IELTS Energy 1481: Strategies for Your Writing Task 2 Thesis
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast Episode 1481, Strategies for your Writing Task 2 Thesis.

Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 22 million times with former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com

forward slash my score. When it comes to your IELTS writing task two essay, you must have a thesis and why not memorize band nine scoring examples. Today, you will get a high scoring thesis for every task two essay type to ensure a seven or higher.

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Hello, Aubrey. How are you today? I'm great, Lindsay. How are you? I'm excited to be over here on the IELTS Energy Podcast. Do you have a question to kick off the episode today? I do. I'm curious, when's the last time you wrote a thesis statement? Oh my gosh, great question. Honestly, it was probably back in college. No, graduate school. Yeah.

Right. A long time ago, right? I actually had to write one last night with my daughter. She is writing and I was fascinated. She's writing this paper about explorers. And it's interesting. She has all this information about explorers who were like murderers and stole all this wealth. And I'm like, I love that they're giving you true history. I remember them being really like glorified.

as like heroes. Yeah, revisionist history, right? Yeah, for sure. No, that's good. They're learning the truth, right? That's great. Yeah, but I mean, how important is it on IELTS, Aubrey, to write an interesting thesis statement? Yeah, we got a great question about this from Saarunporn. I'll go ahead and read it. They just said, you know, how can I write an interesting thesis statement on IELTS essays? So we are going to dive into that. Do you need a thesis statement?

Yes, right. We're going to share which scores are affected by having a thesis on your Task 2 essay and definitely stay until the end. You are going to get today a Band 9 thesis statement for every Task 2 essay you could face on IELTS. Amazing. That's going to be huge, huge amount of value for our listeners today just by staying on the podcast to the end. But make sure right now, guys, you go ahead and hit that follow button

on the IELTS Energy podcast right here so that we drop into your listening queue twice a week. Yes, you don't want to miss any of these amazing episodes. Totally. And let's dive into the scores here, Lindsay, where you're going to talk about which scores of writing band descriptors are affected by your thesis. All right, so Aubrey, how are they affected?

- So what would be the first score that is really affected by the quality of your thesis? What do you think? - Yeah, first is task response. So we're not worried about task one here. The thesis is only for task two. So the task response score does matter and it's because it is necessary in the band descriptors that says necessary for a response to be considered well-developed, it must have a thesis. It's like a map.

outlining what you'll share in the essay. And this is part of it being considered well-developed. Yes, 100%. So task response, I mean, writing is really where a lot of our listeners struggle, right? We know that. This really is. But if we take a little bit of time just to understand exactly what the examiner's looking for, we can kind of move over that band six into seven, eight, nine. So task response is number one, Aubrey. What would be the second place?

that your score is affected. The second score is cohesion coherence. So it's all about how well organized your essay is. So it really makes sense that a thesis could affect this. You must organize information logically in your essay. You cannot just have a bunch of ideas and it's kind of random or you will get a very low cohesion coherence score.

And yeah, like I said, the thesis is sort of the map, the direction it shows the examiner how you will organize your essay. And without that, it's not going to feel very cohesive. Yeah, you know, I would think that we would want it to we would want a thesis, we would want a good thesis. I mean, honestly, sometimes when we create new courses, we write a thesis of the course when we're designing the course even.

That's kind of a random piece of information. It really helps you start with the outline. Exactly. What is the theory? What are you trying to convey in this course or in this essay? So the thesis really keeps everything together. So I love that it's under cohesion coherence. That makes total sense.

Exactly. Right. So what's interesting here, the student asked, you know, how to make sure the thesis is interesting. For IELTS, it's more important that it is clear and accurate rather than interesting. Sometimes I'll see a thesis that'll say something, maybe just, I will develop my opinion, something like that. But it's a problem solution essay. So really, you're sharing problems and solutions, and that's not an accurate thesis. So it's not

great for it to be interesting if it's wrong, if it's inaccurate. So that's more important. So we want to make sure that our thesis shows the examiner right away. We know what kind of question we're answering, right, in this essay, and that we're going to answer it. And we're not here to entertain the examiners, what you're saying, Aubrey? Exactly, right? The examiner is looking for you to satisfy the score requirements rather than entertain them. Yes. But if by interesting this listener meant

impressive vocabulary, then yes, your thesis sentence should have high scoring band nine vocabulary. And the easiest way to do this is with templates. You can memorize sentences ahead of time and then you just adjust them according to the essay. But if you have a thesis sentence for each type of essay and you learn those, then you can save so much time not having to create this thesis sentence on test day.

So smart. Templates are brilliant, don't you think? I mean, it's because it allows for maximum flexibility, but also stability and structure. So, you know, you're going to show the examiner exactly what they want, but then you fill in the details. So good. Exactly.

Can you afford to take IELTS multiple times? Even if you can, you don't have to. On this podcast, we want you to get the scores you need on test day and be on to your future dreams. That's why we created our free IELTS band score quiz at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.

Find out for free what you'd likely get on the IELTS exam and get our free resources to increase your score. allearsenglish.com slash myscore. Okay, Aubrey. So let's talk about those amazing templates that we promised our listeners here.

Right? Those thesis statements, yeah? For all these different kinds of essays. So for each essay, yes. There are several different task two essays that you could face on test day. And for each of them, your thesis will look a little bit different, right? So for example, an opinion essay, you are just sharing your opinion and a few strong details for your own opinion. So this will look different from, for example, an

Advantages, disadvantages essay. So what would be a band nine thesis for an opinion essay, Lindsay? All right. So here's what it could sound like. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss this issue and proffer justification for my opinion. Wow, Aubrey. Very impressive.

Right, exactly. Proffer means the same as provide, but it's band nine because it's less common, higher scoring. Oh, so good. So smart. And these structures, this linking phrase at the beginning in the following paragraphs, which is less common and higher scoring than just in this essay. And if you think about it, this thesis is just as easy to memorize as an average thesis, right? Using average band six words. So it's brilliant to put in these high-level band nine words.

It gets the examiner thinking in the direction of seven or higher. - Right, why memorize a band five, band six thesis if you're going to memorize something and how to spell every word, make sure you use it perfectly. Spend the time to memorize this higher scoring vocabulary. - So smart. All right, now we get into argument essays.

Exactly. So we're taking this one template. If you just memorized that template for opinion essay, then you could adjust it depending on the topic, depending on the essay. So we're going to show you how you adjust that sentence depending on what essay you're given. So

So for an argument essay, you're going to discuss both sides and still share your own opinion. So how might that thesis look, Lindsay? It would sound like this. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss both sides and proffer justification for my opinion.

Is that very similar? The only difference instead of saying I will discuss this issue, you are being very clear. I will discuss both sides. You're letting that you've got a topic here that is sharing both sides of an issue and you're making it clear to the examiner that both of those sides will be clearly and fully discussed in your essay.

Yeah, you're making it clear that you know exactly what the examiner wants. So good. Yeah, that you understand the topic and what it's asking for, and you'll have that in your essay. Then we have problem solution essays. How would the thesis change, Aubrey?

So these topics are asking you about a problem and to provide possible solutions. So the thesis might be in the following paragraphs. I will discuss the reasons for this issue and possible solutions. So you can see how one good thing to note is you don't have to say in the thesis, I will share my opinion. Your opinion has to be in every task two essay. But for these other essays where the focus is more about the

problem solution, for example, you can leave that out of the thesis. All right. I love it. Now, I hope our listeners are writing these down because this is gold here. Just pure gold. We're moving on to advantages and disadvantages. This kind of essay. Are we ready?

Yes. So this is very clear where the topic is asking you to provide advantages and disadvantages of an issue. And note the plural. You would have to provide at least two of each in your essay. And your thesis could be in the following paragraphs. I will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of this issue. You want to use synonyms.

If you have, it's going to say advantages and disadvantages in the topic. So have synonyms, parallel expressions for that to boost your vocabulary score. So smart. So smart. Very high level words too. I love it. And then we get into mixed essays, right? So where we talk about disadvantages and solutions.

As one example, right? A mixed essay is interesting. And we're seeing more and more of these on the IELTS exams that are being administered, where it's a mix of two of the different essay types that we have seen traditionally. And there usually will be two very separate questions. Might say like, what are some solutions?

discuss the possible disadvantages so they're sort of pulling in half of a problem solution essay and half of an advantages disadvantages yeah you there will be two questions you need to answer each of them in your two body paragraphs and your thesis what might that look like Lindsay okay we could say in the following paragraphs I will discuss the drawbacks of this issue and possible solutions yeah it's good to know that this mixed essay is becoming more common Aubrey yeah

Yes, right. And often you can recognize it because there will be two separate questions. Then you know, okay, well, this is just mixed. It's actually easier in a lot of ways because those two questions become your body paragraphs. You have to fully answer each of those questions in its own body paragraph. I love it.

I love that. So it's all about starting your essay in the right way, right Aubrey? Because again, the examiner starts to think about you and what score you might get. You start off strong, you organize your thinking in the whole essay. I love this idea. Yes, this thesis will come at the end of your introduction. You're going to restate the topic, share your opinion, and then your thesis for a very strong introduction. Awesome. Is there another episode we could check out to supplement what we're learning today?

Yeah. We want to have you guys go back. If you are thinking, what are mixed essays? I don't know much about this. We did an episode 1233 here on IELTS Energy. It was called Hidden Examiner Rules for IELTS Task 2. And that was all about mixed essays, what they are and how to tackle them. I love it.

I love it. Where should we leave our listeners? I mean, again, if you didn't write down what you learned on the podcast today, guys, go back, write it down, take notes, take these into your essay practice, right? The next time you go and practice your next essay and where else do we want to leave our listeners?

Yeah, it's vital to these scores, task response and cohesion coherence, that you include a thesis in all task two essays. So don't leave it off and don't wait until task day to come up with it. You only have 60 minutes. Save yourself time by having these ready ahead of time. Use a template, learn these, adjust them a little bit as necessary according to your essay, but be ready. This is something you can prepare in advance.

Amazing. Pure gold. Thank you, Aubrey. This is great. Really good to have. Good to carry into the exam. Super important. And remember to hit follow guys right here on the IELTS Energy podcast. All right. Yes. Awesome. We'll see you next time. All right. Bye. Take care. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash my score.