Simon’s ielts writing task 2

Posted by: Simon | 
Thursday, May 04, 2017 at 20:26
 
Wednesday, May 10, 2017 
IELTS Writing Task 2: 'simple but good' introduction 
Last week I showed you an example of a bad introduction for the question below. The main problem 
was the overuse of 'template phrases'. Now let's look at a good introduction. 
Here's the question again: 
Because computers can translate all languages very quickly and accurately, learning a foreign 
language is a waste of time. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Here's a "simple but good" introduction: 
It is true that computer programs are now able to carry out language translation tasks far more quickly 
than any human can. However, I completely disagree with the idea that this development makes 
learning foreign languages unnecessary. 
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Sunday, May 14, 2017 
IELTS Advice: easy essay structure 
Whether you're doing the academic test or the general test, I recommend that you use the 4-
paragraph, 13-sentence essay structure that you can see in yesterday's lesson. 
Look again at yesterday's essay plan; I think it's very clear and easy to follow. If you get used to 
planning and organising your essays in this way, the 'structure' part becomes easy and you have 
more time to focus on good ideas and vocabulary. 
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Wednesday, May 17, 2017 
IELTS Writing Task 2: using a dictionary 
Don't forget that a good English dictionary should be a key tool as you prepare for the IELTS test. 
Here's an example of how a dictionary can help you: 
The other day I received a message from a student who asked why I wrote "the media are" instead of 
"the media is" in one of the sentences in my ebook. 
Instead of trying to answer this question myself, I simply copied the relevant section from my 
computer's dictionary. Here's what it says: 

---

Compiled by Diyorbek Hayitmurodov ielts-simon.com Page 180 
media
usage: The word media comes from the Latin plural of medium. The traditional view is that it should 
therefore be treated as a plural noun in all its senses in English and be used with a plural rather than 
a singular verb: the media have not followed the reports (rather than ‘has’). In practice, in the sense 
‘television, radio, and the press collectively’, it behaves as a collective noun (like staff or clergy, for 
example), which means that it is now acceptable in standard English for it to take either a singular or 
a plural verb.