Last Day Strategies : IELTS Writing (Academics)

You are all set if you have made it so far in this book! It is now time for the d-day. Do not panic, do not feel overwhelmed. It is all going to be fine. Keep your calm and try to brush on some of the last-minute strategies of IELTS writing section.

WRITING TASK 1 (ACADEMICS)

Identifying correctly 
When it comes to task 1 of your academic writing section, understand the relevance of identifying the type of report you are required to write. 

Confusing the charts and diagrams presented to you entails you creating a major faux pas on your end, which further ensures your score to go down by 25% in this task. Ensure you know how to identify the diagrams and charts correctly, ensure you are understanding the information in the chart/diagram correctly, and are able to comprehend the labels and all the percentages before you begin writing. 
Analyzing the diagrams and charts accurately ensures a great report and a complementing score. 

Follow the structure carefully 
Do not forget to include the right structure for your report writing task. It always goes like this:

Introduction
Overview
Body paragraphs (1 and 2)

Or 

Introduction
Body paragraphs (1 and 2)
Overview 

This is one of the most valuable tips as a part of your last-minute strategies in this book.

The structure presented here is universal to all kinds of reports and is pretty easy to learn, knowing you will be required to support your report with further nuances based on the type of essay you are supposed to write. 

Adhering to this structure ensures you get a hold of your coherence and cohesion, as well as your task achievement criteria. 

Plan in advance 

Planning forms an integral part of your report writing. If you plan in advance, you will know what you are trying to say, and what point you can skip. You will not need to stop in the middle to think of further dimensions the report will take. This directly means you will be able to write much faster. 

Planning also ensures that you are able to include every important point that forms the requirement of the question task, which means you can easily achieve the 25% portion of your score dependent on the task achievement criteria. 

Planning also ensures a better-organized flow of ideas, which again entails you getting hold of the other 25% score dependent on the coherence and cohesion marking criteria. 

Be specific 

Do not go off-topic while writing your report. Analyze and underline the keywords in advance, before you actually begin writing, and then structure your answer around those keywords. Instead of putting in random words and ideas, try to stick to the point. For instance, if your bar graph gives you information about the increase in the use of cell phones among people which has led to a decline in landline phones; try to ensure your report revolves around the facts and figures relating to cell phones, rather than landline phones in general. 

Be specific to the primary topic in the report. 

Do not forget an overview 

The overview paragraph comes next once you are through with your introduction. The overview paragraph must talk about the significant trends in the bar graph, along with any major differences in the trends. 

Forgetting to include an overview paragraph in your essay is one of the biggest mistakes you could make for this task. The relevance and the presence of an overview is therefore a must in your report. 

Do not expressly explain all the data 

The third part of the question clearly asks you to summarise your findings. Therefore, if you are writing in detail about the question, it is not going to produce a brief, summarised answer. Simply report how significantly the data is changing and what could be the possible explanation behind this change. 

You do not have to go ahead and copy every little detail of the data presented. If you do, you are not only overtly complicating your answer, but you are also increasing your word limit. Along with the same, you are also simply copying the question as it is. You do not have to do that. 

You have to write about why things are the way they are. Therefore, try to not include the exact information for the data presented in the question or frame the details out as they are.

WRITING TASK 2

Do not forget to plan 

Planning forms an integral part of your essay writing. If you plan in advance, you will know what you are trying to say, and what point you can skip. You will not need to stop in the middle to think of further dimensions the essay will take. This directly means you will be able to write much faster. 

Planning also ensures that you are able to include every important point that forms the requirement of the question task, which means you can easily achieve the 25% portion of your score dependent on the task achievement criteria. 

Planning also ensures a better-organized flow of ideas, which again entails you getting hold of the other 25% score dependent on the coherence and cohesion marking criteria. 

Always remember the structure 

Do not forget to include the right structure for your essay. It always goes like this:

Introduction
Body paragraphs (1-2, sometimes 3)
Conclusion

This is one of the most valuable tips as a part of your last-minute strategies in this book.

The structure is universal to all kinds of essays and is pretty easy to learn, knowing you will be required to support your essay with further nuances based on the type of essay you are supposed to write. 

Adhering to this structure ensures you get a hold of your coherence and cohesion, as well as your task achievement criteria. 

Use the art of paraphrasing 

Using the keywords in your essay is one thing, but copying the whole question prompt as a part of your introduction or your thesis statement is wrong on another level. 

Instead, what you should be doing is paraphrasing the question statement as a part of your introduction. 

Use synonyms for paraphrasing, instead of simply repeating the same words shamelessly. This is an essential step when it comes to achieving a high score on the basis of lexical resource criteria.  

Be specific 

Every single part of your answer needs to be relevant to the parts of your question. 

Questions will tell you what needs to be done. Therefore ensure you are following the same path, instead of putting in random ideas and views. If the question, for instance, is talking about fossil fuels and their impact on global warming, talk and focus on fossil fuels and not about global warming in general. 

Be specific to the primary topic keywords. Use your secondary keywords as a support for your topic keywords.

 Identify correctly

When it comes to task 2 of your writing section, understand the relevance of identifying the type of essay you are required to write. 
Confusing one type of essay with another is a major faux pas you might be committing. For instance, do not confuse an opinion essay for a discussion essay. Know the framework and the right wordings to differentiate between different kinds of essays. 

Always highlight keywords in advance 

Analysing the question in advance is an important step to writing a great essay. Ensure you are able to analyse the keywords since they are going to form the foundation of your essay. 
Identifying the topic keyword, instructional keywords and your secondary keywords ensures you getting scored better on the basis of task achievement criterion, which forms 25% of your band score for the particular task. 

You can follow the above tips to ensure success.

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