Pass your IELTS Official Chat, [11/12/2021 11:08 PM] Let’s ans | Azizbek's Blog

Pass your IELTS Official Chat, [11/12/2021 11:08 PM]
Let’s answer another question.

Someone asked me the following a week or so ago.

“What do you think about Simon essays??? Are they really worth getting 9 band in your view???”

I wouldn’t normally comment on other teacher’s work, but I’m familiar with Simon’s example essays and materials as I used them a lot when I first started teaching IELTS. Honestly, the foundation of my writing approach is more inspired by his stuff than any other source (though I’ve incorporated other materials as well). I also saw his videos and thought I could do that as well.

In terms of whether his essays deserve 9s, that decision is entirely down to an examiner’s opinion. I believe he was an examiner, so in his opinion they are 9s, but of course there would be variation between examiners.

From what I’ve seen, his grammar and vocab should get 9s every time. Honestly, he has an easy-to-read natural style to his essays. However, I do think that not all of his essays would get a 9 for CC and TR. Let me explain why.

I often see his body paragraphs use the structure ‘Topic sentence / Firstly (2 sentences) / Secondly (one sentence) / Lastly (1 sentence). In other words, he has a paragraph with a single topic with three supporting ideas. Two of them have only one sentence. This is where I think TR and CC might be restricted.

To get a 9 in TR, there needs to be ‘fully extended and well-supported ideas’. I don’t think you can really claim an idea is fully extended if it only has one sentence. To me, it sounds a bit too much like listing ideas rather than exploring/developing ideas if you have too many ideas in a paragraph that aren’t explored fully. There’s probably an argument that CC might not get 9 as well as there might be a slight lack of progression.

I’d say his stuff is a great resource, but my suggestion would be to only do two supporting ideas (one topic) per paragraph. Always give at least two sentences for any idea you bring in, just to make sure you are covering the requirements of ‘developing main ideas’.

In other words, from a strict reading of the criteria, when I see two points in a paragraph that only have a single sentence, I can’t see how TR 9 can be reached.

Again, his writing is excellent and I’m sure many of his essays are worth 9. @passyourieltsofficial