IELTS Aid (Practice Essays)

More and more people believe that smart individuals are more likely to be successful. In contrast, some people say that a person’s achievements cannot be the only factor to consider to see his or her intellect. This essay will explain that intelligence can be objective and subjective therefore there are many ways on how it can be gauged. It has been long believed that intelligence is the ability of a person to attain high grades in school. This makes intelligence objective. In many educational institutions, educators and students often think highly of exceptional individuals who perform well academically. They often put these special students on a pedestal and give them pressure by saying their expectations to them. Many teachers even provide their recommendations for these students to certain companies to help them land a job easily. A good job means a successful life. This may sound unfair to many but this is still practiced in schools all over the world. But are all of them succes

Sample essay: More and more university students these days prefer to study overseas. This is contrary to the more traditional approach of finishing school in your home county that was popular a long time ago. This development in education has opened many doors to the students not only personally but also professionally. This essay will explain the reasons why the gains far exceed the drawbacks. Although school fees are definitely more expensive, many believe that the promise of a better life can only be attained when a person starts a new life in another country. Many third-world countries like the Philippines suffer from a social issue called “brain drain”. This is the phenomenon where professional workers leave their own countries for better opportunities abroad. This problem has the tendency to get bigger if studying in universities abroad becomes the norm. The lack of a highly-qualified professional workforce can affect a country negatively in many ways. On the contrary,

Sample report: The bar chart compares a country’s total export earnings in billion dollars in five different products in 2015 and 2016. The table reveals how each products’ value in percentage changed in those two years. Overall, the first graph presents that the country’s earnings in exported products rose in 2016 except for gems and jewelry. The table reveals though that four out of five categories grew in percentage value by 2016. From the bar graph, during both years, petroleum products sold more than the other categories; while textiles ranked the lowest. A considerable climb in earnings can be noticed for the majority of the products especially with textiles which jumped from a little over 25 billion dollars to about 31 billion. In contrast, gems and jewelry had a loss of around 3 billion dollars from its initial collection of approximately 43 billion. Agricultural products showed almost no change in both years with roughly 30 billion dollars. As for the ta

TOPIC: In the past decade, there has been a great increase in the number and variety of online courses available to adults. This has been welcomed as a great opportunity by many students, however, other students see these courses as less effective than classroom teaching. What are the advantages and disadvantages of studying an online course? Sample essay: Distance learning has seen an upsurge in recent years thanks to digital modernization. For many adults, they see online learning as their tool for future successes, while others deem it ineffective and prefer traditional learning. This essay will present the benefits and downsides of learning online. The convenience of being able to access quality education anywhere and anytime through portable devices is the biggest reason for the popularity of online learning. This feature makes it attractive to adults who may have problems managing their time. In addition, online learning can be a portal for many individuals wh

An overview is a summary of the main features seen in a visual information/graph. It is usually what we need to write after paraphrasing the title of the task or graph. For a report to achieve a high band score especially in your Task achievement, a clear overview MUST be presented.  As with any other parts of a report (task 1), practice is necessary to be able to write an ideal and almost perfect overview. Some of the fail-poof  tips for writing an overview are as follows: Write 2 or more sentences. Do not try to write one long sentence. This would confuse both you and the reader. Try to make your sentences flow with clarity.   Don’t write any numbers (except the time period). Specific numbers are considered as your details. Save this information in the next paragraphs. Look for the overall change from the beginning to the end of the period (for graphs with time). Say if the overall trend "increased/decreased" or "stabilised". For graphs without time peri

English spelling can be really daunting and intimidating. If you try to look up for 'rules' in spelling over the web, you'll be overwhelmed with how many rules there are and their exceptions. Although memorising these technicalities can be helpful, it is not really advisable. Leave the memorising part to expert linguists! Here are some of the rules I have gathered from research. So here are 6 (sort of) easy spelling rules/guides to get you one step closer to English spelling mastery! 1.       Use i before e, except after c, or when sounding like “ae” For example: a.       i before e: believe, achieve, piece b.       except after c: receive, ceiling, perceive c.       except when c sounds sh: proficient, ancient, efficient d.       except when ie sounds like “ae”: neighbor, eight, foreign 2.       C can say /k/ or /s/. a.       C sounds /s/ before an e, i, or y : cent, city, cycle b.       C says /k/ before everything else: cat, clip, cloud 3.

Describing numbers (statistics/ proportion/percentages): Example sentences provided are based on the graph below. 1.       The easiest technique is to describe the specific number as it is. For example: a.       60 billion dollar worth of petroleum products were exported in 2015. b.       There is a 3% rise in the change in the value of petroleum products from 2015-2016. 2.       Use fractions (recommended when describing main features) For example: The export earnings of textiles were only two-sixths of the value of petroleum products sold in 2016. 3.       Use vocabulary of approximation To avoid sounding repetitive, you can use words that can describe data in a more flexible way. Common examples: under, less than, nearly, almost, close to, about, approximately, around, above, more than, just over, considerably more than, slightly over, etc. For example: a.       There was an almost 9 percent growth in value for engineered goods during th

Introductory expressions •         The graph/table shows/indicates/illustrates/reveals/represents... •         It is clear from the graph/table that… •         It can be seen from the graph/table that… •         As the graph/table shows,... •         As can be seen from the graph/table,... •         As is shown by the graph/table,... •         As is illustrated by the graph/table,... •         From the graph/table it is clear that… Describing trends VERBS Upward trend : increase, rise, go up, grow, climb, jump, leap, skyrocket, peak, boom, expand, soar, improve, and shot up. Downward trend: decrease, fall, decline, go down, slump, reduce, decline, drop, dip, plummet, plunge, crash, and collapse. NO change: maintain, remain, stay, constant, stabilized, steady, unchanged, level out, and stagnate. Upward and downward trend: fluctuate, flutter, undulate, and zig-zag. Adverbs Small changes: gradually, gently, slightly, steadily, mi

REPORT STRUCTURE: Paragraph1: Paraphrased topic + Overall/Overview (if there are two or more graphs, you need to explain the main data of each graph in one sentence) P2: 1st detail mentioned in the overview if you only have one graph (Details of the first graph, if you have two or more graphs) P3: 2 nd detail from the overview if you only have one graph (Details of the second graph if you have two or more graphs P4: Strange information like a different trend or an abnormal data seen in the graph. (This can be rare) Sample essay: The graph presents the total number of British male and female students who are studying fulltime and part-time. It shows that the study was conducted once every ten years from 1970/71 to 1990/91. As can be seen, part-time education is more preferred by both genders in all periods. Also, in every period, there is an increase in students in both education category but the huge jump was recorded during the first decade of the stu