678ielts

......to help you improve your IELTS result.

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Academic Writing Part 1 – DESCRIBING DATA – Bar Chart

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Academic Writing Part 1 – DESCRIBING DATA – Bar Charts

Burgernomics?

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http://678ielts.com/academic-reading-summary-completion/

IELTS Reading - SUMMARY COMPLETION 

A reading about octopus intelligence and the reading task explained. 

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The Oxford Dictionary of Collocations for Advanced Learners of English

Not a website about Rupert Murdoch as you may think from the URL.

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http://678ielts.com/speaking-part-1-nervous/

Watch a student response to IELTS Speaking Part 1.

The first part of the Speaking exam should last around 3 or 4 minutes. It is used as a “warm up” for both you and the examiner. Although it is the easiest part you will no doubt be more nervous at the beginning than later on when you have relaxed a little.

The standard structure of the exam will involve Speaking in the afternoon after completing the other three parts in the morning. You should, therefore, have already had the opportunity to think in English. So what can you do to relax before the exam?

http://678ielts.com/speaking-part-1-nervous/

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Writing Part 1 - COMPARING DATA - Pie Chart

Read the full Blog post at http://678ielts.com/writing-part-1-comparing-data-pie-chart/

This year promises to be an interesting one regarding the smartphone market.  RIM are fighting back with a new release.  There are wild rumours about Samsung S4 and the iphone 5s and/or 6. Even the Chinese manufacturer Lenovo plans to launch smartphones internationally while Google, Windows and Apple are still battling it out for most popular operating system.

 What can possibly happen next?

  Do you have a smartphone?

Are you addicted to checking it every 10 minutes?

Does it sleep next to you in bed?

Do you go on holiday with it?

A recent poll by Time magazine might reveal some “home truths” about smart phone use.

A recent poll by Time magazine might reveal some “home truths” about smart phone use.  You can read an article about this in the Huffington Post here or the original article here.

Articles like these often contain lots of statistics much like the ones you have you describe in Writing Part 1 of the IELTS Academic Writing exam.  To do this, you will need to use comparative structures.  The pie chart below shows the global market share of smartphone operating systems in 2012.

We'll give you some help.  Try to build sentences with the phrases below and add any more you can think of. Post them in our comments section at the bottom of the page, or email us your answers, or post them on Facebook or Tumblr?  

the most popular operating system

held the smallest market share

dominated the market

the least popular operating system

was less popular than

was stronger than

had the second biggest market share

had the third biggest market share

twice as much market share

had less market share than

had twice as much market share as

had half the market share of

was just over three times more popular than

was twenty eight times as common as

had an eighth of the market share of

had a market share eight times bigger than

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IELTS ACADEMIC READING SKILLS - Short Answer Questions

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TIPS AND SOLUTIONS CAN BE FOUND AT:

http://678ielts.com/academic-reading-short-answer-questions-national-geographic/

  Use no more than 3 words and/or a number.

1. What resources are polluted by using industrialized farming methods?

2. When was food first mass produced mechanically?

3. What do sustainable farmers  do alongside growing a variety of crops each year in order to improve soil quality?

4. What are provided by the state in order to make food cheaper and plentiful?

5. What do all forms of sustainable farming practices try to do?

6. How would critics describe the lack of food in the world  if everyone were to abandon industrial farming for sustainable?

7. What should sustainable agriculture result in for the farmer?

8. Other than the need for larger areas of land, what may be another negative effect of sustainable farming?

  TEXT - SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

  Sustainable agriculture takes many forms, but at its core is a rejection of the industrial approach to food production developed during the 20th century.

This system, with its reliance on monoculture, mechanization, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, biotechnology, and government subsidies, has made food abundant and affordable. However, the ecological and social price has been steep: erosion; depleted and contaminated soil and water resources; loss of biodiversity; deforestation; labor abuses; and the decline of the family farm.

The concept of sustainable agriculture embraces a wide range of techniques, including organic, free-range, low-input, holistic, and biodynamic.

The common thread among these methods is an embrace of farming practices that mimic natural processes. Farmers minimize tilling and water use; encourage healthy soil by planting fields with different crops year after year and integrating croplands with livestock grazing; and avoid pesticide use by nurturing the presence of organisms that control crop-destroying pests.

Beyond growing food, the philosophy of sustainability also espouses broader principles that support the just treatment of farm workers and food pricing that provides the farmer with a livable income.

Critics of sustainable agriculture claim, among other things, that its methods result in lower crop yields and higher land use. They add that a wholesale commitment to its practices will mean inevitable food shortages for a world population expected to exceed 8 billion by the year 2030. There’s recent evidence, though, suggesting that over time, sustainably farmed lands can be as productive as conventional industrial farms.

Text taken from the National Geographic website

  http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/sustainable-agriculture/ 

  TIPS AND SOLUTIONS CAN BE FOUND AT:

http://678ielts.com/academic-reading-short-answer-questions-national-geographic/

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Reading Recommendation

http://678ielts.com/academic-reading-short-answer-questions-national-geographic/

The type of texts you will find in the Academic Reading exam are often similar in terms of technical vocabulary as those found in the popular magazine National Geographic.  These texts are about various subjects ranging from travel, wildlife, society and science and will almost certainly contain words that are unfamiliar to you.

Apart from being very useful to doing well in IELTS and improving your English, we would really recommend reading a few of these magazines as they are fascinating and beautiful.

Full blog post on a National Geographic article containing Short Answer Questions for IELTS Academic Reading can be found at http://678ielts.com/academic-reading-short-answer-questions-national-geographic/

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Academic Writing – PART 2 – Word Count Worries

Read the full post here.

The Problem

  After a while of practising IELTS writing task 2 you begin to get a good idea of how long 250 is on a page of your handwriting and how long it will take you to write.  You don’t want to waste time counting words during the exam so if you practise enough beforehand you will have a good idea just from experience.  You may, sadly be left with one of two problems……

1.  It’s too short.  You have run out of ideas.  You have nothing more to say.  You are completely blank.

OR

2. It’s too long.  You have said too much.  You have repeated yourself a lot. You have gone off task. Blah Blah Blah.

Okay, so problem 1 probably seems a lot worse than problem 2 and it is true you may lose more points being under the word limit than over it…….but that will depend.  As a general rule, think in groups of 20′s.  20 words is a fairly long sentence, or two small ones.  If you are 20 words or more under the suggested word count you may lose half a point.  40 words or more and this starts to become very noticeable to the examiner and you will almost certainly lose half a point if not 1.  On the other hand if you are over by 20, 40 or 60 words, you will not automatically lose points…….but you may have made more mistakes.

Hitting 250 exactly is obviously what you should aim for.

Read some solutions at the full blog post here

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How should I answer the question?

Before this section begins, read ahead quickly and note what the categories in the table are called.  In the sample question below the categories are Tour Name, Duration, Start Point and Details.

Try to predict what type of words are missing.  Nouns, numbers, place names, verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc. etc.  If all information within a column follows a pattern i.e. they are all times, then you are listening out for times.

Listen for "signposts" such as; "Moving onto my next point"; "The second tour I'd like to mention is";  "Another facility we have is"; "And finally, if we can turn to"....... These will help you know where you are in the table.

Check your spelling and the use of capital letters.  If it is a name, place name, day of the week or if the other information given in the same column has a capital letter then you must use one to get the point.

If you miss an answer, guess.  IELTS is not negatively marked so you cannot loose anything by guessing.

FULL SOLUTIONS AT:

http://678ielts.com/listening-section-2-completing-a-table/

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A tourist information official welcomes a group of newly arriving tourists to the city of Norwich and describes walking tours on offer. Public notice monologues like this are used in IELTS Listening Part 2.

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Academic Writing - PART 2 - Using Collocations

In order to get a decent grade in Writing Part 2, it is important to show off your language skills!  One great way to do this is by using collocations.

To get an 8 the requirements state that the student...

...skilfully uses uncommon lexical items (words) but there may be occasional inaccuracies in word choice and collocation.

Using collocations successfully, with minimal errors, is the difference between a 7.5 and an 8

This blog post at http://678ielts.com/academic-writing-part-two-collocations/ can help you start identifying and using collocations in your writing.

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“Nowadays the use of technology in both professional and social environments is almost unavoidable. People have become overly dependent upon technology, particularly in the last decade.”

To what extent would you agree with this?

It certainly seems that using technology in professional and social situations has become part of our day to day life in today’s society.  Without reaching very far we may find many examples of this.  The internet, and all devices which connect to it, now play a (1)__________________ in most businesses.  It is (2)__________________ how a company would survive without technology as an important tool.

Technology provides businesses with solutions to keeping records of data, storing information and making this information much more accessible. This gives businesses world-wide an incredible advantage.  However, it is very easy to (3)__________________ with this.  Important information may be lost if a piece of equipment were to fail.  Although, companies which use (4)__________________ of keeping records on paper may also risk losing the same information if there were a fire.  The benefits that using technology brings to a business appear to be more important than the (5)__________________.

On the (6)__________________, however, it is important to consider the dependence upon technology in a social context.  It’s a (7)__________________ to be sat at a table with friends and find that some are more interested in their iPhone than the conversation around them. Arguably, people are becoming addicted to technology.  Mobile devices provide the clearest example of technology being used as a social tool, yet, I would argue that it has perhaps (8)__________________ which may be detrimental to social skills. On the other hand, technology allows access to social networks – although at this point we may be (9)__________________ where opinion becomes the deciding factor.

Undeniably, advancements in technology, its availability and range of application have all increased at a greater rate in the last ten years than in previous. I (10)__________________ that there are two sides to the coin and ultimately we may have to question whether or not ‘dependence’ itself is inherently negative.

Forming Collocations

Below, we have a chart which contains words that come together to form collocations.  Test yourself before revealing the answer and see if you can correctly match these words to make a set of ten collocations.

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Match the left and the right to make ten collocations then insert them into the sample writing part 2 essay above.

For full solutions visit http://678ielts.com/academic-writing-part-two-collocations/

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Reading – PARAGRAPH HEADINGS

A. What does this question involve?

This type of question “does what is says on the tin”. You are given a selection of possible headings which must be matched to each paragraph in the text. You must consider the purpose and overall message of each paragraph in order to make an accurate choice. You are always given more paragraph headings than paragraphs.

This blogpost will have a short text of 4 paragraphs to practise however a full text are between 5 and 7 on average with the one of the answers given. This type of reading question is different from others in that the question is given before the text. This is a clear indication that you should read the possible heading first and the text second.

For practice with this question type visit:

B. How should I answer this type of question?

The purpose and meaning of a paragraph is given in a topic sentence. Very frequently the topic sentence is the first sentence although this is not the case 100% of the time. On occasion the purpose of the paragraph can be explained over two sentences and the topic sentence/s may be in the middle or end.

Paragraph headings may be very similar in meaning in order to confuse you. If you are not entirely confident it is a good idea to select 2 or 3 possible solutions and return to them to choose 1 when you have gone through every paragraph. If you don’t know the answer move on and come back to it later.

Remember to cross out the ones you are confident of and the heading for the answer that is given so that they don’t confuse you. Read quickly. Skim. Skimming is a difficult skill to master for a second language speaker because your eyes and brain give equal focus to every word in a sentence. A native reader of any language focusses on nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs that carry meaning and not other types of words which act as building blocks and rarely say anything important. Fast skimming skills is a case of “practise makes perfect”.

Topic sentences will very often contain synonyms of keywords. When reading the headings underline keywords and think of as many synonyms or parallel phrases as you can. Sometimes keywords are mentioned in the text however they can be in several paragraphs and only serve to confuse you.

Focus on the shortest paragraphs first. This can save a lot of time because as you eliminate headings from the list the question gradually becomes easier and you can spend less time on longer paragraphs.

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It is clear from our recent poll on Facebook that having a chance to work on your speaking skills is important to you.  Following a fantastic performance from Hannah we have decided it's time to turn the camera on you.

We are sure that you have so much to learn from each other so we thought it would be a good idea to offer you a place to share your videos, compare answers, pick up new ideas and have some fun.  Read the question below and film a few responses.  Choose your best one and send it, share it, follow or friend us through Tumblr, Facebook or Vimeo.

PART 3 - MUSIC

How important would you say music is to you?

What do you think the benefits are of learning a musical instrument?

Do you think the music industry has changed over the last 10 years?