The Writing aspect of certification exams tends to be the most difficult of the four. Students scores are 10-15% lower than in the other aspects. To avoid making typical writing mistakes you should know the most obvious ones.
Single-paragraph Essay
A text without proper structure is a text that never gets high score. This text has no clear structure and therefore is both hard and unpleasant to read. Remember that your essay should have at least two body paragraphs, introduction and conclusion. See this essay structure page for more tips.
Copying the Task
Using the same exact phrases from the task isn’t welcomed by examiners. The copied text is not going to be counted towards your total of words. This means that if you use the task words and phrases in your introduction then your essay will basically have no introductory paragraph. This is going to look bad then. Just paraphrase the task, it’s easier than you think!
Draft Essay
Most schools emphasise the importance of writing a draft paper before producing the final work and handing it in. Although this makes perfect sense in the usual studying environment, your writing part of IELTS/CAE/TOEFL is a rare exception. You are guaranteed to have no time to copy your draft to the exam form. And whatever you have written on your draft paper is not going to be scored in any way, even though you are asked to hand that in too.
If you are worried about corrections in your exam paper — don’t be. Corrections are not punished at all as long as the corrected phrase is written legibly (i.e. it is easy to understand).
No Planning
This writing mistake is related to the previous one. While making a full draft paper isn’t advised, planning your structure beforehand is still encouraged. Take a few minutes to decide how many paragraphs you will have and what they will be about. Such brief outline will ensure smoother transitions between ideas and overall better cohesion.
Easy Goes First
It is tempting to go for the shorter and easier writing task first (Like Task 1 in IELTS which is 150 words as opposed to 250 word Task 2). This approach is not sound because the bigger and more challenging task brings your more points. If you find yourself running out of time then it is better to have finished your second task.
The key intent behind the intro is always to provide your place (this can be known as the “thesis” or “case”) around the issue accessible but effective opening sentences are a lot more than that. Before you even reach this thesis document, by way of example, the essay should start with a “hook” that grabs the reader’s attention and makes them desire to keep reading. Examples of effective hooks include relevant quotations (“no person is an isle”) or astonishing figures (“about three away from several medical doctors document that…”). Only then, with the reader’s interest “addicted,” should you proceed to the thesis. The thesis must be a precise, 1-sentence explanation of the place that results in certainly from the reader’s thoughts about which part you will be on right from the start of the essay. After the thesis, you should provide a smaller-outline for you which previews the examples you may use to assist your thesis in the rest of the essay. Not only does this explain to your reader what to prepare for in the sentences in the future additionally it offers them a clearer idea of precisely what the essay is approximately. Lastly, planning the last sentence this way provides the added benefit of effortlessly relocating your reader towards the initially section of your body in the papers. This way we can notice that the fundamental introduction fails to have to be a lot more than 3 or 4 sentences in size. If your own is quite a bit longer you might want to consider modifying it straight down a little!