- Work with a
teacher. Write several sample essays
and have them corrected by a teacher. You cannot
prepare for the writing section of the IELTS
alone, as you have no way of receiving feedback
on your errors. If you are short on money, at
least invest in a teacher or class to prepare
for the writing and speaking sections of the
IELTS, and then do the listening and reading
sections on your own by working with a good
preparatory IELTS guidebook.
- Read the questions
very carefully. Often the question will
ask you to do three or four different things,
aside from the main question. Jot them down and
make sure you address all of them in your
answer. The IELTS examiner will be checking
for this.
- Practice writing
tasks within the given time limits. It
really doesn't matter if you can write a
beautiful answer in two hours. Always recreate
the conditions of the exam as closely as
possible, when doing any kind of practice
exercises.
- Plan before you
write. Even though you feel under
pressure for time, spend the first few minutes
planning your writing. Decide what you're going
to say and how you'll expand on it. When you
know what to write, you can concentrate
on how to write it best. Experiment
with the great variety of outlining and
mind-mapping techniques to help you sketch out a
plan quickly.
- Write in an
organized way. When you've planned in
advance, you'll end up with a more organized,
logical piece of writing, which will earn you
higher marks. There are many ways to be
organized – linear, circular, etc. – but in the
end the final product must be cohesive.
- Stay on topic.
You will be penalized if you stray off topic.
This is where the initial few minutes of
planning can help you a great deal.
- Divide your
writing into paragraphs. It is
confusing to be faced with a block of writing,
with no divisions. You wouldn't expect to read a
magazine article or book like this. Always
divide your writing into paragraphs.
- Write clearly.
This is not the time or place to experiment with
new vocabulary or idioms. Use simple, clear
English to get your ideas across in a powerful
way.
- Write legibly.
Though marks are not granted or taken away for
poor or messy writing, the examiner should be
able to read what you have written without undue
difficulty.
- Spell correctly.
Yes, this does affect your score so avoid
careless mistakes. A careless mistake is when
you have spelt the same word in various ways in
the same piece of writing or when you misspell a
word which is already given in the exam topic
and all you have to do is copy it correctly.
That's not okay. Watch for this when you're
practicing and resolve to overcome it.
- Don't use slang.
This is the time to show off the best English
you know. Find the correct way to express your
thoughts and convey your ideas, without
resorting to slang. Be aware that certain
expressions, such as "kids" instead of
"children" and "guys" or "gals" instead of "men"
or "women", also fall into the category of slang
and should be avoided.
- Don't use
contractions in the Academic Writing
tasks. In English, contractions are used in
informal writing, and the Academic tasks demand
formal writing.
- Use rich
vocabulary. You have learned English
for many years and this is the time to use what
you know. Stay away from over-used adjectives
such as "good" or "bad". Instead, use more
dramatic, expressive words, such as excellent,
wonderful, superb, or adverse, horrible,
terrible, etc. Choose the more precise word over
the more general one. This will make your
language come alive, in speech or in writing,
and earn you higher marks.
- Don't write more
or less words than you need to. Writing
too many will take too much time, and there is a
greater possibility of making mistakes. Writing
too few is worse – it will cause you to lose
marks.
- In the essay,
don't repeat major chunks of the question
in your answer. Instead, state what you
understand of the questions and what you plan to
include in your answer.
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