Students' Questions: 'complex' sentences

People often ask me about using 'complex' sentences and 'difficult' words or grammatical structures. Here's an example question that someone asked me:

I can see you did not use any long and complex initial sentences to begin your paragraphs. I wonder if sentences like this are useful: "In recent years, …. has never failed to attract people’s attention and spark controversy over the potential impacts of this trend on individuals."

My answer is that examiners are not impressed by this kind of sentence. Instead of judging it as 'complex', they are more likely to judge it as 'memorised'.

Here's my tip: instead of trying to impress the examiner with big words or memorised phrases, try to impress him/her by answering the question really well. Plan some good ideas before you start writing, then do your best to express them in a natural way and without making too many mistakes.

Comments

[Suman]

Dear Simon:)
I agree with you that it's much easier to write own words which is easy to express and doing less mistakes.
I attended IELTS exam 8 years before in 2005. I got very bad score.
It's been 5 months I'm learning your daily lessons. In my experience, last 5 months what I learnt from you and your e-book, 8 years I didn't know a lot of things.
For example, in writing task 2, I knew only one essay structure and no idea about topics.
Furthermore, I didn't know all important tips in 4 sections.
Day by day, I'm getting more and more confidents. That's all only because of you.
I had a dream to get very good score in Ielts. I didn't study last 5 years. Now I want to finish my becholor.
I want to give exam in this august.
I pray to God for your good health and happy life.
I'm too much happy that I found your website.
Thank you so so much Simon for the great website you have made for us.
Regard's
Suman

[Bakr]

Hi Simon,

I'm practicing some essay writing using your eBook, I stopped on the subject of Animal Rights, what could be the balanced argument for this subject? Can I say , it depends on the objectives of using the animals.

would you help with this?

Thank you in advance ...

[Andy]

Dear Simon,

I'm a new comer of your IELTS website course; I have taken IELTS a few times before. I found this website very useful for practice. If I have some questions, how should I ask you?

Thank you.

[Sam]

Hi,Andy
Simon is not possible to respond to every question, you need to figure it out yourself.

[Simon]

FROM SIMON:

I'm afraid I no longer have time to answer everyone's questions individually. However, I do still read them all, and I try to answer them in my lessons. Hopefully you'll find what you need somewhere on my site.

[Bakr]

Hi Simon,

Understood your point and thank you.

Kind regards, Bakr

[Sarah]

Hi Simon I did the ielts 4 weeks ago my result was 8 listening 7.5 reading 8 writing and 6.5 speaking . I was shocked by my speaking results because I did the exam many times and never scored less than 7 in speaking and quite sure I did well. The examiner asked me about a traditional event in my country in part 2 and I mentioned celebration of prophet mohammed peace be upon him birthday back home I know this is something religious but part of my culture because in other muslim countries it is not accepted. I talked about the celrbration and the sweet which is made especially for that occasion .any way I applied for remarking and I would love to hear your opinion.

[Salamat]

Hi Sarah,

If you already scored 7+ in speaking many times, it would be worth it to ask for a remark. They probably will have a look at your previous results. I think there is a fairly strong subjective element in both speaking and writing. Good luck with your re-mark

[Sarah]

Thanks for the reply salamat I' did the exam many times I usually score 8 or 7 never less and I did this exam with other 2 only one week apart and scored 8 in both that's why Iam shocked and I don't know if the will look at my other tests or not my result is 6.5 and I need 7 so I hope this remark could help

[Maru]

Hi Mr.Simon,
Thank you for spending time helping us get engage with IELTS :)
I am wondering should we use idioms in Writing task 2 and Speaking test? Do examiners consider them as inappropriate or unsuitable? Best regards,
~thank you again ^^~

[Soha]

Hi Sarah,

You have the right to ask for re-mark definitely. Your scores are awesome and i am sure they will re-consider it.If i were you, I would go for remark. Would you please share your experience with us to let us know how to score such exceptional results.

Good luck inshallah:)
Soha

[sarah]

soha , thanks for the reply . i did the exam many times. although i agree that your level of language is important i think the key is practicing past papers as much as you can.good luck.I hope my score changes and i hope all the best for you .if you need a hand i am there.

[Ruby]

Which is the best book to know concepts of grammar in detail