Writing IELTS: Applying Diversity of Reasons and Picking a Main Idea

Related to the previous article about brainstorming, you should know as well about the importance of giving different perspectives. You can have two or more perspectives for every issue. The diversity of examples and reasons will enrich your essay as well.

To give different perspective, you can train yourself initially by trying to see the issue from as many different eyes as you can. You will get more balanced essay when you can give these various perspectives. For example, the issue of social ecological market economy is not just two sided. It gives effects to domestic economy, international economy, consumers, workers, environment, ideas, culture and many other related fields. If you can take these different angles, you will be able to strengthen your position.

What you should pay attention on is on the use of information. It is better for you to use your own experience and observation rather than giving ideas on how the issue gives impacts to other people. You can tell about your personal experience that you had. Plus, you can let others know about your emotions from that moment. You can take experience from your community or your society. You can expand that experience to further round out your position on the issue.

Then, what you need to do is pick the main idea. After you finish your creative flow, make sure that you stop then review it. You have to determine which idea you are going to develop with a number of supporting information. It is very important for you to pick up an angle that will give you access to have a full coverage of the topic. Just don’t forget that though you have many ideas from the previous stages, such as brainstorming, you need to choose the best idea which has strong points. This condition makes it easy for you to write a few sentences about it as well.

IELTS Kampung Inggris Pare

Belajar IELTS

Ref. IELTS Secrets, copyright 2002 by MO Media.

Apalagi tentang Speaking 2 IELTS ?

Examiner akan membacakan instruksi cara menjawab pertanyaan Part 2 kemudian menyodorkan a cue card yang berisi beberapa pertanyaan yang siap Anda jawab dengan a monologue respon. Anda akan diberikan waktu 1 menit mempersiapkan respon jawaban. Efektifkan waktu Anda dalam merangkai jawaban, gunakan pensil dan kertas yang telah dipersiapkan oleh examiner. Dalam merangkai jawaban, Anda bisa menggunakan mind mapping ataupun listing sehingga ketika Anda bermonologue, Hesitation dan Repetition bisa dihindari.

Apalagi tentang PART 2?

Lakukan First-Impression Speech dengan sempurna.Hampir semua student yang pernah saya training telah terbiasa menggunakan frase-frase pendek dan tepat dalam menyampaikan pesan. Dalam penyampaian pesan yang baik, mulailah dengan menggunakan kalimat aktif agar lebih mudah dipahami. Cara ini Anda lakukan ketika mengawali speech.

Bandingkan kedua contoh ini:

1. “ I would like to talk about…” or “I have chosen to talk about …”
2. “I would be very pleased to tell you about XYZ.” “I have been asked to speak about XYZ, including A, B, and C,”

Membuat Action Plan IELTS

Oktober, 27, 2012 sekitar jam 1.10 malam, saya menerima pesan dari akun twitter seorang English Learner yang bernama Romy yang isinya seperti ini, “ …berapa lama waktu yang diperlukan untuk bisa speaking dan listening? Saya masih bingung, soalnya waktu luang saya paling lama sebulan.”

Well, hampir semua English Learner yang datang ke Kampung Inggris-Pare mempunyai problem yang sama dengan Mas Romy, yaitu bagaimana memperoleh hasil yang maksimal dengan waktu yang sangat singkat dalam belajar bahasa inggris 

Alhasil, mereka berbondong-bondong mendatangi kampung Inggris-Pare, duduk di bangku kelas berharap keajaiban menghampiri.

Apa yang terjadi setelah itu? Keajaiban yang diharapkan tidak kunjung datang. Beberapa hasil riset menunjukkan bahwa kegagalan seorang English Learner dalam belajar bahasa inggris di kampung inggris-pare adalah karena tidak adanya “ACTION PLAN” yang kuat.

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Beberapa tips belajar fantastik, dengan hasil yang luar biasa, sudah banyak saya bagikan di tulisan-tulisan sebelumnya. Di antara semua tips yang pernah saya tulis, memang saya belum pernah membahas bagaimana belajar singkat integrated Speaking and Listening seperti yang ditanyakan oleh Mas Romy. So, sekaranglah waktu yang tepat untuk meng-share Knowledge dan Experience saya selama 6 tahun mengajarkan Academic English.

Student yang mempunyai waktu belajar singkat, misalnya 1 bulan juga dapat meningkatkan level bahasa inggris tanpa harus datang ke kampung inggris-pare atau duduk di bangku kelas. Hal pertama yang Anda dilakukan adalah membuat Action Plan belajar untuk menetapkan pencapaian belajar. Pencapaian belajar ini mirip dengan peningkatan level Anda, sebut saja sekarang Anda berada di Level A1 dan akan menuju Ke Level A2, ataukah B1 ke C1 (lihat CEFR)

Setelah Anda menetapkan Action Plan, lakukan monitoring dengan penggunaan skala 1-10 setiap hari. Monitoring sangat penting untuk mengetahui sejauh mana progress Anda.
Lanjut pada kasus Mas Romy, saya menyarankan dia melakukan:

1. Self-help, artinya mengasah sendiri kemampuan. Dalam hal ini, Mas Romy meninginkan peningkatan Skill Listening. Saya pun menyarankan dia melakukan aktivitas  “banyak mendengarkan” English PodCast yang bahannya bisa didonwload di internet. Pemahaman ini (Self-Help_red) perlu ditanamkan sejak dini bagi pembelajar bahasa karena Self-Help adalah poin terpenting setelah buku-buku pelajaran dan mentor ANDA.
2. Tahap berikutnya, menirukan percakapan English PodCast. Gunakan alat rekam, REKAM SUARA ANDA, lalu Dengarkan. Apakah sudah mirip dengan penutur yang ada di PodCast? Jika belum, lakukan pengulangan sehingga Anda mampu memproduksi pengucapan dan ketepatan bertutur.
3. Jangan lupa mencari setiap teks percapakapan English PodCast yang dibutuhkan, so dengan begitu Anda mampu melihat dan mengenali bentuk tulisan. Hal ini dilakukan agar Anda terbiasa dengan ejaan yang tepat.
4. Lakukan aktivitas ini selama 1 bulan dengan disiplin waktu yang tepat dengan kombinasi Action Plan yang telah dibuat.

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3 (tiga) bulan terakhir, saya melakukan training di Jakarta. Saya meminta semua students membuat ACTION PLAN dan memantau perkembangan mereka.  Seperti yang diharapkan, 9 dari 10 students yang telah membuat ACTION PLAN menujukkan HASIL yang luar biasa pada skills Speaking dan Listeningnya dalam waktu 20 hari.

Dari pengalaman di atas, saya menyimpulkan: bukan lama belajar yang dibutuhkan, tapi pada Action Plan dan komitmen yang akan membawa Anda pada hasil yang luar biasa.

So bagi Mas Romy dan teman-teman lainnya yang hanya mempunyai waktu singkat. Jika ingin mempertajam skill Listening dan Speaking Anda, Buat sekarang juga Action Plan Anda, Lakukan Self-Help, raih skor yang luar biasa.

IELTS Kampung Inggris Pare
Belajar IELTS

Extract picture from Asia-Europe Foundation

Grammar IELTS itu Mudah

Jangan pernah berpikir examiner akan melewatkan yang satu ini. Grammatical structures yang ditandai dengan penggunaan simple dan complex structure dalam speaking module 1, 2, and 3 sangat menentukan peraihan IELTS Anda.

Simple structure dengan one grammatical structure mengindikasikan ACCURACY Anda dalam mengeksplor idea, ‘I like shopping’ or ‘I went shopping yesterday and bought some eggs.’ Dan Complex structure dengan more than one grammatical structure juga mengindikasikan RANGE Anda terhadap idea yang dipresentasikan, ‘I would buy cars if I had a million dollars.’ or ‘She is the girl who returned the book to me.’ Sebagai calon candidate yang akan mengikuti tes IELTS, Anda harus bisa mengeliminir semua kekeliruan-kekeliruan penggunaan simple dan complex sentence.

Speed Reading IELTS

Beberapa tahun yang lalu, saya mengikuti pelatihan SPEED-READING IELTS yang diadakan oleh sebuah lembaga asing. Di dalam pelatihan tersebut saya diajarkan cara yang sangat luar biasa melakukan SPEED-READING untuk meningkatkan konsentrasi saya. Pengetahuan itu saya bagikan ke Anda dalam tulisan ini.

Look at the picture and learn the vocabularies used

1. Rose/ increased steadily
2. Rose/ increased dramatically
3. Rose/ increased gradually
4. Plunged to ...
5. Peaked at / reached a high of ...
6. Stood at
7. Fluctuated
8. Fell/ dropped dramatically/ sharply
9. Reach a trough of ...
10. Remained constant/ unchanged/ stable at ...
11. Levelled off/ evened out at ...
12. Hit a low of ...

Unfamiliar Vocabulary in Reading IELTS

It is more than likely for you to deal with some unfamiliar vocabularies. Being panic for sure is not the best solution to have. Instead, you can practice on the following strategies to solve your vocabulary problem.

Check the content

You should check at the surrounding words of the difficult vocabulary. You can have a look at the words just before and after the unfamiliar vocabulary. Those words will help you to guess the meaning correctly, based on the context.

Look for a definition

For some cases, the writer realizes that the word that he or she uses might be very uncommon. Therefore, they usually simply translate the meaning of that word by using easier to understand unfamiliar vocabulary.

Identify the word’s place and purpose

Understanding whether a word is a noun, adjective, a verb or an adverb in a sentence is very essential skill to own. It will also help in understanding the meaning of the word.

Look for connective words

Connective words usually located near the unfamiliar vocabulary. That is why it can be used to help in identifying the general direction of the argument. There are four kinds of common connective words, including addition, sequence in order, consequence, and contrast/ comparison.

Break the word down into syllable

You can also get help to identify the meaning of the word by knowing pretty well on the common roots, affixes and possible similarity in your own language.

Treat the unknown word as an algebraic entity ‘X’

You can make use the relationship among the unfamiliar vocabulary, ‘X’, and the concept that you are familiar with.  You can use this way to help you answering questions that are related to ‘X’

Source: IELTS to Success Preparation Tips and Practice Test by Eric van Bemmel and Janina Tucker (Melbourne: 1997)

Differentiating T/F/NG in Reading IELTS

Always remember that in T/F/NG section, test taker’s ability to find particular information from the reading passage will be assessed. It does not mean that as a test taker, you have to memorize the passage in detail to discern whether the answer is T (True), F (False), or NG (Not Given).

You can use the following guideline to help you determine the correct answer. Read carefully to find the differences.

1. You should pick ‘false’ as the answer when the question states an information or statement that is on the contrary to what is mentioned in the passage. You need to make sure that the argument is in contrast. You can simply draw a line on the sentence in the passage to make sure that you don’t miss any important point.
2. You need to answer ‘not given’ when you cannot find the information or statement mentioned in the passage. In this context, you cannot say it is true and false. It is just a condition where you cannot find any supporting argument to support ‘true’ or ‘false’ as the answer.
3. You can choose ‘true’ as your answer when you find that the information or statement is explicitly mentioned in the passage. You need to be aware because sometimes, the words are not exactly the same but they are same in meaning.

It should be highlighted as well that you should understand that you should not use your prior knowledge to help you answering questions in this section. Every answer that you have should be referred to the passage.

One of the ways to referred back the statement to the reading passage is by scanning and marking. Scanning is important to do remembering that you will get only a short time to read the passage. Marking should not be forgotten as it can give some easiness, especially in verifying our answers.

Source: http://tips-4-ielts.blogspot.com/2011/04/identifying-information-ielts-reading.html

Predicting what is in the passage of reading IELTS

The problem that most of test taker deal with in reading IELTS comes from fear that they have even before they start reading the whole passage. Reading IELTS will be academic text which is sometimes not really familiar for test takers. In this case, you need to remember that being panic does not give you anything. Now, let us learn on how to predict what is the passage in the reading section is about.

Reading passages are only text. They have some items in every passage such as titles, paragraph headings, sub-headings, italicized or bold type, pictures, diagram and other visual information, and tables and charts. You can use these items to have ‘smart guessing’ on what kind of information that the passage is going to give. For example, when you see a picture, you can ask yourself some questions such as:

1. What is happening?
2. Who is doing it?
3. Where is it taking place?
4. Why is it being done?
5. What is needed to do it?
6. What other things do I know about this?

You can try to ask such kind of questions to help you get the prediction. You will be more confident in answering questions and finding the information in the passage because you are using your prior knowledge to help you. Actually, that is the thing we do every day every time we read something. However, it should be noted that for answering the section of T/F/NG, you need to be very careful because may take a wrong answer when you merely use your prior knowledge. Remember that prior knowledge should only be a kind of help for you to predict what is the passage is about. Still, you need to check the answer from the reading passage.

As your daily exercise, you can try to read English newspaper. You can write some questions about a newspaper article after looking at the headings and pictures. Then, find out whether you can find the answer in the passage.

Source: http://www.ieltstips.com/reading_strategies_pdfs/how_can_i_predict_what_the_passage_is_about.pdf

IELTS Reading (Serie 2)

Talking about understanding instruction in IELTS reading section, you need to recognize some important things in this section. Those important things cover the following items.

• What type of question you have to answer (gap-filling, multiple choice, matching information, etc)
• Whether or not the question requires a specific or general answer.
• What form the answer should take (is it in form of number, date, etc)

Besides, you need to master well on how to scan the text for specific answer. The important point from scanning application is the use of time efficiently. You should not spend more than one minute to find each answer. You need to look in the given passage, table, diagram or graph for the answer required. Then, locate keywords in the question and find them. Sometimes, you need to look for its synonym in the text. The sentences around these words are most likely to contain the answer that you need.

If you have some unsure answers, make sure that you give mark on it so that you could go back to those questions later after finishing all questions in that section.

Next skill to master is checking your answers. You should make sure that you leave no blank answer as you will not lose any mark even if you make some incorrect answers. Instead, you could go back to the questions that you consider as difficult ones. In checking the answers, you must keep holding on the instruction given. You should be careful to avoid a simple mistake in answering the questions. In order to help you get the ability to complete this skill, you should also know how to work out with unfamiliar vocabulary and master some common connective words. If you know well about connective words, you will get a big help to understand the general meaning of the text.

Source: IELTS to Success Preparation Tips and Practice Test by Eric van Bemmel and Janina Tucker (Melbourne: 1997)