students hundreds and hundreds of questions they get completely overwhelmed and they think that their job is to analyze and look at and practice every single question and they need to be aware of all the different questions you do not need to do that don't look at hundreds of questions and think that you must have an answer for all of them or be aware of all of them just use them in the way that we're going to show you in this video so important don't get overwhelmed number two don't worry if you see a topic in there that you're not an expert in remember that it is a speaking test it is not a knowledge test or an intelligence test number three you should not try to prepare answers and memorize them and try to improve your speaking score in that way I examiners are trained to spot this and they can easily spot it and what they will do is they will ask you other questions that you were not prepared for and they will base your score on those unprepared questions because IELTS is not a test of memorization because it is testing communication you don't use memorization when you're communicating with people in any language so don't try to prepare answers for any of them number four don't try and anticipate the different topics that come up if you go through all of these you will see that there are no common topics you could be asked about anything so you'll see lots of things online uh but you know YouTube videos saying these are the common topics that might come up or here are the predicted topics that might come up this is just to get you to click on those videos none of those are actually real so don't try and do that this is a big one don't compare your performance with so-called band n students that you find on YouTube this is going to damage your confidence and it is also highly misleading now not to bash any other channels I'm not doing that or I'm not going to mention specific channels but just looking at those you know band n mock speaking tests or band eight or whatever they are the vast majority of them either are not actually band n or band8 or the people giving feedback are not real teachers those videos are incredibly popular so what's happening is companies are hiring fake teachers and then hiring models and actresses is to make I videos about speaking but none of them are accurate so if you're comparing yourself to those people it's not a fair comparison and if you're watching too many of those videos you might be getting bad advice from unqualified teachers and the last don't is something that a lot of students don't really think about don't take these questions and look constantly for feedback so some students what they do is they'll look at the questions and then they'll ask teachers or some online services to just constantly do mock speaking tests and constantly do feedback tests with them and give them lots and lots of feedback those things are important you should be practicing you should be getting feedback but the real Improvement comes after you get feedback so if a teacher gives you feedback for example on pronunciation or fluency or grammar or vocabulary doing another mock speaking test is not actually going to improve those things at all there is such a thing as too much feedback so don't take these and just do lots and lots and lots of feedback sessions work on improving the things you need to work on and you're going to see far more Improvement if you work on your weaknesses okay let's get into the things that b 7 8 and N students do when they are using these practice questions okay so Chris here this is how you find the article with all of the practice questions in it I'm going to show you how to access them in three steps so step one what you're going to do is you're going to go to Google and you're going to type in ielt speaking once you have ielt speaking up in Google you're going to scroll through all the different websites and go to is Advantage so it might be on the first page it might be on the second page probably be in and around the middle of the first page you're just going to click on I speaking how to get a band seven or above I Advantage you're going to click on that that's step one one of the big things successful students do is they treat each part of the speaking test separately so part one part two and part three are very very different different types of questions and different types of answers and the examiners are thinking about different things when they are assessing you so what you should not do is just take some part one questions a part two question some part three questions and then try and answer them all in the same way B 7 8 and N student don't do that keep watching this video but at the end of the video I'll give you some links so that you can the differences between the different parts it's very very important number two band eight and N students understand the marking criteria it is far more important that you use these questions to understand the marking criteria IIA than just to go through all of these questions use the questions to test yourself to practice to think about your performance and think about how are you doing in relation to the markeing criteria that's the only thing that matters because that's the only thing that the examiners are thinking about on test day and we'll show you how to do that when we give you the VIP technique at the end number three get your speaking checked at least once by a real IELTS professional now I'm not saying that because I want you to buy our services we're normally completely sold out I'm saying this because it is so easy to spot if you're a real ielt professional an ex examiner it's so easy to spot little things that the student is doing that will lead to failure and it's so easy to fix these things now many of you don't want to spend any money on this but it is a lot lot cheaper than failing your test and the difference between failing your test and doing a mock speaking test with a real professional is the real test costs a lot more and you get no feedback if you do a mock speaking test with a real professional it's much much cheaper and they are going to give you real actionable feedback you're going to know what's going on what your weaknesses are what your score is and how to improve your score but please be careful most people calling themselves ex examiners are not really ex examiners and your local iils teacher who has very little experience and has never been an examiner probably will not give you very good feedback it is better to find a source that you trust that you know that they're real X examiners and they really know what they're talking about in general the more expensive ones are going to be more reliable the cheaper ones are going to be unreliable we do provide that service but we're normally sold out if you want more information get in touch with us but before you say oh my God he's only making this video to try and make money from us I'm going to show you how you can get real feedback accurate feedback for free at home at zero cost this is the same Technique we give our VIP students it is extremely effective but you're going to need a few things so we're going to go through it step by step step two it should bring you to this page on our website I speaking in 2023 this page has a lot of information on it what you're going to do is you're going to scroll down and you're going to keep scrolling you're going to keep scrolling you're going to keep scrolling until you get to I speaking topics now let's go back to the video and I'll show you how to click on the article you need in step three first of all you're going to need practice questions real practice questions we're going to show you how to access those at the end of the video so you've got those the next thing is you're going to need either a phone or a laptop you're going to need some kind of electronic device that will record your voice most laptops most phones will be able to do this please don't ask should you use a laptop or should you use a phone it doesn't matter just pick something that you have that you can use to record your voice the next thing you need to do is download some kind of recording app or program to your phone or to your laptop now all you have to to do is go into your app store or Google I'm not going to name specific apps because they change all the time and it's so easy for you to just find this yourself the next thing you want to do is sign up for a service that automatically transcribes your voice so let me give you some examples but again these change over time do your own research so on uh an Apple phone in the notes function you can just press the transcribe button and it will transcribe what you say there's also a service that you can use on your computer called otter.ai they have a free version of that software that will record your voice and transcribe it but as I said before do your own research find a tool and you'll be able to get this done but you do need one to record your voice so you can listen back and one to transcribe it there might be some apps out there that do both if there are put it in the comments let people know what you find and help each other okay so that's all the tech set up done next what you're going to do is you're going to pick one part of the test either part one part two or part three don't do a full test just pick one part and focus on one thing at a time so for part one you're going to use about nine questions part two you're only going to use one question and for part three you're going to pick three or four questions make sure that you don't study these questions we want to recreate create the real test as much as possible don't look at easy questions and try and prepare answers all right just pick questions from the list don't look at them don't study them just pick them look at each question and answer it as if an examiner is asking you that question so read each question and answer it as if you are in the real test if you mess up don't worry about it this is just practice next I want you to download the official marketing criteria I'll put a link below but if you just Google speaking marking criteria it should come up on Google as well what you're going to do is you're going to listen back and you're going to think about your performance you're going to read the marketing criteria and think about which band you should get based on your own performance if you don't understand the marketing criteria you don't understand the bands I'll put a link at the end of the video that will show you in more detail what the Bands been as you're listening back think about your biggest weaknesses so if you were um uh you couldn't really answer the questions fluency is an issue if you can't understand anything that you say pronunciation is probably an issue or if you're making lots of vocabulary mistakes or grammar mistakes that's your biggest issue the great thing about this technique is when you're in the real test you're unaware of the mistakes that you are making but when you're listening by and just focusing on your mistakes and focusing on your performance you'll be able to pick out things that you were completely unaware of and you'll be able to fix those things and that takes us on to our next Point you're going to look at the transcription whatever service you used that will write out your answers and you're going to analyze that in more detail so the first thing you're going to analyze is did you actually answer the question look at the question look at the transcription did you actually answer the question and did you develop your answer enough you can also analyze your fluency if there are lots of um and as and pauses in the transcription if you're jumping around a lot then fluency might be an issue for you if the transcription cannot understand most of the words like the words are completely different then that is a pronunciation issue you can also analyze your vocabulary did you repeat too many words are you trying to use words that you don't really understand did you struggle with that topic because of a limited vocabulary and then with grammar what you can do is you can put that transcript into something like grammarly for example or there are lots of other options and it will highlight all of the grammar mistakes that you made and you'll be able to identify your key grammar mistakes for example if you are using the wrong article before every line you need to work on articles so this technique is not actually about improving your speaking yet this technique is to give you feedback as I said before feedback doesn't improve your speaking instantly but what you do after does so for example if you look at the transcript and you messed up every article being aware of that is just the first step you're not going to magically uh improve your speaking by just being aware of that but you will magically improve if you work on those things and some of you watching right now you might be thinking well that's a lot of work yes it is but it's a lot less work than going and watching a bunch of tips and tricks videos believing that they're going to help you and then failing the test over and over again and not knowing why that is a lot of work this is actually a lot less stressful because you will be in control and you can do it all for free at home at your own pace again we're here to give you things that are actually going to improve your score not tips and tricks that make you happy so step three you should be here I speaking topics you're going to scroll down and you will see a link I speaking topics The Ultimate Guide click on that and it will give you access to all of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions that you will need for your speaking practice so now you know where to find all those practice questions and you know how to practice at home and practice intelligently and strategically and constantly improve while you're practicing your speaking but what is really helpful for students is to understand the difference between the three different parts of the speaking test because each part is asking completely different questions and requires a different strategy so what we've done is we've created a speaking challenge a full speaking course for you and it covers strategies for part one part two and part three and it also shows you how to improve your speaking skills as well not only that we also give you the opportunity to send us your speaking and we will give you free feedback on it so without further Ado enjoy the speaking challenge Welcome to our speaking challenge over the next three lessons what we intend to do is help you improve your speaking ability to a band S8 or even n so let's get going what are we going to do in this challenge so there are three videos and we're going to make it really really simple what we're going to do in video one is focus on part one of the speaking test video two part two of the speaking test and video three part three of the speaking test the examiner is going to be judging your whole performance the totality of your performance so you can't just focus on one part you need to become profession ient and be aware of all of the things that you need to do in each part and the thing about IELTS is each part is different they're testing different things different types of questions so we're going to look at each of these individually and then at the end of each video we're going to set you a challenge so there's no point in sitting looking at a video uh you could look at every single video related to IELTS in the world there are thousands and thousands of videos online and on YouTube and they're just really the first step you need to do these things so we're going to set you a challenge at the end of these videos to get you to do the things that you have learned in the video and then you're going to improve but not only that we're going to get you to send us your challenges send us your tasks and then we'll give you feedback and you'll be able to improve even more our mission at I Advantage is to help people improve their OT scores and we will do everything we can in this short 3day or three video challenge to help you improve your speaking scores but if you need anything else if you need help with writing reading listening always feel free to just hit reply to any of our emails we respond to every single email that you send us and we'll help you out as much as we can if you have any questions or need help with preparation or anything okay so part one what are we going to do in this lesson we're going to look at what part one is it's really really important that you understand the types of questions being asked what the examiners are going to be thinking about what not to worry about all right uh in the speaking test it's really important that you only focus on the things that actually matter because if you go into the speaking test and you're worried about all the things that don't matter then that's going to affect your performance it's going to definitely affect your fluency but it could also affect your grammar your vocabulary even your pronunciation so we just want you worrying about the things that you actually need to worry about we'll look at common mistakes if you can avoid these common mistakes then you're going to do much much better and then we're also going to look at a real student who got a band eight in her her speaking test and show you some good answers and answers that could be improved to really demonstrate what needs to be done and finally we're going to give you that challenge okay so what is part one the most important thing to remember about part one is is about you they're not going to be asking you questions about general knowledge or abstract ideas they're just going to be asking you questions like your hometown whether you study whether what your job is your likes and dislikes what you do in your free time so the best way to think about this is imagine you started a new job or started a new English class and you met a person for the first time just small talk every day chitchat just getting to know someone and that is all they're going to ask you about now they might throw in a few more unusual questions like I I've asked people about their favorite hat or their favorite color and you be like what has that got to do with um anything they will throw a few strange topics at you to test your ability um but I wouldn't worry about that remember that every answer is you talking about you so the important thing is you can't get it wrong it's impossible to get any part one questions wrong because they are asking about you and you know more about you than anybody else this part will last about four to five minutes and they start off with quite easy questions like uh tell me about your your weekend or what you do in your free time or what your job is or where do you live your neighborhood um these are quite easy questions because they don't want to immediate start with really difficult questions because they want you to warm up and ease into this now that doesn't mean that these questions are not important remember you're being judged on all of your answers in total um so don't think that you can you know ignore these questions or not practice them they are very very important um but it will only last over 45 minutes and the examiner will ask you a range of questions so they definitely will ask you about either your hometown or your job or your studies or your home um and then they might ask you a few other questions but remember they're just about you okay so do not worry about so uh think about your brain as a computer so a computer has a CPU it has memory it has RAM and what happens when you open up too many tabs or too many program programs at the same time your computer slows down it doesn't perform very well your brain is exactly the same if you're going into the test and you're worrying about 20 different things and you're thinking about 20 different things at the same time then your brain is going to slow down your brain Powers your mouth which is going to produce the sound produce the words produce the sentences if your brain is not working optimally because there are too many things going on you're not going to perform very well well I have worked with students who should have got a band eight should have got a band nine but because their teacher was teaching them lots of things to worry about that they didn't actually have to worry about they only got a band 6.5 because they were really you know suffering when it came to their fluency their pronunciation their grammar their vocabulary so here are things not to worry about this might sound really silly you don't have to worry about your clothes I've seen so many um articles online talking about what clothes you should wear what shoes you should wear it doesn't matter they're judging your speaking not your shoes um your shoes greetings um the most popular uh speaking video related to IELTS on YouTube is how to greet the examiner it has millions and millions of views and it doesn't matter you are not being judged on whether you shake the their hand or what you say to them the the actual test that does not start until the questions begin okay so don't worry about greeting The Examiner it doesn't matter what you say to them they don't care they it's like talking to someone up McDonald's all right all they want to do is serve you and move on to the next person don't worry about the examiner don't worry if the examiner is not friendly it is not their job to be your friend it is not their their job to make you happy it is their job to listen to you and to give you an accurate band score some examiners will be friendly some examiners will be very professional not too friendly but not angry with you or not they don't look upset some examiners will look upset or they will look angry it doesn't mean they are Ang angry with you or they are upset with you they maybe just had a long day they are human beings or maybe they're just focusing on your pronunciation your flu your grammar your vocabulary so often students will students that we work with on our VIP course we work with them very very closely and they would email us after their speaking test and they would say oh God Chris I failed my examiner looked very angry it's like don't worry about that it doesn't you that doesn't mean anything related to your actual score so talk to the examiner no matter whether they look happy or sad as if you're talking to a friend or a family member just put yourself in that sort of frame of mind hand gestures I use hand gestures all the time some people don't use hand gestures at all it doesn't matter you are not being judged on whether you use your hands or not um so don't worry about that at all eye contact H it doesn't matter if you stare at the examiner all the time or you look at your feet it doesn't matter it's the words that come out of your mouth Now The Examiner is a human being you're a human being so just talk to them like they are a normal human being how would you use eye contact normally how would you use hand gestures normally how would you use body language normally you don't get a score for body language eye contact or hand gestures and any teacher that tells you that you do please just show them the official marking criteria and ask them where it says anything related to the it's nonsense but just use these as you would normally use them um so these are things that you do not need to worry about but imagine going into the test and this happens a lot thinking about what body language should I use or my eye contact my hand gestures I hope that the examiner is happy to see me I hope that I greeted them the right way did I say that thing that that girl on YouTube told me to say and how are my clothes and my shoes I hope that they are respecting The Examiner none of that matters if you're thinking about that you're not going to do very well the only four things that you need to think about are pronunciation fluency and coherence grammar and vocabulary why do you need to only worry about these things because these are the only four things that the examiners are thinking about that's the only thing they are thinking about pronunciation fluency and coherence vocabulary and grammar so if you are totally focused on these things you're going to do really really well if you are focused on any of these things you're wasting your time so most of the things that we will be talking about in this challenge will be related to these four things this is how we teach people we don't look at tips and tricks and hacks and things that don't work we just teach you to give the examiners exactly what they're looking for okay so common mistakes these are things that you need to avoid and if you avoid these in part one you're going to improve your score so this is the most frustrating part not too short not too long I'm sure you're thinking oh like that's really horrible advice not too short not too long why don't you just tell me an exact number of words or an exact number of sentences um some teachers will do that but I think that's quite bad advice um because we don't want you to go into the test thinking I need to use three sentences or I need to use four sentences because you're making it more difficult to speak naturally and you should be speaking as naturally as possible now you don't want to give a very short answer because you're not giving the examiner enough to really go on here's an example of a really really short answer oh I'm a student mhm on what subject uh I'm studying MSE marketing so as you can see H Rashmi didn't give a very long answer and that wasn't incorrect the grammar was fine the vocabulary is fine or pronunciation was fine but you're not giving the examiner enough to judge your performance on like if they said to me what what's your job and I say teacher that's correct I am a teacher but it is not giving the examiner enough to really judge you on for part one you don't want your answer to be too long either why is that well well it's the examiner's job to ask you a range of different questions they're going to ask you between like 9 and 12 questions so if and and they only have like four or five minutes to do that and they've got a queue of people outside waiting to come in and do the test they have to get through all of those people so if your every answer is like 2 or 3 minutes long they're going to keep stopping you and stopping you and stopping you um and the problem with that is you're going to feel like you've done something wrong you're going to feel a little bit stressed out by that and then that can affect the rest of your performance so again not too short not too long what does that mean don't think about number of sentences just answer the question and then give some extra detail for them to understand your your answer so instead of saying I'm a teacher if they ask me what my job was I would say I'm a teacher and I specialize in teaching IELTS to students online um and I do that from my office here in Northern Ireland so as you can see I just elaborated a little bit I added a little bit more detail you could add detail you could add an explanation you could add an example just a little bit more to go on don't think of number of sentences just think of answer the question and add a little bit more to help the examiner understand what you're talking about robotic delivery um what do I mean by robotic delivery so think about how you speak naturally think about talking to one of your best friends how do you speak to them you imagine they say hey what did you do last weekend I went to the cinema I saw this great movie it was amazing very relaxed very natural delivery you wouldn't say imagine your um friend said what did you do last weekend you wouldn't say I went to the cinema I watched a movie it was good you would never do that your friend would be like are you a robot what what happened to you but this happens all the time and I think it's because students respect the test and maybe respect the examiner and the formality of the situation a little bit and they speak to the examiner like a robot um in a very slow robotic way um that is not how you would speak to a normal person so why would you speak to an examiner like that so again imagine you were speaking to a friend a colleague a family member how would you talk to them that is going to help you improve your fluency but also it can of frees up your brain and you're you're more relaxed and you can avoid grammar mistakes avoid vocabulary mistakes and your pronunciation will be much smoother as well you'll be easier to understand memorized answers it's very very tempting for part one to try and anticipate some common topic and think okay they're going to ask me about my hometown they're going to ask me about my job they're going to maybe ask me about my home or my hobbies and to write out a very detailed answer with lots of idioms and lots of phrasal verbs and you know some amazing vocabulary and amazing grammar don't do that it is tempting to do that I know why you want to do that but the examiners are trained to spot that they know that you are doing that so if you give like often it will happen where you will ask a student to talk about their Hometown and they give this amazing answer where they're talking about the architecture and the history of their time and famous people that used to live there and their favorite place there and it's it's all amazing and the examiners are trained to ignore that answer because they know it's a memorized answer and what they'll do is they will then ask you a more difficult question related to that topic so if they they said tell me about your hometown and you give a memorized answer they'll say things like um is it a good place to bring up children and or they'll say what are the transportation links like to the rest of the country from your hometown and you'll be like uh um uh uh wasn't expecting that they're not judging you on your memorized answer they'll judge you on your uh uh um I wasn't expecting that because that is your real ability it is not a memorization test it is a speaking test so next trying to impress The Examiner this doesn't relate just to part one this relates to every single part the examiners are not stupid they are trained professionals who have been trained to spot when you are trying to impress them or trying to show off examples of this are memorizing fancy vocabulary memorizing fancy idioms memorizing fancy grammar um memorizing anything in general and trying to regurgitate this in the test they're not judging you on what the fancy things that you have memorized they're judging you on your ability to actually speak why do we do the IELTS test we do the IELTS test to test when we move to an English-speaking country when we move to Canada or move to Australia or move to America or move to the UK and we meet someone can we talk to them in your job can you talk to them and when you meet them socially can you speak to people normally not trying to impress people with things that you have memorized they're judging you on your ability to naturally speak at your natural level and they are they know how to do that so memorizing things and trying to show off is a complete waste of time they're not judging you on that they're judging you on your ability to talk naturally so part one best practices these are things that you need to focus on on these are things that you need to be aware of that you need to practice that you need feedback on and if you do all of these things you will really really improve and you will perform to the best of your ability okay so next one part one best practices natural all right we've already talked about this you're not in a memorization contest to speak to the examiner like their a friend they a colleague and speak as naturally as possible give reasons or give explanations or give examples or give extra detail that is going to help you develop your answer so instead of saying uh what do you do at the weekend I went to the cinema which which Cinema did you go to why did you go there uh which movie did you see what did you think of that movie uh what's what was the character like who did you go with you don't have to answer all of those questions but those are just some examples that you could use to help you develop your answer by giving Reasons by giving extra details so you're not being judged just on fluency you're also being judged on coherence so what does coherence mean well for the purposes of the speaking test coherence means did you actually answer the question so if they asked you about what did you do last weekend tell them what you did last weekend not what you're going to do next weekend or uh what you had for dinner last night like you need to actually answer the question that might sound really obvious and really straightforward and uh Chris why are you telling us that you would not believe the number of students who memorize a bunch of answers and then try and fit their answer that they have memorized to suit the question don't do that just answer the question that they've asked how do you do that literally answer the question and then develop your answer you'll always answer the question if you follow that already talked about this develop your answer by giving explanations giving examples giving extra detail and talk about things specifically all right when they ask you about a specific thing don't talk generally about that topic actually answer the question that they're talking about so if they ask you for example about your hometown um is it a good place to bring up children don't talk about you know oh the architecture from 17789 and the history and the finding father like that's not what they asked you all right they asked you the specific question answer the specific question is and the questions in part one are not difficult so that should be pretty easy to do but people don't do that because they prepare memorized answers give examples that is going to help you be as fluent as possible and you will become fluent if you practice and you are not worried about all of these things that you don't have to worry about we'll also talk a lot more about fluency in uh lessons two and three and grammar don't try and use every single tense in the known language in every single grammar structure use the grammar and the tenses that is that are appropriate to use in the circumstances so if they ask you what did you do last weekend you're going to use mostly past simple if they say how has your home time changed in the last 20 years probably going to be using a mixture of present perfect and past simple if they're asking you how do you think your home time will change in the future you're going to use will or it is going to um if they ask you where's the best place to go to eat in your hometown you're going to use comparatives and superlatives so you shouldn't go in thinking I'm going to use the past Progressive find like you don't go in thinking I'm going to use all of these different tenses and all of these different grammar structures just use the grammar that's appropriate to to use in those circumstances don't overthink it and don't try and think I need to avoid every single grammar mistake possible even people who get a band nine make small little grammar mistakes everybody does it native English speakers do it I probably have done it in this video when you are talking your brain is working so hard that you will make small little grammar mistakes but what you want to avoid is overthinking grammar and that is going to affect your fluency because if you think I don't want what is the correct grammar and is it is or R and verb subject agreement and which T you're going to really overthink it and you won't actually answer the question the more you think about grammar the lower your fluency is going to be the less you think about grammar the higher your fluency is going to be and you'll probably make the exact same number of grammar mistakes avoid as many mistakes as you can but don't overthink it so a really easy way to answer part one questions is answer the question give an explanation and give an example you don't have to answer every single question like that um in fact I would encourage you not to answer 100% of questions like that because some of them you won't be able to think of an example or some of them won't need an explanation but if you practice using that most of your answers you will be able to answer them in that way H so for example if someone ask me about my degree I studied law why did you study law and so what did you study I studied law at University because I wanted to be a lawyer so that's my explanation um and then I would give an example so when I left I became a lawyer and I worked in the city of London as a commercial lawyer for about 3 years and then decided to become an is teacher which is a true story okay so that's how you answer a question but you don't have to stick to that but it'll help you if you practice that way okay now I want you to listen to a student who got a band eight and listen to some of her answers some of them are really really good answers some of them could do with a little bit of improvement but I just want you to listen to them um and think about her answers and how she has answer these questions so now let's talk about travel and do you like to travel yes I do and what do you hope to do with that degree after you finish oh I hope to work as a data scientist MH in the future yeah and where would you like to travel to in the future oh uh there are still a lot of places in India that I haven't seen so I might go there as well and I like I really like Bali so Bali and grease yes MH is traveling abroad very popular in your country oh yes it is it is quite popular so people mostly go travel uh during the summer but it's always summer in India so yeah I think movies have a huge role to play in it because they show all these destinations where there's snow covered mountains and all and that's very fascinating for us because we don't really get snow at least not where I come from so hopefully you were able to see Rashmi and her performance and some things that she could have improved and some things she did really really well um but hopefully by understanding this whole lesson and seeing what Rashmi did and Rashmi went on to get a band eight which is amazing in her speaking test um to show you exactly what you need to do but watching this video is just the first step the second step is completing the challenge so let's jump into my computer and we will show you exactly what to do for your challenge all okay guys now comes the fun part where you are going to record your speaking and then send it to us so your task and this is really really really important if you don't do this then it is a complete waste of time and you're not going to improve and you're going to miss out on the chance to get better and get feedback on your work okay so it is a really really simple four-step process that you are going to follow in order to record your voice and send it to us um so the first step step one download a free voice recorder app for your phone so if you are an apple person if you have an Apple phone uh go to the App Store if you have an Android phone go to the Google Play Store and in both of those stores you're going to find hundreds and hundreds of free voice recorder apps that just make it really really simple for you to hit a button and it automatically record your voice don't ask me which one to choose there are too many to choose from just pick pick the one that you want to choose it's not that difficult so step two in the four-step process answer these questions and record your voice so you should have a phone you should have a app on your phone that records your voice you're going to look at these questions and don't pre-prepare the questions don't research the questions just pretend that you are in the actual exam and you are reading the questions just like the same way that the examiner would be asking you those questions so look at the question answer it second question answer it third question answer it that's all you have to do all right so I'm going to show you the questions for part one okay so here are six questions look at each of them and then all you have to do is just hit record on your little recording app and that's all you have to do step three send it to us via email so this is super simple to do you can do this on your phone or you can do this on your desktop so you will have my email address because I will have emailed you multiple times so all you have to do is this so imagine you are on Gmail um you could be on Yahoo Hotmail whatever um just click the email that I sent you uh click reply and then attach the audio file to your email and just hit send if you have any problems whatsoever then my email address is Chrisi advantage.com all right this is my email address Chrisi advantage.com but you will have received it many many many times before okay so now that you have sent us your recording what I want you to do is just wait have a look at your email inbox and we will send you your feedback video right to your inbox and then it's really really important that you look at this feedback that we send to you so that you can really learn what to do and really really improve and welcome to speaking lesson two so let's have a look at what we're going to do in this challenge so think about it as Three Steps step one we're going to look at part one that was the video before this today we're going to look at part two and then step three the next video the next lesson we're going to look at part three as I already said it's really important that you watch all three of these and do the tasks do the challenges for all three of them so that you can give your best performance on test day okay so part two of the speaking test what are we going to look at in this lesson we're going to look at what the goal is what is your overall mission what your overall goal is and if you focus on that it's going to completely change the way that you think about your performance in part two of course we're going to look at common problems and how to avoid those common problems common strategies you'll find a lot of strategies online on YouTube uh maybe your teacher has taught you a few strategies and if you're watching this video those strategies probably don't work for you and I have a much much better strategy that actually does work and has repeatedly week after week after week for years and years and years got scores of a band seven eight and N for my students and I'm going to share this with you today so what is the goal so the goal is to speak fluently and coherently for up to two minutes about the topic let's look at that again speak fluently and coherently for up to 2 minutes about the topic so for 2 minutes you have to speak fluently fluently doesn't mean now no pauses or no hesitations whatsoever it means speaking without unnatural pauses and hesitations coherently so stick to the topic and talk about the topic topic and only the topic for 2 minutes and that might sound quite easy but as you know it is quite difficult to talk about one thing in a foreign language that you are not 100% sure about fluently for 2 minutes so it's a big challenge but it's not a challenge that you can't overcome this lesson will show you how to overcome that but you should focus on the end goal focus on this and nothing else and you'll do really really well The Examiner should be able to understand what I'm saying okay and kind of a subgoal should be always The Examiner should be able to understand what I'm saying for pronunciation grammar and vocabulary pronunciation if you want a seven or above the examiner should be able to understand 100% of what you're saying if they cannot understand 100% of what you're saying you're going to get a six or a five hopefully none of you will get a four for pronunciation and grammar and vocabulary use grammar and vocabulary as tools to help you communicate clearly with the examiner The Examiner is not looking for your ability to show off how amazing your grammar is or show off how amazing your vocabulary is or show how amazing your pronunciation is what they're looking for is are you able to use these things to help you clearly communicate with them so can the examiner understand what you're saying you're not using grammar of vocabulary and pronunciation as tricks you're using them as tools to help you with that and we'll talk more about that and what that actually means later okay so let's look at common problems for part two and there's really only one common problem there are some problems that are related to that but there really is only one thing unable to speak fluently and coherently for 2 minutes that is the goal if you can complete the goal you're not going to do very well there so we need to think about why people struggle to speak fluently and coherently for 2 minutes so one thing would be a lack of development they're not developing their ideas they're not talking at length about the points and why is this so they're not developing the points because they're looking at the bullet points so there's normally four bullet points and they'll talk about the first one for about 5 seconds then the next one for for about 10 seconds and then the next one for about 6 seconds and then the next one for about 10 seconds again and they look they're watch and they've only been talking for 30 seconds they've still 90 seconds to go and they're like uh uh uh uh uh um what do I do there so you need to be able to take points related to the main topic and fully develop them and if you do that you'll have no problem speaking for the 2 minutes and that's where our strategy comes and we'll show you exactly what to do it's a little bit more complicated than just develop each point but don't worry we'll cover that in this lesson then what happens a lot is people will run out of things to say and then they'll go back to their previous points and they'll just start repeating themselves that is not fluent that is not coherent so that's a big problem you want to avoid repeating the same idea so they'll say things like the topic could be talk about your favorite book and they'll say uh the favorite book is uh the Bible I really like the Bible because it's about God and then they'll run into things to say and they'll say and yeah it's h it's about God and I really like it and that's why I like it and yeah it's a really good book I enjoy it um so they're just repeating the same thing over and over and over again rather than speaking fluently and coherently um lack of knowledge so many people believe that uh they're going to get a toic that they know nothing about or some of the bullet points will be on things that they're not sure about um so they they see that thing and they just freeze or they see the general topic and they they're just oh I'm not an expert in this thing I don't know how to talk about that so I do think that the bullet point issue not being able to talk about certain bullet points is a real problem and that's what we're going to address in the strategy the problem that most people fear is is they're going to see the topic and they know nothing about that topic I don't think that's a real fear H because where does this come from it comes from students looking at fake questions most websites most places are that produce questions are not they don't really know what they're doing uh everybody thinks that they are an eys expert these days you've got a huge number of people creating their own questions and because they don't know what they're doing they assume that all questions are really difficult and therefore they give people really difficult topics if you look at the real questions that you get on the real test they are about normal everyday things that 90% of the world could actually talk about that's how they design them believe me I have talked to many people who actually write the questions for Cambridge and what they do is they think how could we come up with a topic that most people will be able to talk about not how can we think of of a topic that will trick lots of people they are trying to make your job easy for you trying to give you the best opportunity to do your best work and to be able to speak to the best of your ability so if you think what if what if I get a topic I know nothing about it's like saying I don't want to go on holiday because I don't want to get on a plane because what if the plane crashes is it possible yes is it likely no it is highly unlikely is it possible that you will get a q card in speaking part two that you know nothing about possible highly highly highly unlikely always remember they are testing your speaking ability not your knowledge of a topic and the topics are a normal everyday things look at the official question and that those fears will go away okay so we're going to teach you now how to speak fluently for 2 minutes so what happens when you get the Q card so you get the Q card and this is the main topic okay this is the thing that you need to talk about for up to 2 minutes so for this one describe something you own which is very important to you so the goal is to speak fluently and coherently about something you own which is very important to you for 2 minutes in a way that the examiner can clearly understand what you're saying these are the bullet points so this is bullet point number one this is bullet point number two this is bullet point number three and this is bullet point number four these are important but not as important as you think and we'll talk about that in a second okay so before we get into my strategy I want to talk about two common strategies that are very widely taught you'll see them a lot on the internet and we have a team of examp examiners and working for us that help our VIP students and we see these every single day students come in and they're like I'm going to use this strategy and this technique it's like okay go and use it and they mess it up um so let's talk about those two very very quickly so that you understand why they don't work so that you can avoid them um so common strategy number one is talk about each bullet point in order all right so common strategy number one is you look at this bullet point and you talk about it you look at this point bullet point and you talk about it then you look at this bullet point and then you talk about it and then you look at this build point and you talk about it the big problem with that strategy is you're going to run out of things to talk about very very quickly also there might be one of the bullet points let's say what you use it for and you don't know what to say so you're going to be like um H you talk about this one then you talk about this one and then this one you you don't know what to say so you get in trouble so it's it's you know you're going to run into things to say and it's also a very unnatural way of talking to someone remember the goal is to talk to the examiner as if they're a friend or a colleague you don't normally talk to a friend by saying hm let me look at a bullet point and then let me look at another bullet point it's not going to help you speak fluently and coherently it is kind of the worst thing that you can do I've also seen teachers tell people speak about this one for 30 seconds and then this one for 30 seconds and then this one for 30 seconds and then this one that's that's I couldn't do that all right and I'm I I do this every day for for a living and that's impossible you're actually making it more difficult if you do that the second popular strategy which you will see a lot it's been around for years and years and years I first saw this like nearly 10 years ago in a book which is to talk about the past then talk about about the present and then talk about the future so what you would do is you would look at the and then you would think about something about the past and talk about this and then talk about the present and then talk about the future not so good all right why is it not so good it's very very rigid it is not giving you enough Freedom so there are lots and lots and lots of other things that you can talk about that have nothing to do with the past nothing to do with the present and nothing to do with the future and the best performances from students especially band S8 and N come from people who don't really think H I'm going to talk about this and then I'm going to talk about this they just talk naturally so it's far too rigid and it might work for people who need a band five or a band six but not for a band seven eight or nine and you will soon run out of ideas you'll talk about the pre the past first okay and then the present then the future uh okay what do I talk talk about next so again you can't speak for up to 2 minutes and it's also a very very unnatural way you again imagine talking to a friend and they ask you what did you get up to at the weekend okay let me think of the past like you just would never do that and let's look at the strategy in a little bit more detail I'm going to take you through it step by step so if it looks a little strange or it's different from what you have experienced before or have been taught before don't worry okay number one establish m topic you're going to have to talk about the main topic it's really really important you have to stick to that for 2 minutes so establish what it is so number one what is the main topic take time to understand what it is because if you don't understand what it is and you just start talking you're going to go off on a tangent and you're not going to actually stick to what the actual topic is number two think about each bullet point all right so look at the different bullet points and what you're trying to do here is establish which ones you actually want to talk about all right so describe something you own which is very important to you where you got it from okay no problem I can talk about that how long you have had it yeah no problem what you use it for yeah no problem explain why it is important to you I can't really I can't really think why it's important to me okay so here we go we're going to delete that okay so we've understood the main topic and we've thought about the bullet points and we've deleted the ones that we don't want to talk about and we've thought about these ones that we do want to talk about the next one add any others that will help so we're going to add more things in that will help us think about the topic and talk about the topic so so let's think about some things that we could add in here H we could add in our opinion we could add in we could introduce the topic we could describe it we could talk about the past we could talk about the future and there are many many many other things that you could talk about and then just something uh describe something you own which is very important to you you know related to that who got it for you um you know how often do you use it so you could quickly think about these things and then again just delete the ones that you want to uh to leave out so maybe I can't really think about this one would be easy to to introduce it and easy to describe it um past no future yeah who got it for me how often yeah had no problem so now you've gone from four bullet points to 4 5 6 7 8 all right would it be easy for you to fully develop each one of these and talk for the 2 minutes no problem whatsoever add any others that will help think about what you want to say all right so don't spend the whole minute just thinking about bullet points actually compose yourself and think about what you want to say now you might be thinking Chris there's no way that I can do this in one minute that's where practice comes in you cannot use this strategy and immediately get better and immediately start to speak fluently for 2 minutes like anything you need to practice it but I guarantee if you practice this it'll become second nature and you will just be able to do it so quickly on exam day number five speak naturally with or speak naturally until the examiner stops you the examiner will stop you when you get to the 2 minutes believe me they've got stuff to do they don't want you in the room any longer than you have to be there just keep talking and the examiner will stop you so why is this strategy so effective because it gives you Freedom it gives you freedom to talk about whatever you want related to the main topic and you only talk about the things that you are comfortable talking about and you're never going to run out of things to say remember the biggest problem is people run out of things to say then they lose their fluency they lose their coherence they start repeating ideas they start to panic this gives you so much freedom and most of the people who we work with they don't even get to most of the bullet points but they're just there waiting for them in case they need to talk about them all right so again the most important thing you need to do here is practice this strategy so in order to practice it there's a few things you need to do get real practice questions you will get them from Cambridge you'll get them from the British ccil or you'll get them from IDP those are the only three sources where you will get real I speaking questions everything else is fake all right so get some real ones use the strategy and record yourself get your mobile phone everyone watching this will have a mobile phone everyone can record themselves all right so get a question hit record on your mobile phone answer the question for 2 minutes and record yourself and then listen and critique your own work and think about fluency think about coherence think about grammar pronunciation and vocabulary I get my VIP students to do this all the time even though we do one-on ones with them and we critique them we get examiners to sit with them and tell them their scores even though we do provide that service we get them to do this too because have you ever listened to yourself speaking you you're like oh I can't believe I sign like that and if you're speaking in a different language you'll pick up so many little mistakes that you are making and if you do this and practice this enough you will be able to produce an amazing part two response that will blow the examiner away because most people they're going bullet point 1 2 3 4 uh what do I say you'll be able to just talk to them like they're talking to a friend or a colleague and they'll be really really impressed with your answer if you practice this but if you don't practice it you won't get better so before I set you your challenge summary start with the end goal in mind all right always focus on that end goal avoid common problems and strategies that don't work try a strategy that Focus is on the end goal and practice and then critique yourself and do this challenge as well but before that I want to show you Rashmi again who got a bandid and to show you a the way that she used this strategy and the way that she was able to flexibly use it in order to improve her performance all right okay rash me when you're ready uh I I don't think I I have bought too many expensive things like uh I'm not materialistic at all so I don't tend to spend too much but if education counts then I think the most expensive thing I've ever bought is an education at Queens uh I paid £25,000 to be here that does not include the the plane ticket but yes till till day that would be the most expensive thing uh I I where I bought it well I live in India so uh I came here at queens and I came here in the UK to study at Queens uh education has become really expensive but I think this is by far the most expensive ever uh but it was worth it because I learned a lot uh they have really good infrastructure and the quality of the teaching staff is really good uh I I met the students from all over the world here so the cultural exchange was really good um I learned a lot not just from being in the classroom but from outside of the classroom as well and just talking to people on the streets or volunteering uh I it gave me a lot of experience um which I don't think I could have gotten just being in a classroom so I did pay for Education here to study marketing anal and analytics but I came out learning a lot more than just that um why I bought it because uh I I really wanted to study analytics uh like I mentioned before but uh besides that uh Queens is a really good brand and it has a really good image in India and I think all over the world it's in the Russells group so uh an education at Queens is going I knew that if I invested in it it was going to pay off so as you can see Rashi used our strategy to talk fluently incoherently for 2 minutes with ease and before that she really struggled with that and she was running out of ideas we gave her that strategy she was able to practice it she was able to do that and get a bandaid Okay so so your challenge is let me jump into my computer again and show you what your challenge is and how to send it to us okay guys now comes the fun part where you are going to record your speaking and then send it to us so your task and this is really really really important if you don't do this then it is a complete waste of time and you're not going to improve and you're going to miss out on the chance to get better and get feedback on your work okay so it is a really really simple simple four-step process that you are going to follow in order to record your voice and send it to us um so the first step step one download a free voice recorder app for your phone so if you are an apple person if you have an Apple phone uh go to the App Store if you have an Android phone go to the Google Play store and on both of those stores you're going to find hundreds and hundreds of free voice record recorder apps that just make it really really simple for you to hit a button and it automatically records your voice don't ask me which one to choose there are too many to choose from just pick the one that you want to choose it's not that difficult so step two in the four-step process answer these questions and record your voice so you should have a phone you should have a app on your phone that records your voice you're going to look at these questions and don't pre-prepare the questions don't research the questions just pretend that you are in the actual exam and you are reading the questions just like the same way that the examiner would be asking you those questions so look at the question answer it second question answered third question answered that's all you have to do okay so this is part two to so what you should do is look at this plan out your answer for 1 minute and then speak into your phone record your voice for up to two minutes all right so might be a good idea to get like a stopwatch on your phone or use your watch to you know uh give you a guide on how long you're speaking for you don't have to speak for exactly 2 minutes but just try and speak for around two minutes and then stop yourself because you were looking at the phone in the real exam The Examiner will be stopping you but try and replicate the exam as much as possible okay so look at this prepare for one minute speak up for up to 2 minutes step three send it to us via email so this is super simple to do you can do this on your phone or you can do this on your desktop so you will have my email address because I will have emailed you multiple times so all you have to do is this so imagine you are on Gmail um you could be on Yahoo Hotmail whatever um just click the email that I sent you H click reply and then attach the audio file to your email and just hit send if you have any problems whatsoever then my email address is Chris advantage.com all right this is my email address Chris advantage.com but you will have received it many many many times before next is this okay so now that you have sent us your recording what I want you to do is just wait have a look at your email inbox and we will send you your feedback video right to your inbox and then it's really really important that you look at this feedback that we send to you so that you can really learn what to do and really really improve welcome to lesson three so as you know this course is part of a three-part project so if you have not watched video one or video two just go back and watch them and complete the challenges before we do this one okay so let's have a look at what we're going to do today so here's the agenda we're going to look at the difference between the question types cuz it's really important that you understand the type of questions that you're going to be asked in part three and the differences between part one part two and part three but especially part one and part three because they're very very different questions um and if you're answering them in the same way you're going to be in trouble common problems as always so we can avoid them some solutions for these common problems so we can help avoid them on test day and then I'm going to give you two different strategies that you can use to answer and practice Mo most importantly practice um question or part three questions and then we're going to give you a couple of demos I'm going to demonstrate how I would answer some of these questions we'll get a student to demonstrate this for you and then we'll give you your final challenge okay so so I want you to have a look at these two questions this is a typical part one question and this is a typical part three question I just want you to have a look at these and think about what the main difference is between these two questions so oh I've missed my question mark I deleted it um so what did you do last weekend ver verus why do many people spend their free time shopping so both of these are about your free time your leisure time or or what you do at the weekend the topic is the same but what's the difference in the type of question so if we look at this one this one is about you it is asking about what did you do last weekend so you're not talking generally about free time you're not talking generally about what people do at the weekends you're just telling them you know I watched football I went out to dinner I went shopping whatever part three very very different same topic but why do many people spend their free time shopping so this is not about you okay this is not about you at all you can talk about you that's fine but it is asking you an abstract question about the world in general the best way to describe part three questions is they're kind of like a task two writing question question like an academic style question where they want you to really get into the topic and fully develop it not just say I don't go shopping on the weekend that wouldn't be a very good answer or if you said um I don't know I don't go shopping uh they don't care whether you go shopping or you love shopping or you hate shopping it's not about you it is about the abstract idea let's have a look at another example most common question in part one is do you work or study all right so I work here's my job or I study I'm at University and I study this thing some a look at part three they would never ask that in part three more young people are going to University do you think this is a good thing okay so you could talk about when you were at University but they're not really asking about you they're asking you about this abstract idea of more and more young people are going to University these days do you think this is a positive thing or do you think this is a negative thing or why do some people think it's positive and why do some people think it's negative and really getting into the detail of this don't worry if you don't understand how to answer this question right now by the end of this lesson you will understand a bit more okay so let's have a look at some part three speaking problems and worries things that people really worry about and problems that we see every day the biggest problem the number one problem let's put this in red is a lack of development the The Examiner is really listening out for and looking for your ability to fully develop your ideas um so for part one you know what's your job you just need to add a little bit more detail maybe an explanation maybe an example but for part three they want you to talk for at length they want you to talk and get really in depth on that idea and fully EXP explain things give examples show different sides I'm going to show you how to do that in the strategy but if you're just giving you know one or two sentence answers for part three that's not good enough you I'm not again I'm not going to tell you the number of sentences because it will differ from question to question so you shouldn't go in thinking about number of sentences but you should go in thinking have I fully developed this answer doesn't mean that you need to talk for 30 minutes about one question but we'll show you how to do this in a second a worry that students have is I won't have any ideas um it is not an ideas test so worrying about ideas is a I understand why students are worried about this because in order to develop your ideas you need to have ideas in the first place but it's not something you really need to worry about that much because the examiner is not judging you on your ideas The Examiner is judging you on your pronunciation your grammar your vocabulary and your fluency and coherence so I wouldn't worry too much about these ideas um you're not being judged on them so much but we'll we'll talk about that more um later in the lesson listing so one thing students do a lot of is they will list every idea that comes into their head so for example why do more people go shopping at the weekend people go shopping because they like shopping they have more money they want to buy new clothes there are lots of restaurants and shopping centers it's a safe place they want to spend time with their family so all of those ideas are fine many many students who worry about ideas have actually no problem thinking of ideas and they just list idea after idea after idea after idea you're not going to do that what you're going to do is you're going to take one of those ideas or maybe two of those ideas and fully develop them fully explain them give examples of them and so I think I listed like six or seven ideas there what you should be doing is taking one of them so for example I said people have more money why do people have more money why are they spending it on on clothes or or what are they spending it on uh can you give me an example of this um you know so you're going really in depth on one or two ideas rather than listing lots of ideas again many people worry about uh vocabulary that these topics are things that they don't really understand or they're difficult questions and they worry that their vocab ulary is not good enough um you are being judged on your vocabulary but remember you're being judged on the accuracy of your vocabulary and the range of your vocabulary so what happens is what students try and do is they try and insert lots of highlevel words or lots of idioms or you know whatever you want to call them golden words Diamond words I've heard people call them um and they're not really answering the question if you just try and answer the question and fully develop it and use the vocab ulary that you have you will naturally use a wide range of vocabulary and then you will avoid mistakes because you're using vocabulary that you're comfortable using but if you try and push yourself too much then you're going to get in trouble because you're going to make lots of mistakes your fluency is going to suffer because you haven't you are having to think about the vocabulary very hard so what my suggestion would be for vocabulary use the vocabulary that you have before the test try and improve it every single day um but during the test just use the vocabulary that you have you have no other choice the other choice is try and use vocabulary you don't know how to use and then you're going to make lots of mistakes this is another um common thing where we see in part three is people just not attempting the answer at all or saying I don't know or saying hm that's an interesting question and then not saying anything or HM I've never thought about that before and then saying nothing the questions will get more difficult and more difficult and more difficult because the examiner is testing you you is trying to stretch your linguistic ability if you get difficult questions that means that the examiner thinks that you're good if you don't get any difficult questions in part three they don't think you're good there's no point in trying to test you too much but what they're looking for is you to attempt the answer if you don't attempt then they can't give you any score for that answer whatsoever you're going to drop down but if you even if you know nothing about that topic or you don't really know anything about it at least try and make an attempt because you that is what the examiner is looking for and if you are overthinking your ideas and you're trying to think of really impressive ideas and you're trying to think of really impressive vocabulary and you're thinking about it too much overthinking is going to cause fluency problems as people see these questions they're like oh I've never thought about that before it's not a test of your knowledge it's not a test of your IQ it's a test of your speaking all they want you to do is attempt an answer and show how good your fluency your pronunciation your grammar and vocabulary are um and people worry again about not enough knowledge it's not a Knowledge Test it is a speaking test so always remember that so let's look at just some solutions purpose what is the purpose of the speaking test is it to show off your ideas no is it to show off how much grammar and vocabulary you've memorized ized no it is a speaking test can you clearly communicate with someone in an english- speaking country or non-english speaking country if if they are an English speaker they are testing the purpose which is a speaking test so don't worry too much about ideas don't worry too much about trying to use fancy vocabulary and grammar just focus on speaking all right don't overthink it just focus on clearly communicating naturally with the examiner and you can practice doing that it is about practice once you start to get in the habit of practicing this the way the way that we're showing it to you it becomes very very natural solution number two it is it is a discussion I can't speak I'm teaching speaking it is a discussion of ideas all right it's not about you it is a discussion of ideas in the same way kind of like an essay response like an academic task to essay response if you're watching this video you know what academic writing task 2 is and how you kind of structure an answer and how you would put an answer on paper that's what you're looking for so for example you would uh answer the question explain give example show the other side state another point this discussion of ideas and we'll show you more about this but that's the best way to think about part three and solution number three accept that it will get harder attempt an answer and you're not being judged on one question it is going to get harder and harder and harder and harder and if it does you should think yes this is great because the examiner has a range of questions for part three easy ones middle ones and hard ones if they think that you're good they will ask you more and more difficult questions so if you get a difficult question say yes and attempt the answer at least even if you have no idea so if you have no idea say I really have never thought about that I have no idea but if I had to give an answer this is what I would say and just attempt an answer and you're not if you get one question that you really really struggle with remember you are being judged on the totality all of your answers not one answer it's not like you're b seven band Seven band Seven band seven and then you get a difficult question and you drop down to a five that's not how it works attempt the answer try your best leave it and move on to the next one and don't get really stressed out because often people get um a question they don't understand and then they'll get a little bit stressed out and then it'll affect their fluency their grammar and vocabulary just do your best that's all you can do okay so strategy one very very simply answer the question explain and then give an example okay so remember we asked you we showed you these questions here so question here was why do many people spend their free time shopping okay so answer the question think of an idea explain that and give an example so many people like to spend time shopping especially on the weekend because there's not only shops in many shopping centers there's a variety of things such as Cinemas and restaurants so the reason why people love this is they can go to just one place and they can go there with their family and there's so much choice that they can do a little bit of shopping and they can get something to eat and then they can bring their kids to the cinema or for they on a date or something like that then they can go and go to the cinema as well or the bowling alley there's a lot of leisure activities as well for example in the city near where I live there's a place called Victoria Square it's all Under One Roof and they have designer shops they have a great movie house they have a range of restaurants such as like waga mama and Burger King and Pizza Hut and we love to go there at the weekend and just so that we can get a variety of different leisure activities so we're not only doing shopping we're doing all the other things in the shopping center and that's what most shopping centers are doing now in the UK because they know that people want a variety of choices so you can see what I did there all I did was simply answer the question then I explained it and then I give an example all right you can do that for pretty much any question don't go into the test though and think very rigidly like I'm going to answer every single question in this way but it's a good way to think and a good way to practice your questions but allow yourself that flexibility strategy number two is where is strategy number two here we go strategy number two is it's three parts part one part two and part three so some people think this explain why they think it and give an example others think this explain why and give an example and I think this all right so let's have a look at the other question that we had for an example more young people are going to University do you think this is a good thing okay so some people would think this is a really really positive development because it means that there are more poor people going into University and this reduces the gap between rich and poor um which is very very important for Society for equality um for example in the UK in the last 20 years they have really pushed free University places for per students and now more than 50% of students go to university however many people think that this is not a good thing that this is actually a negative development because there are lots of young people who are not suited to academics they are not academically inclined they would be better getting a job in the in the trades so for example many people um who want to become Carpenters or mechanics or even software Engineers for example who don't need to go to university they can learn that in an apprenticeship and they'd be much happier doing that and if they are forced to go to university it is a huge waste of money I think it should be based on the individual student if they want to study something that can only be covered in University like medicine or law they should be they should go there but if not they should go into a trade and there's no need for them to get all that student debt so you can see what I did there what I did was some people think this so I didn't say what I think some people think this others think this and then this is what I think so that allowed me to talk and fully fully develop my answers so demo what I'm going to do now is show you a student who got a ban nine rash me and you'll be able to see how she fully developed her answers so now I want to talk about money and Society in general um Can money buy happiness this seems like a philosophical question but um for me personally I don't think so uh money is not everything uh I do volunteer at a lot of uh places so uh I know that uh I I do that because mostly uh I'm I'm an introvert I don't really talk much but when I'm uh volunteering with people uh I gain valuable experience and that's how I learn that money is not everything um to some people yes money can uh make them less miserable as long as you are not like homeless or or desperate for food on the putting food on the table and as long as you have like uh a shelter a roof over your head and food on the table at night that that's all you need for me personally so it depends on people like what money means to them but to me I don't think it can buy happiness okay guys so now it's your turn so what we're going to do do is I'm going to jump into my computer share my screen with you and show you what your challenge is for today okay guys now it comes the fun part where you are going to record your speaking and then send it to us so your task and this is really really really important if you don't do this then it is a complete waste of time and you're not going to improve and you're going to miss out on the chance to get better and get feedback on your work okay so it is a really really simple four-step process that you are going to follow in order to record your voice and send it to us um so the first step step one download a free voice recorder app for your phone so if you are an apple person if you have an Apple phone uh go to the App Store if you have an Android phone go to the Google Play store and on both of those stores you're going to find hundreds and hundreds of free voice recorder apps that just make it really really simple for you to hit a button and it automatically records your voice don't ask me which one to choose there are too many to choose from just pick the one that you want to choose it's not that difficult so step two in the four-step process answer these questions and record your voice so you should have a phone you should have a app on your phone that records your voice you're going to look at these questions and don't pre-prepare the questions don't research the questions just pretend that you are in the actual exam and you are reading the questions just like the same way that the examiner would be asking you those questions so look at the question answer it second question answered third question answered that's all you have to do okay guys so now we're going to look at four part three questions you should look at each question and attempt to answer each of these questions don't worry if one of the or two of the questions are like really difficult or you've never thought about that before you need to attempt an answer so get your phone look at each question hit record record your voice and answer the questions step three send it to us via email so this is super simple to do you can do this on your phone or you can do this on your desktop so you will have have my email address because I will have emailed you multiple times so all you have to do is this so imagine you are on Gmail um you could be on Yahoo Hotmail whatever um just click the email that I sent you uh click reply and then attach the audio file to your email and just hit send if you have any problems whatsoever then my email address is Chrisi advantage.com all right this is my email address Chrisi advantage.com but you will have received it many many many times before next is this okay so now that you have sent us your recording what I want you to do is just wait have a look at your email inbox and we will send you your feedback video right to your inbox and then it's really really important that you look at this feedback that we send to you so that you can really learn what to do and really really improve so hopefully you enjoyed the speaking challenge now let's move on to reading one of the biggest challenges that students face when it comes to reading is where to find real genuine practice tests and there are only a few sources out there so what I've done is I've put together a video that shows you where to find those practice tests for free and then gives you the most effective Tech technique that we know that has helped thousands of students get a B 78 and n and not only is this a highly effective strategy it is totally free and it's going to guarantee that as you practice you are constantly improving and you know exactly when you are ready for the test so without further Ado let's show you where you can find that we've helped thousands of students get a band nine in reading and listening over the years and there are three key things that separate separate band nine students from the rest of you and it's all to do with how they use these practice tests practice actually makes most students worse not better but if you want to join the 1% of students that get a b nine in reading and listening all you have to do is just learn the three key differences that separate band n from everyone else they understand where to find real practice tests and how to use them they understand these Key Practice principles and they use practice tests completely differently every single minute a band n student is using practice tests they are improving and I'm going to show you using these real practice tests exactly what they do in this video okay so Point number one they know where to find real practice tests and they know where to find them for free there are only five places in the world where you can find real reliable practice tests they are cambridge.org ielts.org ID P the British Council and these Cambridge books now for the first four all you have to do is just go on to Google put in I practice test and then put in Cambridge ielts.org IDP or British counil into the search bar and Google will take you directly to those free practice tests all of these are real and reliable the Cambridge books are not free but I would actually consider them to be free so which is more expensive $200 or $20 $200 is the average cost that you will waste if you fail the test you're never getting that money back but if you invest $20 in this you're far more likely to get the score that you need so which is more expensive 200 or 20 when you think about that they're pretty much are free or an investment but don't be a naughty boy or girl and go online and try and find the free soft copies or the free PDFs most of the PDFs the vast majority of them are not actually the real tests they are fake and highly misleading and will lead to failure so don't do that so now that they've got their practice test what they do is they don't just go and practice as much as possible they follow these five key practice principles number one practice does not make perfect let me illustrate this by telling you a little story a true story about a friend that I went to school with he lived on a farm and his dad bought him an old car when he was like 10 years old and he drove run the farm every day in this car when it came time to doing our driving test when we were 17 all of the other friends that I had that were doing the test did about 6 weeks of practice he had 7 years of daily Practice 6 weeks 90% of them passed first time the guy who drove for seven years practiced every day he failed multiple multiple times this is because he developed bad habits and every time that he drove that car he was making these bad habits worse this is exactly the same what I see with I students they have bad habits they're doing things wrong and by doing lots and lots of practice tests they are getting worse not better and they're wasting their time but don't worry we're going to show you a technique in this video that guarantees that every second you are practicing you're constantly improving number two most practice tests are fake as I said these are the only five sources that are trustworthy more than 90% probably closer to 95% of tests that you find online are produced by people who don't know what they're doing which means that they are one fake and number two they are unreliable because these people don't know what they're doing they either produce tests that are way too easy or way too difficult if they're too easy you will be overconfident you will go and do the test thinking that you are going to get a high score and you will fail if they are too difficult you will give up too early you will just think these are way too difficult you'll get very very stressed and most students just give up in that scenario so it doesn't matter if the website is called real I practice test we promise they are real we are experts.com doesn't mean that they are these are the only five sources that you need band n students also understand that Improvement comes after practice so I want you to imagine you're going to the gym and you're trying to build your muscle when you are lifting weights in the gym do your muscles instantly increase in size no your muscles don't increase in the gym your muscles increase after you leave the gym this is a concept that I band n students understand about practice you are not improving while you are practicing in fact to go back to the gym analogy if you lift weights too much your muscles will get smaller not bigger we get hundreds of emails a week saying I've done every single practice test in the world and I'm not improving say yes because practice does not make you better it is what you do after practice that makes you better and that's what we'll show you in the rest of this video because band n students understand the real purpose the real goal of practice is not to get better it is to establish weaknesses so I want you to imagine you are sick you go to the doctor what does the doctor do does the doctor immediately treat you no they normally diagnose your problem they will run tests but once they establish what the problem is they don't just keep giving you tests until you get better they treat the problem this is exactly the same approach that b n students use they do practice tests in order to establish what their key weaknesses are and then they can improve those key weaknesses this is where the real Improvement comes after practice outside of practice they turn those weaknesses into strengths and then they are constantly improving and they only do practice tests again to establish if they improved and what their new weaknesses are and we're going to show you exactly what students do showing you real tests in this video number five ban n students understand the difference between slow practice and fast practice so when you are doing your driving test in lesson one does the driving instructor take you on to the main road and tell you to drive at 100 m an hour no you would both die if that happened this is exactly the same principle that we apply to our VIP students when they are learning new Strat strategies you are going to use these and go very very slowly so for example let's say you are trying to improve true false not given and you're using a strategy a step-by-step strategy and don't worry if you need those I'll give those to you in a video at the end when you're learning that strategy you might take 20 minutes 30 minutes 45 minutes just to do these seven questions because your goal is learning the strategy your goal is not to do everything as quickly as possible and then you will speed up bit by bit by bit but when you are establishing your weaknesses when you're trying to get where you are you're going to practice fast under exam conditions and that's what we're going to show you now so here's exactly what our band n students do when they are doing fast practice number one don't cheat all right make sure that you have never seen these questions before for don't use questions that you have used in class or you've practiced like 10 times don't get the books and just flick through them and see what questions are going to come up we want to recreate the real test as much as possible so don't cheat and look at the test before you do them number two do it under exam conditions go into a room that is quiet that where you will not be distracted and time yourself using the exact same time that you would use on test day and don't cheat don't go 30 seconds over number three honest correction if you spelled the answer wrong it is wrong don't give yourself oh I'll do it better on test day if it is wrong it is wrong now the fourth thing you're going to do is you're going to establish what your score actually is so you're going to go to the book you're going to go to the back you're going to count how many you got correct and you're going to establish your band score I'll put a a link below the video where you can check your band score but it's pretty easy just use Google you know what does 35 out of 40 equal in band scores now the rule that we give our VIP students is if you are half a band more than the score that you need and you can do that three times in a row you're ready to do the test so let's say for example you need a band eight if you are getting 8.5 or over three times in a row you ready to do the test but let's say you need a bond eight and you get 7.5 and then you get eight and then 7.5 again it's highly likely you're going to get s or 7.5 in the real test because most people don't perform better in the real test not because the tests are more difficult but because it's just a very stressful environment now you might think that that's you know that's a lot of work it is but it's not as much work as failing the test to two three times in a row it is much cheaper and more cost effective to actually improve before you even book The Test more than 99% of the students that we work with that don't get the score that they need the number one reason that they fail is they book the test before they're ready but if you are consistently getting these scores that you need before you book the test then you're pretty much guaranteed to get the score that you need so you might be thinking no well how do I improve how do I work on my weaknesses that's what we're going to work on next so really what you're doing now is you're doing real tests under exam conditions in order to establish your weaknesses so what you're going to do is you're going to go to the answer key at the back of the book and you're going to honestly evaluate and give yourself a real score if it's wrong put an X beside it if it is right put a tick beside it and then what you're going to do is you're going to look at each of these mistakes and establish why you made each of these mistakes so let's go through each of the five key mistakes the most common ones how you find them in both the reading and listening test and then how to improve them so the first one is very straight forward spelling don't cheat and you know correct the spelling or anything if you're consistently spelling words incorrectly you're going to fail you're going to get a lower score than you're hoping for you need to address address that but that is very very easy just look at exactly what you wrote and then look at the spelling compare the spelling in the answer key if it is different even by one letter it is wrong mark it is wrong you're not aiming to get the score that you need right away You're establishing weaknesses so be totally 100% honest number two is not reading instructions so for example if you go and look at some questions that say right write a letter and instead you write the word like this example here then that is going to be wrong in the real test because not because the Cambridge people are horrible people or the tests are unfair don't blame the test blame yourself it is quite easy to read the instructions you decided not to do that or you just don't have the skill yet you will we're going to show you how to improve it but you don't you haven't established or you haven't improved that skill and it is a c I nitive skill reading things carefully number three could be reading skills or listening skills for reading this might be skimming or scanning but the most likely skill that you're lacking in will be reading for detail so if we look at a true false not-given question for example one of the key skills that it is testing is can you find the location of the correct answer by scanning if you really struggle with finding the location then that is probably a scanning issue if you find the location but you find it very difficult to find the correct answer within that paragraph then that is a weakness on reading for detail listening could be the same maybe you find it difficult to listen to multiple people speaking at the same time or maybe you really struggle with focusing for long periods of time on one person talking about an academic subject for example those are all skills that you need to improve and by thinking about why you got that question wrong that will establish what skills you need to work on you'll also be able to look at the video that I'll show you at the end of the lesson that gives you strategies for all the different types of questions and what you can do is go through those strategies and think where you messed up so if it says skim and you didn't do that or you find that difficult that could be a skimming issue if it says scan or read for detail or you know whatever they're telling you to do and you're not good at that thing that's a skills issue and number four is a big one vocabulary if you are reading things and you're thinking I don't understand this or this is difficult or the text is difficult or I'm getting lost or when you're listening you're getting lost or you think that people are speaking too quickly or you can't keep up with what they're saying that is probably a vocabulary issue you simply do not understand the words there is no magic fix for this there are aren't any common words that you can memorize you just have to improve your vocabulary huge difference between a b nine student and a band seven student is the range of the vocabulary that they understand but don't worry we'll give you a link to a vocabulary Improvement plan below the video and the last one is particular question types so let's say for example you're looking at the answer key and you notice that most if not all the yes no not given questions that you you get you do two or three different tests every time these questions come up you're getting them wrong that is not a vocabulary issue or a reading skills issue or spelling issue that is you're just not comfortable with those questions yet what you need to do in that scenario is you need to familiarize yourself with a strategy practice that strategy slowly learn the strategy become more more comfortable and then you will improve so as I said at the beginning of the video what bound n students do is every minute that they are practicing they're constantly improving because they are establishing their weaknesses and then they're working on those weaknesses so let's say for example you need help with spelling I'll put a video at the end that'll help you with that not reading instructions this is just about being more careful and actually just practicing reading the instructions you cannot magically tell yourself read the instructions and then you'll do it in a stressful situation like an eys test you need to practice that multiple times always read the question reading and listening skills I'll give you a free course I'll put it below in the description that will help you with that I'll put a vocabulary Improvement plan and I'll give you access to that video with all of the different strategies you actually do need to sit down and practice those strategies if that is a weakness finally I would recommend focusing on your biggest weakness first I know that's difficult but it is far easier to tackle your biggest weakness first get that out of the way and then everything becomes much much easier next up we have our free reading course our ielt reading challenge it's going to give you strategies for all the different types of questions and show you how to improve your reading skills as well so enjoy the reading challenge Welcome to our ielt reading course thank you very much for joining me my name is Chris pal you might know me you might not know me but I'm the finder of I advantage and we've helped thousands of students over the years with their IELTS reading scores and particularly helping students who need a seven or above so what we decided to do with this uh whole course that we're going to give you today is we decided just to put it all into a mini course just the essentials just the most important things so that you can improve your reading scores uh in the fastest time possible so there are three lessons today lesson is number one and without further Ado let's get going so what are we going to do today so lesson one today what we're going to look at are the real reasons why you struggle and vocabulary so it's really really important that you understand what works and what doesn't work because there's a huge amount of confusing and conflicting information out there and if you're listening to the wrong people or doing the wrong things or have the wrong mindset the wrong attitude then you're going down the wrong path and you're going to consistently fail over and over and over again so it's really important that you understand those warning signs and understand why you might be failing or why you might fail in the future we'll talk a lot about vocabulary in this lesson and talk about why it's so important and give you a step-by-step vocabulary Improvement plan that I actually share with my VIP students and has helped thousands of them get the scores they need and improve their vocabulary and that this is going to improve not only your reading scores but your speaking your writing you're listening absolutely everything lesson two is going to be about improving your reading skills things like skimming things like scanning but also other skills that you might not be aware of how to use them strategies all of these different things and then lesson three we're going to look at using a strategic approach having a step-by-step strategy for all of the different types of questions how valuable that is and we're going to demo that and show you ex exactly how to do that in these lessons so just three lessons and I would definitely encourage you to watch all three of them in their entirety all three of them are really really important so why are you struggling so to answer this question I'm going to show you this diagram if you're watching this video you're either struggling with the reading test or you're worried about the reading test so the number one reason why I'd say 90% of students are struggling with reading is not because of their reading skills it's not because of their their English ability it's because of this they're looking for tips they're looking for in other words shortcuts or hacks or tricks to pass the reading test and a lot of the stuff that you'll see online a lot of the YouTube videos and Facebook videos and blog posts and things like that they're all focused on giving you tips and shortcuts and hacks and tricks why is that because basically they're giving you what you want um normally they're giving you that so that you'll join their school or they'll you'll buy their course or something like that but basically they're being smart they're giving you exactly what you want so one of the reasons why we have helped more students and get the scores they need than any other course or School in the world is we don't tell you what you want to hear we just tell you the facts we just tell you the truth we give you the things that actually work so what you're ignoring are the things that actually matter the things that will actually determine your score and let's look at these so the first one here we very very important is mindset so in other words how you think about the reading test and how what your your attitude is to preparation will determine your score more than anything else this is the most important thing what does that mean well we'll be talking a lot about that throughout the course but one very quick example of a good mindset versus a bad mindset a good mindset they know that you know shortcuts and hacks and tricks don't work name one thing in another area of life like can you hack your way to losing weight like can you like eat some pill and then magically lose 50 can you you know shortcut your way to becoming stronger or shortcut your way to becoming smarter or more successful or make more money no you can't all of these things just don't work they sound good they sound really tempting you know everybody wants to hear that get rich quick scheme that you hear over and over again or everyone wants to look you know fitter or Slimmer or or or whatever by doing something really easy but in reality the people who are successful are the people who have the opposite mindset to that the people who know that success or results only come from hard work and doing the work now I'm not saying that you have to you know work 12 hours a day for the next 10 years or anything like that but you do have to do a lot more work than just looking at you know top 10 tips to improve your reading if you are looking for top 10 tips stop this video and go somewhere else because you're not going to get that we're only going to give you the things that actually will improve your score the second most important thing is vocabulary we're going to talk a lot about this today so when I say this in class A lot of students will say vocabulary well it's a reading test it's not a vocabulary test what I normally do then is just show them the reading text and the real questions say do you understand all these words how about the the questions are the words here directly matching with the words in the text or are they synonyms okay so that is a vocabulary test as much as a reading test so improving your vocabulary you're not going to get a band seven unless your vocabulary is at that level you're not going to get a band eight until your vocabulary is at that level and in today's lesson we'll show you a vocabulary Improvement plan that will get you there and help you with your vocabulary the third most important thing or things are your reading skills now what a lot of people will talk about is skimming and scanning you just have to skim and then you scan and then you find the correct answer well if that were true you wouldn't be watching this video that is very simplistic a lot of people don't understand what skimming is what scanning is they are not aware at all of the other reading skills they need to be aware of they and they don't know how to practice these skills same as like playing Cricket or playing basketball or playing football those are skills you need to practice them um and there are good way ways to practice them and there are bad ways to practice them so we'll be talking a lot about in lesson two I believe lesson two or lesson three about all of these skills and how how to perfect them and in lesson three the last lesson we are going to look look at strategy so what we try and do is is take a strategic approach to absolutely everything we do not only uh in our company but when we're helping students prepare and and a strategic way to do the test I don't want to say that I want to turn you into like a a reading robot um or anything like that but that's kind of what we do with our students we we teach them strategies for all the different types of questions so that on test day they just look at the question and they know exactly what to do how refreshing would that be for you if you could apply those strategies and just get the correct answers and do that on test day and that's what we want to do that's what we show you um in the rest of this video in lesson three so these are the reasons why you're struggling you're looking for these things and you're ignoring all of this which is more important and this course is going to teach you all about these so without further Ado let's get into vocabulary so is vocabulary important well here's three reasons why it is because even though we've talked a little bit about why vocabulary is important I need to talk about it again because you will not do the work to improve your vocabulary until you believe how important it actually is so let's have a look so number one helps you understand the text so when you're reading are you able to understand enough of those words now you will will never be able to understand 100% of you know every single word in the reading text and in the questions that's not what we're trying to do what we're trying to do is to make it as easy as possible for you by allowing you to understand as much of that as you can the more you're able to understand the faster you'll be able to read the faster you'll be able to understand it the faster you'll be able to locate the correct answer the faster you'll be able to decide the correct answer and not it's not just about speed it's about efficiency and it's about Effectiveness which you know if youve one person who has like a ban five level of vocabulary and one who has a band seven level of vocabulary who is going to be able to decide and find the correct answer and understand the text better the person with band seven vocabulary number two helps you locate the location of the correct answer a lot of the strategy that we'll be we talking about in lesson three will be showing you that you don't just read and then magically find the correct answer a lot of the strategies are about locating the location the part of the text where the the correct answer is and then you can read it more closely and find the correct answer this is a lot to do with synonyms so the synonyms are two words that mean the same thing so two different words that mean the same thing like woman female right two different words but they mean the same thing so often the question we'll be talking about one word but the location of the the the area where it is in the text will be a synonym of that word so it might be talking about men and then in the text it might be talking about males so if you were looking for men men men men men you wouldn't find it but if you're open know all the synonyms of that word and you're aware of that then helps you find the location much quicker number three helps you decide the correct answer so you're often going to get for example multiple choice questions where you'll have three answers and they all kind of look the same um and you have to decide the different the the answer to the question will be determined by the you understanding the difference in meaning between those those words or in the text there might be two areas or two two parts of the text that are similar in meaning and you need to understand what those words mean so it's really again a vocabulary test that is going to and it's going to help you get the score that you need I can't emphasize this enough that's why I'm repeating myself but it is very very important that you understand that so how not to improve your vocabulary so if you go to a lot of ielt schools schools and inverted commas and or speak to a lot of I teachers teachers in inverted commas there there are some great I schools there are some great I teachers I'm not knocking them all but there are lots of terrible ones too pretending to know what they're doing when they don't really know what they're doing so a lot of schools a lot of lot of teachers their solution to the vocabulary problem is give you lots and lots of lists of vocabulary this is another example of a shortcut it's another example of a hack they do not work let's look at why they do not work so it's impossible to predict which words are going to come up on the reading test and which words are going to be important the English language is just way way way way too broad for you to be able to predict that so there's you would have literally have to read the dictionary and I don't think anyone wants to do that number two it doesn't teach you the word 100% so it doesn't teach you the synonyms of that it doesn't teach you collocations it doesn't teach you anything other than the word and a translation or the word and the meaning you should never have just a list of words with translations or meanings because you're not going to be able to understand that word or use that word remember remember you're going to have to do your reading or your writing test as well as your reading test so wouldn't it be great to be able to use those words in a sentence also the speaking test needs to be considered as well number three doesn't improve reading skills so by using lists of vocabulary you are not improving your reading skills at all wouldn't it be great if you could improve your vocabulary and your reading at the same time that would be the perfect solution and that's the solution we're going to give you so the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read so this is not just my opinion even though I've helped thousands of students with this method and this is the method that has helped all of my students impr proven over and over and over again but there have been huge there have been a huge number of studies done on how to learn and retain vocabulary and use vocabulary and all of them conclude that the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read listening is pretty good too but since we're you know it's a it's a reading course and we want to improve our reading um skills at the same time we're going to use reading and reading is better than listening to be honest so however just reading is not the answer all right so if you think that all you have to do is just read a book every day and your vocabulary will magically improve you're wrong it's not going to improve it might improve a little bit but remember this is a test situation your date is coming up you want to get it done as quickly as possible so we need to think a little bit more strategically you need to be a little bit more strategic so what I'm going to show you now is my vocabulary Improvement plan normally I only share this with my VIP students but I'm going to share it with you today and it has helped so many students do get the scores that they need improve their vocabulary and not only is this going to help you improve your vocabulary and improve your uh your your I scores but but a wider vocabulary is going to help you improve your life in your new english- speaking country and because you're going to be able to engage people in conversation understand what they say and be able to communicate with people far more effectively so I would recommend not only doing this you know up until you get the score you need but to continue to do this um after because it really does work and it really doesn't take that much work and it's all about being consistent so part one number one pick something you enjoy reading all right do not pick boring eys books all right don't pick like you know the the C the like the guide to vocabulary ISS or whatever like it's going to be really really boring and don't just go into the library and pick the first English book that you see you have the internet there's loads of ways that you can access books now you have a huge choice pick something you enjoy reading because you are going to have to read regularly and consistently this is not a method that you can do the day before your test or the week before your test this is something that you should be doing every day consistently making it a habit so if you're trying to make something a habit you're trying to do something consistently wouldn't it be a good idea to do something that you enjoy doing uh so pick a topic or a book or a newspaper or whatever anything it could be on Cricut or gardening or cooking or celebrity gossip it doesn't matter what matters is you do it regularly and consistently so please don't ask me which book to to read that's up to you whatever you want number three while you're reading underline new words and phrases so you don't have to read for8 hours a day you know if you're doing this consistently 10 20 30 minutes a day is more than enough what you're aiming for is about 10 new words could be eight could be 10 could be 12 could be 15 could be 20 but every day try and get at least about 10 new words that's your aim and what you're doing is while you're reading it you're going to underline the new words or could be an idiom it could be you know a phrasal verb whatever number four this is really really important guess meaning from Context what does that mean that means that when you underline your new word do not immediately Google that new word do not immediately reach for the dictionary and look up the meaning what you're going to do is you're going to guess what that word means from the context of the words around it the paragraph the title whatever information you have so I'm not making it purposely more difficult for you it's a skill in itself number one you're going to have to do this on test day because there will be words that you don't understand on test day I guarantee it on the I test and then when you move to you know the UK or Canada or Australia or wherever you want to go you're going to constantly see new words that you don't understand and do you want to be like talking to someone and you know looking at your phone Googling words or looking you're walking around with a dictionary no so guess the meaning from context then at the end once you finish reading compare what you thought the meaning was with the dictionary meaning this is going to help you remember it far more effectively than just looking up the word and and translating it do not translate all right start operating in English if you need a seven or above stop thinking and using your own language that might sound crazy but if you are saying that you want to be a high level learner of English but you want to keep using your own language and using your own language all the time when you're studying when you're learning English use only English and that's really going to help you so the next part is you're going to record that vocabulary and you can do do it in like a book like this I carry this book everywhere with me and I keep my notes in it so anything I'm thinking about I just put this in my daily plan and all those things but I could easily just record new vocabulary here doesn't have to be like an expensive book like this it can be you know a $1 you know Skool book that you have or or a or you could use your phone and you could record it doesn't matter what you put it in what matters is you have a central place to record your new words phrases idioms whatever they are so that you can go back and review later and you can you record in a special way you do not write the the word and the meaning or the word and the translation you can write the meaning but you're going to write a lot of other stuff too so just look at this for an example so aqus really nice word um let's say I was reading and I was like oh what does that mean I'm unsure about what that means I would underline it guess what it trans what it means and then look it up then I'm going to record all this information that I need to remember it so the uh the pronunciation is going to help you remember it the word form the definition synonms collocations antonyms example sentences whatever helps you remember it but make sure that you have all this information in your book or your app or whatever it is because what you're going to do then is you are going to review those words so imagine you do this for 20 minutes a day for two weeks let's say you get 10 words a day that means you're going to have 140 new words in your book so just your book's going to just going to fill up and fill up and fill up but if you don't review them it's kind of a waste of time so what you're going to do is regularly review these I'd say do it once a week once a week or twice a week and you're going going to review all of that new vocabulary and how you're going to review it is you're going to do something with the vocabulary all right you're going to produce the vocabulary and you can do this in a lot of ways you could just for example you could try and tell a story um and include that vocabulary or or you could write an essay or you could write anything a letter to someone or you could play a game in some way there's a lot of ways that you can review uh vocabulary but the key is to produce the vocabulary to produce full sentence is with that in it you could even record yourself sorry for the ambulance outside um but the key is to do this regularly and to produce something and if you do that consistently imagine you did that a year ago like imagine you watched this video a year ago and you were doing that for 365 days and you imagine you you learned 20 new words a day that's a lot of words how how brilliant would your vocabulary be if that was the case and how great would your your reading skills be and your overall General level of English be and it's it it can you can start with just five minutes a day but if you watch this video and you do nothing nothing will change so please don't be one of those students that watches a video like this and and is like oh this is amazing I'm going to do it and then you don't do it and then time creeps on and then you fail your test over and over and over again because you have a choice you can spend time on this or you can spend time failing the test you don't have a choice you know that's your choice spend time doing something that will lead to a great a score or spend time wasting time and then failing the test over and over and over again so to talk about mindset a little bit many of you will be like why is he not giving us tips and that vocabulary Improvement plan that's going to take ages Okay so that vocabulary Improvement plan if you are thinking that's going to be take a really long time your mindset is wrong you're going to fail over and over and over again but if you're like oh I only need to do that for like 10 20 30 minutes a day I should get going now and I should make it a habit and schedule it every day and in time I'll really improve then you're going to get the score you need there's no other way of doing it um so that's everything you need to know about how to improve your vocabulary and a little bit about mindset so in lesson two what we're going to do is we're going to look at reading skills so we're going to look at skimming scanning and close reading many of you might not have even heard of this one and we're going to look at the real problem the real reason why people don't develop their skills why people don't use these skills effectively on test day don't practice properly we're going to look at all of that in lesson two so make make sure you tune in for lesson two and I'll see you then hopefully you find this lesson useful and get going with your vocabulary Improvement plan hello there and welcome to lesson two of our ielt reading course so if you watched lesson one well done if you haven't watched lesson one please go back and watch it there's some really essential information in there that you need in order to improve your I reading scores to a seven or above so what are we going to do today so we're going to look at Reading skills mostly we're going to look at scanning and skimming like every course does but we're going to look at them in a lot more detail and think about what they actually are and how to use them because one of the main problems is students talk about skimming and scanning a lot of teachers talk about skimming and scanning Without Really knowing what they are and how to use them we're also going to look at close reading which is another skill in itself as well as a couple of other reading skills that most students just aren't aware of or or don't talk about or don't know about we're going to talk about the real problem the real reason why you are struggling with reading skills and we're also going to give you a couple of exercises that you can do at home to help you improve your reading skills okay so what we need to do is we need to find out what these are what are these skills how do we use them so a very good analogy is Google Maps so with me this will all make sense in a second so I'm here I'm in Northern Ireland and I need to answer this question how many angels are there outside Rockefeller Center in Manhattan in New York so imagine this is kind of like a reading question and we're going to be using the same skills to answer this question as you would during your reading test but we're not going to be reading a text we're going to be looking at a map so so to answer this question I'm in Ireland here and I know that Rockefeller Center is in New York city so what would I do in order to find this quickly and efficiently and effectively would I go into every single uh country in Europe or Africa in South America and try and find it there no I would scan for the United States really really quickly and I would find it there so using that scanning skill has helped me find it uh the location of it really really quickly but have I found the correct answer no I haven't found the correct answer yet so what I need to do is look at things in a little bit more detail so look for New York so scanning again New York okay so let's click on that one let's go into here so New York is divided into five and we have Staten Island we have Queens where my sister lives we have Brooklyn um and we have the Bronx and Manhattan so by skimming this by looking at it quickly I can understand that yes I'm in the right area I know where I am I know I'm in New York I'm in the right place so by just looking at it quickly by skimming it I'm kind of orientating myself and I know exactly what's going on but I need to scan again so switching skills to find Manhattan where Rockefeller Center is so if we go into Manhattan so Manhattan is like a big Long Island and I need to find Rockefeller Center it is a landmark so it will probably be one of these things that is highlighted so what are we going to do we're going to scan again hopefully it comes up Rockefeller Center okay so we did a little bit of scanning a little bit of skimming to help us find it and then scanning again but has that allowed us to uh find the correct answer well this kind of looks like an angel so could we look quickly at it and then get the score or get the uh the correct answer no we wouldn't be looking at it in enough detail now we need to look at it in detail no skimming no scanning looking at it in detail to find the correct answer so let's have a look again so there's some pictures here so if we click into the pictures okay Angels here we go if you've never been here at Christmas time it is beautiful the tree and the angels and everything so can we skim this which means look at it really really quickly to get like a general meaning to get the correct answer no we can't do that can we scan to find the location no we've already done that we need to look at it in more detail so we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 if you look done there so the answer to the question is 12 so we were using many different skills to help us locate the correct area that we were going to to understand generally where we were when we were skimming and then to look in detail close reading to understand exactly what the correct answer was and that's exactly what you're going to do on test day you're going to be using different skills in order to help you understand what is going on locate the the location of the correct answer and then to understand exactly what you're doing that example my students normally like it um because it kind of takes them out of the IELTS test normally when you've been studying IELTS for a long time you're just like oh another I test another reading test another and so it's just kind of normalizing the situation for you and and and helping you understand that these are skills that you already use in your native language let me show you another example newspapers are a very very good I've covered this one up on purpose so newspapers are a very good example of when you use skimming scanning and close reading so imagine I want to find a movie review so let's say my little boy wants to go see the latest Disney movie which is Mary Poppins at this moment Mary Poppins is in the cinema so being a a selfish dad I want to know like is it any good because I don't want to go and see a movie if it's not good so let's use those skills again um to help us find it so again if I wanted to find out the movie review would I read every single story here on the front page no what I would do is I would open the newspaper and I would scan very quickly for some keywords which would be Mary Poppins and a review or some kind of synonym of the word review and I would would come across this so here is the title Mary Poppins returns review so I find it by scanning okay so now I need to understand is it any good so let's have a look at the title a truck full sugar can't make this uplift go down it's unsure all right might be good might be bad unsure from the title we need to look at it in a little bit more detail so what skills could we use let's say I'm in a rush I need to find the correct answer quickly what skills could we use to help us understand this so let's try skimming we skimming means that we are reading the text quickly it doesn't mean reading the first line and the last line that's not what skimming means it means reading it all pretty quickly to understand the general meaning so let's try that so let's have a look and read this and in the comments below just by skimming tell me if you think that it's positive or negative okay so reading it pretty quickly I'm still not 100% sure remember that my little boy wants to go see it I don't want to waste my time so I need to know 100% the answer to this question is it any good so another skill that we could use would be scanning what would we scan for or we' scan for positive adjectives or negative adjectives like if it says good it's probably good if it says bad it's probably bad but we need to be aware of all the different synonyms and the different vocabulary that might be used so let's try that okay so here we are largely charmless might have created something memorable okay so does this help us understand the correct answer no because we just find the location so here if we change colors so here is the sentence where we've located some adjectives and they seem to be negative ad adjectives but if we just did this just looked for negative ad adjectives we we don't know 100% sure whether they're talking about the movie or they could be talking about the original movie made in the 60s like we don't know so we need to use a different skill which is close reading so let's look at this in more detail let's read this sentence properly and think about it deeply suddenly it becomes clear that the people who made this largely charmless Venture charmless means that there's no charm to it uh with its hard smiling Nanny might have created something memorable even good and hummable if they had turned it over to Miranda so when we're looking at this in detail it becomes quite clear even without looking at the rest of the review that they don't think it is very good all right it's not going to be a positive review so you can see that the different skills that we used there um to help us find the correct answer again you're going to be using the these in the test but it's not as simple as skimming scanning close reading you need to understand what those are and more importantly how and when to use them and how to practice them how to get better at them because they are skills just like any other skills so not only are we going to be looking at these ones which you mentioned two that are really misunderstood or not talked about enough are these two understanding the question you could argue that this isn't a skill but I'm including this here because it is so important and deciding the answer drawing a conclusion so let's take one at a time understanding the question if you don't understand the question you will not be able to find the answer all right it's as simple as that if you don't understand the question you won't be able to find the answer what a lot of students do is they immediately go in skim the text scan the text look for the answer but don't really pay enough attention to the different options it is a reading test you should be spending most of your time reading but this is a skill in itself also you need to be aware of synonyms so it might talk about the movie in the questions but in the text it talks about a film movie film they are or a picture they are pictures like a oldfashioned word for a movie or a film but they're all synonyms of each other so by looking at the question and thinking about which synonyms might be coming up then it's going to help you with especially scanning skimming we've already talked about that reading quickly to understand the general meaning you're going to use this for some types of questions other types of questions you're not we'll look at that in a little bit more detail scanning is just a tool to help you find the location it's not a tool to help you find the correct answer what you should use is scanning to help you find the location and then close reading looking at things in detail and that is going to help you decide the answer and I I would separate these out this is more reading and thinking up deeply about what the text says then you need to decide the answer and come to a conclusion it's kind of a separate thought process it's going to happen very very quickly one after the other but really separating them out and this drawing a conclusion deciding the answer is key I think so you're going to have to be aware of what these are but more importantly when to use them and how to practice them so let's look at what most students do what most students do skim scan find the answer so you're missing out understanding the question you're missing out synonyms so two words that mean the same thing and you're also missing out finding the actual answer and and drawing a conclusion um so be aware of how these act and be aware that they're not linear okay it's not like 1 2 3 4 5 you always start here and then here and then here and then here and then here it's not like that sometimes you might not skim at all sometimes you might not scan at all sometimes you might use scanning first and then SC and then skimming after that and sometimes you might flip between the two so thinking about it in a very very simplistic overly simplistic way is going to lead to a lot of trouble let me show you an example of two questions so here we have two very common I reading questions one is matching headings and the other one is true false given so for matching headings you're starting off by skimming the text all right so one of the skills that they are testing with matching headings is can you quickly understand the general meaning of the paragraphs that's what they're principally testing so you're going to be using that first and foremost then you're going to be answering the questions so you're not really looking at the questions at all until you skim the text first so if you did it the other way around it's going to be less efficient and it could cause some confusion then you're going to use close reading and then you're going to decide the answer no scanning true false not given on the other hand is the other way around so you're going to be understanding the question and then scanning not skimming at all the close reading and deciding the answer so you can see the difference between these two questions and and this is one of the reasons why you will hear a lot of people complaining about these questions and say like I hate matching headings and I hate true false not given most of the students that I work with when they say that I say well what's your strategy for each of the questions what they'll normally say in return they will say what do you mean there's a different strategy is it not the same is it not just skim scan find the answer like no they're two different questions they are testing different skills and testing different things they have been constructed in different ways therefore you need a different strategy and this is a very simplified version of the strategies that I share with my VIP students this is not the complete strategy yet so what we're going to look at now is how to improve these so these are skills just like archery or basketball or football or whatever you want to do every skill requires you to learn how to do it and then to practice it and if you don't practice it what happens if you don't practice anything like you know driving a car or riding a bike they say you never forget how to ride a bike but you know it would be a very good idea if you are a keen cyclist to cycle regularly to keep up that skill and some skills are perishable and some skills are not so perishable but a perishable skill something like shooting or archery means that if you don't do it for a long time or it it you your skill diminishes very very quickly exactly the same with these so it's not only important that you practice these regularly you have to practice them at all like a lot of people just don't practice them at all um and if you are able to do these effectively on test day you're going to get everything done much more efficiently and quicker and you're going to be able to find the correct answers more effectively so if you want to improve your scores basically learn these so these what I'm going to do is give you some exercises for the three main skills so and most of these are best to do U with a partner and but if you don't have a partner you can adapt them and and do them by yourself so improving scanning exercise number one find an article um could be a newspaper article could be you know a an academic article you can find something online it doesn't matter as long as it's in in English that's the only only thing you need identify some important words so underline some words that you think are crucial to understanding this text number three change some of those words to synonyms okay so what you're going to do is take those important words and change them to synonyms so you could write these out on little individual pieces of paper if you were doing this with the partner then what you would do is you would swap them with a partner and their job is to match the syn with the word that you underlined in the text so you would obviously like delete the underlined so it wouldn't be too easy um for your partner um you could do this on your own by uh creating this and then leaving it um you know using it as a review game after a week or a month and to help you with that and but if you do it with a partner um it will really really help so that's just like a really simple game it's not the only game that you can use to help you improve uh scanning um if you're on your own um what you can do is let's say you can try and find some specific information in a newspaper really really quickly like cinema times or stock prices or um you know the ahead what's going on in politics that day or the scores of a cricket match or a football match like just try and find that really really quickly and that will help you with your scanning moving on to skinning skimming number one find an article exactly the same as before and number two create a title for each paragraph so let's say you find a newspaper article and it has eight paragraphs what you're going to do is you're going to look at the paragraph skim it read it quite quickly and then create your own title so again if you're doing this with a partner write it down on a little piece of paper um and have them for your partner and then what you would do is your partner would be doing the same thing and then you swap so you have your partner's article and all these little pieces of paper with their titles on them for each paragraph what you would do is you would try and match it with and the person who gets the most within a time limit cuz remember it's skimming so you're going to do it on the clock so you could do it in one minute or two minutes whatever whatever you need to do and that's going to force you to skim your partner's text very very quickly and try and match them up again you could do this by yourself by creating your own title and then leaving them and using them to review or you could do this Yourself by if you have a newspaper every single uh um paragraph that you see read it quite quickly like 20 seconds 10 seconds time yourself try and get faster and create your own title for each one and that that will really really help you improving close reading again find an article and do this with a partner write one comprehension question a comprehension question means something that you're going to ask someone where and the answer will demonstrate that they understand the meaning the general meaning of the paragraph or something specific within that paragraph basically you're forcing the person or forcing yourself if you're doing this by yourself to look at it in detail you can't skim it you can't scan it you have to really think about it and read every single word and really think about the meaning and what's going on in that paragraph and again just swap with a partner set a time limit do it with points um you could do this by yourself by um by creating your own questions and then you know leaving them until you forget about them and then coming back like a week later and or if you're doing this by yourself like you're reading a newspaper article think about what think try and create your own questions anyway and that will force you to think about the detail of the paragraph you don't have to to give give those questions to anybody but just creating the questions forces you to really read it in detail and think about it that way so this is these are all just examples of active reading you are reading for a purpose you are doing something while you're reading compare that with how most students learn which is just like reading an article or reading a newspaper um you're not really doing anything your brain isn't being activated in any way you're just bored your brain is bored but if you're doing those things then you are doing something um with the intention of improving something specific you can do it with vocabulary as well so how to improve your reading skills number one understand the difference between the five reading skills the five reading skills number two practice thoughtfully and regularly do something while you're practicing and do it you know if you really need to improve your reading skills you should be doing this every single day don't be one of those silly people who complains about not being good at something but doesn't do anything to improve it that's crazy number three have a step-by-step strategy for all question types we're going to look at this in lesson three so to look at our little pyramid here again we talked about vocabulary in lesson one today we talked about skills okay and then tomorrow what we're going to do is we're going to look at strategy and that will complete our pyramid and that will complete your raise your awareness about what will actually help you improve your scores and tomorrow we're going to look at a step-by-step strategy for matching headings to show you how effective that strategy is and to convince you how important it is to have a strategy and but to just circle back to mindset again thinking about skills you do have to practice them you have to put in the work someone with a bad mindset will be like can you not just tell me how to improve skills can you tell me how to improve my Cricket skills or football skills or archery skills or swimming skills no there's no book on like how to become a better swimmer you have to get in the pool and swim in order to do that um I can't give you like top 10 tips on how to improve your skimming or how to improve your scanning I could but it's much much better if you actually put in the work and do it yourself so again mindset is absolutely crucial not only for vocabulary but for skills as well hopefully you find that interesting and tomorrow we're going to put it all together into lesson three and we're going to give you a step-by-step strategy and show you how to implement it hello and welcome to lesson three of our reading mini course so let's get going with lesson three so let's just uh summarize what we've done so far so that we know where we are so in lesson one we looked at the key factors that will get you a seven or above on the reading test and we also looked at how important vocabulary was and we gave you that vocabulary Improvement plan I hope all of you have begun your vocabulary Improvement plan um in lesson two we looked at the skills what those are why they are important and we showed you some practice activities so hopefully you've got going with those practice activities and today we're going to round it all off by showing you everything you need to know about strategy what strategies are why they are effective how they are effective and we're going to give you a step-by-step strategy for one of the questions so that you can see how powerful it is and we're going to make this uh this lesson as interactive as possible just so that you can activate your brain cells a little bit instead of just sitting back and and watching a video so this is the most important thing throughout the whole course everybody is focusing on this and ignoring all of this we talked a lot about vocabulary and skills already we're going to talk a lot about strategy today and at the end we're going to bring it all together by bringing it back to the most important thing which is mindset okay so why strategy well this uh quote will tell you what I think about strategy what does strategy mean um well if we read this quote First a fool with a plan is better off than a genius with plan so being strategic when it comes to your preparation when it comes to doing the test and doing the questions means that you go in there with a very very solid idea about exactly what to do so being strategic about your preparation is knowing exactly what to study and planning it all out and actually doing it same with h when it comes to the reading questions you know exactly what to do and you do that on test day I really like this quote another quote that that I really like is an idea without a plan is just a dream and I think that is very applicable to IELTS because lots of people have the idea of getting a band seven or getting a band eight or getting a band nine but it's just a dream until you put together a strategic plan of action it will remain a dream but those that are a bit more strategic about things and plan things out they're the ones that get the scores so we're going to help you with that today so another reason reason why you should be aware of strategies and and why they are so important for reading is these are just some of the different types of questions that might come up on the reading test so if true false not given matching headings multiple choice questions summary completion matching set sentences diagrams matching names short answer an on and on and on and on now why do they do this why do IELTS have so many different types of read question why isn't it like when you were back in primary school or high school and it was just multiple choice questions or just comprehension questions well what these questions do is they simulate what it will be like when you move to London or Toronto or Chicago or Sydney or wherever you're moving to when you are there you're not going to be just using one skill you're going to be tested in a multiple uh uh multiple different ways when you are in your new country you're not just reading one thing you're going to be reading multiple things in multiple different ways so these these questions simulate what it's like to be in an English-speaking environment and the the key thing to remember about these when when we go back to strategy is they're all testing different skills different subskills in different orders they're all structured in different ways therefore you need a different strategy for each different type of question each of these different types of question you need a step-by-step strategy that is unique to them so when students join my VIP course one of the things that we do with them is we give them a step-by-step strategy for every different type of question and we tell them you need to learn these because you can't go in with just one strategy and and hope that it that it helps you with all of the different types of questions because it won't so how do step-by-step strategies help well number one it's a proven framework they are proven to work so I didn't just wake up one day and be like oh I'll put together some strategies no these have been tested over years and years and years of teaching and students doing the test so we spent like hundreds of hours putting these together and testing them and working with students and these are the strategies that actually do work also very importantly they allow you to practice in a in a very standardized way so this is important because if you practice in a standardized way then you're taking one variable out of your practice so by applying the same strategy to the same type of question over and over and over again you know that the strategy is signed because we've proven it so if you're getting the questions wrong it's nothing to do with the strategy it's either your reading skills or your vocabulary or timing or you know you just find that question uh difficult for some reason but it allows you to practice in the same way over and over and over again and then on test day what are you going to be doing you're going to be doing the exact same thing that you did on test day so just one less thing to worry about on test day so next point you know exactly what to do on test day and then the final point it saves you a huge amount of time on test day as well one of the worries of of the typical I student is I'm going to run out of time and most do run out of time on the reading test strategies save you a huge amount of time because I don't like to say robotic because it's that's kind of a negative thing to say but it kind of does turn you into like an i reading robot you know exactly what to do when you're just like step one do this step two do this step three do this and and obviously you're going to be you know freely thinking and and thinking about the different things that are in the text and in the questions but that that strategy is going to be very structured and it's the same over and over and over again so this is a strategy for matching headings please note that this strategy is for matching headings it is not for true false not given or yes no not given or multiple choice questions or any other type of questions it's just for matching headings there's a unique strategy for every different type of question sorry for repeating myself but it's really important so let's go through this one and and this is kind of a simp simplified version for the purposes of this lesson the one that we have on our courses is more complicated than this and this is more of a simplified version so just be aware of that so let's talk about each step and why we do that do each step why it's there so number one skim text first and create your own heading for each so you're looking at the text first okay you are not that should that shouldn't be like that let's get rid of that we need to change our to this okay so you're looking at the text first the reason why you're looking at the text first is what they're testing is you for you to be able to look at a text and quickly understand the general meaning of that and to be able to match headings with the text with each paragraph of the text so if you look at the the questions first that is going to slow you done and it's going to mean that you get a little bit confused and it can also lead to some false conclusions it can lead to some false answers um so it's really really important that you look at the text first now other questions you'll look at the questions first um for this one you're going to look at the text first and create your own heading for each so why do we get students to do this so this is just something that I discovered in class when I was working with students I set this up as like a little game for students and and discovered by accident that it was really really really effective because what it does is it forces you to understand the general meaning quickly and then by putting your heading beside each uh paragraph without looking at the questions first a very very special thing happens after that when you read the headings so differencing headings and text you're looking at the headings you some of them will become very very obvious some of them which we will show you in a second will be so obvious that you can match them pretty much immediately but let's not get ahead of ourselves step two you're going to read the headings understand and highlight any key words that are going to help you with that so you're looking at the text first then you're looking at the headings and you're just focusing on one thing at a time you're focusing on the text then you're focusing on the headings it's really important that you understand them because if you don't understand them you won't be able to match them number three match obvious headings okay so you might have a text with let's say few paragraphs and you have your little heading here and then you look at the possible headings here and this one matches this one directly it's like nearly exactly the same so that means that you can match them really really really quickly now does that mean you'll be able to match 100% of them no but you will see if you use this method you should be able to it differs from question to question but normally about half of them you'll be able to match really really quickly so let's say three out of the six you're able to match immediately that leaves you with three out of a six to really really focus on so again you're being strategic you're really thinking about things and doing things in a very very strategic way as you can see this took a long time to figure out but it really does work and then you're going to write the possible headings beside the remaining paragraphs so there will be some remaining paragraphs that you know you haven't been able to match you're going to then focus on them instead of focusing on all of them you're just focusing on the ones that you do not know that you're unsure about so again being really really strategic you can focus all of your attention all of your focus onto those that are that you're unsure about and then you come to a conclusion okay so that's the first time you've seen this probably so let's look at what it might look like um on test day so here I have a a paragraph from the Mary Poppins uh review from The New York Times what I want you to do is I want you to read this quickly so I'm going to give you less than one minute and what I want you to do is on a piece of paper or you can type it out write your own heading if you had to create a heading for this paragraph what would you write okay so pause the video do it in less than one minute and write your own heading go and I'll get out of the way so you can pause the video now there you go okay so now you should have your own heading for this one really really important that you do that if you didn't go back and do it okay now let's look at another one same thing what I want you to do pause the video for about 1 minute read it quickly come up with your heading okay so now what we're going to do is we're going to look at a list of headings so here are a list of headings and both of them should be you should be able to kind of get the good a good idea of what they are already but at least one of them will be very very very obvious okay because you've created your own title so what you can do now is think about your title for this one so most students are able to match the first one with this one okay a review of the soundrack if you had read uh looked at this really really quickly it talks about songs um it talks about a lot about songs and song titles so if you read that quickly yeah you words like melodic and lyrical and all of these things you would have wrote something like s track or songs or something like that and then it would have been very easy to match it up with this one now that leaves us with three options okay how the movie compares the original performance of The Actors and the screenplay is purly written so now what we can do instead of wasting any more time with this one we're not going to waste any more time because we've already got the answer we can really read this carefully okay and a lot of these you could just discard so does it talk up anything about the screenplay read it carefully think about that does it talk about the actors the performances read it carefully or does it talk about how the movie compares to the original so what I'd like you to do is read this more carefully and decide which one of those one so is it one one two or four which do you think so again pause the video and think about it and have a go at picking it and hopefully because you are able to pick up that it's nothing to do with these nothing to do with these but it was talking about comparing it to the original so hopefully you can see by using a strategy like this you're just making everything so much easier for yourself so matching headings are one they're one of those types of questions that students hate they're just like oh I absolutely hate this question I can never get the answer so imagine going from someone who just doesn't know anything and hates those questions to someone who can just apply this strategy and hopefully get the answers now are you going to get 100% of the answers all the time probably not unless you're like a ban n student or you know you're hoping to get a ban n but you are just increasing your chance is massively of increasing your score and that's what we want to do so finally today let's go back to here so hopefully you've been able to see that tips and tricks are not going to help you by improving your vocabulary improving your reading skills and employing a strategy for all the different types of questions you're able to ignore this completely because tips just do not work but as I said at the beginning um of the week the most important thing is mindset so what do I mean by that well you could get two students imagine you have two identical twins all right they the same language level the same everything uniquely they have access to exactly the same information so every student in the world now has access to the same information online all right or imagine they went to the exact same school and got given the exact same books and the exact same lessons but one of them is getting a seven or above the other one is getting below a seven so this is why he is not very happy and he is so exactly the same same information same teaching same everything why is one getting over a seven and one is getting below a seven and we see this every single day every single day there's one thing that is the crucial factor in this equation so let's look at the difference between happy student who's getting the score they need and unhappy student well unhappy student all they want to do is just learn tips and tricks and shortcuts happy student what they want to do is they actually want to learn and improve they want to improve their vocabulary they want to improve their reading skills they want to improve their General level of English they want to improve their scores this attitude means all the difference in the world the guy who failed he wants it n he might have like 6 months ago he started studying and he said I want it today I want it right now I just want shortcuts and tips and tricks whereas this guy said okay I need to it's going to take time it's going to take effort it's going to take hard work but I'll get there I'm not there now but I'll get there in the future and that is the difference between getting the score you need and not this guy is totally clueless he doesn't know what is going on he's not aware of any of his problems a lot of these guys actually think that they should are entitled to getting a really high score these are the guys that blame everybody else they blame their teachers they blame the British Council they blame IDP they blame everybody because they deserve a high score whereas this guy is aware that in order to get a high score you need to do a few things you need to put the work in you need to learn a few things so this guy is a lot more humble this guy is a lot more arrogant this guy is very strategic in his preparation and in what he does on test day this guy luck and hope are his two favorite words how many times have you heard this next time I'll be lucky oh I hope that I'm lucky next time luck is going to play H is going to be a factor in my preparation it's not all right I don't care about other areas of your life where you believe in luck and you believe in Hope don't apply that to the I test luck and hope are the two most dangerous words that you can believe in finally this guy sees mistakes and learns from those mistakes he actually likes mistakes he loves mistakes because they are an opportunity to to improve this guy first mistake he makes or the first time he gets a low score in a practice test or something like that he just quits all right so this the missing ingredient is attitude this is all just attitude and you can change any of this immediately doesn't actually require any any effort or any work it's just about changing your attitude changing your mindset and let's finish up this course by talking about one thing that we do on our VIP course now if you only learn one thing from this whole experience this whole mini course pay attention to this we've helped more students get the scores they need than any other course in the world why is that it's because we're the best teachers in the world or the most intelligent or the most hardworking or anything like that no it really just comes down to our methodology and on how we think about the test and how we think about preparation so there's a few things that need to happen in order for you to improve you need to learn what to do okay so if you have bad materials or you know if your lessons are bad if you've bad input then you're not going to learn what to do but you need to learn what to do first but that's just the first step then you need to do those things okay so you need to practice you need to put in the effort to do those things but if you just do them without any feedback you're it's you've just wasted your time so you need feedback on your work okay then from that feedback you're going to learn so it just goes around in this positive feedback loop and you're going to improve if you do this let's look at a r example let's say you don't know how to write uh an introduction for a task two essay you need to learn how to do that first someone needs to teach you what to do then what are you going to do you're going to write an introduction but you're probably not going to do it perfectly so you need to get feedback these are the things you did well these are the things you need to fix you're going to learn from that and you're going to do it again and get more feedback until you are able to do it at the level you need to do it at this is simple methodology is where you need to get to but most students are nowhere near this because they're listening to people who don't know what they do or they are using using materials that are just unreliable then there are some students who have a really great teacher but they're actually not doing anything if you just sit back and listen to a teacher or just watch videos you're not going to learn anything you need to do those things there are a lot of students who do have a good teacher are doing those things but they're not getting any feedback on their work so they don't know where they're going right they don't know where they're going wrong so you need to do all of these things in order to move up and get the score that you need and we believe that anybody can do that we believe that anyone can help we can help anybody get the scores they need as long as they're prepared to put in the work and have a really good mindset and that's it hopefully you enjoyed this course and there will be a few spots available for people who want to continue to work with us we only work with a very very small number of students um on a on a more intimate basis but you know if you want to be one of those students will be some information about that we'll send you an email as I said there's only a few places available but if you want to you know continue on your journey with us and get the scores you need and then you can forget about this silly test um and move on with your life and move to the country of your dreams we'd love to help you do that um so if you do need extra help feel free to get in touch so I hope you enjoyed that reading challenge if you need help with listening I've included this video that is the fundament alss of is listening it is going to really help you understand exactly what is happening during the listening test and what you need to do to improve your score to a band eight or even nine in listening so enjoy the fundamentals of is listening and after that I have something very very special for you and in today's lesson we're going to focus on the fundamentals of ISS listening so what are we going to do today so we're going to look at an overview of the listening test many of you will be aware aare of this but it's good to just quickly go over it so you know exactly what's going to happen 10 reasons why you are failing and 10 solutions to those problems so the ISS test is um the listening test is quite difficult to teach online the reason why it's quite difficult to teach online is obviously you need um to be listening to things and you need to be looking at the questions um it's really easy to teach when you're um working one-on-one with a student um but online it's a little bit more difficult so I thought about what would be the best way for me to structure this lesson so that you could get the most out of it and so that you can improve your listening improve your strategy so what we're going to do is look at I've identified the 10 most common reasons why students don't get the score they need in the listening test and then five or 10 sorry 10 Simple Solutions to those problems and what we're also going to do is I'm going to demo how to use step-by-step strategies for any type of listening question listening is probably the area that students need the least help with um but some students do struggle with it and it can also just help boost your your overall score um and it's also just a good idea to have complete confidence and the the least number of worries on test day so what we want to do with this is give you complete confidence that no matter what happens in the listening test your score is going to be guaranteed you're going definitely going to get the score that you need um if you follow these steps obviously we can't guarantee that everybody will get a band nine or a band eight but you know moving towards getting the score that you need and being very very confident through practice and through these strategies that you'll get the score that you need Okay so let's look at an overview of the listening test first so it's four sections and there 10 questions in each section the questions get more difficult as the test progresses it's really important important that you know that um because what happens is a lot of students um find it very difficult to cope with the the last questions and they really focus on those questions so um they get really stressed out and they're like I really don't know how to do any of the last questions and I would kind of flip that around and I would say make sure that you're getting 100% in the first section and 100% in the second section and as close to 100% in the third section and do as well as you can in the fourth section and that will really ensure that you get the score that you need if you spend you know a huge amount of time stressing out and worrying about a few questions at the end that you probably aren't going to get anyway um because they're really designed for the people who need a bond eight or a bond n and you're kind of you're sabotaging your uh progress the test lasts for approximately 30 minutes um that might not sound like a long time time but the the thing that you need to think about with with that is how many times have you focused completely on Listening to English and really focus so I'm not talking about you know listening to songs or watching a movie or watching a t watching a TV program or a podcast or anything like that I'm talking about complete focus and concentration for 30 minutes that is actually a very long time in a foreign language so being be aware of that and be aware of you know that that is a big big challenge each recording is played only once uh one of the big things the big things that students get used to when they're learning English when you're with a normal English teacher um what they do is when they're practicing listening they will repeat things they repeat the recording many many many times until you get it correct and the other thing that that a lot of English teachers do is they will speak to you in a a very slow way and they will make sure that you understand every single word they say not a very natural way to speak um in real life and in the in the is test you will hear things just once so you have to get used to that and you'll have 10 minutes at the end to transfer your answers so that's just good to know from a strategic point of view so section one you'll hear a conversation between two people within a social or everyday context section two one person speaking in a social or everyday context section three a conversation between two or more people within an education context and section four a lecture normally on an academic subject so it's good to be aware of these but it's also good to be aware that these test different listening skills listening and reading you can break those down into different subskills um whenever I deal with students in my VIP course we talk about that a lot that reading is not just reading listening is not just listening there's lots of little subskills that you need to to be aware of for example listening to a lecture requires different skills to listening to multiple people talking at the same time because they're just two different styles of speaking and they require different skills also the different contexts that You' be listening to normal everyday social situations if you are used to listening to podcasts and listening to uh TV programs and YouTube clips and things like that where lots of people are talking within a social context that might not be a problem for you or if you live in a um in an english- speaking country that might not be a problem for you but if you just are not used to listening to people in these everyday social contexts that might be a problem for you section three and section four more academic uh type uh context if you are listening to lots of TED talks for example that will not be a problem for you or if you're attending University and you're listening to academic lectures that might not be a problem for you but if you never do that that might be a bit of a difficulty for you so it's good to be aware of the different contexts and the different situations that you'll have to listen to so problem number one here's here's a lot of reasons why you're not getting the scores that you need um this sounds really really obvious and you might be like Chris why are you even wasting my time with this um the main reason why people don't do very well in the listening test is they don't do any listening um this is pretty obvious but probably the number one reason um so when I deal with my students when I sit down with them one-on-one if they have a problem with the listening test and they're consistently getting low scores on the listening test first question I ask them is like how often do you listen in English and most of the the time if they're being honest with me they'll say oh I listen to a little bit of music or I listen to you know um when I'm out I sometimes hear a little bit of English but when do you actually sit down and listen to a movie or a YouTube clip or a TED talk or a lecture probably not very often if you want to improve your listening listen sounds very very simple but extremely effective reason number two you listen passively and not actively so some students who are getting you know 6 or 6.5 in the listening test and they say to me but Chris I'm always practicing my listening I listen to movies I listen to songs I listen to YouTube all the time in English and I said well you're not really listening you're listening passively you're not listening listening actively the test requires you to do specific things while you are listening therefore listening passively will not help you as much as doing something while while you are listening for example if you have a problem with vocabulary and you're just watching lots of YouTube clips and not really thinking about any of the new vocabulary that's coming up and then you compare that with a student who is really focusing on synonyms really focusing on paraphrasing really focusing on find guessing the meaning of new words from the context and they're actively doing that when they're watching TV or watching movies compare those two St students the student who's sitting with popcorn in the movies and you know just just thinking about it very passively or the student that's sitting there and taking notes on the new words and guessing the meaning of new words they're two completely different students um so if you want to fix things within your um within your repertoire of listening skills or your vocabulary or your grammar or whatever it is you need to focus on actively focus on those things and it's really really really going to help you obviously that requires extra work and you have to put away your popcorn I'm sorry about that after you get the eys test and you can go back to to chilling out and watching Netflix or movies or whatever you want to do um but until that that time um you're going to have to do a little bit of work um reason number three uh your spelling is wrong um if you don't spell the word correctly your whole answer is wrong so students get really upset about this and upset with me in class for some reason but there I don't make the rules um so I I think that a lot of students think that this is a little bit Petty they're like okay I got the question wrong correct I know what it is um but I just misspelled the the the word can I not just can they not just give that to me I'm sorry I don't make the rules if you have a spelling mistake even if it's a correct word it's wrong so if you um are a really good thing to do is go and analyze you the reasons why you got some questions wrong so what I would suggest you do is do some listening tests um and then correct them um exactly how um they are corrected in the real test so look at the answers and if you're making spelling mistakes um mark it wrong if you're consistently getting things wrong because of spelling mistakes then you really do need to work on your spelling and not your listening so establish if that is a problem if it is a problem you need to work on that reason number four you don't read the instructions carefully again this is something that a lot of you are going to be like of course I read the instructions properly I always do that um this looks like a really simple reason um and something you would never do but everybody even the best students that I've ever dealt with even the students who are very meticulous and very hardworking and very careful sometimes they get things wrong wrong because they didn't read the instructions properly you must do this um again go back and analyze your mistakes do some practice tests under exam conditions and analyze why you made the mistakes did you make the mistakes because you just didn't read the instructions carefully if that's the case and you're getting multiple questions wrong because you just didn't um read the instructions carefully you should be very very very happy because it means that you can boost your score almost immediately by focusing on understanding the questions and reading the questions carefully following the instructions and doing what they say so see these mistakes that you're making as opportunities to improve reason number five your vocabulary is just not wide enough yet your vocabulary can improve but if you are struggling to maybe go from a 66.5 to a 77.5 or an eight could be vocabulary very very common the listening test is as much a vocabulary test as it is a listening test the listening test is actually a listening test a reading test a writing test a vocabulary test all at the same time and but vocabulary is a huge huge component of it if you don't understand the meaning of some words or you don't get used to being able to accurately guess the meaning of some words from the context you're really going to struggle if you are completely unaware of synonyms and paraphrasing you don't know um that one word is a synonym of another you're really going to struggle so for many people with the listening and the reading test um they don't need to work on their listening skills or their reading skills they need to work on their vocabulary um if you want help with your vocabulary go and check out the video and the bonus video that I've um given you in this course all about how to improve your vocabulary and you can actually combine uh your reading practice in your listening practice with improving your vocabulary reason number six you don't listen just once so this is not your fault this is because most English teachers um when they're practicing listening um they will let everybody listen three four five times um in real life people are not going to repeat themselves three times if you're listening to a lecture and your professor says something once it's not like you can put your hand up and say sorry can you please repeat yourself because my English teacher um always played things three times for us um you will have to do this in the real test and in real life so get used to it do not allow give make your I what I put this do not make your preparation too easy there is always a temptation to make things a little bit too easy for yourself when you're doing your practice um when you're doing your practice you're listening to things many times you're getting a high score and then you make it so easy for yourself that on the real test you fail um most cultures have the saying and that probably comes from the army of like do the hard training before the war and then the war is easy it's the same with I if you think about it that way do all the difficult things do all the hard work before the test and then the test will be easy and if you do it the other way around you're going to get into trouble reason number seven you can't predict so a lot of the listening test is predicting what is going to happen what is going to come up so based on what you read in the question you have to predict what is happening this is a skill that you need to develop if you do not develop this skill same as like a golfer or a footballer or a boxer there are certain skills that you need to develop if you don't practice them you're not going to be um do very well in the overall competition many of the questions require you to predict the answer before it comes up get used to dealing with this you could do this when you're watching a TED talk or a YouTube clip or a movie think about what they're going to say next based on what they've said already or you can definitely do it by doing practice ISS test because the I listing test is just full of prediction reason number eight you can't hear the words so very very simply you cannot if you don't understand what the person is saying say you're not going to be able to answer the question native English speakers do not speak like robots they connect words together and you have to get used to this so for example um in if you're listening to an elementary or pre-intermediate or intermediate if you're in an English class the exam the teacher might talk to you like this or the recording if you're listening to recording people speak very very slowly and very very clearly now you might think that that is helping you but it's actually doing the opposite it's harming you because when you move to an English speaking country people do not talk like that so instead of saying do you want to go to the cinema they'll say do you want to go to the cinema do you want to go to the cinema they link all the words together it's called connected speech and a way that you can overcome that is something I call Micro listening so what I would do with my students is I would play them one sentence like do you want to go to the cinema and I would say okay listen to this multiple times and try and break down what they're saying try and write out the sentence and try to identify the links in what they're saying and how they connect the speech and then try to mimic that connected speech is part of pronunciation for the speaking test so you can improve your pronunciation and you can improve your listening by focusing on connected speech and trying to improve your connected speech through micr listening and mimicking and that's a really Advanced technique that really really helps but um what a lot of students will do is they will just say I have no idea what they're saying and I'm not going to try I mean if if that's your attitude um you're never going to become a very Advanced English learner other students are like okay I have no idea what they've just said but I know that if I really try and focus on it and really work hard to try and understand them through micro listening um that's really I'm I am eventually going to be able to both understand what they're saying and sound more like a native English speaker by connecting words together reason number nine you don't pay attention to sign posting so what's sign posting everyone does this through sign posting language intonation or even sentence stress so especially like a lot of students um complain that they don't know how to deal with a question with a map on it like labeling a map and and throughout that talk often you'll get a question where for example it'll be someone giving you a tour of a university or giving you a tour of a library or something like that and what they'll constantly do is through sign posting language intonation and sentence dresses they will show you where they're going with the conversation or with the talk through this sign posting language um so they might say something like following on from there means that they are ended one part of the talk and they're going to start another part of the talk and if you analyze the um the I speaking test for these types of questions or sorry the listening test um I'm getting my test mixed up again um what you'll find is a lot of this sign posting language and intonation and sentence dress and just helping the listener understand where they're going with the talk talk or with the conversation so being aware of that especially for labeling maps and things like that um is really really helpful final one the reason why you're not getting the score you need is you treat all questions in the same way and we're going to get into this in far more detail in the rest of this lesson and there are many different types of listening question there are many different types of reading question if you approach every single one of those questions and in exact same way you're going to get into a lot of trouble so each of the different types of question requires a different set of skills it's a different situation so if you are applying the same strategy to every single question and they're all different you're going to get in a lot of trouble so there are several different types of question and they all require a different set of skills therefore a unique strategy so with all of my students what I do is I give them a separate strategy for each different type of listening question and each different type of reading question and all they have to do is learn that strategy apply it practice it and then in the real test they use that strategy to help them through the questions um so all I'm trying to do is just make it easier for them and give them a system that works that I've tested over years um with students and I've got them all done exactly the way um that students need to do them for each different type of question question so let's look at one we obviously can't look at every single type of listening question and give you a strategy for every single type of listing question because the video would be 10 hours long um so what what I've done is I've just show just to show you how this works and then you could maybe try and do this yourself for free um or you could just try and figure it out yourself if you want what I'm going to show you is a popular question on the listening test um something that students have asked about and and I'm going to show you how the step-by-step strategies work for this type of question so here I've took this from the official um IELTS website so here's a typical U multiple choice question choose the correct letter the type of in insurance is economy standard premium and customer wants Goods delivered to Port Home Depot many of you maybe have done this question before um so what I'm going to do is I'm going to um show you this question and show you how I would help a student with this question so um what I often do with students is I say go and do some practice tests and analyze the the questions and tell me which questions you're very very um strong in so which questions are no problem for you at all and then also tell me which questions are you getting like all of the all of them wrong or most of them wrong and that's how we strategically approach things and we what we do is we target those problem questions so there's no point in working on questions that you get right every time just work on the questions that you need really need help with so this is the advice that I would give my students for multiple choice questions so this does not apply to the other types of questions this is just for multiple choice questions and obviously read the instructions that's the well I say that this is unique to multiple choice and then the first one applies to the all sorry um every single question read the instructions carefully move to this question as soon as possible so in the different sections if you see this question move to it quickly because you're going to have to um deal with it and there's going to be a lot of thinking that you're going to have to do so move to this question as soon as you can do not sabotage the rest of your test by focusing on one question that you're not sure of in a test with lots and lots and lots and lotss of questions if the fifth question is causing you a lot of problems and you spend the whole test worrying about that question that means you're sabotaging the rest of your test so if you have a problem question just guess it or leave it and move on move on to the keep moving on keep moving through the listening test then you need to look at the differentiating keyword so what does that mean so if we look at these um these different choices what we need to do is think about the differences and so economy standard premium so economy and standard they're both kind of synonyms of each other so if we think about that there's a big difference between economy standard and premium premium means uh you get more service you get cost more money it's more like a VIP type of service economy and standard are kind of the the lowest uh standard if you're given a choice of different services and they cost the least amount of money so it's really important that you think about the difference between and between the meaning of these different ones all right same with here Port Home Depot all right these mean three completely different things Port is going to be somewhere beside a river or beside the sea or beside an ocean where ships come in and deliver things your home is your home where you live a Depot is a cent Central Building like a central warehouse building where companies like Amazon.com or whatever big company you have that delivers things um in your country where they keep lot a centralized place where they keep lots of goods and then they deliver them out there so being aware of the different types of uh of answers here but most importantly being aware of how they are different from each other is really really going to help you and this will only take you know one second three seconds just look at these and understand them rather than trying to understand them in the middle of everything okay so we look for differentiating keywords if you're not sure move on okay so if you get a listening question and okay so this is question number nine so there are huge number of questions that are going to come and if you spend your whole time just going was it economy or was it standard was it economy or was it standard oh no I'm going to fail my test oh I better get this one what happens is you're so worried about that one and you don't move on that you get questions 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 and on wrong because you just run out of time and you get mixed up it would be better if you just said okay it's either economy or standard I'll just guess that one and then move on so what you're doing is you're giving yourself a better chance with this the the questions that come next all right so don't Focus too much on one question remember that you get a score for the whole test and one question is not going to make a huge lot of difference so guess if you have to and move on we've already talked about that remember synonyms and paraphrasing all right so remember that let's look at this uh premium so the person might be talking about VIP or the highest level service or first class so like first class the highest level the most expensive these are synonyms and paraphrases of Premium all right so the person might not say premium the person might say VIP or first class or um the most expensive one or they might just be talking about different levels the highest level you have to be aware of this if you're just thinking premium premium premium premium I'm looking for premium I'm listening for premium and premium doesn't come up you're going to be completely lost um so again always be aware of those different things and get used to reading and listening at the same time this is a skill that you need to develop you need to develop the ability to read and listen at the same time if you do not if you are not able to do that you're really really going to struggle how do you do that practice tests listening and reading at the same time practicing those skills is really going to help you and developing those skills is something that is absolutely crucial to do before your test not doing it for the first time in the test and start slow and build up um this might be a little bit overwhelming for you right now and you might be thinking God look at the number of things that he wants me to do like and the number of the now he's going to talk start talking about strategies and this is just one question like how am I ever going to do that like I'm remember how you learned how to ride a bike or learn how to drive a car you didn't learn how to drive a car by going onto the motorway and driving at 100 miles an hour immediately you you you weren't with your driving instructor and they just said okay right now we're going to drive at 100 m hour no you started off in a car park with with no people around you so you didn't cause any accidents and you took everything very slowly and slowly built up your confidence that's what you need to do not just in the listening test but every single part of the test and if you're you're listening to this right now and you're thinking but I want a band 8 next week and you have done the test 17 times and you keep keep getting a six but you're saying I want to do the test and I want to get at8 next week you're being very very unreasonable and you're being very very unrealistic and you might think that that is a um a silly thing to say like someone failing 17 times I've dealt with students who have come to me and said I failed my test 14 15 16 17 20 times but I want to do the test next week and get a band dat maybe it might be better instead of doing the test another 15 times to take some time and slowly build up your confidence and learn the things properly and then get the score that you need okay so here's a strategy again not for all listening questions just for multiple choice questions number one read the instructions number two read and understand the questions number three highlight the keywords and think about differentiation number four think of synonyms and paraphrasing number five predict if you can sometimes you'll be able to predict sometimes you won't listen to the whole section all right listen to everything they say put a tick beside the one that you think might be correct number eight keep moving on so all of this might seem like yeah I know all that or I do all that but what you want to do is you put that into a system put that into a strategy just like when you're learning how to drive a car what you do is you put your seat Bel in first you then you check your mirrors then you check this then you check that so it's a system it's a strategy that you follow each and every time so if we look back at this question so You' read the instructions okay so I just choose letter a b or c okay so I'm not going to um give the answer so if the answer was economy and it says choose the correct letter and you write economy you're wrong all right so that's an example of you just not reading instructions so read the instructions know what you have to do okay so I have to pick a b or c so the next thing I have to do is I have to read it and understand it huge number of students do not read or understand anything so type of insurance chosen okay I know what economy means I know what standard means I know what premium means if you don't know what those mean guess them okay any differentiation between these okay so economy and standard mean the same thing premium means something completely different it's kind of the opposite to these okay I understand the differences and meaning of these all right right so what's the next step all right uh synonyms and paraphrasing so premium could be first class could be VIP could be this could be that economy what are some synonyms and paraphrasing of that prediction can I predict what they're talking about okay so I can't predict this but what I can predict is they're going to be talking about insurance and they're going to be talking about different levels of insurance the quality of the policy so I'm thinking and I'm predicting and that makes it much much much much easier for you to identify your the answer when it comes up okay so then you've got to this stage where you're listening to the whole section put a tick beside the one you might think might be correct remember listening is different from reading in that you will be given time at the end to move your answers over so you don't need to decide then you can just put a tick beside the answer and then what you do is you keep moving on so if you were really stuck on this question and you weren't not not sure between economy and standard just put a tick beside both of them you're not sure and then move on to this one time is your enemy the the the recording is not going to stop it's just going to keep going on and on and on and on so you have to get used to that so hopefully that helped you understand the fundamentals of I listening and the next stage is doing a practice test so what we've done is we've created a full practice test for you and all you have to do is just click the download button below and you'll be able to download a PDF document with step-by-step instructions on how to do the test and how to send it to us so do the test under exam conditions and you'll be able to do it in the same way that you'll do it on test day and then you'll be able to send us your results and we'll be able to give you the answers and allow you to get some feedback on you're listening because there's no point in learning the fundamentals and learning the principles if you don't actually put that knowledge into action so do it under exam conditions and you'll get to know where you are get to know what your score is and get some feedback on your listening performance look forward to seeing it bye-bye so now I have something very special for you that is not available to anyone else but the people watching this video it is a little thank you for watching the whole video so there is a saying success leaves Clues and what this means is that if you can spot successful people on multiple successful people doing something there will normally be Clues as to how they did it now the VIP course is the most successful Isles course in the world and what we did was we took the most successful the cream of the crop and we interviewed those students and asked them how they did it so in this video I'm going to include lots of success stories and you'll be able ble to watch them and you'll be able to pick out what they did and then copy those people and I'll put time stamps for each of these success stories and show you what they focus on cuz different people talk about different things some talk about writing some talk about reading some talk about speaking so without further Ado here are the best IELTS success stories you will find on the internet and I hope that you enjoy them I interviewed four students who were struggling with ielt reading and eventually got a band nine so that you can learn exactly how they did it interestingly all four band n students said the same four things and that's exactly what we're going to teach you in this video so you can go from struggling with I reading to getting the score that you need more easily let's start off with Valentine who went from a band Six in reading to A Band nine let's hear what he has to say about strategy um I had a big struggle with destruction I could be easily destructed by true false not given questions and I really hated all the questions related to topics so when you should Place topics for different part of the text I really hate them so what Valentine said there was that he found certain question types distracting and he talked about hating true false not given and hating matching headings questions and this is very very common for students who deserve a very high score like they deserve a band eight or a band nine but they're getting a low score they're getting a five or a six and the reason is is that they hate certain questions which means that they go into the test and when they see the question they're very distracted as Valentine said and that wastes a lot of time and leads to lower scores so in terms of overall strategy what we did with Valentine was give him a step-by-step strategy for true false not-given and for matching head settings and this removed all of the fear and ensured that he got all of those questions correct which improved his overall score and don't worry we will give you those strategies at the end of this video and the other students that got ban nine will show you what they did for those questions as well but overall we want to remove any distractions or any fear from the test so that we can perform to our best ability on test day now let's check out what prianka said about strategy so she went from band 7.5 to a band n each type of question has a trick like for filling the blanks or just answering a question uh you can skim the paragraph you should not read whole paragraph but like for the true and false and match the heading questions like that you have to read the paragraph so you should focus your time over there instead of the matching or filling the blanks so what prianka said was each question has a trick now I corrected her on that and said you know what you really mean is a strategy so there are no tricks that you can employ but you can employ stepbystep strategies for each different type of question and this is something that every single band n student that we interview they all say the same thing you must have a strategy for each of the different types of question you learn that strategy you apply it on test day and then you're able to do what Valentine and prianka did which was go from you know b six to a band 9 or 7.5 to a band 9 and don't worry she's going to go into more detail on the matching heading strategy later in this video but let's check out what jazan said in the video and he went from a band 6.5 to a band N9 a huge increase you don't have to have any a good knowledge on vocabulary especially for the Reading part so the main skills you needed are you know skimming and scanning and understanding uh different formats of the exam I mean like different question types and as you can see he agrees with Priyanka what he says is that each different type of question is testing different things they are different therefore you need a unique strategy for each of the different question types this is a huge difference between students who get like a band 5.5 6 6.5 and the students that get band 8 and nine generally the lower level students will have one strategy for all of the different different types of questions whereas band 8 and N students will understand that each question is different and they will learn and apply a unique strategy to each of the different question types and we're going to give you all of those at the end of this video finally let's take out Shani sharbani went from aan 6.5 to aan 9 and what she says in this clip blindly follow the strategies totally I would say that all the strategies that I learned from Al Advantage I just blind followed those strategies I used to be highly confused and it used to take so much of my time thinking that where is the answer but when I got the strategies and I blindly just followed the strategies and that that was really helpful so b n students don't just look at strategies they don't look at a few YouTube videos or read a couple of books and look at the strategies they memorize the strategies they practice the strategy so that on test day they can blindly follow them they are not deviating at all from exactly what the strategy does you might think that this is a lot of work but it's all about putting in the work before your test so that your test is easy when Shani talks about blindly following the strategies what she is really saying is that she didn't even have to think about the strategies she had practiced them so many times that when she saw each question she automatically without even thinking applied those strategies this makes test day much much easier because you are not thinking about what to do on the test you're automatically applying everything which reduces stress reduces cognitive load and not only improves your reading but also means you have far more energy to apply to the other three skills you will be doing on test day now let's look at what the students say more specifically about the two most difficult the two most challenging question types matching headings and true false not given so what prianka says about matching headings is this I always used to do is like I always read the questions and all the headings which question is asking us through but we should not do that we should just straight away go to the passage and read the passage and with each passage we should give a particular idea of that passage or write somewhere that idea so that in the last you can match it what's your idea and what's given in question so this advice shows you how important strategy is if you were not following the strategy you would be getting lost because what most students do is they look at the headings the questions first and then they read the passage that means that they're going to waste a lot of time and they're going to be looking for things that are not there and they're going to get highly confused not know what to do we do exactly the opposite we taught prianka to look at each of the question paragraphs first and actually create their own headings for each paragraph and then you look at the list of headings and it's much much much easier because all you have to do then is match your headings with the list of headings in the question there now let's check out what jazan has to say about matching headings I love your tips Chris you know a few before I used to start you know just going through the paragraphs and you know I used to do all that but then you told me that you know you don't see the headings before even starting the paragraph right so there the one key important that helped me to you know score that perfect mind in the reading exam so exactly the same advice exactly the same strategy and when you see successful people doing the same thing there's a quote Success leaves lose whenever you see successful people in any Walk of Life doing the same things you should copy them now let's check out what Shani has to say about matching headings when it comes to matching headings we have to read the passage first make our own headings and then match those headings with the headings given so uh you know practicing this strategies and remembering those strategies this takes couple of sometimes need lot of slow slow practice so not only did Shabani give advice exactly the same as the other two band n students she also gave advice about how she learned the strategies because band n students as I said before don't look at a strategy once they memorize it and she talked about slow practice slow practice is when you get some real practice tests and you don't try and do them as quickly as possible you don't do them under exam condition s you open up the book you find the question type that you want to work on and you work on learning the strategy not on getting all the questions correct it doesn't matter at that stage that is why we call it slow practice you might take 20 minutes for one question or one hour for one question because your focus is on learning your focus is not on getting up to exam speed so very very good advice from another band n student there so I'll give you that matching heading strategy in a lot more detail at the end of the video for free but let's see what they have to say about true false not given because it is completely different so let's check out what Shani has to say about true false not given for true false are not given for example um I used to read the passage first and uh for not given questions I used to be highly confused and it used to take so much of time my time thinking that where is the answer but when I got the strategies and I blindly just followed the strategies and that that was really helpful so as you heard there Shabani would read the text first for true false not given and this would lead to a huge amount of confusion and this has knock on effects on the rest of your test because if you think about it if you get lost with one type of question it wastes a lot of time and it also really increases stress so a lot of students that we work with deserve a band 8 8.59 but because they mess up one part of the test that means that the rest of the test is messed up as well because you're running out of time you're very stressed when you're stressed your brain is not working optimally so it is really really important that you establish what your weaknesses are and have a strategy for each of the different question types so let's check out what prianka has to say but true false not given and the differences between what is true what is false and what is not given if you have read the paragraph first and then you are reading the question then it's really easy to know that it's not given in the paragraph so you should Mark it not given so what she's saying there is not that she read the text the paragraph first and then read the questions she's talking about comparing the paragraph that you think contains the correct information and the question statement and if you can't find any information in there then it's not given and really what b n students say over and over again is you must develop the confidence to write not-given because searching a paragraph for something that is not there is like me telling you to go into the next room and find something that is not there it's going to take you a huge amount of time and you're going to get lost and you're going to get confused by practicing the strategy that will you at the end of the video it gives you the confidence to immediately look and say okay this isn't here I can't find it let's move on I'm not given and then she says when something is there so when something is there then you have to think about is it true or is it false so if it's not there not given if there's something in there related to the question statement then you decide is it true or is it false but when uh something is there and you can correct that sentence that means it's a false sentence so what she said there was if you can look at the text and think this is wrong I can actually correct it I can change it to something that is true then that is false now there are many other ways that you can do that but that is a very logical way of thinking about it so first of all is it there if it's not there it's not given if it is there then you need to decide is it true or is it false if you can correct the statement then it is false if you can't correct it if it's a same then it is true importantly don't just look at this short part of the video and think that you have mastered true false not-given questions you need the strategy and you need to practice it slowly you need to master it and then apply it on test day we'll give you that at the end of the video now let's move on to time management it's very common for students to email us and ask us for time management tips but what b n students say is completely different from time management tips let's have a look at what prianka says actually I never faced problem with time management since I started practicing like from first day I was able to complete my test in uh one hour so she never faced an issue with time management at all does this mean that you can't learn from her no because this is reflect in what jazan said as well for reading I've did like more uh practice on you I was reading some online articles as you always suggested in the course like I've been going through and reading BBC articles so that really improved my skills a lot so he talks here about reading in a spare time to be honest with you um Chris I was more interested in like you know uh Wildlife so I was reading more more that kind of you know things that interested me that will make you to you know read anything with ease right so you don't have to struggle with anything he talks about reading something that he loves reading about Wildlife if I find any like new vocabulary I will make a separate note of it and then here he talks about making notes about new vocabulary what has this got to do with time management so both these band n students were reading in their spare time they were practicing that skill they were reading things that they enjoyed so they were doing it sustainably and regularly and they were actively reading they were improving their vocabulary as they were doing it this means that time management is not an issue at all you do not improve time management by learning time management tips you improve time management by becoming better at reading let me give you a quick analogy so you saying bolt was the fastest man in the world is you saying bolt better attack time management than these guys are these guys behind Usain Bolt because they don't have the same time management skills no Usain Bolt is better at running these guys are not as good at running as Usain Bolt exactly the same with not only the reading test but also the writing test students that get a b nine do not think about time management at all when I did the real ielt reading test I got a b nine in 20 minutes after 20 minutes I just went to the toilet and then came back and just like stared at the ceiling that is not because I did anything magical or looked up top 10 magic time management tips the night before the test in fact I was in the pub drinking the night before the test it's because I'm a native English speaker and I am an is teacher of course I should easily be getting a ban n but there is one extra thing that ban n students do related to time management that lower level students don't do so there are three sections in the reading test section one section two Section 3 and they will get more difficult as you go through them let's have a look at what Shani has to say about that what I did I did some time bounding practice and I checked that each and every section how much time I'm spending and I realized that initially I used to spend a lot of time in the section one and section two so I used to have very little time left for the third section in an Excel sheet I marked my times like I'm taking s minutes usually initially I used to take 10 minutes after that it came to seven minutes I told myself that I have to make it finished by five minutes and so this this type of practice actually helped me to you know um complete the test within time and jazan says a very similar thing here so I don't know know how much time I should allocate for each section so I'll try to complete you know uh first two sections in 30 minutes so that and I will have plenty of time for my section three right so what they understand is because the questions get progressively more difficult they spend a lot more time on the more difficult questions later on in the test so most b n students that we work with tend to not think about I must spend this number number of minutes on each question or this number of minutes on each section what they generally do is they try to get section one and two done as quickly as possible correctly but as quickly as possible and then that gives them a lot more room a lot more time at the end to really think and focus in on the last most difficult questions so to summarize Bond n advice real Bond n advice from real Bond n students each question is different and you must have a separate strategy for each of them true false not given and matching headings questions are difficult and can cause problems but not if you practice them and master them and apply a real strategy to those questions and then finally time management tips just don't exist it's all about improving your reading your reading skills and your vocabulary and if you get to that level band n is inevitable it just will happen for you okay so this is a very special video that we're going to make today uh one of the most successful students that I've had Santa uh I posted her results last week uh she got 8.5 overall and we got a huge response from people who wanted to get more information about her wanted to for me to share her story a little bit more so we're going to do a video with her today and she's going to um help you guys with some advice on how maybe not get 8.5 but it'll help you reach your goals um so s can you first of all just introduce yourself to people and give a little bit of background information um about yourself yeah of course well my name is SAA and I'm a medical student I recently graduated I finished my medical school and in order to set my medical exams I was supposed to do the a exam because my primary medical qualification is not from the UK so I was supposed to say it and that's why yeah Excell can you tell people just a brief uh story about your is Journey about like uh so people know that you got 8.5 overall but you know how many times did you do the test uh some things like that yeah well um this one was my second attempt I did the last one in July yeah and then what happened was like I didn't get the scores that I needed I basically needed 7.5 each each of the sections and also overall but the part that really I really struggled with was the writing part and that's why I came to you for help excellent so what we're going to do is something slightly different today um on my page I told people that I was interviewing you and did they have any questions for you so I have like the top the most the five most popular questions and so we're going to do that first so the first question was a really really important question and I think how did you identify your weaknesses well I think it was just natural I just whenever I'm doing something I just know like you know because my whole purpose is like you know to improve myself in whatever I'm doing so I was no different anyway so what happened was like I exactly knew that and after the scho especially I knew that the writing part was the one that I was struggling with and in the listening for example I knew that I'm going to get a 7.5 the last time that I got that was the score and I missed six of the questions and that was everything to do with the map so obviously I knew that the map was the area in the reading well I was kind of confident last time I got an eight so I was I was okay with that um then speaking yeah I knew that the 7 five I got wasn't really reflective of my true ability because I got really nervous with in the exam and I just messed it up so I knew and in the writing I obviously knew because of the score that I got that I'm not up to the mark because I got a 6.5 when I needed a 7.5 so I just knew everything exactly where I'm short yeah so so I because you were my student I was able to help you identify your weaknesses in writing but maybe for a student who who either doesn't have access to a teacher or doesn't have the money for a teacher or just lives somewhere without any I schools or something like that how could they identify their mistakes in writing I think this question is very subjective because it really differs from person to person every person has a different way of like identifying their weak areas but the best thing they can do is obviously regarding the Isles that like you know they can just practice practice with the official material and that really helps because when you do that obviously you will know like which areas you're following short of like you know and if you have started the exam before once twice twice you definitely know because the scores are reflective of your ability so obviously I knew like in the listening part for example I knew that like the maps was the thing that I was really struggling with because when it came in the exam I got all six of them wrong so if you subtract six from 40 obviously it's 34 and it's a 7.5 so you just know because you practice and you practice a lot and then the next question was uh just how do you boost your general level of English because one big misconception is you can just learn lots of ielt skills and T tricks and tips and things like that but at the end of the day ielt is a English exam so to get 8.5 you need a certain level of English how did you get to such a high level love English okay I'm going to be very honest here and I know there there are many people watching this but yeah um I totally understood that it's just not about the Isles techniques and it's just not about the Isles it's an exam of your general level of English so I I read every day I don't like reading all I love reading books say like the medical books okay I'm generally not into reading definitely not but for the purpose of the I exam obviously I had to because I knew I had to so I was reading every day every day I'll read some article uh and I'll just read online because I'm always on the net anyway so I was reading every day then I will note down the words but I I followed your 100% rule I didn't memorize a list of the words for sure so I was I made a copy I still have it actually so I was writing down the word then I was writing antonyms synonyms um the cations that was really important I used an online dictionary for that and it was really helpful so by the end of everything I had huge book with a lot of vocabulary that I could use the exam and also secondly I think it was it's something to do with my school as well because I have been taught in English all my life and the school that I studied in um the country where I was born in I I studied in a school called Convent of Jesus and Mary and there um teachers like you know we were taught by nuns and other teachers and they used to come from the UK and the Spain and everything and we were fined if we spoke in the national language and not in English so it was yes it was always stressed and I I'm very grateful for that like you know it really helped me yeah so I think for anybody wanting just do what you did surround yourself with English which could mean reading every day or listening every day speaking to people just do whatever you can in yeah and I listened as a lot as well actually to be honest because I love watching documentaries regarding human trafficking and prostitution and stuff like that I'm just interested in those topics you know the things that affect socially like you know yeah everybody so like you know I would watch a lot of documentaries I love documentaries yeah so choose something that you're interested in like it doesn't have to be definitely it doesn't have to be like an academic book of course I mean if if I was choosing an academic thing I would definitely choose something related to bison only but I'm also interested in all these kind of things so yeah I chose documentaries about it yeah I mean you could watch cartoons in English that's maybe an extreme example but you know but it just show show the point I'm making is true that's true do whatever you enjoy in English and that's going to help you basically just surong yourself with English read listen write do everything you can that's the only way okay so the next question was this is a really popular question but I don't think that the answer is going to help a huge number of people because it is so subjective but how much time did it take you to get to that score okay as you already said it's very subjective so it differs but for me it took around a month yes exactly a month actually not even a month because it was exactly 28 days but the for everybody else it might take you know it could could take some people a week it could take some people six months it could take some people a year definitely because thing is like as I already said My Level my general level of English wasn't bad I mean last time I got other parts if you take out the writing part including that one I got 7.5 and eights which is obviously much higher level of English but still you know you need to improve you can't stay static and like you know just think that everything is going to be fine because what people do I think is because like the keep on repeating the test thinking okay I didn't do well this time maybe next time the paper is going to be easy or something like you know it's not going to change if you don't put in the effort the results are going to be the same so the choice is yours excellent advice all right so the next question um how do you write the perfect essay actually I'm laughing because there is no perfect essay um anyways but um the point is for me I just follow the structure that you gave um but I won't lie because not completely because I I was still running out of time so in the introduction I like you know I kind I thought like you know I'm running out of time what do I do I had to make a choice either I write the perfect introduction okay or I just like you know spend more time on the supporting paragraphs so instead of doing that chose to spend more time on the supporting paragraphs and it actually worked but I think the structures that you give are really helpful because then you don't have to go into the exam and think okay what do I write next okay what's going to be the next thing that I have to focus and also I'm going to say like you know plan planning is very important I know it's a crucial step that many students just skip because they think okay we have just got 40 minutes you know like you know and we we got to do everything everything in these 40 minutes but that's the wrong approach so as you always say in your course as well like you know planning is crucial not just for hour for everything in life to be honest yeah it's it's no coincidence that every single student that I've interviewed like this they're they all say planning is was crucial to it is the crucial part but I think the main point and reaction to that question is there's no such thing as a perfect essay a lot of people are you know jumping from website to website from I book to I book trying to find the perfect structure or anything it doesn't exist there's no that doesn't exist of course yeah yeah you're right so writing the the best essay that you can the most effective essay that you can is what your goal should be not trying to find you know someone who will teach you the perfect essay because it's it's not a mathematics question well it doesn't exist so if some teacher is doing that I think it's just AUST or something something yeah so the next question that people wanted to know from you and I think you'll have a good answer to this because I spoke to you the day before your test and the day before your results and you were very stressed out yes so how did you cope with stress well I was very stressed firstly because it was a second attempt okay now I don't want to like you know sound negative or something I know there are many people who have done it like 13 times 14 times and thumbs up to them but thank is like for me it was it was a setback for me because I couldn't believe like you know that I mean I've studied English all my life and I've studied in the best schools and everything and like you know how come I couldn't clear it but I think is is a little bit different than other exams like you know um you do need the professional help like you know and sometimes what people do is like you know they think oh it's just an English exam anyway like you know I'll pass so I think it's really important to get the professional help um that you can and with the stress part you know like it really depends like you know it first from person to person but at the end of the day I just stopped thinking about us like you know I remember um because I remembered word to word what what I actually wrote in the exam in the actual exam so I remember emailing you as well with the whole essay and asking you oh can you please give me the feedback can you tell me how my ideas are how presented and everything okay and I did the same on in the group as well in the private group and then like you know some people were saying it's really good some were saying oh no you could have done this that that like you know and it was just like absolutely like you know I was like okay I can't take it so I I just like you know deleted that post um okay in the exam with what other students tell you because it's normally not not not some of it is very very good advice but some of it is m yeah so you told me not to worry so after that after hearing your advice like you know acted on it and like you know I just deleted the comments but yeah uh what I did in the exam like you know I thought because I messed it up last time because of getting nervous I mean like obviously the 7.5 was not like it was not my real Mark I was pretty sure on that in the speaking part I'm talking about like you know so I thought that's said I mean like what I'm getting out of being nervous anyway like just a 7.5 you know so I thought like you don't forget it like you know I'm not going to I'm not going to think about it it's not an exam so I literally went in there and I was talking to the examiner as if I've known him for 20 years or something I literally did that I literally did that and that that is the best advice I can give to anybody who's not getting his score in the speaking part for sure like you know don't be nervous it's not going to help just go there remain calm and do your best that's all and talk to the exam as if he your friend I mean like exactly I said that to you what 10 times 20 times on the course so that that's great that you did that all right so those are all the questions that other students have so what I think we'll do now is um we don't have a lot of time obviously so we'll go through each of the four skills and if you can give just some quick pieces of advice for let's say someone most of the students watching this need a seven or above so if you were hoping for a seven or above in each of the skills what would you do so listening what would you say for listening the best advice is focus in the exam just focus like forget about the surroundings everything I was literally like I don't know how to explain it but be very focused especially in the math questions because you have to use more than one Senses at that time like you know hearing listening like you know just moving from one point to the next and that was the part I was struggling with so focus is the number one advice I can give you yeah and for the people who are not like you know used to listen to like English language most of the time maybe for them I would say like you know listen to just listen to documentaries there are there's a lot of stuff on the net as well to help you with the listening part um if you are obviously already in the UK you are obviously surrounded with the people like you know who already speak in English but if you are not then try and speak in English listen to English I don't know watch movies and things like that maybe and I I think for when you say Focus I think that's something that is a skill that needs to be developed yes I was talking to another student who did who got eight or nine in listening and they said it it was very similar to meditation that you need to build up as slowly the the skill the focus that you need to to do that so I mean Ju Just saying focus is is some people will be like well how do I do that that how you do that is slowly building up your practice and and through listen yeah I can add another advice as well actually I mean I don't recommend this because this is like very risky but I did it and it worked for me but maybe it like but I don't recommend it I just recommend you like listening very carefully but if you can't like you know if you just miss a point of something let's say like you know there are six thoughts to a question and let's say you didn't quite get like you know the third part of something then what you do is like you listen and when you have listened just quickly write the important bet like you know if it was a map question that's how I improved on the maps like you know that was the reason I got a 7.5 last time in the map because I just couldn't follow the conversation I just lost Focus so like you know like this time what I did was like you know I just wrote like important bits like you know opposite the road in the or like on the North side or something like that and I just quickly wrote it so when you have a minute you know just to check your answers instead of checking my answers I just quickly read it and then wrote the option correctly and that's how I improve great so let's look at reading now and what would be some some advice that you would give to someone for reading reading reading is I think it's more to do with like improving your vocabulary first of all because it just it's just e it's just easier when like you know you know the words already and it's not something new uh secondly for the reading of course practice practice goes for every part anyway but uh yeah for reading it's very essential uh third and very important timing okay because I well I said it in one of my thing but yeah I'll say it here as well that like you know don't divide your time equally like because it says like you know you have 20 minutes for each passage don't do that because the level difficulty level of each passage is different so first one is the easiest and the third one is the most difficult so obviously it makes sense to give more time to the third one rather than the first one and because first passages are easier relatively then you got to like you know just get as many questions you can get like you know just get them correct in the first two and the third one is just a bonus so yeah this is my advice that's what I did that's great advice and did you do the uh did you do it in order did you start I did it in order yes yes I did it in order but uh yeah I mean you can do any part first I mean like you can do the third passage first but if you're doing a difficult thing for it's just like you know maybe I I think it's better to do it in order get yes I did it in order yeah the lwh hanging fruit first because what people I've seen a lot of advice from other people that says do the hard part first but then you're going to spend lots of time and your brain is just going to be like oh my God this is difficult and then then the easier questions become more difficult because you're mentally drained and you don't have time and yeah probably you know because you're not going to get many of them correct anyway in the third so like you know you just like your confidence yeah the third part is really for people and a lot of the questions are to separate out the band seven eight and nine people so you so for realistically a lot of people who just need a seven or an eight are going to always get some questions in the in the last part wrong so that is really good advice so speaking um you're obviously very good at speaking um but let let put yourself in the shoes of someone who just needs a seven or 7.5 or something like that what would be your advice we've already talked about talk to the examiner like you would talk to a friend and relax and anything else anything else yeah for sure um okay now because I've been studying in Ukraine and obviously I didn't know the Ukrainian language and the only way I learned it was to converse with people in that language um so English is no different as well it's a language at the end of the day so if you want to learn it like you know and be good at like you know conversing so you should talk to more people and try to talk to people in English anyway because what happens is like you know when English is not your first language at home you you don't tend to speak in English like you know but if I have to give an advice it would be like you know month before your exam or like you know if your level of English is really bad then probably two months or something like just speak in English don't speak any other language like just speak in English and that's the only way you can improve and it's better to speak with somebody who's got a better level I mean because if you are like speaking with somebody who's at the same level as you it's not going to help because they're at the same level as you and they can't tell you the wrong the mistakes or like you know whatever you are so it's better to do that yeah excellent I I mean English speak speaking is a skill you have to practice that skill I don't know how many students I met who say that they want a band seven or a band eight and then you say to them well how often do you speak like never it's like you know it is important to practice task two writing what would be a quick piece of advice for that that's two is the most difficult um okay practice practice as much as you can because that's what I did every day I will write free essays okay now yeah because um and actually I have to say like you know um sometimes I would post the essay and even though like you know you're only allowed to you know sir Michael would sometimes like you know just check it anyway I was the lucky one so yeah um practice a lot at least write okay I'm not saying because most of the people work like you know I was not working so um and I had just finished my medical school so it wasn't a problem for me but at least write one piece of writing a day it it really helps and I mean in the group we have the chance to like you know put two essays every week anyway so like you know it's more than more than enough for the people who are working and that's the way you can improve and secondly I think um that's very important like you know once um you have done the five writings with you like you know once people have send you the writings and like you know they get the feedback it's very important to like you know read through the whole feedback I know it's quite long but it's really helpful I mean that's what I used to do I would read through the feedback and then if I was struggling let's say if I was struggling with a particular part let's say I was struggling with the grammar bit like you know I was struggling with the grammar bit to be honest I was struggling with articles because thing is like I don't know like when I speak naturally like like I don't think like you know there should be an uh or an or the like you know I don't think like just comes naturally okay but while I was writing I was kind of struggling with it because according to the feedback you gave me so like you know I just went on the internet and like you know I literally read through all the rules and after that like you know I practiced a lot and I I improved so the whole point is like you know just whatever your area is like you know that your your weak area is know that area and you will know because we get the feedback it's like very detailed feedback that we get so like you know after that like you know just try and improve and that's the only way you can improve in anything like you know just Target the weak areas and that's what I did that's how I improved excellent and last but not least uh academic part one what our task one that's what I hate but anyways yeah okay um I think everything we need is in the course anyway that you give us uh but if I for for people who are not on my course what what would you what would you suggest okay I'm not supposed to say that maybe but like as I always say like you know it's very okay writing and speaking are two parts in the a exam that you can't do well without getting professional health I mean it's not something that I'm just making up it's it's very true like you know because you maybe you can you can improve your reading and listening just because you've got the keys and everything like you know but speaking and writing a to us that you can't improve without professional help that's what I personally believe and uh for the people I think it's better to get professional help that's that's true and guys I have to say this I'm not being bried Chris told me not to say this but I don't know how else to answer this question so yeah I I actually said before the video I said don't use this as a marketing thing and don't just say I know it's not a marketing one I I haven't been riped I'm not related to Chris in any way I'm just a student but I really think that his help is really what you need yeah so I'll just say Obviously we can't help help you but what if you are struggling with writing I'm not saying join my course or anything but do get someone to help you so yeah um like for example if you're in an English school find out who is the best I teacher in that school show them your work get feedback on it uh or find someone to help you with it and it is really really going to help because it's a bit like if you for example if you had a problem with your car would you try and fix it yourself or would you take it to a professional and and get them to identify the problem so that's it so thank you very much s that I think we're we're time um what is what what is have what are you going to do in the future with with this result or what what's it well it was very very important for me I actually um I think my one of my one year is wasted because I didn't like you know care miles in time I didn't know there was a deadline actually that was my mistake but yeah um I'm going to prepare for my medical exams and after that I'll have a year because one year is wasted anyway I know one year is going to go in preparation for exams but after that I think it's valid for two years so I should quickly C my medical exams before it runs that's great s thank you very much for sharing your advice with people um it'll be really useful for a lot of and uh best of luck in your future okay s thank you for an amazing teacher thank you you're welcome you're welcome byebye Hey there Chris here from Mil advantage and this is Anna Anna recently got an amazing 8.5 in her writing so if you consider that the average score worldwide for writing is just 5.5 and that most students struggle to even get a seven and 8.5 is a pretty amazing thing so I had an idea instead of doing a normal success story video where we talked to Anna oneon-one and talked about how she did it I decided to do things a little bit differently and do a one-on-one interview with her but get Anna to write out her essay the real question that she got on the test and write it nearly exactly the same as she did in the real test and then go through it sentence by sentence and talk about what she did why she did that and show you guys what an 8.5 essay looks like and we're also going to talk about how she prepared for the test how she generated ideas what her practice routine was all of the things that you guys need to know to help you improve your scores so without further Ado I'll introduce you to Anna okay Anna so when you saw this question for the first time some think that only those people who have worked for a company for many years should be promoted to a higher position do you agree what was going through your head what were you thinking when you when you saw this one well first of all I was over the because uh that very topic was uh one of my favorite uh because I immediately I realized that I did have a lot of good vocabulary and quite clear ideas because it's not something you know uh vague or something too complicated everyone can have good ideas about this so and then I followed your strategy which you usually mention during your course which is uh not to support your real viewpoints your real you know perception of Life uh because initially I don't think so I do think that senior employees actually uh actually should be promoted a bit you know a bit more but uh I decided to stick to the ideas which I can clearly and easily understand without spending a lot of time on just uh going through through a lot of ideas and thinking how to put it together so it was wasn't my real opinion but it was something which is easy to describe yeah whatever makes it easy for you to write is is the best choice so you might totally disagree with that in real life but if you agree with it but you and you can easily write about it because you have good ideas good examples good vocabulary just use that it's the examiner is not testing your personal opinion they're testing whether you can write effectively in English so so that's and also um a good life hack so the so-called life hack also from your course is to stick to simple ideas so they weren't so complicated yeah they were obvious because uh I do know from your course that we should uh show our ability to explain to deliver our thoughts not our scientific knowledge exactly it's not a Knowledge Test and they're not test testing how complex your ideas are they're testing whether you can think of ideas that actually answer the question which is normally the simplest ideas that come to mind there's a there's a game show in the UK and the US called family fortunes and they ask a question and they say we asked 100 people this question and the the game show contestants have to guess the most popular answer normally the most popular answers or the most straightforward or obvious answers are the easiest to use would you agree with that yeah totally excellent excellent so how did you uh generate ideas was there any technique or did they just pop into your head because it was a very obvious question or so I followed the strategy to stick to one to a one-sided opinion so first I chose my side which was against senior employees and then I just just immediately thought about two main points which are easy to describe that's it exactly there there's a lot of strategies like we have the coffee shop method on the course a lot of teachers teach brainstorming but often sometimes you will get a question where the answers or the ideas just pop into your head they're very obvious and you don't need to go through that whole technique and strategy they're helpful if you can't immediately think of what is going on but if they pop into your head just just use those yeah and also also I think it's important uh to you know to write a lot of essays uh to practice this very skill because before that like one year ago it took me much more time just to think of ideas I was really stuck looking at some essay topics but just practicing this skill is is uh um it may be developed it's not something you know unique yeah it's like if you wanted to learn how to play football or learn how to improve your cooking or singing you have to do those things and writing is a doing thing often people will ask me well why is my listening and reading very high but my writing is very low and I said well you've been listening to English your whole life but you never write in English and so and even smaller things like analyzing the question idea generation planning these are all skills that you should practice before before you so that's great advice so did you do any planning or did you just think of the ideas and immediately start writing yeah because of uh that uh practice int quite intense practice I didn't have to write down my ideas it was a computer delivered test so I did have a list of a sheet of paper to write down my IDE is but I didn't need it because they just were in my head and in fact I put it in my introduction so they were in front of me exactly exactly so you had the structure already in your head and because you had done it so many times you could just immediately start yeah and we'll talk about that in a second where we teach you to kind of plan your essay in your introduction and your introduction is a mini a mini plan yeah excellent so let's get into it and let's have a look at your first sentence so your first sentence there is an an opinion that primarily staff members who've dedicated many years to working for a particular company should be given executive positions in a company so what the examiner is looking for there is your ability to paraphrase and they'll be looking at two things number one does that sentence mean the same as the sentence in the question which it does and is your grammar and vocabulary accurate and you have H and have you varied your vocabulary enough and you did that perfectly and you did an excellent job so the examiner is looking at that and immediately they know you know how to paraphrase you've understood the question your grammar is good your vocabulary is good so that that would give the immediately give the examiner an indication that you know what you're doing so the the second sentence starts off with I disagree with this viewpoint so what that does is it indicates to The Examiner here is my opinion my opinion is ex I know exactly what I want to talk about my opinion is extremely clear from the beginning that helps the examiner understand the viewpoint but also helps Anna when she's writing stick to that Viewpoint and make sure the rest of the essay links up with that and is nice and coherent and cohesive now the second thing that she has done done in that sentence is she has listed her two main ideas her two reasons in as much as younger workers may have more skills and if not provided with an opportunity for a promotion they will become demotivated so Ana has put two main ideas here number one younger workers have more skill and number two if they're not promoted they'll become demotivated so it's very clear to The Examiner here is my opinion and here are the two reasons to support my opinion and as Anna said before that acts as a mini plan for the rest of Anna's essay because the first main idea lack of skill she's going to use that in main body paragraph one and then the second main idea demotivated she's going to use that as her second main idea in her second main body paragraph so is that is that what you did is that what you were thinking about while you were writing it Anna sorry for talking so much it's your video but it's our video yeah yeah that was exactly my uh my Approach excellent excellent and did you proofread the introduction or did you just immediately then go into the the um yeah it was a computer-based test that's why I used to do a lot of spelling mistakes because of my typ in when I write by hand I don't do so many uh spelling mistak but when it comes to typing I do have to check each sentence right on the spot it helps me because uh maybe uh by the end of the test I I may not have any time to check it so that's why I I do it uh right after finishing a paragraph yeah I would recommend at the end of every sentence check your check your work at the end of every paragraph check your work and then when you have time at the end check your work again to check three three times so that would be good so let's move on to the first main body paragraph and what we can see here is in the very first sentence this is anest topic sentence and what the topic sentence does is it tells the examiner this is the main idea of this paragraph This is the main thing that I want to talk about so she says although senior employees have proved to be reliable and loyal more often than not it is novices who have a wider cluster of actual skills so a wider cluster of actual skills that matches up with the main point that she listed in her introduction which is younger workers may have more skills so she's taken the main idea from her introduction and put it into her topic sentence which is exactly what we teach on the course because it makes everything very very clear to The Examiner and easy for Anna to write about in her main body paragraph it makes everything coherent and cohesive would you agree with that Anna yeah totally and I also decided to mention that I understand the opposite Viewpoint which is uh about senior employees who are reliable and loyal because it didn't take a lot of time and space and it was clear that's why I thought it would be a good emphasis like uh like making contrast yeah it I mean it's fine to do that uh what I would if anyone's watching this what I would avoid doing is trying to do that in a very elaborate Way by at the end of the paragraph trying to show the opposite view or maybe have like five or six main body paragraphs that you in an agree or disagree question you can show a balanced view but it's very easy to mess it up so what we teach our students is just make it really simple by a agreeing with one side either agree or disagree and just sticking to that side Anna briefly talked about the other side but you don't need to do that it's not it's not essential it was my it was my uh experiments with the language to make and it helped you a complex sentence as well so that that was great right the other thing that Anna did very very well uh was she didn't just stop there and list one idea she then fully developed that idea by explaining her reasoning behind that a good way to think about this is um someone saying to you well I understand that idea but how does it actually answer the question give me reasons give me justification and she did that very well here this is because young Specialists exert their full effort in mastering their hard and soft skills in order to meet the requirements of today's highly competitive job market she she's explained why SK skills or wide range of skills are useful for the job market and then continues with that therefore having been promoted such workers may bring Innovation and help to better incorporate the latest technological advances into business processes which which is irreplaceable for every company to flourish so it explains why companies would want that how young people with lots of skills would benefit a company and that helps to really develop her answer what were you thinking when you were writing that bit Frankly Speaking I was thinking how to put together everything I know about this topic and a bit show of my vocabulary but then I realized that actually I don't need to uh I don't need to show it off because I already had a lot of good uh expressions and they come out of me naturally so I just gave up that idea and move on explaining um and then I I I thought okay I need an example here but I don't have time I decided to write this essay uh um at the end of the test because uh my week site was the first part so I started off with it and then I had only 37 minutes for the essay that's so I just decided to leave it here to leave it there like uh like this and if I had time I would come back and then add an example but I didn't have time yeah so I've added an example in here this is the only amendment uh only change that I have made to Anna's essay I've put it in a yellow here I put in for example the average age of a new hire at Facebook is only 23 for this very purpose so Anna didn't add in an example because she was running out of time and I think that's a that's a really good point to make that some sometimes you have to be a little bit strategic with your timing so what happens with a lot of people is they they think I have to put an example in and they can't think of an example and then they waste five minutes or 10 minutes or they add an example in they of people often do that with vocabulary as well especially when paraphrasing they're like how do I change this word and they waste a lot of time so Anna had already developed her main body paragraph sufficiently an example would have improved things and I've added that in just to show how someone could add a very very short example that would take just 30 seconds or one minute to write but I think if Anna had have added in a good example it would have even brought it up to a nine that's one of the reasons why I think it is at an 8.5 instead of a nine but 8.5 is pretty good for writing anyway Anna so I don't think you should be too hard on yourself yeah yeah I also thought that in fact in fact I had quite explicit and welldeveloped explanation that's why it might worked as an example so I decided to move on and just to finish the essay I mean for for anybody watching definitely do try and put a a good example into each main body paragraph um but in real life you know in in the real under real exam conditions often things can go wrong you might you know have to repeat a word sometimes or leave out an example or something like that try and make it as perfect as you can um and follow follow the system that that we're giving you but sometimes you have to um make a tradeoff you know you you can't do everything perfectly so let's move on to your second main body paragraph um and people will see a big thing in red here which Anna added in but we'll talk about that in a second but what Anna has done here in her topic sentence yet another reason why less experienced staff members should have even even chances for a promotion is that otherwise they will not be motivated to do their best again so she has taken demotivated her her main uh idea from her introduction and she has added that into her topic sentence and we've already talked about why that is a good idea so we can move on explanation knowing that however hard they try they still will not be given a higher position in a company young employees are likely to grow reluctant to go the extra mile which may negatively affect the company's revenue and curb its development so a good way to think about ex um explanations is imagine somebody saying well so what what does that mean so they'll not be motivated so what so I used to have an English teacher in my uh Eng when I was in high school and he would walk past us and look over our shoulders when we were writing essays and he would point and say so what and what he was trying to get us to do was elaborate and and give reasons rather than just State our opinion give reasons for our opinion and I think Anna did that very very well there did you use that little trick for for writing explanations yeah yeah and uh were it not for your C I wouldn't do it at all because I wasn't like that I thought initially I thought oh my gosh one sentence is enough why should I write more but when I sent like 10 or 12 essays for correction then I realized yeah I have to elaborate my ideas yeah I think it's it's a difference between speaking and writing when you're speaking to someone they can ask you follow-up questions they can say what do you mean or so what or can you tell me more but when you're writing something the person reading that doesn't have the chance to ask you follow-up questions so you have to leave everything on the page and kind of anticipate follow-up questions that they might have one of the great things about uh your essay is an excellent example here in the second main body paragraph to illustrate a prominent it entrepreneur pavl Duru I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly but I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing it had to leave his first workplace since despite his outstanding ability he was not rewarded with a leading role as a result he has successfully set up his own business while his employer lost his company due to a lack of Highly qualified workers so is that is that a real example that you you read about in a newspaper or magazine or something I know I'm not surrounded I just uh came across pav durov's page on Instagram and I do know that he's a prominent IT specialist and he's one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world what I really don't know about his uh working background about his story yeah it was just made up for the just to show the example that is that's a it's a really good point because sometimes you'll be able to think of a a real example that is 100% true sometimes you won't be able to think of a real example and in that situation you can make up an example um as long as the example makes sense and it fits the question and it's not like some people write 99% of you know they make up some crazy statistic but yours was false but it did a very good job of exemplifying that point and so it's fine to make up examples as long as they make sense yeah in fact it was the most difficult part uh in The Writing Practice because it was hard for me to come up with ideas MH examples yeah for ideas for examples I I'm no good at all in making up things so I I I did a lot to to master this skill and for anybody watching this who's who feels the same way as as Anna does a really great way of doing this is to go on to like the BBC News or the guardian or some some good news source and you will find technology news uh the environment news education news Health news and those are the common topics that come up again and again and again for writing task two so if you just read one newspaper article a day for you know two or three months while you're preparing you'll get lots of ideas and lots of examples um and it'll help with vocabulary and everything takes you know 10 minutes a day 20 minutes a day but can make a Hu huge difference to to your overall score so let's finish off well before we get into the conclusion Anna left in a spelling mistake um she put this in red entrepreneur entrepreneur is a difficult word to spell most native English speakers mess it up as well but it was great that Anna left that in to show that she made a small mistake because a lot of people think that band 8.5 or band nine like Anna got 8.5 which means that she got a bound nine in at least two of the criteria um and to get a band nine you can make small grammar mistakes you can make small slips not many of them and they just slips same with vocabulary you can make a slight spelling mistake here or there you should try and minimize those as much as possible but many people watching this even when I post uh sample essays someone will see one comma out of place and you made a mistake that's terrible it's like this everyone's human you know you're you're writing under exam conditions try and minimize your mistakes as much as possible but even b nine students make little slips and it even says that in the marking criteria so you're not look for most students I wouldn't focus on the small details as much as focusing on getting the big things correct like for example paraphrasing your idea being clear throughout your structure looking good clear topic sentences clear expon ations good examples good conclusions the big things are the things that really matter not things like a lot of people focus on oh you use one personal pronoun or you misspell one word you must be a band five it's like no that's not realistic and it's not how the examiners think about it by the way what do I think about uh the the Viewpoint I've heard it a couple of times that uh such there are such things like uh the so-called native speaker mistakes and they actually don't lower your scull as much as other types of mistakes do can you give me an example I don't I don't really know what you mean by like native speakers usually mess up less and fewer yeah so if you do this in your essay and this is just one out of or only one or you have only two mistakes throughout the whole essay it won't affect your score that much because even native speakers uh do this I mean if you listen to Native if you go and live in London or New York or Sydney and you listen to how native English speakers talk they make little grammar mistakes a lot as countable uncountable nines for example or verb subject agreement um and they but they don't make them that often and that is what is referred to in the marketing criter IIA as a Slip an occasional slip so it wouldn't be like a massive mistake like getting a a tense wrong or or you know reg or a systematic mistake which is you make a mistake every time you use that grammar point you make that mistake articles or prepositions is a very good example of that so somebody who has a big problem with articles especially Russian speakers um every article is wrong that would be a systematic error and that would lead to a b six because it it just shows that your grammar is not up to the level it needs to be but if you got one article wrong in your whole essay that's no big deal that's just a slip so yeah that's a very good point it's a very good point I do live lessons all the time and I make little slips all the time you know nobody's perfect even even in class I'd be writing on the board and talking at the same time and I'd make a little mistake and some students would say oh you know nothing teacher like no I'm human you know I'm a human being so that's a good point um so uh your conclusion what we're looking for in the conclusion is the examiner is looking for no new ideas they don't want to see new ideas or or anything that hasn't been talked about in the in the rest of the essay the examiners looking for a clear opinion again your opinion must be clear throughout the essay in your introduction in your body in your conclusion so Anna did that in her conclusion and a summary of her main points so taking the same two ideas from the introduction and the same two ideas from the main body and stating them again in the conclusion and a lot of people have a problem with this every time I teach this people will say well how could you repeating ideas like well that's what a conclusion is a conclusion is this is what I just talked about this is a summary of what I just talked about and that will improve your coherence and cohesion because everything links together and is very very clear and how you do that is you need to improve your vocabulary because you can only do that if you have a wide ranging vocabulary and you can vary the language you should avoid repeating the same word again and again and again and again although if that happens it's not as big of a deal as people think but you can repeat the same ideas in your introduction mainbody paragraph and your conclusion so is that what you were thinking about you're thinking about paraphrasing whenever you got to your conclusion yeah yeah I just uh I used to look at my introduction just to remind myself of my of my own ideas and then I decided to put that concession which I did in the first body paragraph just to stick to you know one one rule if I made it once so I decided to repeat it to just to be on the safe side I know I um could avoid it but I decided it wouldn't damage my score so I did it yeah excellent excellent so there's two more things I want to talk about before we finish talk about why this is such a good essay and why it's at such a high level the first one is grammar so the number one thing you're looking for uh to get a bond dat to get a bond is not so much range although that's important it's accuracy the avoidance of making lots of mistakes so Anna has mostly nearly all error-free sentences and that is what the examiner is looking for the looking for lots and lots of sentences with no grammatical errors in them whatsoever also Anna has used a range of simple and complex sentences doesn't every sentence does not need to be complex but most of of her sentences are complex and a range of different grammar structures but what what is very impressive about Anna's work is you can tell that she hasn't tried to show off her grammar she's tried to answer the question clearly and as a result of doing that she has naturally used a range of structures complex sentences and kept her her grammar extremely accurate one of the things that a lot of people say about band n band 8.5 essays is oh it looks very simple how can it be such a high high band it's not about showing off and using complicated language it's about answering the question clearly is that what you tried to focus on Anna yeah and I during the exam I realized that uh uh all the time I spent on mastering my grammar actually helped me because uh I practiced inversions a lot and but I of course I didn't use them all the time and during this essay this inversion like knowing that however hard they try or it is noes who uh they just came up naturally so I wasn't thinking oh now there should be an inversion yeah or some people think I I need to write an inversion here on then a passive sentence and then a conditional and then you know and they imagine trying to write a normal email like that you know instead of just writing an email to your boss or someone you're like I'm going to try and use the future tense and the past tense and the progressive tense and it's just very confusing and difficult to do instead just answer the question focus on accuracy and the rest will take care of itself yeah and I also practiced uh by practiced a lot by forcing to use this complex grammar but out of my essays just in my um Writing Practice home and just my my essays which I didn't send for for um for an assessment so yeah I did force myself before the exam a lot but during the exam I avoided this yeah that's what I suggest with grammar and vocabulary during your preparations take chances push yourself out of your comfort zone try and get better but on exam day play it safe um a good analogy is when they send astronauts up into space they try and break everything before they go and it's safe on Earth but when they're up in the space station they take no chances and and they they play it very very safe um which is a good a good way to think about about essay writing as well so finally again we'll talk about vocabulary again when people look at a bond eight or a bond nine essay they often say oh it's not good because they the vocabulary is simple but then what I do with that is I highlight all the good vocabulary and then they go oh actually it is very good so if we look here staff members dedicated many years to working for a particular company executive positions younger workers provided with an opportunity for a promotion demotivated senior employees reliable and loyal novices and it just goes on and on and on and on and the two things that are very impressive about Anna's vocabulary number one it's extremely accurate which is what you're trying to do you're not trying to use big complicated words that are wrong you're trying to use words that help you answer the question that are correct the second thing is she has an extremely wide ranging vocabulary because she's using so many topic specific words words that you only really use to talk about this specific topic such as staff members executive position younger workers uh reliable and Loyals senior employees hard and soft skills meet the requirements highly competitive job market bring Innovation business processes Irreplaceable flourish you don't use those words to talk about the weather or to talk about what you did last weekend and what that demonstrates to The Examiner is if this person can talk about this topic with such a wide ranging vocabulary and accurate vocabulary it's a good indication that they can do that for any topic so sometimes you might get lucky and like for example if you're a doctor you might get a health question if you're a teacher you might get an education question but it is a very good indication if you can use those topic specific words that you have a wide- ranging vocabulary and did did you work on your vocabulary before the test for a long time or or what did you do to try and try and help you in that area uh it was uh uh a lot of um effort from my side I I studied every day uh I did an exception I had a weekend like once a month and that's it I read a lot of tons of Articles uh I've written a list of more than 2,000 words and idioms and I had an English speaking friend to bounce ideas of uh so yeah I really pushed it yeah most of the the really successful Russian students I've worked with they they really systematically like every day improve the try and do something to improve their vocabulary and yeah and what what I did is that I followed the so-called bottom up approach which means that you learning chunks by heart and then they come out of you naturally both cations cations and chunks like uh so if we look at your your um dedicated many years provided with an opportunity for promotion yeah bring Innovation meet the requirements yeah so that's how our brains normally learn vocabulary when we're children we or when we're adults as well but we don't learn single words words we learn chunks of language so that's very good advice as well so it it does take up a lot of time but it's it it's really well well worth it definitely definitely as as I said there's no tricks or tips or I I can't give someone a list of of words the day before their exam and say use these in the exam because you need to learn how to use them not not learn them memorize them it's not a memorization test it's a it's a writing test yeah so Anna thank you so much for for sharing your essay and and giving that advice it it's it's such a privilege to to work with a student like you who's worked very hard and now you can see the results in 8.5 and and that will hopefully lead to much success in in the future for you as well thank you Chris for your Association and for the course of course uh I I will follow the videos and I will try to take up some new things uh so yeah I do enjoy the Simplicity of your explanations and I can now I can tell everyone that the strategies uh really work keep it simple as I said I'm sure you're sick of hear hearing me say keep it simple but anyway well thank you thank you again Anna and um I'm sure everyone will get a lot of benefit um from this video and uh I hope that you have the best of luck in the future thank you very much hi everyone Chris here from is Advantage with another one of our success stories So today we're going to talk to KL and what we were able to do with Kom was to bring her from 5.5 in writing to a band seven in writing so Kom was getting great scores for her listening she ended up getting 8.5 for listening she got 7.5 in speaking she got seven in reading but the thing that she was really struggling with like many many other students out there was the writing and she did the test four times and her final on her final attempt we were able to get her Aon seven so KO let's start off by by talking about um what were the main differences between when you were getting a 5.5 and when you were getting a seven what would you suggest to a student who is in a similar position to you who's maybe getting a six or 6. .5 or 5.5 what do you think is a is a good um I'll I'll let you explain anyway you know better than me because you're the one you did well actually I went through a lot of videos online and what they focused on was vocabulary they told to practice uh vocabulary high frequency words and stuff and I did practice that and in my exam I used them but when I got my result I was was very shocked like after hard work like I worked hard for around a month and in the end the result which I got was like 5.5 which was not what I expected then I thought of going with your course after after trying your challenge and I was quite happy with the structure and specifically what you told was keep it simple MH and um the sample essays which were provided M uh in VIP academy uh that helped a lot because uh there were around I guess um around 15 16 essays or so and I went through each and every one and the topics were different and I read them the vocabulary I was like I was shocked I mean is this a band n essay yeah where in others tell that you have to focus on vocabulary and stuff and the formula which we have to like keep it mind is keep it simple mhm so I use that strategy I went through your videos specifically the structure it's so specific so easy to understand and um yeah I went I made my own notes going through your videos and I saw most of them were similar mhm and there were some tips and tricks like if you remembered them then you can SC easily ban seven and N it's not difficult mhm yeah the reason why I was laughing there about about vocabulary was one of the things that we used to do when I was teaching face to face when I was working for the British Council on the very first day of class I would give them a band n essay and a band Six essay and I wouldn't tell them which one was which and I said take the b nine essay and put it on the left hand side and the six essay on on the right hand side and they always 100% got them mixed up and the reason yeah 100% of them said was we thought it the we thought the band Six essay was a band nine because it has lots of big words and we thought that the band n essay was band Six because it has lots of simple words and it comes from this thing that you will see on YouTube and Facebook and in lots of schools where they teach you that the secret to getting a high score in I writing is use lots of big words problem with that basically I yeah I came across those videos five vocabulary words which would help you example pleora and stuff and it was like I had literally byhe hearted them well the pro I mean the problem is that well the first problem is 25% of your total score is vocabulary so you're by focusing on vocabulary you're ignoring the other 75% the problem is what happens if you try and use very high level words what what what do you do it it it became very difficult um there was a time when I thought oh my God this is not my cup of tea I should not do else and I told my husband let's not go to Canada and let's cancel the plan and but then when I referred your structure it was so simple I mean I just spent around 30 40 minutes a day yeah or two hours in a weekend and yeah that was great especially your correction service it was so up to the mark when I went through my mistakes I understood where I was going wrong yeah I think yeah and your team and your team they are really very active I mean on Facebook group also if I put something that I have difficulty and so and so and they will immediately send me a link which I have to just go through and um practice Yeah and I I think the other problem with teaching people high level words is that most of the the people that they're teaching that to are not capable of using those those words so it's the analogy I always use is like if I go to the gym I can normally lift let's say 50 kilos but if I try and 200 kilos I will I'll get injured or I'll drop the weight on my head and it's the same thing with giving people lists of big long words they don't know how to use them and it's very common to get 5.5 because you will get a very low score for vocabulary because you so many mistakes would you would you agree with that yeah I totally agree plus I believe that people should verify before going to an is instructor for example what happened with me is uh before giving my second attempt I came across one instructor I mean there was just a Facebook page to help me with my he preparation and they charge a very small chunk of amount and they correct the asset and give but uh then through my research I came to know that that person is still struggling with the El exam yeah and yeah and they are just tutoring to earn some money so that they can you know it's like an investment for them seen yeah yeah and people like us they get cheated just by you know paying and then they demotivate that no you need another six months of time to to prepare for the exam and stuff yeah but I believe that as you always say that take Al as an investment rather than giving exam again and again find a better tutor and do and I feel that Al Advantage is the best I know there there's a lot of people out there that have not even got the score that they need yet calling themselves is teachers and it's like if you broke your leg and went to the hospital would you ask the other PE the other patients the sick people to to help you or would you ask a doctor or a nurse you know it's it's um it's crazy the things that people doing out there um and and the cheapest option like anything else if you buy the cheapest car it will break down yeah buy the cheapest house it's going to have a leaky roof and be in a terrible neighborhood if you buy the cheapest correction service or the cheapest course and I'm not saying that because I want people to give me money I'm saying that because I want people to save money and give it to someone who really knows what they're doing that's probably not going to be me because I can't help you know too many people but save your money and give it to someone who knows what they're doing and then you'll get the score that you need because it it would be a shame for you to have missed out on an opportunity to move to Canada have a better life because you you trust someone who just doesn't know what they're doing yeah I mean that was like really shocking for me how people earn money through through various networking sites yeah so I think people should verify before going through any Institute or any classes so a what would you say to someone who you mentioned um to keep it simple what would you say to someone who right now is watching this video and would say well if you use Simple vocabulary and simple grammar you're going to get a low score you have to use complex uh vocabulary and grammar and everything no I would just say that follow a particular tutor don't just keep changing your tutors just because you don't get a good score from that person other thing is practice practice as much as you can and follow a structure mhm I mean following a structure is very important because for example in question when they say that what are the causes and pro what are the causes and solutions so when we see that word causes and solutions there are many people who might misinterpret that oh we have to write two causes or three causes and three solutions which is not possible in fact I also used to feel the same but when I followed your structure I realized okay we can write one cause and one solution for the same and we we get good Mars for that so in the real test did you have a causes and solutions question um no I had opinion question mhm whether do you agree or disagree uh it was like I don't remember the question as such but it was based on um children growing in uh whether children should grow in rural area or whether they should be in um cities and what B disagree you use there I followed your structure that is paraphrasing the question and giving um like I disagree that they should not stay in R rural areas so why do I disagree I in introduction I mentioned my two ideas MH then my first paragraph was on my topic sentence plus explanation and example same then with the second paragraph and conclusion yeah simple yeah another thing I would also uh like to share with others is um basically I'm from India I stay in Dubai but I'm from India so one problem which we Indians face is um mentioning the same thing again and again y I mean there would be a topic sentence and um in my explanation I would just write the same thing and it would just go round and round and round so that was a problem with me and um I went through your video on YouTube about um mistakes which um Indians do as in going round and round with the same topic yeah so I went through it and you had explained it in such an easy way where so so other Indian students can check it out so yeah yeah after that when I wrote my essay there was a sudden change as in first when I used to get my essays corrected by you I never got more than 6.5 or six and after going through that video uh when I wrote my essay I started getting seven because it went into my mind how I have to basically write an essay mhm the typical format because we are so used to writing same thing again and again and again it reflected in my essay so that video really helped me a lot to overcome my problem with you know running around the bush and writing the same thing yeah I think for for anyone watching they might be thinking well I don't have that problem and I have no idea what my problems are the key is to get feedback on on your writing is if there was a you know if there was a problem with your car you wouldn't try and fix your own car or you wouldn't go to yeah mechanic school and try and learn it it yourself you would take it to a mechanic and they would fix that one or two problems that you have exactly the same writing essays anybody getting below a seven there's at least one or two big problems that you have but you're unaware of those things but once you become aware of them and then you work on fixing those things then you see yeah progress yeah and another thing when I went through your videos it also help helped me to improve my listening because I was um listening uh what a native speaker spoke so it helped me with my listening and it also yeah and it also helped me with my speaking because at times there are particular words which we might be pronouncing wrong but when you go through when I went through your modules I realize that some words are to be pronounced this way when you're speaking to a native English speaker yeah so the advantage do you it's it's like a complete package yeah I was I I I was recently traveling in in Asia it's going around different countries in Southeast Asia and I was just Googling I schools just to check out the competition there and stuff and I couldn't believe that most I courses are taught in the native language so there was like schols in Thailand that were teaching I in Thai there were schools in Vietnam that were teaching I in Vietnamese and I was like like this is crazy why are you doing a English test but you're learning it in a different language um and then yeah then wanting to get a band seven but doing that yeah is just crazy so yeah I think another point from that is surround yourself with as much English as possible be listen and reading and speaking and writing English as much as you can because it's an English T at the end of the day you know yeah and don't be overconfident because I tried that I became overconfident once I got 7.5 in listening mhm and I got a good score in other thing so I would advise people don't be over confident practice practice as much as you can you can yeah is the key and get feed yeah that is the key yeah yeah get feedback that is very important and go through that feedback don't just ignore it and yeah yeah don't just ignore it and keep it aside please read your essays go through that and review yeah yeah even a problem that we have with some students on our on the VIP coures we'll give them feedback and tell them this is wrong you need to fix this you need to work on that and they won't do that even when they get feedback and we say that learning is the first step getting feedback is the Second Step but the third and most important step is taking action on on the feedback yeah actually I was one of them yeah I I yeah I got my essays corrected in the start and I just you know had a glance score and then that's it and don't read anything yeah yeah yeah okay I need to just focus on grammar nothing else okay this is the feedback okay fine but then later on when I got my result after my third attempt I became really very serious and I took all my previous essays I literally highlighted my mistakes and I went through it and then I understood that yes Chris told that once once you're done with the correction go through your essay review it for 30 minutes or so and then you write another essay and that is how I got my desired score yeah I I think that's another reason why we limit the number of of essay Corrections that people can do because if you don't do that people just do essay after essay after essay after essay and they don't look at the feedback or take action to improve the things on the feedback practice alone is useless if you need to practice get feedback and then take action on on your weak points and then you will see um the Improvement uh because you could like imagine learning how to drive a car by just driving a car around and around and around you would really bad habits um you know same with reading listening speaking writing you can't just do lots and lots of practice and then see any Improvement you really need to to look at the feedback and take action on it so we we will definitely show this clip to the other VI not all of them do that not all of them do that yeah yeah so yeah your what was your mindset whenever you saw a lower score than than you thought like so when you were practicing when you were sending us your essays we were giving you six we were giving you 6.5 we were you know a lot of mistakes and things what was your mindset towards that well I got really very demotivated when I saw my score and then I told my husband also look I cannot do this you find another way to migrate or you give the exam I told him you give the exam I cannot do it so but then he motivated me and your quotes motivated me uh the quotes which you put regularly on your Facebook uh um Facebook page as well as he also Oh Come you you the there we go yeah sorry you must have hit the button by mistake sorry you were saying that you went you seen this the the stuff on the in the Facebook group The motivational stuff yeah motivational stuff as well as he put that A7 score in front of my eyes so whenever I used to see sit I used to see that and I'm a teacher basically so then I thought that what would other others feel if they see that their teachers only not trying her level best so that is how I woke up one day um and I had like Cambridge books 11 to 15 oh again okay yeah I had already practiced those books so I took copies of those books again and I you know I was continuously practicing I dedicated myself towards alss for around eight to 9 hours in a day continuously doing those listening modules and writing and stuff in fact uh I used to finish my writing um task two in around 20 minutes wow wow that's amazing yeah but the problem with me was idea generation and I was not very sure about that like and how I that's that's a so how would you help someone if they were struggling with idea generation because there's a lot of people who do struggle with that would you say brainstorming is effect uh no I I loved your coffee shop method MH uh so I went through your previous videos on YouTube as well as Facebook and I went through the uh mini module MH in uh VIP course I went through it again and again I made my own notes then again I bought essay correction service again because um um my previous one was already finished I had got my five essays corrected mhm so I bought another essay correction service and then I started writing and that is how I I got around seven from you in all the essays I wrote we'll we'll L link up our idea Generation video um here because you talked about the copy shop method um link video here um so other students watching can um Can can have look and improve as well yeah yeah and that is when yeah that's when I came to know yes I'm actually prepared for the exam excellent excellent so congratulations again on going going from 5.5 to seven in such a short period of time um and now you'll be able to to go to can Canada is it yeah and just a few days back I came to know I have to give is academic as well because I'm into teaching okay so I have to revisit the course I have to give again well if you have any problems well you you know that you've got lifetime access and we'll help you yeah yeah I'm I'm I feel that I took a right step um enrolling myself with is advantage and it's a very good investment for me and thank you so much for helping me out you're welcome yeah because it's it's because of you that I'll be going to Canada now you're welcome you're welcome well thank you so much for for helping other people and um it's a really inspirational story and and and you've given really good advice so if you need anything in the future just let me know we're here for you and we'll do anything we can to help you all right sure thank you byebye yeah hi everyone and welcome to a very special success story meet Andrea who was one of our students and what we're going to do in this video is Andrea did the test 10 time yeah about more or less and she was telling us about all the mistakes that she made and what we'd like to do is share those mistakes with you guys so that you can avoid making those mistakes and you can get the score that you need next time so we're kind of fast tracking you to getting the score that you need and we'll also talk about how we helped her get a band eight overall um she managed to go from a band five to a band seven in writing and now we're sitting in Cambridge where she is uh going to be living and working and why don't we just start off by you introducing yourself to everyone so yes of course Chris well my name is Andrea I'm from Venezuela which is in south on South America and I started this journey one year ago more or less so it was when I finished my training as an oncologist and I decided to start prepara preparing this exam and in that moment I never thought that it would be so hard mainly because it's true that you well the the main things that you have to point out that you are making mistake and you're are not so good as you thought you were and the other things that you have to work on your mindset because it's not easy to be constant and discipline with your studies and at the same time dealing with frustrations and failures and rejection so I did a lot a lot a lot of mistakes many mistakes well that's that's good for our audience they can avoid them night yeah yeah so when I found Chris Academy and I saw that video about the mistake that you shouldn't avoid or you shouldn't do and when I saw that video I said I did all all all those mistakes so I wish I wish I I didn't but I did and it was part of my journey and hopefully this kind of things will help someone not so good for you because you wasted a lot of time a lot of money and you know thought thousands of dollars but we we got we got you there um after you joined our our Academy and we'll be able to help people now so what was the what are some of the big mistakes that you you made that led to you failing the test well the first thing is that well the M problem with the a is that you are not able to find a reliable source of information so part of my journey I did it alone so I didn't know anything about the the exam the instructure how to study how to prepare this H exam so for example I took the my first exam just to know the experience and to know about the exam and it was a huge mistake because you felt like let you know nothing and the listening part I got lost and the reading I was rushing myself and the writing I didn't have a time to just write one one task was one t task too so and the speaking it wasn't myself who was there and and I fell I fell I obtained that exam uh the listening 5.5 the reading six the writing five and the speaking six so yeah and did you feel like giving up then or cuz a lot of people that that's what happens they go and they do the test because they think it's just an English test I have good English I'll go and do it and then they have a very bad experience like you had and they're just like this is not for me I'm not doing this again no well no no I didn't feel in that way with the first exam what I felt in that moment as the the the time of the level of English that I that I was required was so so far that I the one that I was obtaining so I felt like this is a lot of work and I don't know how to do it so you felt a little bit overwhelmed mhm and it was a moment that I I started to study grammar on my own so I bought a book and I was doing my exercises and trying to but it's it's takes you time because you are studying and you you don't know if what you're doing is okay or not and then I did another mistake mhm that I was to take a general course yeah and was is it was so expensive and the amount half hours wasn't enough and it wasn't personalized so um you never knew so I never knew that what was my mistake yeah so you the only feeling that I got from that is O this is so hard and you have to but you didn't have the the guidelines the which Step you should take in order to improve so and you the the this feeling of anxiety and being stressed and it was growing up and you didn't know what to do just to I don't know taking another test just in case just in case I get I I I was lucky and I don't know but no don't do that so would you recommend that people just keep doing the test until they get the score they need no no no no no no no don't do that because the first thing is is well you have like two different person um in your in your mind so the one is that no wow maybe if you do the exam again maybe you are going to obtain your score but the other has to be the the honest you have to be honest with yourself and say come on you are not going to jump from a five in your writing to a seven yeah that's not possible or you're listening 5.5 to to a seven that the score that that is needed to so you have to work on that and then what happen if you take the exam many times that you are going to deal with the stress of being under exam conditions and then to deal with the when you are receiving your scores and it's not the the one that you want it so it's like oh and you have to start again so I don't recommend it to do that even when I did it yeah I think we we a lot of people email us and say like can you help me and we say yeah no problem but you need to do all of this work and you need to maybe join our course which costs a certain amount of money and they say no I don't want to do that so well you don't really have a choice you can either spend the money failing the test over and over again and spend the time failing the test over and over again or you can actually learn what to do and spend like you probably spend about $2,000 on on you know on on failing the test whereas our course when you joined it it was like 350 or something like that so you know it's not cheap I know a lot of people that's a lot of money for a lot of people but it is is a lot less than failing the test multiple times yeah yeah and well the thing is I have to say because I was in that position and say oh no but I already booked my exam but maybe it's because why in my case I had um know like a deadline MH so I was also I had an extra pressure and I can understand when people say no no it's because I have to to book the exam in 8 weeks to um wait for the results in 8 weeks and so I can life or whatever because I was in that position so it's difficult so if you are there I recommend you to work hard on your preparation because it's true that it's hard but it's not guarantee it's not a guarantee that you're are going to to get your your your your score M and then I think a lot of people they do the test maybe one time or or or or twice without any preparation and then they do what you did which was okay I'll just go for a general course and see what the format is and see what's going on but why does that not help because it's not personalized and sometimes I think that because it wasn't I did one two two courses and the other was a little bit more VIP but it wasn't because H they change the professor every time and I think that they make you feel better about what you were obtaining because I remember that I was in this Academy there another one before I moved to England and they say oh yes you're doing great I you're obtaining an elist in a seven but I didn't feel that I my English was was improving for that time it's true that I felt great for me but for the result on Vaper is not the reality what we hear from a lot of our students is on my my old teacher told me I'm doing really well and they gave me lots of positive encouragement and said everything was great and then I went and did the test and then I failed what we do is the complete opposite we don't try and be your friend we just try and get you the results you need and we say this is wrong fix this you need to work on this and and people often hate us for doing that but as I say I want you to be my friend when you get the results not during the we you know we're friendly we we're helpful but it's I think I've been in that position too when I was first teaching people you want to be friendly with them and you want them to like you so telling them the truth is and that was one of the mistake that I was to say come on and I remember my first feedback and I say for example one from us yeah from from you guys and this sentence doesn't make sense um it's not related with the subject and that's it very cool and it's say what but maybe because you are not trying so you don't understand what I was trying to say say no no no don't grammatically is wrong it's out of context it's and I said wow that's it and it's wor for me because they yeah don't delete that part of your essay and work on that and and it's you had a good mindset about that when sometimes when we do that with students they're like oh they get really frustrated and they they see it as an attack on them personally and that's why we we say no it's we're not we're not attacking you as a person we're just trying to make your English better trying to make your writing better trying to make your speaking your you're reading whatever it is you know and it's also through that it was through your feedback because before that I it's true that I was improving my writing in my writing skills but I've never received a proper feedback it's true that some native person they were reading and they can correct me certain things but maybe the structor or certain sometimes I receive like this is sounds weird MH but sounds Weir for me is it wasn't enough because I didn't know what was the mistake so that was another great advantage of receiving the the feedback from you because it was there when I realized that I have problem with my War order and that was because of my Spanish grammar structures I was doing the opp the the in the other way around and the preposition what preposition I was working with articles about prepositions and I I I had my list and and things and I was reading every time but it's because I had my Spanish mind and and things so I was failing every every every in every sentence most of them I think yeah so I was working on that I was just okay what order and my preposition read again if you're not sure change the sentence or use another word so and that really helped me in improving my my my my essays yeah it's really interesting to to hear your story because it is a very typical story of the test is not that difficult I'll go and do it without any preparation fail okay I'll go for a general course not get any feedback look at some videos look at YouTube fail and then you're like and then you're and then what was the next part of your journey yeah no no I was consuming every type of vide in YouTube about Isles and Prof confusing because one guy says this another girl says the opposite and you go into the test and you're writing reflects the confusion in your brain because you have no idea what no no exactly and no you have and you have to follow a plan which I didn't know that you have to I I thought that give me a pen and a paper and I'm going to write everything that is going through my mind which is not the case no no you have to no no and then I thought that for example because in my first attempt that I just finished one task that if I finish in the other because if I obtain a five with just writing one maybe if I finish the second the second one I will obtain a a seven because I don't know just Pro because of percentages or something but no it's because I didn't know what was the the way that they evaluate my my essay I wasn't aware of that the four areas until you learn and the moment you learn that is when you say okay can I understand what I'm read when I'm writing uh can I I don't know it's any mistakes it's what is your vocabulary how many words are you repeating even if you're repeating yourself well your vocabulary um Can the examiners understand what you are writing so I was all over the place yeah and I think the next part of the journey that that people normally go on is they get help help from a teacher who who gives them good feedback but then they come up against a a new difficulty which is mindset because it's very difficult for someone to be constantly telling you you're making a mistake this needs to improve you need to work harder you need to get what mindset things would you suggest people understand before they they go on that Journey yeah is I think for me that was the only think that it kep kept me continue doing this because um if you are in front of so much frustration so much failure you don't you want to give up so what I did is to change this approach to this exam so I I I I used to think well I think that while you're learning your English trying to enjoy this MH so everyone say this is a this is horrible so for example for me writing an essay it was the it was my fear mhm because I didn't want to H fail again so in the moment I say I put in my schedule Andre you have to write tomorrow four essays I said four essay sounds horrible but I say okay Andrea maybe one introduction then the overview and it was so much easy and at the end of the day I wrote I don't know four essays per day yeah if you if you say to someone you want to climb a mountain and you look at the top the peak of the mountain you'll never do it but if you just say I want to go you know one mile today and one mile the next day you'll you'll get up there you know yeah and the other thing is um because I was so focused on my writing but I didn't want to write in that moment but what I did was okay and so trying to find another way to learn the English and how you can apply this in your inur studies so I was listening and I was reading and listening different news and I was trying to explain myself if like I was talking to myself um at home your neighbor yeah no yeah if you had a camera on my house you say oh come on this lady is a little bit crazy yeah because I was explaining in front of the of the mirror so I knew that I was working on my idea generation I was working on topics that wasn't feel comfortable so in the moment that I read um a question that I don't know it was religion I think that you because that's was the other thing oh I don't have idea I don't know how to to write so I found that by doing this in the moment that I would have to write it was so much easier mhm so and at the same time I was I don't know learning new Wars I was working on my vocabulary h i felt more confidence in front of someone to explain my my point of view because that was the other thing at the beginning you felt so frustrated because you are not able to express your opinion yeah and it will help you here in Cambridge as well you'll have a much richer life because you'll be able to meet new people and and explain what you mean and your your work will be better and and everything yeah exactly so I said Andrea this is helping you um come on and I know that you don't want to write but I changed my mind say Andre you have to enjoy this otherwise yeah we speak to a lot of people who say I want to move to Canada for example and they're at a band 5 5.5 and we say you should improve your vocabulary I I don't want to do that he's like why do you want to move to Canada like you want to move to Canada and not speak to anybody and not get a job and not do you know this is not only going to help you with your ises preparation but your life in general in your new country um so I think that's one of the the goals if you if you're lacking a motivation is to not just think of it as um a band score on the is test but improving your life in general because your your your communication and skills and and everything will improve yeah of course so for example I I remember that one of my first moments here that I wasn't able I was in a h in a place with many people and I couldn't understand or I couldn't participate in that conversation because or I couldn't understand what they were saying or if I wanted to say something mhm I didn't have the war to express my my opinion so I said and then I change this and in the moment that you start to improve this your vocabulary your your grammar and you are writing because okay you're going to do this and you're going to write because you know that this is your difficult part at the same time you are learning how to be yourself in another language exctly so the worst thing that could happen is that you learned another language exactly wor thing seriously so let's let's talk a little bit about vocabulary so we've talked a lot about the um the mistakes that that that you made and and helping people avoid those um now let's talk about how you got to the to to this level and the scores that you got and one of the things that you mentioned was vocabulary how did vocabulary help you improve your scores and how did you learn new vocabulary how did you w for me vocabulary was one of the main things uh that helped me to improve all the four areas so what I did I remember when I because I bought these books Cambridge Isles um serious 9 to I did 9 to 13 books so when I was doing the the Reading part after I did the the monck I went back and I was checking all the words that I didn't that I didn't know in that moment but because I it's true that you can't in that moment you can't h identify what is the meaning because of the context but I always check if I if I didn't know so for example I don't know I knew what they wanted to say but I wanted to be sure and then from there I learned about the word the different usage of the word so for example it was a noun what is the adjective what is the the verb and how to use it so it's true that each passage after I finish um it took me one hour at L an extra hour just reviewing that and then I was underlining I don't know what is the main idea and after I don't know maybe after each day I had at least 20 words MH to that I didn't know so what I was trying to do is to work h on that vocabulary that I didn't know that in that moment at the end of the day I was making sentences on my own it could be very simple because at the beginning say I I don't know how to use it the the house is green that's it and I and then I was trying to incorporate all those VOC vocabulary on my on my daily routine so for example if I want to express an idea or something and this helped me a lot for example for the listening because there are if you want to find the the answers they're going to tell you a synonym yeah so yeah you were working on that in the Rhythm if you KN if you know a lot of words you don't have to schem or scan just your reading faster because your comprehension is also improving and for the writing you to express your meaning you're able to be more fluent and the speaking OB obvious so I have to say that H working my vocabulary it helped me a lot yeah yeah it it improves absolutely everything and what you did is exactly what you should be doing and a lot of people forget that you need to if you're preparing for the test you're going to be reading every day you're going to be listening every day so you're constantly going to be seeing new words so do what you did which is guess the meaning from context then look the word up and then use the words review them regularly you look at the different forms of the word different synonyms collocations really learn them 100% instead of what most people do is go online try and find a list of Bond nine words there's no such thing you know and it doesn't help you U you have to learn them uh learn the words in context from real English and and review them and then use them yeah yeah exactly otherwise you're you're going to make more mistakes yeah because if you just learned a list of words this doesn't make sense and it improves reading listening speaking writing absolutely everything so did you have a a a notebook like we suggest oh yes no I think yeah a huge notebook M full of new words and everything so then I because I finish that word it doesn't make sense so I start to categorize all the ization is really good for for reviewing and so if I want to talk about education health so I was working that kind of things and then well the idea Generations um at the beginning was hard because say oh yes idea generation how so it's just reading so the thing that I that I did was go to BBC News and go to health education science technology yeah not politics I think like it too boring yeah yeah yeah and you have to try to be to do the most enjoyable enjoyable part of this yeah cuz if you go to any news website you'll see Health news education news technology news Science News what are the common um topics on writing task 2 health education technology science so if you read one of those articles per day you're going to help with your idea generation your vocabulary your idea development your examples absolutely everything example yes of course I'm working on that so and what I did with my idea generation as well I had my notebook is if I if I read something about health um I try to create a debate on my mind and then the different point of view even when it wasn't my point of view because critical thinking you know seeing the other side of an argument and appreciating what other people would would say about your argument and all of those things are really important yeah because I didn't know if the in the moment of the of the exam I have to contrast my ideas M so and you obviously you felt more comfortable talking about what you believe exactly but if you work in also what other people believe in the moment that you have to write about that you don't you are not going to have any problem so it's hard it's hard it take so I remember it took took me time every day I was studying hard because um I was also learning about different things yeah so I I said I remember I thought Andrea it's not just exam it's just also about learning new vocabulary the yeah when learning about the world the world yeah yeah yeah yeah I didn't have too much time it's yeah know to be honest it's a great thing because for me in my case I say I'm there because before I was studying medicine and the only thing that I read was medicine and now now you're more well yeah so I have no you have to look at this as a positive excellent excellent and I let's so that's 25% of your marks in speaking and writing are going to be vocabulary another 25% are going to be grammar how did you get over the the grammar gram yeah the grammar for me was so it was a ner because um I've never have never studied grammar before in my life so never I I was able to talk but I knew that I was talking in present or in past and I didn't know anything so what I did was um I WR my grammar books and I was studying each unit doing the exercises it wasn't so hard it was it was hard and slow because I didn't have a teacher who because sometime when someone explain a particular chapter you you are able to understand because I don't know the that the teacher told you something and you is more easy to remember that and so I was working that every day every day I think that I study 1 hour of grammar 1 hour so I did my one chapter of my of my book some exercises reviewing that going back so it was part of my MH otherwise I couldn't improve and what would you say to someone who let's say they they don't even know that they're struggling with grammar um or they know they have a problem with grammar but they don't know how to fix it apart from studying grammar what would you be your biggest piece of advice for them the thing is um if they don't know that they are strugling with grammar um I think that the best exercises is to do is to try to express something MH to someone could be so is say can you describe me this and what did you do yesterday so if you are struggling with that if because you need um a help you need help in your in your gramar and your structure of this so find a professional help I think because it will you can do it alone but it take your time and you you don't know if you're doing well yeah I'm I'm not saying this because I want people to join our course or or give me money um I'm saying this because if you don't get professional help with your grammar you will have no idea the mistakes that you're making and the analogy I always use is if my car breaks down I don't know anything about fixing a car I bring it to I bring it to a mechanic if my little boy was sick I wouldn't go on to YouTube and look up you know his symptoms on on YouTube I would bring him to a doctor because the why do we hire experts because they know a lot more than us and they're able to immediately identify the problems um and for most people doing the test that are like at about a six or so it's not that they're all of their grammar is terrible it's because one or two or three areas they make small mistakes or they have fossilized errors like you it was prepositions for a lot of our our other students it is articles for other students it's punctuation so a professional will be able to just I can look at your writing and within 30 seconds say you have a problem with this this and this you need to work on that you know yeah no no it's true it's true that the grammar it will help you for example for your speaking so you study everything but you're not going to use the whole grammar on your essay but if you don't know what are you doing wrong yeah you you're never going to obtain the score that you wanted yeah so it's the best the thing when I received my first feedback and I realized that I was making this mistakes and I said and you have to work that and I when I was producing each sentence I was double checking this H mistakes so I say okay it makes sense ver agreement subject things is not Spanish grammar okay go so it was the thing that I help it helped me a lot M no it it really does help and um what I'd also say about grammar is don't get too frustrated with it cuz it can be little rules H cuz I know how frustrating it can be for students who are like ah but the rest of the sentence is fine you know there's just one tiny article or one tiny preposition or or a comma and it gets very frustrating but the thing to remember is let's say articles and prepositions are your two main weaknesses they're in every sentence so if you're making mistakes in every sentence then you're you can't get over a seven because to get over a seven for grammar most of your sentences need to have no errors whatsoever and then if every sentence has a mistake it also affects your coherence because it's more difficult to read uh so you know you a lot of students get frustrated because they say yeah but my structure is good and my vocabulary is good and I answered the question and it's just articles or it's just prepositions it's like yeah I know but you still need to fix yeah it happened to me and I say oh but it's just one a few proposition but then I was felt relieved like because I thought Anda it's just preposition yeah so it's not like your grammar is so that no one's can understand that what you are saying it's just proposition so just work on that so it's easier and you you told us you're going for a a job interview here in Cambridge um in a few days if you went into the job interview and every sentence had a grammatical error in it they might give you the job but they might give it to someone else because they say you know well she might have a problem communicating with colleagues or she might be writing a very important medical report and make lots of mistakes you know so hopefully it does help you with that as well yeah yeah no of course of course I am and this is another type of motivation so I said and this is part you are going to do this in your future so you don't want to be misunderstood and have horrible mistakes and so learn about this the best that you can do it so it's I think it's you have to find what is your purpose yeah of why why you are doing this yeah and then work on that and but trying to V visualize visualize yourself um each day so I'm going to do this because if you're not doing nothing each day you're going to feel frustrated at the end of the week and say I know I have I haven't done anything so I said come on but you have to work one thing we do in in our company is we do something called plan tomorrow today where we force everyone who we don't force them we we ask them uh to um before they finish work the last thing that they need to do is they need to plan what they're going to do the next day put it in their calendar and then they send it to me um just small things like that mean that you you wake up the next day and you're like okay I have to do this essay read this thing work on my vocabulary and then you'll do it you know but if you wake up and you're like oh I can't do this anymore and then you watch TV and then you you know you're like oh I'll go for a walk and then you like come back oh and then you you get to the end of the day and you don't do anything exactly yeah it's something that you have well I set my goals the night before yeah exactly so and I was even if you feel tired even if you just do it takes 5 minutes and makes a big and I said and I remember I said okay I'm going to start with the most difficult for me it wasn't frighting I'm going to do it yeah start with the most difficult the most difficult because that yeah I and I did the other way around ah yes I'm going to do the listening I'm going to read some news I'm going to talk to myself and then when I was the time to write say oh I'm so tired oh I've been working so hard maybe tomorrow so yeah there's a book called eat the Frog I think it is but it's like eat the Frog means that you do the mo you do the the thing that you hate the first thing in the morning when you have the most energy the most motivation because your motivation will go down throughout the rest of the day so you know and when you first start the thing that you are struggling with the most focus on that because once you turn those weaknesses into strengths everything becomes much easier and and yeah it's true I remember I finished my essays in the the first H things in the morning and I remember in between I have okay you are going to do some exercises and that was cand if you finish all those essays and then you read and you practice this you're going to do exercises and then you can do whatever you want so and then you're going to review and and work on your feedback and that's thing working on your feedback is was so much easier than producing an essay exactly exactly yeah I think that's something that even our our other VIP students struggle with where they'll do the course they'll submit the writing and we'll send them like four or five pages of feedback they'll say something like so where am I going wrong it's like you have to look at we told you exactly what you're doing wrong and then they say what do I do now it's like fix those things work on those things um and that's where you see the biggest Improvement just doing essay after essay after essay after essay is a complete waste of time if it's better to do one essay and take action on the feedback than it is to do 100 practice essays and don't do anything cuz you just make the same mistakes over and over and over and over again so and I that's difficult for people to understand because they they hear things like practice makes perfect practice does not make perfect no no in this case even when I did that I don't know how many pages I I wrote practicing my essays but I remember one successful story in the Facebook group from one guy that he I don't know he he obtained an amazing score in the in the writing part and one thing that I remember was that he said that he only submit submitted three essays y a lot there's no correlation between the number of essays that people submit and their success normally the people that are most successful don't actually submit that many essays um so a lot of people don't join our course because they say oh you only correct five essays you only correct 10 essays and we explain this is on purpose because we want want you to think about the feedback and take action on the feedback and you can always buy more if you want to buy more if you want to do 100 you can do 100 but we would recommend that you don't do 100 you only do five or 10 or 15 however many it takes because the the story I always tell is I had a friend who he grew up on a farm so his dad had an old car and said just to let him drive around and he was driving from he was like eight or N9 years old and then he went to do his driving test and he failed over and over and over again even though he had been driving for 10 years because he had picked up such bad habits so he had practice for thousands of hours but couldn't couldn't drive on the roads because so just practicing is not the Key Practice get feedback think about the feedback take action on the feedback and then that's where the learning comes in yeah it's true it's true and be patient patient because this is the another thing that we we think that after we finish to to look at the models and study the models and prancy everything that it could be instantaneously that we are going to be able to to produce an perfect essay yeah I can't watch Messi or Ronaldo play football and then go ahead and and play for Barcelona you know it's just the first step you know watching a video is just the like that's why I get frustrated when I see videos on on YouTube that say you know what watch this video and you'll magically get a band like no it's not going to happen it's not going to happen it is the first step but this you know it's watch the video then do the thing in the video then get feedback and take action so that's was good so one of the things that I made in my notes about you was that you struggled with time management but did we I give you time management tips or how did you solve that that problem cuz what cuz tell people what what you were doing when you when you got a band five in writing what what was happening with time management well obviously well what happened when I was producing an essay Al in the in the band five that I didn't know how to write so my level of English wasn't so good and I obviously to produce 250 words it was a nightmare MH so H it's true that I also made that mistake I said going know how can I improve my time mean blah blah blah no I realized that after I got better on my grammar and how to produce to organize myself the only thing that I was aware is about the clock and the timing just to be sure that you are writing on time but H I didn't have any tips for time management is this become better when I was better and doing that and it was the same with the Reading part so you in the moment that you read faster and you can H understand and everything that you're reading you don't need time so and you're not going to struggle with that on the moment that you get better it sounds horrible it sounds horrible but because I was I was looking for that tip but because everyone wants the easy way I always say if if I could give you the easy way I would give it to you and there are some things on the course that are little tips and that that are you know little shortcuts but 9 9% of the things that we teach are the opposite of tips and shortcuts and the story I always tell about time management is if you look at us saying Bolt running the 100 m is he faster than everyone else because he went and looked for time management tips no he's better at running he's faster at running so the way to become to improve your time management for reading is become better at reading for writing become better at writing for listening become better at listening whichs very simple but when people hear me say that they think they oh that's obvious that's simple like no what you're really saying is you understand that that's going to take work and you don't want to do the work you want me to give you top 10 magic super because that's what you are looking for because that's you want to save time you know ironically by saving time you're going to win you mess up your time on the only tip that I remember about uh time management that I I found very useful it was for the Reading part I found this girl that she was saying that she trying to do the passage the first passage in 15 minutes 15 and the second 20 and the third 25 cuz it gets more difficult as you go as you go through a big mistake people make is they um they think that oh I'll spend 2 minutes on each question like no no no no no like or one minute on on the you know do do the first part as quickly as you can and that will give you more time to focus on the more the more difficult stuff so we've talked a lot about the different mistakes that you can make and we've talked a lot about your advice to students in different areas let's finish up by talking about if if your brother or sister or some a family member or your best friend was doing the test any other advice that you would you would give them apart from the things we've talked about already and um well the the main advice I will say to someone is to set what is your purpose so why you are doing this and trying to remain H honest and realistic about your current situation and your level of English that you are you're not going to be as good as you wish but you can work on that and in order to improve and please find professional expertise because otherwise you're going to spend a lot of money and you're going to waste time and it's better to find a good place and follow certain structures rather than I don't know doing that your on your own and don't be successful in the time that you wanted M and when you you talked about purpose um what did you think about when you when you thought about what why am I doing this test what kept you motivated well the thing is H my main motivation was to work in in England but that was like a too big so too wide goal so then I narrowed this goal and said Andrea my main purpose was to be able to express my my ideas in English MH so that was my my my main idea so and then I knew that by doing that I will improve and I will obain my score so and then I will obtain my my job here but I was trying to put that more realistic and more useful in the future that I knew that okay I'm going to use my my vocabulary in order to communicate with other people the the students that I've worked with that that have done the most work and made the most progress normally they have two purposes two main motivations one is internal so they are trying to improve themselves in some way either by and like you said improving their their communication skills or often it's because they know that once they get the score they'll be able to do a job that will help them grow as a as a person and it will make them much happier and they'll be more fulfilled or someone like you who you'll be working on on breast cancer and lung cancer and and and that is a huge motivation um the other motivation and I think this is the most powerful one is they think of things bigger than themselves so for example for me the reason why I'm very motivated is because I think of my wife and my son and and that keeps me going and I work very hard often I will hear people talking about that um they want to do it for their family or for other people um or like you they want to go and do a job a nurse or a doctor or an engineer with that will help a Hu huge number of people so whenever you feel a little bit darn or demotivated try and think of something bigger than yourself and and because it is difficult everything is difficult but like anything the more difficult it is the bigger the the the achievement and yeah and the the way that you're going to feel and the moment that you obtain your score is unbelievable that moment guys is it's Priceless yeah Fridays are always the best day for us because we we look in the in the Facebook group and we see I I got this score I got this score I got this score and that that that's really motivating for us and you you talked also about being honest with yourself that is so important is a lot of people the people that are most I'm not being very fluent here very coherent the the the people who are easiest to lie to are ourselves and so a lot of people will say things like I don't have time it's like you have 24 hours in a day you chose to do something else or they'll say this is just too difficult or or they'll say things like um it's not my fault it's the teacher fault or it is the Test's fault or it is whoever's fault that you need to take responsibility for your own development and your own performance and if you have that very humble attitude then you're going to do very well and we have that attitude in our in our team as well we always look for people on our team who are very humble because we don't want people running around say saying blaming everybody else and never wanting to get better we want to work with people and we want to work with students who just are always how can I get better and and it's my responsibility so that I think purpose and humility and being honest with yourself are really really important so that's great that's great advice if people just did those two things they would be able to work very hard over a long period of time and they would constantly improve because they are always thinking how can I get better so that's that's great advice so before we finish any last last minute things that you would you would tell people well the most important thing is that you have to believe in yourself MH and you have to work on whatever you want you you need to work because you are going to be able to achieve your score the things work every day a little bit yeah a little bit and then at the end of the month at the end of that week you will be better better than in the beginning so do that and you're going to obtain your score thank you so much Andre it was really really helpful for the people watching and the reason why we do these is there's a lot of confusing and conflicting information out there um and and people don't know where to turn or who to believe so someone like you who has gone from really struggling and and doing the test over and over to getting a band eight overall you know moving from a band five to a band seven and writing is unbelievable so thank you so much hi everyone Chris here from is advantage and today we have another success story and we have Vias who amazingly got a band 8.5 overall which I was just saying to him is is higher than a lot of native English speakers and even uh I teachers he got an amazing ban nine in reading and nine in listening uh he got eight in speaking and 7.5 in writing is that all correct correct Y correct he's kindly H decided to share his story with you guys so that you can learn from him get some advice from him and then you can improve your scores so figas can you just start off by introducing yourself to everyone sure yeah hi uh my name is vikas and uh like currently I'm working I was working as a product analyst in a company called Bloom Global I was in the US for the past four years and then I decided that I wanted to move to Canada so I left my job in the US and then moved back to India and then started my preparation for IL and finally I took my is exam on August 7th and I got a a very good score of 8.5 overall excellent well done congratulations again it's a lot of hard work to get to that stage so well done thank you so can you tell us a little bit about your I Journey so like how many times did you do the test what scores were you getting those type of things sure uh actually the official test the final test I took it just once so this is uh but uh before that I took some of like few mock tests like two or three of mock test and in all of them I was getting a overall score of like 7.5 or eight um but I was uh not getting good scores in speaking and writing exams the reason was like I was not doing good in task achievements or anything but uh my scores in listening and reading were always varying like I was always getting either eight or 8 and it was always weing uh the main reason I think was because uh I was I was having Pudo confidence in my listening and reading abilities so I was not practicing to the right uh what you say to my potential so what I was doing initially was I was just uh going on YouTube and then looking for test and then I was just practicing and like was following practice makes perfect kind of thing so I was just doing that and instead of correcting my mistakes I was just practicing again and again again so and after I watched your videos I learned about like what we should do instead of practicing a lot we should just take in um a few exams and then uh work on our uh what you say um our shortcomings or what all mistakes we are doing I just started working on my weaknesses and then I got better at it yeah like you're you work in um software development and product development it's just like debugging you know you you you create a product and it's going to have a bunch of bugs because that's normal and when you're learning a language you're going to make lots of mistakes and when you're doing the is test lots of mistakes but the key thing is just like any good developer is to focus on debugging and yeah why did you make that mistake and really thinking about why that was and then addressing that so when you were going through our method for improving you're reading and you're listening what were the the bugs the the mistakes that that you you you seen so with the listening the issue that I had was uh I instead of writing the same words that were spoken in the Audio I was using like synonyms of it or writing some meanings of it so I concentrated on like listening to the actual word and then writing down the same thing and other thing was like plurals like I was not like if the word was newspapers I was uh instead of writing it as newspapers I was writing as a newspaper and this was having a lot of grammatical issues like I was having such issues so I tried to concentrate on those things in like listening and one more thing was like different question types of different strategies like you put in your videos so I was not following them like uh whenever I used to watch the Youtube videos I just used to practice them and then I never used to understand like what where I was lacking in the listening uh section so my most like uh the most problematic section was for me in was uh the maps and also the section four of listening because it's 10 question and they they don't give any gaps between the the questions so I tried to uh improve myself on on those sections and then I got better score in listening and in the reading I was like I was trying to read the entire passage before going into the questions so because of this the time like I was short on time and then I couldn't concentrate on everything so what I like after watching your videos what I learned was like I just had two strategies for different types of questions so for any questions like matching the headings or matching information I first went to the passage and then not on my keywords and also like came up with my own headings and then I answered the question and for the rest of them I just went with the question and then noted down the keywords and then went to the uh passage yeah excellent so if we go back just go back to listening a little bit when you said that um you spotted two key mistakes one was using synonyms instead of the actual word and one of them was a problem with plural nouns and and things like that and I think I think that that's a really great thing to highlight because it shows that there was no problem with your listening skills there was no problem with your English there was no problem with with you your intelligence or anything like that it was just silly little mistakes that you were making and I think that that's why you know practice doesn't make perfect because if you just kept practicing and you kept making those mistakes and not spending the time to really analyze your mistakes and and figure out what the bugs were and remove those then I know that takes you know one day two days to figure that out even less whereas if you just tried to practice your way to a band nine it would take you know years and so I think you know hard work is important but working smart as well is also you know very important as you probably know from from your career as well and then you also mentioned um the different question types and having different strategies for those question types again I think that that's again nothing to do with your listening skills or your English level or anything like that just being a little bit more strategic and aware of the different types of questions and then having strategies for them and it also reduces the stress a lot because you know what's coming and you know okay this is a Maps question step one do this step two do this step three do that is would you agree with that yes I do like that's the same thing that I did as well like after practicing all your strategies like it became really easy for me during the exam like I knew what is going to come next and then I was able to be prepared better and then answer it properly and then concentrate on the right answer like well I'm listening to the the audio and then the last question section four is always the most difficult and anyone who's having problems with that the last section of both um listening and reading are the most difficult and it gets the this the first questions are the easiest and then it gets more and more and more difficult and that's really the last part is to separate out the band nines and 8.5s and eights and eight eights and 7.5 and seven so if you're struggling with the last part um it's probably because you're not at that that level that you need to be and you need to focus on your listening skills your grammar your vocabulary things things like that she add the same issue like was always having trouble concentrating on the last part like when it came to the last one like I was like oh yeah this is the end of the exam so I was coming more relaxed so what I kept in my mind is like till the or the what the speaker tells this is the end of the speaking test or the sorry the listening test was not going to stop concentrating so that helped me a lot like in the last part yeah and it's your you think of your brain as a muscle and if you were let's say you are very unfit like at the moment I can only run I'm going for a run after this and I can only run like 5K at the minute so think of that as like focusing on your listening for five minutes well how does a runner get from 5K to 6K well they they push themselves out of their comfort zone and do a little bit more and then you're 7K then 8K then 9k then 10K so exactly the same principle with listening try and focus completely for one minute and then two and then three and build build it up because it is just like your brain isn't a muscle I know I'm aware of that I'm not that stupid but um it does feel like that sometimes when you're trying to even things like meditation can help as well um you know or or reading can help as well just doing things that like one thing that's quite surprising when you do this with with other I've did this with a lot of students is say just read in English for one minute and don't think about anything else just read and a lot of people can't do it in the same way that a lot of people can't run 5k or 10K it's not because they're bad people or there's anything wrong with them they just have never done it before and and you need to keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone would you would you agree with that yeah like you said like the Reading part right so I was I mean I did not like uh it did not come out of the blue like I not become an expert in reading or listening just overnight so I was like reading novels since I was in my 10th standard and then it has become a habit for me so I keep reading books and then I like note down the words and then learn new words through it so and also listening but like I used to watch a lot of movies so this has helped me like without subtitle so that's that helps a lot so that um you try to listen and then you understand the what do you say the accents of people and then also the way they speak so it's it really helps yeah it's a gradual process yeah like PE people watching this video might think oh Vic's got a bond nine and I'm currently at a bond six so I'll just follow what what Vic has told me and I'll get a b nine the stuff in this video is going to help you improve but a lot of the hard work Vic is did Years Ago by reading regularly in English listening to English regularly and most people watching this don't need a bound nine they need a band seven or maybe a band eight um for listening and and you need to put the hard work in now and it doesn't need to be hard work if you make it a habit so get in the habit of you know even reading the news or a comic book or a newspaper article or a novel whatever you're interested in read that for five minutes 10 minutes each day or listen to a podcast for five minutes 10 minutes each day about something you love or or you're interested in um because if you don't do that if you just listen to boring a stuff then you're never going to do it regularly because you'll hate it um did do do you listen to podcasts and read stuff that you're interested in Just For Pleasure uh so I not listen to podcast but I used to watch a lot of movies as I said like movies and TV series were my uh like what I was interested in so I just used to watch them uh podcast yeah I was never interested in but Reading part was always there like I always read a book so whenever I finish I just buy a new book and then keep reading it's a constant thing so that has helped me a lot with reading yeah excellent I've never met a ban n student who who didn't have a very healthy habit of consuming English every day by reading and listening and also producing English every day through uh writing and speaking even if it's just five minutes 10 minutes um so that could be in your job interacting with your colleagues or it could be you know I've I've met B speaking students who was like how did you get so good at speaking and I know one guy from Mexico and he has um like a like the most amazing accent like not a hint of of of Mexican you'd think he's from like U Ireland or or the UK and he does it through computer games he's been playing computer games online his his whole life and has been chatting to people in English and he's like oh really am I good at English he like you're you're amazing because he loves computer games he doesn't see that as hard work or or anything like that so yeah find something you enjoy doing in English and do that a little bit every day and and you'll uh you'll you'll and even if it's just watching movies you know that's that's good too yeah I agree with the speaking part because like uh before I moved to the US I had very difficulty in like speaking because even though I knew English but I was not confident enough to speak in English so when I went there when I started speaking with people people it help me a lot so practice makes perfect but it it's not just practicing the exam it's practicing English for your life so yeah you know and and and I think that's what a what a lot of people don't get about the ILS test is it's an English test so your English needs to be at the level you know there's no magic way of getting getting there but you it's also a a specific test so if you combine a high level of English with test taking strategies and all of these things that you're you're learning then that's where you get the bad nines and the bad 8.5s that that um someone like you can get you know so congratulations um so we've talked a lot about listening and reading um do you want to give some advice to people about speaking or writing because you got a really high score in speaking and writing as well um if you were giving advice to you know yourself 12 months ago um what advice would you give for speaking and writing okay sure so for both both the parts the one thing that I would say is start practicing early on like what I did the mistake like I started practicing from may like uh I started like I decided to take the exam in May so from the May month of May I was just practicing listening and reading every day like for one hour and then I never concentrated on listening or sorry speaking or writing so at the end like in the month of July or something I got I got serious about uh doing the the writing and the speaking part so that's when I joined your course as well so yeah that's one thing so start practicing early on and the second thing is know your weakness in both the parts because when I started writing I mean I never wrote anything like I never practiced it I just used to watch videos on YouTube and then see what all mistakes they make and how I can uh write something very similar yeah but instead of that uh take a mock exam or take your correction like service and then get the feedback on get feedback on what your what you have returned so this helps you to like find out the weakness and then you can improve on that one yeah so that's the same thing for writing and speaking as well there's a huge difference between um learning on YouTube and getting your individual weaknesses assessed by a real expert you know YouTube don't get me wrong there's some great YouTube channels out there that will familiarize yourself with familiarize you with what you need to do but you know it's like you're a you work in software development you can't really go on to YouTube and watch lots of YouTube videos on how to become a better coder and then just go and do it you know you you need someone looking at your code and telling you what's wrong with it um in the same way with your writing and your speaking um the difference between reading and listening and writing and speaking is you're producing language when you are speaking and writing so you need someone to look at that production that product and say this is great keep doing this that's wrong change this and and and it's it's a simple process but not a lot of people follow it and again I think it's because a lot of people think that you just go on to YouTube and watch lots of videos and then when to get the score that you need which is not true I don't think true I mean like you can learn a lot of strategies by watching such videos but unless you get the feedback you won't be able to improve on yourself yeah oh and and it's a shortcut as well um we don't teach short Cuts or hacks or things like that but um it is a massive shortcut in terms of time and if you get your weaknesses assessed because then you know what to focus on you know we we teach IELTS in the same way that a doctor would treat a patient or a mechanic would fix a car or a dentist would fix your teeth okay what's the problem that's what's the root cause of the problem and identify that and fix that that is that is the most efficient way it's not easy but it's very efficient you know yeah that's the one thing that I liked about your course like the main point that you say is Clarity is King right so like whenever I was watching YouTube videos they give a lot of strategies but uh they never tell us like the purpose for which I'm writing or the purpose for which I'm speaking during the exam so that is one thing that I learned from your course and then that made it like it made it really easy yeah for anyone watching I'll share that with with you from the course what is the purpose of writing what is the purpose purpose of speaking it is not to show off how amazing your vocabulary is how many grammar T and tenses and structures you know how many words you've memorized it is to clearly communicate with someone why do you send a text message why do you send an email why do you write a book it is to take the things in your head and clearly communicate them so if you you could forget about 95% of all the strategies and tips and tricks and just focus on on that just focus on clear communication and it won't only help you in the ISS it'll help you in your jobs as well like like I run a company with you know nearly 40 people working for me now and once 40 people all start talking together if one of them has poor communication skills then it's really bad so it's so you know we preach that to our our our team as well and just be super clear and simple with communication and and that's much better better than you know memorizing a bunch of nonsense and putting it on the paper I me that would be one of the like one advice that I would give to anyone like uh if you're learning for is don't learn for the exam like don't prepare for the exam prepare for like learning English for your life like for the betterment of your life exactly same with like the the vocabulary Improvement plan that we put together um a lot of people look at that and they're like oh this is going to take a long time it's like but if you want to move to Canada or Australia or UK you're going to need a wide ranging vocabulary because you want to live there you know you don't you don't want to move there and just sit in your bedroom and and be like oh I don't want you know you want to go and and you and your family can have a much richer life and and being able to clearly communicate and understand people what's going on that really really helps and I think that's also a really good point for motivation because a lot of people are like I don't want to do this I nonsense you know it's it's boring it's it's tough don't think about that think about how much better your life is going to be for you and your family and and how you know if you're materialistic how much more money you're going to earn you know all those different things and that really helps you with motivation you know true yeah I mean that was the main difference for me like I Was preparing for my toel like four years back and I was like when I been to us to study so I Was preparing for my tol and then I just prepared for the exam so it was not that good like I did not do good at my speaking section or the writing section but in while preparing for is I prepared in order to get better at my English so it helped me a lot yeah know it it's it not only helps some motivation helps your score but just just makes everything much easier if you think one step ahead and improving your your general English and your boss and your team leaders and you're you're the people working under you and with you they will thank you for it as well because you'll be a much better colleague to work with if you can clearly communicate so thank you so much Vias I really appreciate you helping everybody you gave some great advice um and I wish you the best of luck in the future if you need any help in the future myself and my team are more than happy to to help you in any any way we can so stay in touch if if you need anything because yeah thank you very much Chris hi everyone Chris here from I advantage.com with another success story so we have nav jot and she's going to share her success with you guys so that you can learn from her so nav can you introduce yourself to everyone please um my name is n and I am working as a lecturer in mathematics since 2012 and I wanted to migrate to Canada on a permanent resident basis so I needed um clb n which is lening G and of 37 so I was quite desperate to get this score but um this has become only possible because of V course so this is the all information I can tell about about myself so before you joined our course what were you struggling with what did you find difficult um about the ILS test uh I was Finding difficult the uh the writing part because uh I had appeared three times before my this successful attempt and um even though I was thinking that my attempt was perfect and I was uh uh I was thinking that I I I I am I able to get a seven at least a seven but uh it was not possible even if I thought I have written very well so first of all I it take it took a long time to make to make my mind that um it is not the fault of Pilots it is the fault of students because I have listened from a lot of people that they are doing it intentionally and uh they are not going to give you a seven so it uh my last attempt was in 10th on 10th February and then uh I had almost given up so but this was the only portion that because I was getting uh quite higher score in listening reading and and a seven in so this was the only portion that I was struggling with mhm and what where what score did you get before and what score in writing did you get after I scored 6.5 always always 11 how many you three three times you got 6.5 three times yes sir and then after we helped you what score did you get uh s after we have helped you after you joined the course what score did you get in in writing I got 7.5 congratulations thank you so so so that's a very common problem for a lot of people a lot of people are stuck at 6.5 and they need seven or 7.5 in the writing test so let's talk about that and let's talk about the differences between what changed from when you were getting 6.5 to when you got 7.5 what what did you do differently uh firstly when I was taking uh classes from the uh teachers I I joined three different teachers in a quite big city in my state uh they were not telling about the different type of essays uh it was um uh it was like they were they are saying that uh we have to answer the question in a similar way whether it is a discussion essay or it is an opinion essay that then we can make an opinion essay a discussion one this was the biggest mistake I have done in the previous attempts so this time things were more clearer because I knew what I have to do in the exam everything was crystal clear in front of me because I knew there are five type of essays as you told and there are different approaches to to attempt all these questions so I was quite confident this time that I will get I will certainly get my score in the writing section yes and apart from understanding the different types of questions and having a different approach was there anything else that you think made a big difference in in changing your writing from 6.5 to 7.5 keeping the things simple yes yes because I was making everything complicated because um I don't think whose fault is this but uh by default we are thinking that we have to write quite complicated vocabulary and we have to um uh we have to use a typical type of sentences that is not the main thing because we have to convey our ideas and me and our opinion to The Examiner or whoever is reading then this is the main thing uh I think it can take a long time for everybody to understand that this is the main thing we we cannot use any random words which we have learned from uh random sources so I think if everybody can understand it but I think lot of things I think this is about uh I think we've done over 30 videos now with with VIP students and every single student has said yeah keep it simple that's the thing that that helped me more than anything and it's it's a thing that is very difficult to to to explain to someone because when you fail a test what you think is automatically naturally you think oh I have to do things in a more complex way or a more complicated way so when you tell a student the opposite of that then they find it very difficult to to accept it and especially there it's the opposite to what a lot of other teachers are telling telling them which is you know use complicated grammar and vocabulary and then you'll get the score you need which you know is not true so if if someone like you who imagine you were talking to a group of other students and they were like you they kept getting 6.5 what advice would you would you give them uh first of all I will advise them that uh making a plan is compulsory in the writing because uh in my previous attempts I I was not willing to waste my 8 to 10 minutes on planning but this time uh even in practing when I was practicing my writing and in the exam as well I spent around 8 minutes to to plan but and uh surprisingly in the last 40th minute I completed my writing writing task because I I always attempt my essay first and L letter in the last 20 minutes it was amazing to see that it worked quite well because uh the the a couple of minutes spent earlier are worth it because it is a very important to plan MH it's it's an investment of time is how I always describe it's because a lot of people think of it as wasting time it's like no it's it's investing the time so that you you won't be wasting time when you're writing um so that that's excellent advice anything else you would say to them join the course apart from that apart from that yeah from that um I'm putting you on the spot now I think those I think those three things that you said would make a huge difference to a lot of people so you know approaching each question individually and having an individual approach to each question keeping it simple especially when it comes to you know clearly communicating with the examiner clearly answering the question rather than trying to use fancy vocabulary and grammar and and planning planning and time management also um investing the time to plan out your answer which will lead to a much clearer answer fewer mistakes and you'll get it all done on time so I think yeah Sor sorry for kid are putting you on the spot and I know you're not an i teacher um yes you're very welcome so what will you be able to do now in the future that you've got your scores uh I am now and eligible for the express entry because uh I was getting a quite low score in the process and uh at present I have boosted my score by 60 points which has made a huge difference and U I think I will be able to move to my dream Country Canada within six months EXC excellent which I had um uh before this exam on 12th of May I because I had lost all the hopes and uh I was uh I was still hoping to move to Canada but I had changed my plans and I was thinking to move as a student because I just but but that that was quite difficult path for me because uh it will take around four to 5 years to get all the things which I can do with this score now yeah so this has made a huge difference in my life and my family when I I was talking to a lot of students today and they and they were saying to me you know oh it's I I don't have enough time to to do what you want me to do or I I don't have enough money to do what I want you to do and I I was explaining it to them that if you think about it you're investing this time you're investing this money but it's going to save you so much time and save you so much hustle in the future future um you know invest there a lot of uh there are a lot of people who are uh U trying again and again by thinking that luck will get them get to them soon and they will get a s suddenly but I know this will not work because uh I I had uh tried three different approaches in my writing in my previous three attempts and I was not able to get 7 to 10 uh then I thought there there is something wrong with my writing so I have I I need an expert advice so I I I said it's not the fault of el it's the fault of our I think a lot of people who are failing over and over again I was speaking to one guy yesterday and we were talking about whether he could join the course and on the call he was saying uh he was blaming IELTS he was blaming the examiners was blaming everybody and I said listen you're you you you're not welcome on our course and he said why I said because you you won't accept that it's your fault it's your fault that that you're getting those scores and blaming everybody else is only going to lead to further failure but it's when you accept that okay it's my my responsibility to get the help that I need and my responsibility to do the work and to improve then every single time we see students moving up and getting the scores that they need but I I see students every single day um that aren't members of our course that are maybe you know in in on our Facebook page or things like that just blaming everybody except themselves like never never actually saying oh maybe I just didn't find the right teacher or didn't find the right approach or you know or didn't work hard enough and I think accepting that is a big big big step not just for I but for pretty much anything you know if you blame other people for your problems then you know it doesn't normally lead to success so thank you very much for sharing that with everybody and I wish you all the best of luck in in Canada you're you're going to be a a mathematics lecturer yes sir EXC yeah excellent all right so thank you very much and I'll see you again soon bye bye hi everyone Chris here from is Advantage with another success story so today we have asok from our VIP course Ashok can you introduce yourself to everyone uh my name is Ashok Davi I'm a dental surgeon and I'm from India great and can you tell everyone a little bit about your experience with I and what did how many times did you do the test what scores did you get what did you struggle with things like that chrish uh it was basically a long journey it took around one and a half year to reach this score uh you don't believe uh my first score was uh 5.5 band overall but uh I just wanted to achieve my score at any cost because I wanted to move to uh Canada so that is why I worked hard and uh right now my my score is uh eight in listening eight in Reading seven in speaking and seven in writing so from 5.5 overall to 7.5 overall yes that's amazing amazing that is a huge jump even in a in a year and a half that requires a huge amount of work and effort so you know congratulations on that and so can you um share your journey with people a little bit like to go from 5.5 to 7.5 in a year and a half is is a massive achievement so how how did you do it sh share that with people initially I didn't know anything about I about uh about this what what test I I every my friends told me that it's just English test so every time I read English that's enough and I also read some initially I also read some sample essays but I never practiced uh means I never wrote essays and I never practiced a lot so uh initially I also uh took up some uh local training course from India but it didn't work after that I got 6.5 so one of my friend he is also dentist he's also your uh he is also a member of pale Academy do you know Manan solanki he is also my friend so we both decided to to enroll your course so after that you don't believe I got three times seven and 7.5 BS in writing so it was the writing was the big hurdle for me initially because I didn't know anything about writing I didn't know the different parts of the different types of the essays so it was the basic uh it was the main uh hurdle for me so after that uh what I did I strongly followed your advice to main ideas then explanation then example uh What uh initially what I did before enrolling your course before taking your course I mostly started writing whenever I uh got my question so I started writing immediately without planning my essay but when you told me strong when you told me that uh I had to plan essays before I write before starting writing so after that I plan I gave at least five minut for writing planning essay and then after I start my writing my ESS secondly you always told that uh read uh read uh newspapers so I was I also prefer to read newspapers so what happened you know after reading newspapers it becomes very easy it became very easy for me to write down the examples so I didn't have to think about uh the examples at the time of writing apart from this it also benefited me in speaking portion because in type three in part three question part three speaking part uh it's quite a typical questions they The Examiner asked some typical questions so it became very easy for me to answer all this uh part three questions so that is why I mostly concentrate on reading newspapers so I downloaded the the guardian the Hindu so at least uh I gave uh one and one one and a half hour to read newspapers every day and every day wow and and you don't believe chish I wrote more than 300 essays that's a lot yes I didn't correct and and and and I also advise each and every members of the pale Academy as well as other students that never miss Mondays as well as Wednesdays essay classes mhh I uh I canceled my appointments for Wednesday and uh I strongly uh read different students esss so it helped me to uh get all these ideas of different students so at the time of exam I didn't have to worry about the ideas I didn't have to worry about the examples I didn't have to worry about the explanations so all these things there just stuck in my head so it became very easy for me to write essays particularly on exam so there is no there was no room for nervousness MH yeah so when when you were sitting down on test day how did you feel compared to the first time and and the last time how was there a big difference in in how you felt first time uh I didn't know anything about essays different structures of the essays but after enrolling your course uh it became very easy for me initially what happened you know our local trainer always told me uh advised me to write down a heavy vocabulary so-called heavy advanc vocabulary so many ideas without explanation so that is why uh I got around six and 6.5 and mhm but be very careful with with with local trainers some of them are really good most of them aren't you know so it's a shame yes so initially I also believed that I had to use heavy vocabularies and I had to use so many ideas without any explanations without providing uh examples but all these things are very necessary if you want to uh if you want to get a seven or seven uh more than seven bands and secondly uh newspapers also I forgot one thing that newspapers also play a very important role to uh to learn uh grammar because you know grammar is really boring portion but if you really for me it's quite boring whenever I read grammar even though I created a whole grammar course I yeah I didn't enjoy it so when I read newspaper so I I was familiar I was familiar with uh the prepositions and articles so if anyone uh know about the anyone knows about the prepositions and article then they will definitely win this game because you don't have to write down heavy you know active passive voices or conditional sentences in this particular exam the the main aim of this exam is that how you convey how you can convey your message in English simple way so keep it simple read newspaper and uh and third most important thing I would like to share with you is that uh if if you have a good friend who is also preparing for a then discuss with your friend it not help to it is it will not help you to improve your uh English but it also help you to provide so many uh ideas related to uh essay as well as your speaking portion and last uh oh go ahead sorry uh and last thing is that uh many time people always advise that watch BBC but I mostly prefer I mostly advise uh students to watch uh Discovery as well as uh National Geographic channels because uh in reading and listening portion you will get uh same topic in your last sessions so it become very easy for you to predict the answer that's excellent advice it's just you seem to have just surrounded yourself with English and with for for long and work hard and and it's great to hear that because you are an example of someone who has followed the system that that that I that I encourage everyone to to to follow which is not very complicated I mean it's find out what your weaknesses are find those weaknesses into the strengths you know surround yourself with English practice every day work hard you know these things anyone can do these things um and it's great to see someone a shining example of someone who just followed that system blindly and got the scores that they needed you know yes sir sometime you you sometime what during Wednesdays you many times folded me because I mostly prefer to do some experiments with my essays particularly in your class because there is no room in exams so I mostly preferred you you advised me very well I really followed your advice and uh I during T time I can you hear me yes yes yeah all good all good yeah keep going oh so looks like asok has hit the wrong button and um ended our success story a little bit early um but that's all all right um he pretty much said everything that he needed to say um maybe he lost power maybe he lost the internet or something like that um but now that you have me alone and if you look at all of our success stories all the students who were on the VIP course and they pretty much followed the exact same formula and you'll hear all of them talking about you know you keeping it simple simplifying everything using grammar and vocabulary in a way that helps you convey your message and clearly communicate with the reader uh surrounding yourself with English practicing your vocabulary improving your vocabulary every day um reading every day listening every day to English um planning out your answer following a certain structure that we use on the VIP course and all of them um get the scores they need if they follow that system it's really really simple and it's not simple as in you know abc123 you do have to do a certain amount of work but if you're prepared to do the work and get the scores you you will get the scores you need so that's pretty much it I'm talking to myself instead of normally speaking to a student but that's it thanks guys bye-bye hi everyone Chris here from is Advantage with another success story today we have daa who is going to share her success with all you guys so you can learn from her and be successful yourself so daa can you start off just by introducing yourself to everyone yes hello everyone uh like I'm the I'm from Punjab India so I got my score uh listening 98 in Reading seven each in writing and speaking just after the first attempt uh after joining VIP course and I am just over Cloud n right now congratulations again those are amazing score and dream scores for for being able to immigrate to Canada isn't that right yes yeah I waited for a very long time to get this score excellent so you said that you you um you joined the course and then you got the scores you needed the the next time um but was that the first time you had done the test or how long were you preparing for the test can you tell us a little bit about your I Journey Yes actually my It Journey started in February 2018 so it was my sixth attempt uh in the first attempt itself I got 777 7.5 so I was lacking in listening so I got to know that I like a bit of like I was not focused at that point of time and I just gave the test after watching some of the your videos only on YouTube uh but later on my struggle was more kind of with by manage for managing the different modules MH that because I was lacking every time was five band in one or the other module so that was the biggest challenge for me trying to get that consistency in every so score in all to go from a b seven to a b nine and listening is amazing so most people never get a b nine even never native English speakers would struggle to get about so yes in fact in my third attempt I lost in listening only I got 7.5 in listening then eight 7even 7.5 in others that was point in fact one day before the test this time also I was so nervous about listening that I don't want to face that recording again because I'm so afraid of it yeah mean fear and the stress can cause a lot of a lot of problems and things like that and so would you say that your biggest challenges your biggest struggles were consistency or were there any particular things as weaknesses or struggles that you had uh I think in the beginning my struggle was with consistency and focus and with the time as I got to understand about I skills in various modules my writing was quite fine but uh now and after failing a lot of times because I used to think like I failed my struggle was with the mindset okay so when I purchased this VIP course and I first gone through those all the videos of mindset and even every time I was a little bit demotivated I saw your videos mindset course and I just buckle up again yeah I think it's it's so important especially when you're just missing by 0 five it's it's quite easy just to to a lot of people blame themselves and think I'm not enough but our attitude is the opposite of that is okay learn from your mistakes use those to get better and turn your weaknesses into strength so that is not easy that's very difficult it's a difficult most people because most people don't want to hear that and so well done for for having that because I used always used to be we a kind of topper you can say and my family was looking at me like what are you doing you are not you're not able to get the score it's just an English exam say you go do then so now saw your videos like uh we feel like this but uh eventually we have to we can change our mindset when any time we can so uh every time I watched your videos and I got the motivation I needed good so we'll come back to mindset but you talked a lot about Focus especially in regards to listening um and a lot of um Indian students that I speak with h need a band eight or even higher for the the Canadian PR so if you were to give advice to someone who needs to increase their listening score to a band eight or a band nine what advice would you give [Music] them uh in listening I think more most of the people they uh they try to you know they focus more on the words uh they don't make try to make uh the connection what exactly the speaker is trying to say uh in fact I found it very useful that uh the way uh speakers talk in listening uh even by their intonation by the way they speak we get to know many things like okay this can be the answer by the tone itself so instead of just focusing on getting the answer we should relate to them that makes things easier that's excellent advice so instead of focus instead of going very in in in close into the individual words to kind of zoom out a little bit and understand the general sentences the general meaning the intonation and and all of those different things yes and in fact in listening because we always uh we have short time duration uh in between the section so it is very important when to uh make the to make the best use of that time when we have to look at all the questions just to understand quickly and then when to focus on the connected speech when to just eliminate the options which we feel like they are not the answer so this helped in mcqs especially too yeah yeah intonation carries a lot of different meaning like if if for example the let's say um I'm teaching a class and a student comes in late and I say please sit down or I say please sit down like it's exactly the same words and one is very friendly no problem the other one is I'm angry you exactly the same words or if if I come home late to dinner and my wife says that's fine or she says that's fine you know one is I'm getting dinner and one is I'm not getting dinner you know so intonation is is interesting very important and that's I that's what I have understood I have understood how to connect with people by their internations excellent excellent and and let's say um you have a let's imagine you have a friend who is at a band seven in listening and wants to get to a band eight or a band nine what would be the main things that you you would what what what would be the advice that you would give that friend uh uh for the listening part I would say that meditation uh it really helped me excellent because I kind of person who gets a lot of thoughts at a moment so just to say in the present moment was a big challenge for me so I started meditation and after that I would say that we should go strategy question wise in the listening also um that what what is the kind of question and we should practice it strategically so that each type of question yes because I have practiced a lot like in these three years uh if we say practice makes a man perfect it is not just man so much uh in the listening also and my score was not increasing yeah so when I listened to your videos I got to know that we have to fix our problems so I started analyzing my mistakes what kind of mistakes I make it was not of spelling it was not of grammar it was sometimes of uh plural uh singular but most of the times it was like uh I did not know the strategy of the question yeah and I did it wrong yeah if you got two students and one student does 100 practice tests and another student just does five practice tests but that student looks at the five practice tests on all of the mistakes and analyzes the mistakes and then learns from those mistakes the student who does 5% just five tests compared to one who does a 100 will do much much better because it's not about practice practice practice it's about practicing strategically and and that's what I learned uh analyzing my mistakes which I was not able to figure out earlier so that made all the difference it's really interesting what you said about meditation because meditation not only helps with Focus but it can help with stress and it can help with many many other things and so there's there's some great apps you can get like there's one called space c uh with the waking up app I use I I meditate myself um I find it really really does help um but also a good way to think about the listening test and the reading test is that it is a lot about focus and it's to use a different analogy imagine you have to run 10 kilometers but you're not very good at running so you don't try and go from 0 to 10 you go from 0 to 1 kilometer and then 0er to two and then 2 to three and then three to four exactly the same thing with listening you might be able to completely Focus for five minutes then the next day try to focus for seven minutes and then 9 and then 12 and then 15 and and you'll build it up like a muscle and and and I think that that will really help you know and and do a little bit every day try and push yourself a little bit every day and that and that will help with your listening and one more thing uh like in the listening I used to take deep breaths whenever I felt like I'm losing the focus it helped me to get into the present moment and I I thought I I already knew beforehand that in the exam also I'm going to be stuck somewhere in the listening um but I will take deep breaths and I will just go with the listening test I think there's something to learn from from that as well is like focusing on the present moment if we look at that from a higher level a lot of students when they're preparing for the test don't live in the present moment they they look at the past and think I failed the test which means I'm terrible I'm going to fail again and then they look at the future and they fear the future and they're like oh I don't so I think you know meditation living in the present each day just like what what do I have to do to get better today what can I what what little thing can I do to improve and really focusing like what's what's my biggest weakness that I need to work on today do a little bit every day and then don't even think about booking the test in the future don't worry about that just every day try and get better and then one day you be oh I'm ready ready to book book the test and ready to do it whereas I think a lot of students book The Test first and then panic and then they they don't do anything and then they get really upset and stressed out and um so that's why we always say don't book The Test until you're ready to get the score that you need you know all these things have already actually helped me because I was also this kind of student every time in the past I booked my test first and then I started preparation and then there was a one week or two weeks before the test and I was totally nervous like I don't know where I stand now I have to go through it and I just started fearing this exam like and how did you cope with feeling nervous and feeling stressed how did you how did you manage your your stress levels um I when I saw your one of the videos in the mindset course that you have to put work every day and the test day will not be that much stressful so I put in a lot of work I was I got good score in writing also in listening one day before as I mentioned that I was not I knew that I have done a lot of work but still you know I H I had this thing that anything can happen in the exam but I was prepared that this time I will not let anything ruin my exam yeah so I will do my best I don't know what what will happen taking action like if if I I have lots of problems in my business like I run a big business and a business is just basically a bunch of big problems that you have to solve so it's stressful but what I always tell people working here is as soon as you take action on that stressful problem the stress goes away um the what what is most stressful is when you know that you have lots of problems and you don't do anything about them that that's really stressful so for I students what I always say is like okay first of all what are your problems what are your weaknesses and then just systematically go through each of those and attack those and take action and then yes on test day you're like I've done enough work I'm a little bit nervous but not very nervous whereas what most students do is do nothing do very little maybe look at YouTube some um look for some tips and tricks and then on test day they're extremely nervous because they know deep down in their heart that they didn't do anything you know yes and I did not want any any such thing in my mind this time that I would regret I could have done this or I didn't do this so I was prepared I prepared uh question type wise I did a lot of practice test listening was the one module which I never missed doing it so uh yes I was able to do it on the exam day excellent well D thank you so much for sh sharing how you got a band nine in in listening and an amazing band eight in reading and seven and speaking and seven in in writing um and and thank you so much for sharing that with everybody um and do listen to to daa like the basic things fundamental things that that she said such as practicing strategically learning from your mistakes um learning how to focus on on on the test and managing your stress levels like th those things are very very important and but if anybody needs help from us feel free to get in touch with us and we'll be happy to give you any advice that you need daa I wish you all the best of luck in the future and uh if you need anything in the future get in touch with us um any any last minute advice for students I would say to everybody who is selling the same word that don't give up because I was about to give up but I don't know how one of my friends he called me on my birthday last year he told me that you why are you giving you just take it Advantage I got C 10 and then I okay so for my dreams I will do it and I never knew that I will talk to you so soon well thank you so much sta you deserve all all the um success because you worked so hard and put the work in so thank you so much again for sharing everything thank you Susan here I'm part of the academic team as you probably know um and we're here again to record Another success story and to offer our congratulations to Nisha so Nisha could you just introduce yourself and tell the students a little bit about yourself I am Dr nishra Aura and I've been working as a consultant dentist in a private dental college in a small City in northern region of India and um I plan to immigrate to Canada so so I wanted to take this is General training course uh exam so I looked up online and I came across is Advantage course through a video in which a person had failed is exam for six times and when he took this course is Advantage course he could get through the exam so that really motivated me I didn't want to make that kind of a mistake and I wanted to clear the exam in the very first Cod so I took this uh uh uh this uh VIP course I registered myself in the waiting list took this course and and fortunately I was able to crack the exam with high scores in the very first attempt so and you'd never taken you'd never taken I outs before never this was my first attempt uhuh um what score did you need in order to um achieve your desired score the basic score that we need is A7 that is eight in listening and seven in the rest of the part and that is would you like to tell everyone what you achieved okay so uh my score was uh is nine in speaking uh eight sorry 8.5 in uh speaking and nine is in listening nine in reading and seven in writing um so that's that's uh pretty impressive uh scores especially on your first attempt it will now allow you to to migrate to Canada um what did you find most difficult about the I exam when you were preparing was there anything you were particularly worried about yes in reading section I was very very worried about true false not given section I um took a lot of time to grab the actual strategy to attempt this kind of a question and uh in listening section the multiple choice question was something that I was worried about so these two things uh made me a bit nervous but eventually after practicing and uh listening to the tape scripts of uh the listening section I was able to understand the accent the slang used and uh uh where paraphrasing is done so so those things were uh clear to me after listening to the tape scripts that is given in the official Cambridge uh preparation textbook at the back so that was really helpful for me and I was able to understand and was able to get such high score and how did you get on with the the writing part of the course I've scored seven so I'd say um there is a scope of improvement but uh basically um I listened to Chris's videos and he told that there has to be a good structure for the answer you have to think about ideas make a structure and then attempt the question and you have to address the question as it is it's not like you can write everything that comes to your mind no you have to make points then clearly communicate your message precisely shortly using uh good vocabulary and uh um punctuations and synonyms and U sort of keep it simple and accurate accuracy is what he taught us in the videos yes I was just going to say keep it simple I think is the main um the main key for for the writing test try not to make it complicated um and also you have to keep the keep to to the right length because if you write too much you won't have time to check your accuracy so um well done and the speaking were you concerned about the speaking at all uh speaking uh exam was like a roller coaster right for me it was so quick because he kept on asking me questions and I went on answering at that point of time I just I just had one thing in my mind that I have to use use correct vocabulary and communicate my message clearly because if the examiner is not able to comprehend what I'm speaking then there's no point and I think it's all about the comfort zone and how comfortable you are while speaking this language so um that is what I had in my mind and I listened to uh quite a lot of podcasts and stuff like that to you know grab the SL and um try to speak like native speaker uh and I recorded myself the most important thing is I always used to record myself I used to read a question then answer it for like two three minutes and then see what mistakes I was making so that really helped me so that is and then when you were analyzing your speaking did you record the mistakes that you were making to try and avoid them the next time I attempted same question twice or four times with different methods to um really understand what I was lacking in and what what whether I was confident enough to you know appear for the exam so that ways I am a teacher myself so I teach students okay dentist as well as teacher so so you understand where we're coming from exactly so I tried my best and then when the results came through did you get a text message how did you find out what you scored we have a website and uh it quoted that the exam uh result will be out in 13 days so I had an eye on that website like and on the 14th day I clicked for the result early in the morning at 6 o'cl when I woke up and I saw the I was so happy like you know to have a nine in listening and reading was something which I really appreciated yes absolutely fantastic that's 100% yeah um okay so there's going to be um other students watching this just like you watched that video um the first time with the student who'd failed six times they're going to be watching this now um and they're going to be seeing you passing first time and achieving those great results do you have any advice for students who are in the middle of their at the beginning in the middle towards the end of their ey outs Journey first section is the listening part and uh I think one should really learn how to focus and concentrate while attempting this listening section because that is the key you have to be there and you have to forget the world while attempting this question and uh one should hear podcasts and see web series or uh stuff like that to understand the language um and along with that sometimes you have to go uh you have to guess also like uh you know there is a particular pattern how the question is asked and you should read two sections at one time like I Tried reading two sections at one time I I tried to be a little quick so that uh uh I could I could you know get what the person was speaking clearly so focus and concentration one should focus and that is the key message I'd like to say forget the world when you're attempting the listening section don't think about anything else yeah and I think that same piece of advice would apply to Reading Writing and speaking the whole exam the focus is so important um is there anything else that you'd like to share with everyone um mock tests one should at least give five to seven mock tests before appearing for the exam and watch all the videos step by step and not skip the videos because that is really important and um uh and be confident and believe in yourself because if you don't believe in yourself then it's not possible so thank you very much Nisha that's some really excellent advice and on behalf of Chris and the rest of the team here um congratulations and best your new life in Canada hi everyone Chris here from Isles Advantage with a another success story and today we're going to talk to civa um what we're specifically going to talk about is how to identify your weaknesses and the importance of identifying your weaknesses and how to turn those weaknesses into strengths so that you can improve your speaking scores and your writing scores so CA was really struggling with her writing and her speaking she was going to lots of different schools and looking at lots of different things on the internet and when she joined us we were able to quickly identify the exact reasons why she was not getting the score that she needed and then she was able to get a band eight in speaking and a band seven in writing so let's learn a few things from ca's Journey on the is test and then we can um hopefully improve ourselves so civa can you start off by just introducing yourself to everyone sure uh I'm s uh I'm a working professional uh I work for a product based company here in Chennai India and and uh I have attended ALS twice before joining your course and uh like once I have made my attempt once after joining your course to check uh how far I have improved and surprisingly I got the marks what I needed excellent so thanks to you Chris so let's start off by talking about speaking so we're going to talk about speaking and and writing those are the two things that that you needed the the most help with um so when we did a one-on-one speaking with you what were some of the things that we identified the reasons why you were not getting the score you needed actually I gave my mock speaking test with Jason and um uh I set my mind like I should not be getting less than 6.5 because uh in my previous two attempts I got 6.5 so I I should learn all those things whatever I have done in the past I should give my best so surprisingly in my mock speaking test I got about 8 and uh he said like the one thing I need to improve was I'm speaking really fast uh so that the examiner can barly able to understand me what I'm doing it so because I'm speaking really fast there are many chances for me to uh uh go my marks do I mean low in either in grammar and also in the lexical resource so he wants me to slow down and uh so that was the one advice he gave me oh so from that day on I literally try to slow down it yeah because speaking speaking quickly is it it's caused for maybe one or two different reasons number one people can be very nervous when they're speaking in front of an examiner and often when people feel nervous they want to like not waste the other person's time so they subconsciously speak very very quickly um or or maybe because you just are filled with and stress you speak too too quickly the other thing is a lot of people think that speaking quickly means High fluency and a lot of people are are taught that in school or maybe it's a Mis misconception about what H good fluency is good fluency is not about speaking quickly it's about speaking naturally and the problem with speaking too quickly is you're being tested on fluency pronunciation grammar and vocabulary so fluency if you're speaking too quickly you're not speaking as naturally as you could so you might have a lower fluency score but it can also affect the other three because if you're speaking very quickly it's difficult for the examiner to understand what you're saying so your pronunciation could suffer but also remember our brain is is kind of a like a computer if you're trying to do too many things at the same time and too quickly on a computer it starts to slow down and it can make mistakes same when you're speaking too quickly you can make more grammar mistakes more vocabulary mistakes so that is why if for you s that was the one thing and it it improved everything for you so and anybody watching exactly you might have a problem with speaking quickly but you might have a you know one of other 50 other problems it's really important that you try and and work with someone who knows what they're doing to help you identify that in the same way as if my car was broken I would take the car to a mechanic and get the mechanic to fix it because he or she knows what what they are doing and so what was the Improvement in your in your score uh in my first two attempts I constantly got 6.5 in speaking and in my third attempt I got eight yeah that would that would make total sense um because if you are getting if the examiner can't understand you you can't get above a six for pronunciation um and then you might have got six in one of the other things because you were making more mistakes so yeah it's totally normal to get 6.5 because of just one thing you know and and that's frustrating for a student but it's very satisfying when you understand what that one thing is and then you can you can fix that so well done and congratulations for for getting your bandid and in speak thank you and even the worst part was even I was not aware like speaking really fast would could affect my school so I was not in that uh Consciousness so later when I attended Zoom session I learned that like you speak you have to speak naturally and you have to let the examiner understand each and every word whatever you're trying to say so that is the key thing I I I've also not trying to sorry sorry for there's a delay between the two of us I've also find out with many of our Indian students because I think when you're speaking in your native language you naturally speak very very quickly um and then you start to speak English in the same way and that can cause a problem for the examiner to to understand not every um Indian student but many of the would would you agree with that in your native language do you speakly than than than you speak English even in the zoom session I could see many Indians speak at the same page whatever I say so is like it's a common problem in India actually and and then often you will have you don't have a problem with your pronunciation but often the Indian students will have a little bit of accent interference and that's not a problem but when you combine speaking very quickly with a little bit of accent interference that causes an issue because the examiner can't understand 100% of what you're saying and that will lower your score to a six for pronunciation so it it was great to be able to to help you with that hello Tommy come here look I can't look hi Tom hi in India say hello how are you I'll be up in five minutes okay I know it's ready five minutes all right he's telling me my breakfast is ready sorry for interrupting um so now we've talked about speaking um do you want to talk about writing now sure I will do what scores were you getting an in writing before and before you joined us in my first attempt I got six and the second attempt I got 6.5 uh between my first and second attempt I just follow your dollar one course uh like you used to do previously so I just go through your videos and try to learn on my own like what is the structure I need to follow and I could see an improvement of 0 five there and uh after joining the is school in my area I couldn't find any uh Improvement in my writing like they were just uh telling what you need to write but they not identifying my mistakes so I decided to join your VIP group and uh uh I submitted my first a essay for the correction service and I was so shocked and I felt really bad because I got six in my writing and um you you people were literally able to identify each and every mistakes even the sentence like articles the subject verb agreement the tenses like I could see these many mistakes I was doing it so that that's where I realized like I was not getting the score what I want because of all these mistakes then uh what I did was I did so much of things in between I made like a mini plan uh like I started reading books I started reading articles and I did so many things to improve my grammar because grammar was my weakest part especially the Articles so I did so many things and uh the second time uh I took almost three months between my first and the second essay and when I submitted my second essay I got 7.5 excellent uh so I was so happy because I did so I put so much much of effort and hard work in that and I got this course and uh again I submitted my third essay there I got seven but still articles was was an issue at that point so I was trying to work on it uh then at one point I decided maybe I'll just book for an exam and I will give a Tres to check what is the Improvement I have made then surprisingly all my scores were I was so happy and I thought like maybe uh I got the score whatever I need it excent and you got a band seven in writing overall at the end yeah b seven excellent excellent so two two things number one it's really satisfying to hear you say after my first correction I took a lot of time to work on those things because what when when somebody sees our Corrections they just see all of the mistakes and it's quite like oh my God what am I going to do cuz it's just red everything I first open that PDF everything was in red exactly everything was I was like what is this what is even in is I got 6.5 but here I'm getting six that was so heartbreaking but I knew like because of my mistakes you're giving the correction so I could figure that out it's it's difficult for me as a teacher sometimes because if you tell people you know you've made this mistake this mistake this mistake this mistake this mistake it can be a little bit demotivating but also it's my job to tell people exactly what situation is so that they can fix it but the most satisfying thing is when when people see that for the first time they react in one of three ways number one they either pretend that you know put their head in the sand and pretend that everything is okay when it's not and they don't take any action number two they just immediately go and do another um essay in instead of actually f focusing on the mistakes and number three some of them which is the correct way which is they look at each mistake and they work on fixing those mistakes and then they're going to see Improvement so it's very satisfying to hear that you you did that and you that's why you were successful because as we we talk about in the mindset course you need to see each mistake as an opportunity to impr points yeah so because some people look at mistakes and and think that oh no I'm going to fail and and other people look at mistakes and think good now I know exactly what to do to improve it will help you to avoid the mistakes whatever we are going to do in my real test so it is actually you should take it as an improvement point for us exactly do it exactly exactly um and and I know that's difficult and I know it's not nobody likes to be told you're not good enough yet or you need to work on this and nobody likes to hear that but if you have the right mindset you going to really really improve and and I'm so happy that you watched the mindset course that we include um and and you you you got it from that and the daily motivation stuff that we do and all that exactly even I felt frustrated at many points and I almost gave up at so many points and I thought like uh even if I if I'm not feeling good I would write uh a email to your team and uh I would like to thank Mike Jason and Sam like they always motivates me and they reply back me in a short span of time saying that maybe you should take a break like just give a break when you are studying don't study for continuous hour maybe like once in a week you should not think about else at all because that is also really needed because if you constantly think about El nothing is going to work out you should give your brain some time to relax and to focus on other things like you should have a healthy routine so that it will help you to boost your confidence and your mental power yeah sometimes that is more important sometimes you need because you you feel like you're hitting your head against a wall and nothing is is getting better and sometimes you need to just step back and allow your brain to actually learn something and and and relax a little bit and then you can come back and see oh I have improved and I need to to to keep going and and so it's yeah it's knowing when to work hard and when to take back and that's difficult for everybody including me I find that difficult so so well done s so what any other last advice before we finish the video any other if you if you were giving yourself advice one year ago what what would you maybe tell yourself uh maybe like uh give yourself enough time to prepare because I feel like many people are they want the marks in a short span of time like they may be pressurized they may be like they have their visa interview or some kind of a commitment so they're just rushing to attend the exams like they're not actually improving it so give yourself enough time get yourself assisted by a proper Mentor who know what else really is all about and try to improve try to make a mini plan like based on your work schedule and try to work on it like surrend yourself with English uh what I actually did was uh in a day I would read uh at least uh five pages in a book may be any journal and uh I started reading BBC articles uh like education the topics related to education travel Arts because those points help me in my speaking as well as in writing and I started watching web series continuously like maybe two episodes per day and I started uh watching some Tik TOS because uh those will be really helpful with the lexical resource every time whenever I hear a TED Talk I would get at least minimum two or three new words I would straight away not go and jump into dictionary to find out the meaning I'll just try to understand the meaning of it from the sentence whatever they're trying to convey and I will compare with it the dictionary meaning so it will be so that I will not forget easily so it will stay with me for a Qui span of time so these are things I did it almost uh maybe like 6 months continuously and uh for speaking what I did was I uh daily I took a mock test with my roommate and uh I uh attended Zoom session like every week and try to incorporate whatever the commments they are giving in my weekly mock test so daily I used to practice that and also for writing I try to write at least a letter an essay daily and post it in the FB group so that people will give me feedbacks like I I was constantly doing all these things and I was not worried about my results that is the most important thing you should stay positive and you should not be worried about the end result you should see only the progress and how far exactly the process and also the progress how far you're going to make it so if you just look at the end result all the time if you're trying to you know if you're focused on a band seven and you're trying to just get to a b seven every day you'll never get there because you'll be frustrated every day but instead of focusing on the result focus on the process which is improving your vocabulary improving your grammar improving your writing improving all of these different things and just focusing on The Daily work and then yeah you will look up one day and be like Oh I'm I'm at of bound seven you know it's like it's like you're swimming like that yeah if you were swimming from one point to the next and you look up every after every uh stroke you'll be very frustrated but if you keep keep your head done then you just get there before you know it you know so that's excellent advice and also during on your test day you should not worry about uh whatever you have done in the past or the marks you should give your 100% uh even if in particular in listening if you miss out one question like if you didn't hear what is the answer you should leave that and move on Don't Panic yeah because yeah you should not panic and you should focus properly so that is the key point and in speaking you should be very natural like you're talking to a person and you should try to uh put the standardized phrases and the fancy words because that is not going to work out at all because examiner will immediately find out like these are the things that people have already memorized it is very easy for them because they have seen so many people yeah so see someone who got a bond dat didn't use fancy phrases or fancy words so you know I don't know how many times I have to say this but you know but I'm very very proud of you because it's it's very satisfying for me to give people the advice and then someone and then someone takes it and then actually gets the scores that they need because we we give a lot of advice in the in the in the group and free advice but not many people take that advice and and actually do the things and the people who do everything that we say they always get the scores that they need and I know we have very high standards and we expect people to work very hard um but it's the only way you know there are no tips or tricks or hacks and you know and and but if you do the work you'll get the scores that you need um and and thank you so much for sharing that and um yeah congratulations again and I I wish you all the best luck in the future is it Canada you're going to yeah I'm applying for Canada excellent well good luck in the future and if you need anything in the future always feel free to get inou I miss all those Zoom sessions because I can't attend right now excellent well thank you so much again and and thank you for helping everybody who who's watching hi everyone Chris here from is Advantage with another success story today we have Alba who recently got a band eight overall am I correct band eight overall and she is coming over to Ireland um to to help us out um soon and she has agreed to share her success story with you guys and so that you can learn from Alba so Alba can you start off just by introducing yourself to everyone yes well I am ala and I'm from Spain and I joined the course this Christmas the last Christmas and I just work really hard and go and I went all through all the models that GCE has there complete all of them practice as much as I could as he always advised and it took me three times but I finally did it excellent excellent and um can you tell them a little bit about um like what scores were you getting before uh when you when you tried um to get to get the scores that you needed yes I was pretty close honestly every time because I always got like seven seven 7.5 and always the six the famous H 6.5 in the writing that was exactly the same two times in a row and and after I got 8898 and the seven in the writing excellent excellent you got about nine in Reading in Reading eight listening and speaking and the seven in excellent amazing writing so um when you were going through the course or or we were giving you feedback could you identify the reasons why you were struggling or what were the big challenges that that that you had yes always so I was like focusing just in the key mistakes that the in the feedback I already had and I think that was the key of the of the success because if you have a lot of D you always say ER once you ra then your score rise a lot and what were those key key challenges that you had in me in my case it was the Articles MH a reviewing always the third person that I always I was always missing that in the in the writing I don't know why and the they were the fossilized one that ones that you always say in the course and what else and was mainly that and keep it simple because I always trying to like impress the the the examiner and trying to maybe look fancier or something like that and in the in the last try I did it really simple and it it was when I got the seven yeah I've I've noticed that with a lot of dentists and doctors I think it's because you guys have gone through medical school and and it is you're dealing with complex things all the time and and often especially with the the more intelligent the person is the more complex they make everything and and it's often they have a fear of writing in a simple way because they're like oh if I write in this simple way it's I'm going to fail again is that how you felt sometimes yes because sometimes I have the feeling of um okay this if I write this Syle it sounds like a primary school you know but making it more complicated it was always more mistakes always so I just kept it simple and it worked yeah and and you mentioned also that you had some some mistakes in your articles for example so often what we will see is that the student will use complex ideas and then it difficult to explain those clearly and then when you combine that with lots of small grammatical errors you you you read the essay and because it's complex but the grammar isn't the best either it makes it very difficult for the reader to understand if you have clearly answered the question whereas if you write in a in a primary school way of just like you know th this is a very simple obvious answer and a I think one of the other difficult things is writing your explanations in that way I was working with students today and we had to ex it was a question about uh tourism and and how um tourism increases pollution and then I I said you know you have to explain how a car if you turn the car on that creates pollution and the students were like well everybody knows that why do I have to explain that I like well the examiner doesn't know you know that you know and I think a lot of people fear maybe that's a dentist their doctor thing as well where they are used to talking to other very intelligent people who just know everything that they're talking about and they find it difficult to explain things in a simple way would you would you say that well I don't think I am that intelligent or or or my friends are but maybe maybe yes maybe we try to we we take things for granted and if you take things for granted then you are not conveying the meaning because if you say uh if you are writing a thought that you have and you are trying to conin something but if you didn't explain from where it is coming from you you not doing anything I was at the dentist yesterday with my little boy and uh he he explained in a very simple way he said like there's a hole in your tooth and when you eat sweets the sugar goes into that hole and it makes it go crazy Tom and Tom okay okay okay so he he he's 6 years old but that that's like the level of explanation that you need in an ielt essay is like just like cause and effect you know if you EXA this will happen if you do this this will happen so just read the sentence and and it was my my trick I was reading the sentence I and I asked myself what are you trying to say here what are you trying to convey it really says what you're trying to say or it doesn't make any sense just rewrite the thing in a s in a more simple way yeah yeah exactly exactly and you you also talked about um that you had problems with articles this is a very common problem for most English Learners um how did you overcome that problem I took the course that you have there it really helped so H H what process did you go through with with that course and I took the course and after follow your advises of reading a lot and paying attention of the articles that they were following following the rules that you said in the course and just practice Yeah Yeah I think the best writers I know are the best readers they read a lot so you know you could you could get like a book that you're just like this is a novel so you could get a book that you're interested in and while you're reading just notice okay if it's articles for example every nine that you see look before the nine okay why did they use the definite article why did they and think about okay what rules apply to this and that will help you while you're reading and you'll also improve your your grammar and your vocabulary and your ideas if you're reading each day as well um uh so that that's really really good advice um and if you if there was another uh dentist who was struggling with the same problems as you what advice would you give them I would say give it simple mhm um don't try to to to get the IL scores if you don't have the level of English that you need for example for Ireland you need a C1 if you don't have a C1 no matter how many courses you take you need to have first the C1 and after learn how to use your level to get the scores absolutely because it's a lot of people think that it's an English test and then other people think that oh it's just a you need just test technique exactly so it's not like you have a system and you learn the system and you just pass it no you have to have the level of English that requires the band that you're looking for and after learn the system to that the one that you you teach ER to to reach that band with the level that you already have because it's not a course of English is a course of how to to optimize your English for a yeah and and at the end of the day it is a Communications test because testing when you move to Ireland and you have to send maybe a letter to a patient or an email to your new boss explaining that you know that this thing has happened um can you clearly explain that to them and that's another reason why we teach the the simple method because when you move you know if if I was your your new boss and I and I asked you okay why have you done this thing and you send this very complex Essay with and I can't understand it like what what are you doing you know good communication is just clear and simple as as possible so exactly it's a communication test yeah yeah absolutely you have to convey always meaning well thank you so much Albert and um you you will be moving to a place very close to my brother and about uh two hours away from me so if you need any advice on moving to to Ireland and more just need it for sure that that is Noh yeah and uh yeah and it's a wonderful place that you're moving to and I wish you the best of luck so thank you thank you very much Chris thank you for all because this is thank you if not it's our team and and you it's our team and you now so your team thanks very much all right