IELTS Advice: paragraph 'movement'

In yesterday's lesson, I wrote this:

The fact that I wrote about 3 distinct ideas meant that the paragraph "moves forward". Many students seem to get stuck on one idea, and the paragraph has no development or “movement".

This is something that I often see in students' essays: they go "round and round" explaining the same idea for a whole paragraph. Look carefully at your own paragraphs to see whether this happens to you. If it does, here are 2 possible solutions:

1. Spend more time planning, and try to think of 3 distinct ideas or points before you start writing. When you've written about one point, leave it and move on to the next one.
2. Spend more time planning, and develop your idea (if you only have one idea). Make sure you don't just explain the same point in different ways. Instead, try to "move the idea forward" by thinking about reasons, consequences and examples. You could even consider alternatives e.g. what the opposite of your idea would be.

Comments

[Sandy]

Hi frnds, pls help me, i hv given ielts test and due to shortage of time i didnt write yours faithfully at the end of formal letter. Pls tell me abt tht

[James Z.]

That's exactly the case!

Thank you Simon!

James Z.

[Haider A. Abdulhadi]

Hi, I need some one to help my

is this sentence correct,

Also the need for more animal studies cannot be stopped because there are some diseases until now scientists did not discover effective cure for them.

thanks

[monica]

Hi simon~
1.Task1: should we write at a glance of instead of ｔｈｅ　ｇｒａｇｈ　compares; will the former one get the higher score?
2.If the score is 6, how could I achieve 7?
3.Is that ok to write same word many times in writing?
Thanl you!

[sun]

hi Haider,

an effective cure

[sun]

In case, it cannot be stopped of animal testing because there are some diseases until now scientists did not discover an effective cure for them.

[sjm]

Monica

1. No. 'At a glance' means a very very quick look. How can you analyse a chart fully with a 'quick look'? Don't use this expression.

2. The answer to this question is too long to write here. In short, halve your grammatical errors, eliminate 'unnatural English' and answer questions clearly.

3. No. There are two reasons. Firstly, it can mean you lack a range of vocabulary. Secondly, it can mean you are not 'referencing' which means using words like 'it' 'this' 'they' etc. This affects your CC score.

[Ling Zi]

Mark

[monica]

Thank you sjm :)

[Ashley]

Hi all,
I have a question about a topic: Nowadays, people like watching sports on television, rather than taking part in sports themselves. Do you think this is a positive or negative development?

My question is, how to address the second part of the sentence "rather than..."? Should I merely discuss the advantages and disvantages of watching sports on television, or do I need to refer to taking part in sports themselves to make a comparison?

[Shezy]

@Ashley
hi
I guess you should discuss both the view making comparisons highlighting positive and negative aspects. ( benefits of taking part in sports etc ) Then give your point of view in the next paragraph

[lin]

So wonderful. Think about reasons, consequences and examples!