Gold Coast IELTS Podcast

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts Welcome to Gold Coast IELTS in Southport and online! OK guys so adverbs are those words that (often but not always) end in –ly. They give us extra information about verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. Adverbs are the word that tell us how (manner), where (place), when (time), how often (frequency), or how much (intensity) something happens or is done. An adverb can be a single word ("sometimes") or a phrase ("from time to time"). So how do we use adverbs? Well, they can tell us about 1. Manner – are often formed by adding –ly to the adejctive form: careful – carefully happy – happily These adverbs usually come after the verb (and object if there is one). I plan my trips very carefully. (not I plan very carefully my trips) 2. Place – usually come after the verb: It was the first time I had been there. Try to stay near the old part of the city. 3. Time – such as today, tomorrow, now, since 1996, or for three minutes can go at the beginning or end of a clause: I had a…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts Today let’s take a look at the future perfect continuous tense and how it can be effectively used in the IELTS exam to explain what will be happening at a particular point in time in the future. Firstly, how do we make the future perfect continuous tense? Basically, it is made in the following way: will + (not) have + been + verb-ing So how do we use the future perfect continuous tense? Basically it is used to show how long an activity or situation has been in progress before a specified time in the future. We usually mention the length of time. For example: By the end of the month, I’ll have been studying at this school for four years. Now let’s check out how the future perfect continuous tense can be used in a real IELTS style task 1 writing task. Check out the bar chart, then try and complete the sentences using the future continuous tense. 1. Twelve students ---- on Saturday afternoon. 2. The students ---- books on Saturday. 3. The largest group of students ----…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts There is no doubt that in IELTS we need to be able to describe what has happened and what is happening, but we also need to be able to make predictions for the future, and we can use ‘will’, ‘going to’, and a combination of other words to do this. 1. ‘will’ can be used to - make predictions that are based on our opinions of our past experience: I think it’ll be extremely hot there. - talk about future events or facts that are not personal: The best player on the tour will get a special trophy. 2. ‘going to’ can be used to - talk about events in the future we have already thought about and intend to do: We’re going to hire a mini bus. - make predictions when there is present evidence: Well, we’re certainly going to have a varied trip. (I am judging this from what I already know about the plans) 3. ‘will’ and ‘going to‘ can follow words like think, doubt, expect, believe, probably, certainly, definitely, and be sure to to show that it is an opinion about the future. I…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts The past simple, past perfect, and past perfect continuous tenses are great to use in IELTS. We can use them to compare actions that happened in the past and show the examiner how deep our knowledge of time is. Firstly let’s look at the past perfect simple. This tense is made with had + past participle. It is used in the following ways. 1. When we are talking about the past and want to mention something that happened earlier. Notice that the adverb (already) goes between had and the past participle. Mozart’s father was a composer and his grandfather had also been a musician. 2. We can use words like when, as soon as, by the time, after to show the order of events. When Mozart was born, five of his siblings had already died. 3. To talk about an indefinite time before a particular time, use words like always, sometimes, never, before, by + fixed time. His family were richer than they had ever been before. Next, the past perfect continuous is made with had been + -ing.…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts Present tenses are used a lot in the IELTS exam, especially in the task 1 task. The two kinds of present tense verb in English are present simple and present continuous, and both of them have different functions (ways and times to be used). Lets look at each one separately, and then see how they can be used in the IELTS exam. The present simple tense is made with the bare infinitive verb, and has a number of functions. 1. Regular habits or repeated actions I get up really early and practice yoga for an hour each day. I use the internet just about everyday. 2. Permanent situations My parents own a restaurant. 3. Facts or generally accepted truths Students don’t generally have much money. 4. To give instructions or directions To start the program, first click on the icon on the desktop. The present continuous is made with a ‘be’ verb + the –ing form of the verb. It also has a number of functions. 1. To talk about present situations My cousin is living in Thailand at…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g/page/gcielts Countable and uncountable nouns is a subject that many learners, even very advanced learners, have a lot of trouble with. In this podcast, we will look at quantity expressions that we can use with these types of nouns. I think everyone listening to this podcast probably already knows the difference between countable and uncountable nouns, so lets jump right in and look at the quantity expressions. 1. Some and any Some is generally used in: positive statements = There are some shelves above the desk. polite requests = Would you like some biscuits? to mean ‘an unspecified large amount’ = It would be great to get some money for the rent. Any is generally used in: negatives and questions = My desk hasn’t got any drawers. Have you got any chocolate? positive statements to mean ‘it doesn’t matter which/who/where/when = Call me any time 2. Quantities We can use the following words to talk about quantities. everything = all of for countable and uncountable nouns large…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts Noun phrases are the building blocks of any language. They can refer to ideas, things, situations or just about anything else that you can imagine. There will be at least one noun in every sentence that you make, so we need to be able to make really great noun phrases that stand out and will make the IELTS examiner take notice of us. So lets get stuck into (start studying) this awesome topic Nouns can be single words, or multiple word formations. In every noun, there will be a head noun, which is the main noun. Before this noun can come pre-nominals (words before the noun like adjectives) and post-nominals (words after noun like relative clauses). In this workshop we will look specifically at post-nominals, of which there are four types. 1. Noun + prepositional phrase Common prepositions to use in these constructions include of, in, for, on, to, and with. of is used after nouns of quantity or to show possession. the number of fish (quantity) the people of the past…

www.goldcoastielts.com goldcoastielts@gmail.com Time is a tricky thing to get right, and the way you describe it in a task 1 shows how accurate your language is. IELTS task 1 charts usually show information for the past that often continues to the present time. This is a perfect opportunity for us to use the simple past and the present perfect together in one piece of writing. If we contrast them properly, and show the examiner that we know the difference between the two of them, we will be able to get a higher mark for the grammar criteria. Let’s start by looking at the differences between these two tenses. 1. The present perfect links the past with the present / The simple past only talks about the past PP: I’ve made quite a lot of notes. (at some point in time before now and I may take more notes) PS: I made notes on the most important things. (I’ve finished taking notes) 2. The present perfect does not talk about a specific time / The simple past states a specific time, or the time is understood from…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts Today let’s do a quick podcast and learn a great technique that not many people know about. It’s a simple language variation technique that is especially useful when describing IELTS task 1 charts. One thing that IELTS examiners HATE is language repetition. And one thing they LOVE is language variation. One common way to vary language is to use synonyms. Here is an example. Title: Sales of cars in EU countries 1999-2009 Synonymous language: The chart shows how many automobiles were sold in nations in Europe between 1999 and 2009. The synonymous terms used were (cars = automobiles) and (countries = nations). This is a nice technique, but it is a little common and not special in any way. Today let’s learn a better technique to impress the IELTS examiner. Instead of using synonymous words, lets try to impress the examiner by using different forms of the same word. One easy way to do this is to exchange nouns for verbs, and adjectives for adverbs. Here is an example:…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts In the IELTS task 1 many people describe the details of the charts quite well, but the forget to make adequate comparisons. There are many ways of comparing in English, the most common being to use adjectives, comparative adjective adjectives, and superlative adjectives. Today, we will focus on some ways of comparing that will guarantee that we get a high mark in this part of the task 1. Let’s look at three cool ways to compare: 1. Comparing with adverbs 2. Add emphasis 3. Other ways of comparing So firstly, we can use adverbs to make comparisons. There are three ways we could do this. We could: i) use more/most + an adverb to make our comparison China is developing more quickly than the US. ii) Use some irregular adverbs like hard, fast, straight, late or quick Men aged over 60 live 20 years longer than they did in the past. iii) We could use irregular adverbs like badly/worse/worst or far/further/furthest Italy did a lot worse than other countries when it came to…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts Another skill that is going to help us get a high score on the cohesion and coherence part of the IELTS test is making good use of referencing, which means words like pronouns and determiners. These words can replace nouns or noun phrases. The main referencing words in English are: 1. Personal and possessive pronouns (you, I, yours, mine) 2. Reflexive pronouns (yourself, myself) 3. It 4. You and We 5. They 6. One/Ones Today let’s focus on numbers 3-6 above, and see how we can use this referencing language to really improve our CC score in a task 2. ‘it’ can be used in two ways. i. to start sentences when the real subject is an infinitive or –ing form. It can be good to have professional economists in charge. ii. to refer to phrases, whole sentences, or ideas. When a young person starts studying at a university for the first time, it can be a big change from high school.(it = when a young person starts university) ‘You’ and ‘we’ are used to talk about everybody in…

Last time we looked at how to use the passive voice in an IELTS task 1 process essay. Let’s keep going with this idea and check out the last two things we need to use to make a really GREAT written process essay. So the three things we will use to make our process essay are going to be: 1. Passive verbs 2. Sequence connectors 3. Relative clauses We already looked at sequence connectors in the last podcast, so today, let’s carry on and look at great sequence connectors and how to combine them with passive voice and relative clauses, all in ONE SENTENCE. And let’s be clear guys, the trick is to combine all three of these into one medium to long sentence, meaning about 15-25 words if possible. First let’s look at sequence connectors. We can group our sequence connectors into 2 groups – ordering and adverbials. 1. Ordering: first, second, third 2. Adverbials: then, next, before, after (that we can use at the beginning, or even better, in the middle of a sentence) Next, how about relative clauses? As you probably…

There are many ways to use the passive voice in the English language. Firstly, let’s take a look at the different forms of the passive, then we can look at its uses. There are 14 different ways to use the passive in English. Here they are for everyone’s benefit: 1. Present simple:The union is runby 7 executive officers. 2. Present continuous:The union is being runby 7 executive officers. 3. Past simple:The union was runby 7 executive officers. 4. Past continuous:The union was being runby 7 executive officers. 5. Present perfect:The union had been runby 7 executive officers. 7. going to:The union is going to be runby 7 executive officers. 8. will:The union will be runby 7 executive officers. 9. infinitive:The union is to be runby 7 executive officers. 10. –ingform: The union insists on the union being runby 7 executive officers. 11. used to: The university used to be runby 7 executive officers. 12. Modals:The university should be runby 7 executive officers. 13. need to/have to:The university needs to/has to…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts So today guys lets look at how to write the conclusion of an IELTS task 2. A lot of IELTS students get confused at this part and try to rewrite and come up with new ideas. Effectively they are wasting time that they should be spending in the body section coming up with good ideas and showing off their grammar. One thing to remember about the IELTS task conclusion is that it simply mirrors and restates the introduction. So, if you did a good job writing the introduction and followed what I taught in podcasts 8 and 9, writing the conclusion should be very easy and should never take you more than 3 minutes. How is this possible you might be asking? Well, it’s possible because we have a template for the IELTS task 2 conclusion. Before we look at the conclusion however, it will be a good idea to go back and look at the question we used in podcast 8 and 9. Here is it: (1) Some people believe that it is best to accept a bad situation, such as an unsatisfactory job or…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts 4. Exemplification/Restatement Exemplification connectors clarify preceding information. These connectors may introduce examples or an expansion. The most common exemplification connectors are for example and for instance. Restatement connectors give deeper explanations of preceding information. Restatement connectors include that is, in other words, more precisely, which is to say, that is to say, and namely. Exemplification: There are ways in which you might build a house cheaply. For example, you could become your own project manager. Restatement: He managed to save $70,000 on the total cost of his home build. In other words, it would have cost him over $1,000,000 if he had used a well-known building company. Don’t get exemplification and restatement connectors mixed up! Your essay will sound very strange. 5. Result Result discourse connectors introduce information that is a consequence of some preceding information. Examples of result connectors include:…

www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts Let’s talk about cohesion and coherence today. I wrote a blog about this topic, which explained what you should do to get a high CC score. In this podcast I will try to explain this topic in more detail, with examples of good IELTS task 1 and task 2 discourse connectors, linking language, and transitions. Firstly, what is a discourse connector? We need to be very clear about this. Discourse connectors are single or multi-word elements that link ideas across sentences, across paragraphs, or even across larger pieces of text. The problem that most students make in the IELTS exam is that they use the same kinds of discourse connectors (single word), and only use them to link across adjacent sentences. All discourse connectors establish MEANING RELATIONSHIPS within a text, which leads to COHESION and COHERENCE. Now we know the problems, let’s look at the different types of connectors that are available to us. 1. Ordering The ordering connectors are the most commonly used…

Web: goldcoastielts.com Instagram: goldcoast_ielts OK guys so I don’t have a lot of time today. Corona virus seems to have made me more busy than usual even. Today let’s focus on some different ways to make topic sentences. The way we will do this is by expanding the connecting phrase from last time to include seven new words that we can use depending on the situation. Let’s introduce these seven words below, along with the (prepositions) and (other elements) that go with them. 1. An explanation + for + NOUN 2. A drawback + of + NOUN / GERUND 3. An advantage + of + NOUN / GERUND 4. A consequence + of + NOUN / GERUND 5. A justification + for + GERUND 6. A way + to + INFINITIVE 7. A reason + why + NOUN A good safe way to write the topic sentence of a body is to use a connecting phrase such as “On the one hand,” and combine it with one of these seven phrases. Let’s take a look at an example for the following question from Cambridge IELTS 13: Living in a country where you have to speak a foreign language can…

Web: www.goldcoastielts.com Instagram: goldcoast_ielts All body paragraphs will need to have a very clear topic sentence in the sentence initial (S1) position. The purpose of the topic sentence in an IELTS task 2 body paragraph is to introduce the topic, link the paragraph forwards or backwards to another paragraph, and to give the author’s belief or stated position in relation to the topic. So we have the following three parts in every topic sentence: 1. Phrase to connect paragraph to other paragraphs 2. Main subject of the paragraph 3. Claim about the subject of the paragraph If you include these three things in your body topic sentences, and you do it with the good clear grammar that I will explain in a moment, your body paragraph will be off to a very good start. So now let’s take a look at a typical IELTS task 2 question, one that we in fact used in the previous podcast on analysing questions. The topic of this question is tourism and its effect on traditional societies around the world. An increase in…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: www.goldcoastielts.com In today’s podcast let’s take a step back. We probably should have done this a few weeks ago so I have to apologise about that. Today, let’s look at how to properly analyse task 2 essay questions. So basically every task 2 essay question will have three parts. We can call these parts a) the instruction(what you have to do), b) the topic(what you have to write about), and c) the issue(the problem you have to analyse). Let’s take a look at a couple of examples and try our hand at analysing them. Example 1: An increase in tourism has had a significant effect on traditional society’s way of life. Many people argue that this change has brought about progress. Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer. Let’s break example 1 down into the three parts: a. The instruction: Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer. b. The topic: An increase in tourism / Traditional society’s way of life. c. The issue Whether this change has brought progress or not. Let’s try…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: www.goldcoastielts.com www.g.page/gcielts As I promised you all in podcast 12, today we can look at another, alternative way to write a fairly simple IELTS task 2 body or 90 words. Today’s body will have only four sentences, so we need to make each sentence go for about 20-25 words. This might be a big tough for some of you out there who have lower levels of grammar, but let’s do our best! So, here is the structure of our new body paragraph. Sentence 1 (Topic sentence): This sentence will introduce the topic of the whole paragraph. Sentence 2 (Explanation): This sentence will explain the problem or topic in greater detail. Sentence 3 (Example): This sentence will give an example from the real world using real places and real numbers or statistics. Sentence 4 (Result): This sentence will give the result of the example given in sentence 3. Let’s review the tools we will use to write this first body. Here is the question again. (1) Some people believe that it is best to accept a…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com OK guys we are back, and today we are going to do something amazing. We will use the plan from podcast 11 to write a 90-word body paragraph. As you can probably imagine, there are different ways to write a body paragraph. What we will try and do today is write a 90-word body of 5 sentences. Each of these sentences will have a clear function, and we need to stick to these functions as we write. Here are the functions for each sentence: Sentence 1 (Topic sentence): This sentence will introduce the topic of the whole paragraph. Sentence 2 (Point 1): This sentence will give our first main idea and include linking language and some colourful vocab. and grammar. Sentence 3 (Example 1): This example will function as evidence to support sentence 2. Sentence 4 (Point 2): This sentence will introduce our second main idea and include more linking language, vocab. and high-level grammar. Sentence 5 (Example 2): This sentence will function as an example to support…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com Last time we looked at how to brainstorm ideas for the body paragraphs of a task 2. In today’s podcast, we will see how to progress to the next step, which is to turn the brainstorm into a plan. The body plan is what we will use to write our 180-word body section. The plan could be for three 60-word paragraphs, or two 90-word paragraphs. At Gold Coast IELTS we prefer the 2x90 model because it gives us more room to flesh out our ideas. It should never take more than 2 minutes to complete the brainstorm and accompanying plan as most of the work is done inside our head. The result should be a very basic plan containing a few key words on a piece of paper. Let’s keep using the same essay question that we used in podcasts 8 and 9. Here it is again for those that have forgotten: (1) Some people believe that it is best to accept a bad situation, such as an unsatisfactory job or shortage of money. (2) Others argue that it is better to try and improve such…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com In podcasts 8 and 9 we learnt how to write a nice introduction without doing too much work. Now we need to sit back and take a break because we need to do some serious thinking now. After finishing the introduction, the next stage is to do a quick brainstorm to generate quality ideas for the body section of the essay. This will help us to score really well for the Task Achievement criterion of the task 2. Under exam conditions the brainstorm will ideally take a minute or 2, and will generate four quality ideas to write about in the two body paragraphs. Each of these paragraphs will be 90 words long and include two brainstorm ideas along with examples or contrasts. Let’s keep using the same essay question that we used in podcasts 8 and 9. Here it is again for those that have forgotten: (1) Some people believe that it is best to accept a bad situation, such as an unsatisfactory job or shortage of money. (2) Others argue that it is better to try and improve…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com In podcast 8 we learnt how to write the first sentence of our task 2 introduction. This is known as the “background statement” and its purpose was to contextualise the essay in the real world. Today let’s move on to the second sentence of our essay which is called the “thesis statement”. The purpose of this sentence is to let the audience know what we will do in the essay. We can also introduce our main argument here if we want to. Let’s keep using the same essay question that we used in podcast 8. Here it is again for those that have forgotten: (1) Some people believe that it is best to accept a bad situation, such as an unsatisfactory job or shortage of money. (2) Others argue that it is better to try and improve such situations. (3) Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. And here is the background statement we came up with last time for this question: S1: These days, many people are of the belief that rather than accept a difficult situation…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com OK so today guys we are going to check out how to write the introduction sentence 1 of our task 2. This is a very, very important sentence because it is going to set the whole tone of our beautiful IELTS task 2. Today let’s keep it pretty easy and just focus on how to do the Task 2 S1 that will get a band-score 6.5 or so. We can pimp it up to a 7.5 in the next podcast or at a later date. So basically this introduction S1 has only one goal, which, like a task 1 S1, is to restate the question. So firstly, let’s take a look at a fairly typical Task 2 question. This one is from Cambridge IELTS 14, Test 1. (1) Some people believe that it is best to accept a bad situation, such as an unsatisfactory job or shortage of money. (2) Others argue that it is better to try and improve such situations. (3) Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. This is a combination discussion/opinion style task 2 because of the language presented in the instruction (3). We…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com In this podcast let’s check out how to create the final part of our task 1 – the summary section. Note that we call this a summary and not a conclusion because conclusion is strictly reserved for the final paragraph of a task 2. Ideally, we want to write two sentences for this part of our task 1. The first one should begin with “Overall” or “In summary” and the second sentence should begin with some sort of linking word or adverbial, most likely a comparative such as “However”. Let’s keep using the map illustration from podcast 5 and write a nice summary for that. Here is the summary... In summary, it can be clearly seen that the entire island was made more welcoming to tourists because of the addition of a wide range of touristic facilities. However, while this may result in greater income for local people, the environmental impact of these changes is more difficult to predict. It could be argued that at 50 words this summary is about 10 or 15 words too…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com Today let’s take another look at a different kind of task 1 body section and do a line chart. This will be a bit different from the map in the last podcast because we can try to use some more comparative language here. Some language we could use to do this would include: 1. In comparison 2. But 3. Although 4. In contrast 5. While Now let’s take a look at an IELTS task 1 line chart, and find four details to write about. 1. The total rose over the period, but ended up unchanged at the end. 2. Refined cane and beet sugars started high, while all other foods started extremely low. 3. As refined cane and beet sugars decreased, corn sweeteners rose at a similar rate. 4. Edible syrups and honey remained extremely low over the entire period. Now lets write the full details section. Looking in more detail, it can be seen that total sweetener availability increased markedly around the turn of the century, but decreased to finish up close to where it started in 2011.…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com Today we’ll move on from the first sentence of the task 1 body and find out how to continue writing the “details” part of the body. Before writing this section we really need to take a close look at the chart and find about three detailed pieces of information from the chart that we can use in this part. Ideally, this section will be two or three sentences long, and is a great opportunity to show the examiner our knowledge of synonyms, grammar, and English connecting language. Lets take a look at an IELTS task 1 map illustration, and find three details to write about. 1. A restaurant, reception area, and accommodation have all been built 2. Paths and vehicle tracks have been built to connect everything together 3. A pier has been built for boats. Now lets write the full details section. "Looking in more detail, it can be seen that a number of new facilities have been built on the island, including a restaurant and a reception area in the middle, with…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com Welcome back! Today we’ll look at how to make the first sentence of the body paragraph for our task 1. Lets call this sentence the S1. This sentence will describe one key detail of the chart. In the chart below, it would probably be the line for the UK, which rose a lot more than any of the other lines in the chart. In fact, this line rose by about 20 per cent. Some of the language we could use to start this sentence is given below. We could say something like: 1. Looking in more detail, the line chart illustrates that ... 2. A closer look at the line chart shows us that ... Now lets try to make a great S1 for our IELTS task 1. Take a look at the chart below to jog your memory. Firstly, lets describe the line for the UK in simple terms. S1: Looking in more detail, the line chart illustrates that the line for the UK increased a lot. This is OK, but we can make it better by adding some numbers and better detail. Lets try again. S2: Looking in more detail, the…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com Welcome back! In the first two podcasts we looked at how to make the first sentence of our introduction, which was basically a cleverly worded paraphrase of the chart title. Today we’ll look at how to make the second sentence of our introduction, or the S2. This sentence will describe the key trend of the chart. What is the key trend? This is simply the first thing that jumps out at you when you take a look at the chart. It could be a general increase, a general decrease, or no change. There are many possibilities. Firstly, we need to look at the language we can use to start this sentence. Here are a few good S2 starters: 1. In general, we can see that ... 2. In general, it can be seen that ... 3. Overall, the chart shows a (ADJECTIVE) trend ... 4. Overall, it can be seen that while ... , ... . Now lets try to make a solid introduction with an S1 and an S2. Take a look at the chart below(SEE CHART ON PODCAST 3 EXPLANATION): The first step is to make a good…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com Last time we looked at how to write the first sentence of our task 1 introduction. Today, lets expand on that theme and practice doing this a bit more. Lets imagine we have three different task 1 titles, and that we have to write three different S1s for some introductions. Lets take a look at each one of them in turn. Number 1: “Visitor numbers to New Caledonia 1995-1999” There are a number of things we could do with this task 1 title. We could change one or more nouns, for example visitor to traveller. We could add some information, for example the island of New Caledonia. We could also play around with the dates and say something like, the final five years of the twentieth century. Here is our S1 paraphrased from the title: (The line chart shows) the total number of travellers to the island nation of New Caledonia in the last five years of the twentieth century. Number 2: Average length of holiday in weeks (2000-2009) With this title, we could change…

Instagram: goldcoast_ielts Web: goldcoastielts.com Do you ever get that feeling you just don’t know how to start a task one? Don’t worry, we’re here to help you. A good IELTS task one intro only needs 2 sentences. That’s right, just two. Let’s call them S1 and S2. The good news is, each of them has a structure, and a purpose. Let’s dive in a little deeper. Your Task 1 intro S1 has only one purpose, to restate the title of the chart you are looking at. We can use paraphrasing, new grammar, or additions to achieve this. Let’s say you have a task one table and the title is “Amount of sleep for secondary school students”. We can use this title to write our S1. Always start with the words “The table/line chart/map/process diagram shows ...” and then add the information from the title. Here’s an example of a nice S1. “The table shows the lengths of time that different aged high school students spend sleeping.” This is a nice little 15 word task 1 S1. If we analyse it, we can see that the S1 used some synonyms.…