In Thursday's lesson I wrote that examiners would be impressed by the words huts, dock and tip. This would probably surprise most students, so I'll explain.
The three words would impress the examiner because they fit the description perfectly. As one person pointed out in a comment below that lesson, most students would probably use the word 'hotel' to describe the accommodation for tourists shown on the map. Only a native speaker or an advanced learner of English would know that small buildings to accommodate tourists on an island would probably be called huts. Click here to see a real example.
It's the same with 'dock' and 'tip'. Not everyone would know that the perfect verb to describe the parking of a boat is 'to dock'. And not everyone would know that tip is the perfect word for the end point of a landmass.
Hello Simon.. I would like to ask a question. How should we answer in speaking section 2 if we have never prepared for that particular cue card beforehand.?
Posted by: Vini | June 16, 2013 at 11:51
hello Simon
I think there is a mistake in the thursday map essay ,the "footpaths connect the huts", should it be "footpaths connecting the huts"?
cheers
Posted by: Danielle* | June 16, 2013 at 12:17
heelo simon sir,i m realy stressd out,pls help me anwerin my ques. I studied all topics frm ur ebook n one of the topics of tourism appeard in my exam.i was so happy I had so much stuff to write. ques was abt" most countries are opening their doors to tourism,do u thnk adv overweigh disadv."I wrote OPPOSITE to it dat dis adv are more than adv,ll it affect y writin score.
Posted by: ras | June 16, 2013 at 12:57
Hi Vini,
There's no special solution to that. Just do your best to explain each point on the topic card.
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Hi Danielle,
It isn't a mistake. It's just a normal 'subject-verb' structure: 'footpaths' is the subject and 'connect' is the verb. You could also write "and there are footpaths connecting the huts".
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Hi Ras,
Don't worry. You gave your own view, so that's fine.
Posted by: Simon | June 16, 2013 at 13:18
THNKS ALOT SIR!u r blessing in ur life,though I dint see u bt u ll alwaz b one of ma favourite teacher!
Posted by: ras | June 16, 2013 at 13:56
Hi Simon,
I was using your blogs and it helped me a lot to get an overall score of 8 in Academic model, however I got 7 in reading and my goal now is to retake the general model and get at least 8 in every component.
I bought your ebook and I am using it now to prepare for speaking test, but I was wondering about writing test, you have very few materials in your blog about general writing test, is there anything else that I can do to practice it apart from the materials in your blog.
Any help will be highly appreciated.
Safwan
Posted by: Safwan | June 17, 2013 at 06:23
Is it possible to just perform great on speaking part 1, not the other two, to get a band score of 4 in speaking skill?
Posted by: PrincePanda | June 17, 2013 at 10:58
Thank you Simon , I understand now
Posted by: Danielle* | June 17, 2013 at 12:46
Hi Simon,
Seeing your explanation for the use of specific words, I'm wondering if there's material for us to know more about the words usually used by native speaker? Or would you like to give us more words of this kind please? Thanks a lot!
Posted by: Julia | June 18, 2013 at 02:53
Hi Safwan,
I think I answered your question somewhere else.
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Hi PrincePanda,
It's possible if you only need band 4.
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Hi Julia,
I'm afraid there's no quick way to learn these kinds of words. You need to do a lot of reading and listening, and write new words and phrases in a notebook. I'll keep pointing out useful vocabulary in future lessons.
Posted by: Simon | June 18, 2013 at 12:50
HI Simon and everyone
I joined this site just yesterday. I have some confusion in answering listening questions. For example, some time they say 25th december but the answer is 25 december is it alright to write 25 or 25th and also some words have hyphens in it like car-park and i answered it as carpark is it wrong and how about the number like answering 12000 instead of 12,000. please let me know
Posted by: Pk | June 21, 2013 at 05:01
Hi Simon
I would like to buy your eBook.My email box can`t recognise your email adress,can you please email me providing some information regarding your ebook. Can you please explain to me how you will send the book to me once I do a payment? What format it is? Can there be any difficulty?Thank you,Regards,
Olga from New Zealand
Posted by: olga | June 28, 2013 at 10:38